explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1212: Interstellar Memes

2025-08-25T07:39:29Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Table with memes */ correction of "loony toons"

{{comic
| number = 1212
| date = May 15, 2013
| title = Interstellar Memes
| image = interstellar memes.png
| titletext = The strongest incentive we have to develop faster-than-light travel is that it would let us apologize in advance.
}}
A [http://xkcd.com/1212/large/ larger version] of this picture can be found by clicking the comic on xkcd.

==Explanation==
{{incomplete| Need to add the missing explanations for memes.}}

[[Randall]] highlights various memes from popular culture. A {{w|meme}} is a phenomenon, often in this scenario in the form of a movie quote, a musical reference, a catchphrase or other notable saying that spreads quickly by word-of-mouth. Memes become popular because people hear about them and repeat them to others. Randall points out that if the assumed intelligent life from other star systems were listening to the things we said, then they would just now be hearing and popularizing memes started years ago on earth. The delay is due to the time that it takes for expressions of the meme to travel (presumably via radio waves) to distant star systems.

Our solar system, from where the electromagnetic waves are emitted, is located just left of the center of the picture. The other star systems are arranged roughly according to their distance from the sun, while their size corresponds to the size of the star compared with that of the Sun. The meme for Sirius is a pun; it refers to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, in which Bellatrix Lestrange kills Sirius Black. Radio waves travel at the {{w|speed of light}}. The title text jokes that these memes are so annoying that it would give us further incentive to develop the technology to travel {{w|faster than light}}, just simply to be able to outrun the radio waves, reach a distant star system, and apologize in advance to the "residents" about the memes, before the memes arrive.

===Table with memes===
The table below lists all the memes described, and the star at which the comics states those memes should be heard by the time when the comic was released in 2013. The year of the meme plus the number of light years to the star should end up close to 2013.

Most end up within the range 2011-2013 which may indicate the meme became popular one or two years later (on Earth or at the distant star system.) Two memes reach the targets in 2014. Some of those errors may be caused by the inaccuracy of the distances.

The ''The Spanish Inquisition'' from Monty Python would have reached its destination in 2006. Because they're still watching ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' in 2013 it must be very popular or maybe it took seven years to decipher that {{w|British humour}}.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Meme !! Star !! Origin !! Year !! Distance to star !! Sum year !! Explanation
|-
| Yabba dabba doo! || {{w|Castor (star)|Castor}} || ''{{w|The Flintstones}}'' || 1960 || 51 ± 3 ly || 2011 ± 3 ||The catchphrase used by ''{{W|Fred Flintstone}}'' in the series ''{{W|The Flintstones}}'' whenever something good happens (like a work shift ending).
|-
| You've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" || {{w|Lambda Aurigae}} || ''{{w|Dirty Harry}}'' || 1971 || 41.2 ± 0.1 ly || 2012 || The famous line from the scene in ''Dirty Harry'' where the titular Harry forces a criminal to surrender by threatening him with an empty gun.
|-
| {{w|Where's the beef|Where's the beef?}} || {{w|HR 1614}} || Slogan for {{w|Wendy's}} || 1984 || 28 ly || 2012 || Catchy slogan used in many Wendy's commercials that caught on and became a meme in its own right.
|-
| And now for something completely different. || {{w|Capella (star)|Capella}}|| ''{{w|Monty Python's Flying Circus}}'' || 1969 || 42 ly || 2011 || "And now for something completely different" was previously used in U.K. magazine shows like ''Tonight'', but its use in Monty Python's material means it has come to be associated with them.
|-
| Here's lookin' at you, kid. || {{w|Kappa Reticuli}} || ''{{w|Casablanca (film)|Casablanca}}'' || 1942 || 70 ly || 2012 ||
|-
| My spoon is too big! || {{w|Kapteyn's Star}} || ''{{w|Rejected}}'' || 2000 || 12 ly || 2012 || The first line of Don Hertzfeldt's surreal animation ''Rejected'', released in 2000. In the story of ''Rejected'', this was meant to be an ad bumper for an educational channel.
|-
| May the force be with you. || {{w|Delta Trianguli}} || ''{{w|Star Wars}}''|| 1977 || 35 ly || 2012 || This is a phrase used a lot in the Star Wars franchise. It is a benediction used to bid a hopeful farewell, mostly by/to/between those who are aligned to the {{w|Jedi}} creed.
|-
| Peanut butter jelly time! || {{w|Luyten's Star}} || [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/peanut-butter-jelly-time an Internet meme] || 2002 || 12 ly || 2014 || "Peanut Butter & Jelly" was the only single by the Buckwheat Boyz, which became popular as a meme when paired with an animated dancing banana.
|-
| Rosebud. || {{w|Alpha Hydri}} || ''{{w|Citizen Kane}}'' || 1941 || 71 ly || 2012 || In the opening scene of Citizen Kane, the eponymous Mr. Kane dies, saying "Rosebud" as his last words. The rest of the movie focuses on the people in his life trying to determine what the meaning of this word was.
|-
| Oh my god, {{w|They killed Kenny|they killed Kenny!}} – You bastards! || {{w|AD Leonis}} || ''{{w|South Park}}'' || 1997 || 15.9 ± 0.2 ly || 2013 || This is usually said whenever the character Kenny from South Park is killed. This is a recurring reference, as Kenny dies in every episode of South Park. In its most referenced form, another of the child characters then swears at the antagonists, fate and/or {{tvtropes|BreakingTheFourthWall|the writer's of the show}}, whichever party may be responsible, but this may be toned down in later depictions.
|-
| ...God kills a kitten! – A what? || {{w|Procyon}} || {{w|Every time you masturbate... God kills a kitten|an Internet meme}} || 2002 || 11.5 ly || 2013 || The full catchphrase is "Every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten". The reply for this meme notes that kittens aren't on any other planets{{Citation needed}}, so the other person is confused about what a kitten is.
|-
| I ''still'' can't believe Bellatrix– – Dude, get over it. || {{w|Sirius}} || ''{{w|Harry Potter}}'' ({{w|Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix|book 5}}) || 2003 || 8.6 ly || 2012 || In the Battle of the {{w|Ministry of Magic|Department of Mysteries}}, {{w|Bellatrix Lestrange}} fires a spell at {{w|Sirius Black}}, {{w|Harry Potter (character)|Harry's}} {{w|Godparent|godfather}}. This spell knocks Sirius backward through an archway which is a physical doorway into the {{w|Afterlife|afterlife}} such that, when Sirius fell through it, he left the realm of the living and died. The star Sirius is obviously upset about this, as Sirius Black was named after him.
|-
| Ninjas fight ''all the time!'' || {{w|Epsilon Eridani}} || {{w|The Official Ninja Webpage}} || 2002 || 10 ly || 2012 || {{w|Ninja}} is the Japanese word for {{w|spy}}. In the 16th century, Japanese spycraft was codified into a profession, and spies had a significant influence on feudal intrigue during the {{w|Sengoku period|Japanese warring states period}}. These spies inspired a lot of literature, some fantastical, which over time developed into a popular stock character and a rich array of associated tropes. The Official Ninja Webpage is a satire website written from the perspective of a teenage American boy who is obsessed with the stock character and its associated tropes. One of these tropes, as written on the front page of the website, is that "Ninjas fight ALL the time."
|-
| {{w|D'oh!}} || {{w|HR 753}} || ''{{w|The Simpsons}}'' || 1989 || 23 ly || 2012 || This is what {{w|Homer Simpson| Homer Simpson}}, the father figure of {{w|The Simpsons}}The Simpsons, exclaims whenever he's annoyed.
|-
| {{w|The Spanish Inquisition (Monty Python)|''Nobody'' expects the Spanish Inquisition!}} || {{w|Beta Virginis}} || ''{{w|Monty Python's Flying Circus}}'' || 1970 || 35,6 ly || 2006 || Monty Python was an absurdist sketch show. In a particular episode, a character in a scene (a meeting between a mill-owner and his workers) complained about being asked some questions by saying they "did not expect a {{w|Spanish Inquisition}}", a superlative that was common at the time the sketch aired. At this point, several characters dressed in the uniforms of the Spanish Inquisition burst into the scene declaring that "nobody expects the Spanish inquisition", diverting the original sketch's direction. At the very end of the episode, a different character in a different (courtroom) sketch says that they "didn't expected the Spanish Inquisition" and everyone turns towards the door in expectation. The remainder of the episode follows the Spanish Inquisition rushing to the scene, and barely starting to 'surprise' everyone there before time runs out.
|-
| {{w|All your base are belong to us}}. || {{w|Tau Ceti}} || ''{{w|Zero Wing}}'' || 2001 || 11.9 ly || 2013 || This is a meme resulting from a mistranslated line in the game ''Zero Wing''. The correct translation was "We have taken all of your bases."
|-
| Take me to your leader! – No, Steve. || {{w|Beta Cassiopeiae|Caph}} || {{w|Take me to your leader (phrase)}} || 1957 || 55 ly || 2012 || "Take me to your leader" is a stock phrase attributed to aliens in 1950s science fiction during first contact. The first recorded instance is a New Yorker cartoon where aliens ask this question to a horse, illustrating the weirdness of aliens being able to communicate the phrase but not understanding the structure of society. Later usage was more sincere, with both humans and aliens asking each other to take them to their leaders. Since people near Caph would be aliens, one could ask them to take you to their leader. However, because the aliens on Caph are saying the meme to each other, the second speaker is personally familiar with the one making the request, apparently named Steve, which makes the request pointless. So the second speaker refuses the request because it is not important.
|-
| Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He ''waits.'' || {{w|Wolf 359}} || {{w|Chuck Norris facts}} || 2005 || 7.8 ly || 2013 || {{w|Chuck Norris}} is an American movie star, typically taking on roles where he would perform implausible feats of physical prowess. People online started making lists of many other implausible or impossible feats that Chuck Norris was supposedly capable of, including this one. Normal humans have a physiological need for {{w|sleep}}, with sleep deprivation having many negative health effects. That Chuck Norris does not sleep but instead waits implies a superhuman resistance to insomnia, while simultaneously explaining his inaction as a form of {{w|theodicy}}.
|-
| ♬ Numa numa ♪ || {{w|Lalande 21185}} || {{w|Dragostea Din Tei|Numa Numa song}} || 2004 || 8.3 ly || 2012 || "Numa numa" is part of the lyrics of the chorus of a Romanian-language europop song {{w|Dragostea Din Tei}}. A webcam recording of {{w|Gary Brolsma}} enthousiastically singing along with the song was uploaded to youtube and widely shared.
|-
| I can haz? || {{w|WISE 1049-5319|Luhman 16}} || {{w|Lolcats}} || 2006 || 6.6 ± 0.5 ly || 2013 || An early image macro meme format was captioning pictures of cats, as alluded to in xkcd [[262]]. One popular image featured an overweight Scottish Fold cat with the caption "I can haz cheezburger?", implying the cat is overweight because it likes eating cheeseburgers.
|-
| ''Internets!'' || {{w|Luyten 726-8|Gliese 65}} || {{w|George W. Bush}} [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/internets Internet meme] || 2004 || 8.7 || 2013|| The word 'Internets' is an incorrect pluralisation of the word, popularised by former US president George Bush, in his response to a question asked by an audience member about the moral state of media in the US, during a debate at Washington University in 2000. His response is as follows: "''[…] We can have filters on Internets where public money is spent […] so if kids get on the Internet, there is not going to be pornography or violence coming in.''" This was majorly overlooked until he made the same mistake during the presidential debate against US Senator John Kerry in 2004. He repeated this as follows: "''I hear there's rumors on the, uh, Internets [pause] that we're going to have a draft. We're not going to have a draft, period.''"
|-
| Look at the tiny dancing Earth mammals! || {{w|Gliese 1}} || {{w|Hampster Dance}} and/or {{w|Dancing Baby}} || 1998 || 14 ly || 2012 || Hampster Dance was a website featuring a set of tiled animated {{w|GIF}}s of cartoon hamsters dancing. The Dancing Baby is an animated GIF of a computer generated human baby dancing in a {{w|cha-cha}} style. Gliese 1 is not familiar with hamsters and human species, but since they are both mammals it refers to one or both as "tiny dancing Earth mammals". It is unclear how Gliese 1 knows that they are mammals, or what mammals are.
|-
| ''Wasssuup!?!'' || {{w|Van Maanen's star}} || {{w|Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch)|Budweiser Beer}} advertising campaign || 1999 || 14 ly || 2013 || A compounded way of saying "What's up", a common greeting, with the compounded version being more common in 1990s' African American Vernacular English. In the commercial, two friends are lounging and watching a sports game, calling each other using an analog wired telephone. Using these telephones, multiple people in the same household could pick up phones connected to the same in-home telephone network and all participate in the conversation. Several other friends use this function to join the call and say "Wassuupp!?!" at each other in an escalatingly large group and then hang up to go back to doing their own thing.
|-
| Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker. || {{w|Beta Hydri}} || ''{{w|Die Hard}}'' || 1988 || 24 ly || 2012 ||
|-
| I pity the fool! || {{w|Groombridge 1830}} || ''{{w|Rocky III}}'' ({{w|Mr. T}}) || 1982 || 30 ly || 2012 || In Rocky III, the main antagonist Clubber Lang expresses pity towards protagonist Rocky Balboa, who is foolish enough to compete with him in a boxing match. The implication being that Lang is obviously going to win and cause Balboa a lot of unnecessary pain. The actor playing Clubber Lang, Mr. T, adopted this as his catchphrase, using it in different media.
|-
| The cake is a lie! || {{w|Alpha Centauri|Alpha Centauri A/B}} || ''{{w|Portal (video game)|Portal}}'' || 2007 || 4.3 ly || 2011 || This is a phrase that appears scrawled on a wall in the video game Portal foreshadowing the ending where, despite being promised cake, the player character is not given it and is almost killed by the antagonist.
|-
| ♪ Never gonna give you up ♫ || {{w|Alpha Centauri|Alpha Centauri A/B}} || {{w|Rickrolling}} || 2007 || 4.3 ly || 2011 || This is a reference to an act of tricking someone to watch/listen to the song "Never Gonna Give You Up" involuntarily.
|-
| I'm on a boat! || {{w|Proxima Centauri}} || ''{{w|I'm on a Boat}}'' || 2009 || 4.243 ± 0.002 ly || 2013 || The hook of a satirical hip-hop single with the same name, by {{w|The Lonely Island}} and {{w|T-Pain}}. The song is about winning a free boat ride and then being ridiculously proud of being on a boat.
|-
| ♫ Chocolate Raaaiiin ♫ || {{w|Barnard's Star}} || {{w|Tay Zonday}}: {{w|Chocolate Rain}} video || 2007 || 6 ly || 2013 || Chocolate Rain is a song uploaded to youtube by Tay Zonday, with video of him recording the voice track. "Chocolate rain" is the {{w|hook (music)|hook}} of the song that recurs every other line, and in the lyrics chocolate rain serves as an analogy for systemic racism.
|-
| Leave Britney alone! || {{w|Barnard's Star}} || {{w|Cara Cunningham}}: [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/leave-britney-alone LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!] || 2007 || 6 ly || 2013 || {{w|Britney Spears}} is an American singer and pop star, who was ridiculed by the press and popular discourse for drama in her personal life. A highly watched early youtube video featured Cara filming herself in a highly emotional state, begging people to "leave Britney alone" because she had it hard enough.
|-
| You're the man now, dog! || {{w|Epsilon Indi}} || {{w|YTMND}} || 2001 || 11.8 || 2013 ||
|-
| {{w|More cowbell|More cowbell!}} || {{w|Kruger 60}} || ''{{w|Saturday Night Live}}'' || 2000 || 13 ly || 2013 || Saturday Night Live is a famous show that creates comedy sketchs every Saturday night. One of these sketches was the "More cowbell" sketch. This sketch was about the recording of "{{w|(Don't Fear) The Reaper}}", a song by the {{w|Blue Öyster Cult}}. In this skit, Gene Frenkle (a fictional character, played by {{w|Will Ferrell}}) was playing the {{w| Cowbell (instrument)|cowbell}}. However, because the cowbell was so distracting, the band stops playing and tells him to stop. This upsets Frenkel, who starts playing more and more annoyingly as the sketch goes on. {{w|Bruce Dickinson}}, played by {{w|Christopher Walken}}, encourages Frenkel to play the cowbell louder saying the iconic line, "Guess what! I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!".
Christopher Walken later said that the sketch "ruined his life", because of how popular it became.
|-
| Hasta la vista, baby. || {{w|Gliese 892}} || ''{{w|Terminator 2}}'' || 1991 || 21 ly || 2012 ||
|-
| Let's get ready to ruuumble! || {{w|Zeta Tucanae}} || {{w|Michael Buffer}} || 1984 || 28 ly || 2012 || This meme originated from the main catchphrase of ring announcer Michael Buffer, which he has used since 1984. The catchphrase has also made an appearance in the 1996 Disney movie ''{{w|Space Jam}}''.
|-
| You talkin' to ''me?'' || {{w|Arcturus}} || ''{{w|Taxi Driver}}'' || 1976 || 36.7 ± 0.3 ly || 2013 ||
|-
| Did ''I'' do that? || {{w|Xi Boötis|Boötis}} || ''{{w|Family Matters}}'' ({{w|Steve Urkel}}) || 1989 || 21.89 ± 0.07 ly || 2011 ||
|-
| Welcome to Good Burger, home of the good burger. – What's a burger? – I don't know. || {{w|70 Ophiuchi}} || {{w|Good Burger}} slogan || 1997 || 16.58 ± 0.07 ly || 2014 ||
|-
| Badger badger badger badger || {{w|Ross 154}} || {{w|Badger Badger Badger}} || 2003 || 9.7 ly || 2013 || One of the most popular videos created by Mr. Weebl, consisting of badgers (and a mushroom and snake) appearing when those words are said.
|-
| {{w|Vulcan salute|Live long and prosper.}} – OK. || {{w|HD 211415}} || ''{{w|Star Trek}}'' || 1967 || 44 ly || 2011 ||
|-
| Name's Bond. James Bond. || {{w|51 Pegasi}} || ''{{w|Dr. No (film)|Dr. No}}'' ({{w|James Bond}}) || 1962 || 50.9 ± 0.3 ly || 2013 || James Bond is the protagonist of a series of spy fiction, who has a habit of introducing himself with this exact phrase.
|-
| Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. || {{w|Alpha Serpentis}} || ''{{w|Gone with the Wind (film)|Gone with the Wind}}'' || 1939 || 74.0 ± 0.3 ly || 2013 ||
|-
| Mr. T ate my balls! || {{w|Altair}} || [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ate-my-balls an Internet meme] || 1996 || 16.7 ly || 2013 || One of the oldest memes on the Web, with the original website by student Nehal Patel (which consisted of a bunch of Mr. T comic images recaptioned to have him saying he likes eating balls) first appearing in 1996.
|-
| I want the truth. – ''You can't handle the truth!'' || {{w|Delta Pavonis}} || ''{{w|A Few Good Men}}'' || 1992 || 20 ly || 2012 ||
|-
| I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse. || {{w|Beta Trianguli Australis}} || ''{{w|The Godfather}}'' || 1972 || 40 ly || 2012 ||
|-
| {{w|Resistance is futile|Resistance is futile.}} || {{w|Vega}} || ''{{w|Star Trek}}'' ({{w|Borg (Star Trek)|Borg}}) || 1988 || 25 ly || 2013 || The Borg are a fictional hypercollectivist superpower in the Milky Way galaxy depicted in the Star Trek franchise. The Borg expand by violently conquering the hundreds of species that exist in the galaxy, using cyborg implants to force conquered people to work for their collective in body and mind. When a Borg spaceship encounters resistance, it sends out a standard message explaining its intent to add the to-be-conquered people's biological and cultural distinctiveness to their own, and that resistance is futile.
|-
| Oh... My... Gaawd || {{w|Sigma Draconis}} || ''{{w|Friends}}'' ({{w|Janice Goralnik}}) || 1994 || 18.8 ly || 2013 ||
|-
| Ehh, what's up, Doc? || {{w|Epsilon Cygni|Gienah}} || {{w|Bugs Bunny}} || 1940 || 73 ly || 2013 || This is the main catchphrase of Bugs Bunny, one of the main characters in ''{{w|Looney Tunes}}''.
|-
| ''EXTERMINATE!'' || {{w|Alpha Cephei|Alderamin}} || ''{{w|Doctor Who}}'' ({{w|Dalek|The Daleks}}) || 1963 || 49 ly || 2012 || The main catchphrase of the Daleks of Doctor Who, used when they fire their gunsticks resulting in the extermination of whatever was hit. It wasn't actually used in this context in the TV series until Power of the Daleks, three years after {{w|The Daleks|their debut}}, though some of the very first scenes had them discussing amongst themselves the "extermination" of their newly rediscovered (and, at that time, mostly oblivious) enemies.
|}

==Transcript==
:[On a black background yellow circles and white bubbles are shown. Caption above the picture:]
:If other star systems are listening in on our pop culture, given the speed-of-light delay, these are the jokes and catchphrases they just learned about and are currently repeating way too much:

:[On a black background a map of star systems in relation to the Sun, which is roughly in the center, sending out radio waves is shown. Each star is a yellow circle of differing sizes, with a speech bubble (or more). The list is ordered from closest to furthest.]
:Proxima Centauri: I'm on a boat!
:Alpha Centauri A B: The cake is a lie! – ♪ Never gonna give you up ♫
:Luhman 16: I can haz?
:Barnard's star: Leave Britney alone! – ♫ Chocolate Raaaiiin ♫
:Wolf 359: Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He waits.
:Lalande 21185: ♬ Numa numa ♪
:Sirius: I still can't believe Bellatrix– – Dude, get over it.
:Gliese 65: INTERNETS!
:Epsilon Eridani: Ninjas fight all the time!
:Procyon: ...God kills a kitten! – A what?
:Epsilon Indi: You're the man now, dog!
:Tau Ceti: All your base are belong to us.
:Luyten's Star: Peanut Butter Jelly Time!
:Kapteyn's star: My spoon is too big!
:Kruger 60: MORE COWBELL!
:Gliese 1: Look at the tiny dancing Earth mammals!
:Van Maanen's star: WASSSUUP!?!
:Ad Leonis: Oh my God, they killed Kenny! – You bastards!
:70 Ophiuchi: Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger. – What's a burger? – I don't know.
:Altair: Mr. T ate my balls!
:Sigma Draconis: Oh ... my ... gaawd.
:Delta Pavonis: I want the truth. – You can't handle the truth!
:Gliese 892: Hasta la vista, baby.
:Xi Boötis: Did I do that?
:HR 753: D'oh!
:Beta Hydri: Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker.
:Vega: Resistance is futile.
:Zeta Tucanae: Let's get ready to ruuumble!
:HR 1614: Where's the beef?
:Groombridge 1830: I pity the fool!
:Delta Trianguli: May the Force be with you.
:Beta Virginis: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
:Arcturus: You talkin' to me ?
:Beta Trianguli Australis: I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.
:Lamda Aurigae: You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?'
:Capella: And now for something completely different.
:HD 211415: Live long and prosper. – Ok.
:Alderamin: EXTERMINATE!
:51 Pegasi: Name's bond. James Bond.
:Caph: Take me to your leader! – No, Steve.
:Kappa Reticuli: Here's lookin' at you, kid.
:Alpha Hydri: Rosebud.
:Gienah: Ehh, what's up doc?
:Alpha Serpentis: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Songs]]
[[Category:Rickrolling]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Doctor Who]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Star Trek]]
[[Category:Harry Potter]]
[[Category:Terminator]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]

Talk:3028: D&D Roll

2025-08-18T20:30:59Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: added reply

Dice comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.181|172.69.22.181]] 04:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

And in a pinch, d4s can be used as caltrops. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.210|172.71.147.210]] 05:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I am willing to bet good money that every D&D comic that features the game's name inside the title will either [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|break the RSS Feed]] or [[User:TheusafBOT]]. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 10:17, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:Ah, that's why we never got a good explanation about the one with the D&D players dialling in over AT&T to roleplay S&M sessions while eating M&Ms and drinking A&W. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.4|172.70.90.4]] 13:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::Is this the same issue that causes the page title to be rendered as "D Roll"? [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 08:50, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Probably? '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 21:50, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

If the D20 is large enough (>30 cm?) and its full volume is made of a heavy metal or alloy, like iron, steel or gold, one can just use it as a "blunt weapon" (that is, the weight is used against the enemy). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.39.208|172.70.39.208]] 17:01, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

:30cm would be way ''too'' heavy to use as a blunt weapon. A 30cm d20 made of iron would weigh some 107 kilograms, and a golden one would be almost 270. Though I have thought for a while that a cube with a handle plugged into one corner would be a cool and effective shape for a mace head. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.135|172.68.23.135]] 01:14, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Second XKCD on D&D in a few months... I think some cartoonish picked up a new hobby recently. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 18:25, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Should have used the d65536. [[User:DL Draco Rex|DL Draco Rex]] ([[User talk:DL Draco Rex|talk]]) 19:55, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Someone added the "chide the player for being presumptious" idea, which I corrected/added to a little (wondering if it should go into the Background section, to not clog up the basic Explanation). But just to note that 'local rules' that we always used to use were to allow 'presumptive' rolls to be made, to speed up gameplay. If the DM/GM/whoever needed more/different/other rolls to be made, they could ask for them (or, sometimes, just ask for them anyway, I think, to maintain the 'mysteries of the game' — "You enter an apparently empty room, roll 6D6... nothing happens! And now a D4... still nothing happens!"). Though with two caveats: No rolling ''then'' deciding the action to declare for it (e.g.: rolled high, tried stupidly damaging move; rolled lower, suggested an easier dodge) and even 'wasted' dice could then be used by the GM/DM (on a whim) if they rolled either extreme of critical. This led to the occasional 'speculative' rolling (without obvious purpose) that ''might'' lead to tripping over some discarded minor-artifact ''or'' a light-sleeping enemy, etc, just to mix things up a bit. Though it's all down to the one running the game, and you never really know if they're even 'accurately' interpreting the valid roles you do know about, if they're good enough story-tellers with a decent sense of how to make a mission not seem like it's quite so much on-the-rails as they planned it to be all along... I suspect that there are as many opinions about this as there are editors here, however. If not more, given that many of us have acted under multiple different playing situations, and perhaps even from both sides of the Dice Screen. (I'm not even sure I've ever played raw, vanilla D&D, for example, and couldn't even tell you which Edition I've most played. Plus all the other things like Star Wars (only ever the original D6 version), Babylon 5 and others for which I'm not even sure of their canon-base.) So, yeah, interpret the comic in any one of several ways! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.238|172.70.85.238]] 16:23, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

I find the claim that a player would be allowed to specify a weapon and "roll again" strange. Firstly, in my experience most players only have one primary weapon at a time (to not unnecessarily carry around the weight and space of excess weapons), meaning generally there's no need to specify (only maybe if they're equipped with a secondary/parrying weapon, which people usually only use as a sneak/second attack). As such, no, I don't think this is Cueball's error, the joke is that this is Ponytail's mistake thinking he wants his '''character''' to throw dice, and/or this is a goofy game where the characters are actually carrying around dice. Secondarily, what kind of dick DM/GM would make them roll again? Unless it's a terrible roll and they're using the excuse to generously offer a re-do roll (and 18 is generally great in most contexts). The point is for this to be fun, such a terrible nit-pick would fight against such fun. I must not be alone since someone put '''"actual citation needed"''' on that, for which I think the only possible citation would be to find an online resource of a DungeonMaster manual '''''IF''''' it actually says this somewhere, but this seems like an unwritten thing up to the individual person. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:34, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

I hope it's not improper wiki etiquette to ask things like this, but I need to ask [[User:NiceGuy1]], what the HELL did I do wrong this time?! I made one dumb edit, apparently, which was then reverted, so any harm was undone there. Then I made another edit, which added ''nothing but factual information which I have checked for myself'', and now I've "screwed up the Trivia and [undone] the error where it was named", whatever that sequence of words means. And you re-added one of the lines from my first edit! What's with the aspersions? [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 04:28, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

:Restored. I don't understand the reverts either. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 21:04, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

:: Thanks, appreciate it. I do think my comments were starting to get a bit melodramatic at a certain point there, lol (it was late at night for me so I was getting irritated ''and'' tired). [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 20:30, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Talk:1335: Now

2025-08-16T05:25:57Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: added comment

[http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/now.png| Link to comic] Link has been fixed. Was pointing to an incorrect url. 14:21, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
This doesn't work. Maybe if we added *.xkcd.com/* to the (external) image whitelist or something? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.121|108.162.231.121]] 07:27, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
:A fine suggestion. I'm probably going to shoot for full archival like we did with [[time]], but this is an ample good solution in the meantime. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:30, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
:Hold on, having wee issues, will resolve soon. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:37, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Here is a scaled animation of every image. The full size version was too big for me to upload.
[[User:Ti84p|Ti84p]] ([[User talk:Ti84p|talk]]) 07:47, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
:(Removed the broken link mentioned here above --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:43, 17 May 2015 (UTC))

For Australia and New Zealand, at least, the clock shows local time with summer time factored in. I bet that it undergoes some changes in March and April as various jurisdictions go on or off daylight saving. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.224|108.162.249.224]] 09:20, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

: Good point! I added this to the explanation. —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 13:15, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

:: There's also British Summer Time and all the ''other'' national seasonal adjustments(1)... could you perhaps de-specify the "move the list of North American cities and regions for Daylight-Saving Time (which is the same thing as Summer Time)" statement to remove the inadvertent US-centrism? Maybe "...of northern-latitudes cities for Daylight-Saving Time or equivalent Summer Time designation"..? (Definitely could be better phrased than I just put, though.)
:: (1) Note, they don't even all switch at the same time, necessarily. If Randall is going to change the basic map template (pre-rotation) for any Summer/non-Summer transition, he's probably going to have to do it multiple times each spring/autumn, as various regions jiggle about. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.41|141.101.99.41]] 13:52, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

::: Exactly, they don't all switch at the same time. North America isn't mentioned to be US-centric, it's mentioned because the change happens there first. Sure, we could bring up BST and all the rest, but there's no need to make the discussion longer than necessary. (The original wording also was not US-centric, privileging the non-US term "Summer Time" that's used where it's currently being observed, but somebody changed that.) —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 18:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
::::I made that change just to use the same title as the Wikipedia page to which we are linking. I don't feel strongly about it. --[[User:BlueMoonlet|BlueMoonlet]] ([[User talk:BlueMoonlet|talk]]) 18:46, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

As for the map itself, I think the title text should provide the exact time for the location under the cursor, by doing calculations for the mouseover event and updating the t.t. accordingly. I imagine it is doable for Randall. For accuracy's sake, the Antarctic region could be excluded. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.225|141.101.89.225]] 12:19, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
: Or maybe someone'll fancy doing it as a userscript. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.225|141.101.89.225]] 12:23, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I made a version that the user can rotate themselves. It only loads a single image. http://c0la.s3.amazonaws.com/xkcd1335.html {{unsigned ip|173.245.53.182}}

The gif image is very good to understand this comic. However it would be very nice if it rotated a little slower. Instead of one turn every ten seconds it could be one every minute. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.84|173.245.50.84]] 14:37, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

: When I look a little off-centre, it always seems that South America is about to catch up with Antarctica, but it never does! —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 18:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

He used an Azimuthal equidistant projection?!?!? ;_; [[User:Swhouseworth|Swhouseworth]] ([[User talk:Swhouseworth|talk]]) 16:20, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

: Yeah, should have been equal area! —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 18:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

:: On the Transcript for this comic the last line erroneously describes the innermost circle as "the Earth as seen from the south pole", when as Swhouseworth correctly points out, this is an Azimuthal equidistant projection centered on the south pole. —[[User:Andrewpost|Andrewpost]] ([[User talk:Andrewpost|talk]]) 14:43, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Question: If there are 24 Hours in a day, why in the description does it go from hour 0 to hour 21? That's only 22 hours. Where are the other 2 hours? Even if it isn't listed on the comic (I think it's the time zones in the Atlantic between Eastern Brazil and the UK - basically UTC-1hr and UTC-2hr), shouldn't there be spaces in the charts showing those hours? I don't think any of the islands in that region use those time zones (opting instead to use GMT - like Iceland for example), but I think those hours should still be included since they ''are'' on the static part of the map. Also, it makes sense to me that the center of the words ''NOON'' and ''MIDNIGHT'' are edges of segments themselves, making 24 segments in total. Randall just couldn't draw those discrete segments and also easily have the words written for our convenience. --[[User:Dangerkeith3000|Dangerkeith3000]] ([[User talk:Dangerkeith3000|talk]]) 16:46, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

: Every time zone is used somewhere in international waters (well, every one that's a whole number of hours off of Universal Time), so they certainly should all be included. —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 18:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
: Added South Georgia as UTC-2 and Cape Verde as UTC-1. According to Wikipedia, coastal Brazil and Greenland are both UTC-2 during the summer, but Brazil just ended summer time last Sunday (Feb. 23), and Greenland won't start until late March. There are approximately no permanently inhabited places that use UTC-2 all year, so I just went with South Georgia because it's historically significant. [[User:Fryhole|Fryhole]] ([[User talk:Fryhole|talk]]) 20:20, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Randall's continent naming scheme is interesting. The most commonly taught model in the U.S. has seven continents, but the purple continent is Australia rather than Oceania. The name Oceania is common in Spanish-speaking countries, but those places generally have a six-continent model with the Americas merged. Is Randall's model standard anywhere? [[User:Fryhole|Fryhole]] ([[User talk:Fryhole|talk]]) 20:00, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

: FIBA and, before 2006, FIFA. (In 2006 FIFA moved Australia from Oceania to Asia). As a further parallel neither the sporting bodies nor the comic actually mention Antarctica. Note that the comic does not say these are continents. Oceania has some distinct characteristics, so it often shows up as a "region of the world".
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.59|108.162.218.59]] 19:08, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
distinoften shows up as a "region of the world". It has some distinct characteristics, which is why FIFA, FIBA and others treat it as a region.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.59|108.162.218.59]] 19:08, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Kamchatka is probably a reference to 850: https://xkcd.com/850/ [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.48|108.162.216.48]] 20:22, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Hey, I'd just like to note that GIMP "Optimize for GIF" reduced the GIF size to 7.1MiB from current 9.3MiB. If I reduced the colours to 32, which still looked "good enough" in my opinion, the GIF was only 3.5MiB.
http://m8y.org/tmp/temp.gif (optimize)
http://m8y.org/tmp/temp2.gif (optimize + colour reduction)

It might be worth replacing to improve load times.
You might want to make your own since I didn't check frame times or anything, I just ran "index" and "optimize" and then exported{{unsigned ip|108.162.219.77}}
:You are right, but that picture should be less then 1MB. I will do some tests, and if it does work I will talk about this. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
::m'k - well. Using 20 colours and scaling it down 50% resulted in 1.1MiB... http://m8y.org/tmp/temp3.gif
:::I'm now at the time frame at "Rude to call", but nevertheless the PNG files have to be optimized to a GIF, after that an animated GIF should be much smaller. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 01:03, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
::::I'm guessing an indexed APNG could be smaller (due to more efficient compression) than a GIF, but unfortunately I don't thing apngasm is as efficient as GIMP's optimize for gif feature.

Does anybody know what clock Randall is using? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.75|199.27.128.75]]EvanJM42

Randall no doubt knows about the Time Zone Database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database) so he may well have coded this page to incorporate seasonal time changes from that database. We'll have to watch what happens.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.15|108.162.219.15]] 12:59, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Any idea of a way of using this image as a wallpaper for OSX in a way that updates every 30 minutes? Yes, n00b question, but I cannot think of an easily implemented solution. {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.77}}
::Hey. I don't know too much about how OSX does wallpapers, but under Linux, the desktop wallpaper will automatically update if the image is modified. This means you could make a simple shell script that copies (or possibly updates a symlink) to wallpaper.png based upon the current time. The file for the copy or symlink could be referenced as... H=$(date -u +%H); M=$(date -u +%M); FILE="${H}h${M}m.png" I use a similar approach for automatically rotating the image in http://m8y.org/images/sandy_1280_1024_stripped.svg in a cronjob using sed. The sed modification of the svg automatically updates the background. With any luck, you can do the same thing in OSX once you've pointed your wallpaper at a location. {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.56}}

Hello, to the guy asking for a OSX wallpaper, I didn't found a way to do it but I got something pretty close to that. You don't need any scripting skills or anything fancy, just download Geektool[http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/geektool/] from the internet and add an Image Geeklet. In the image URL use the one on the top of this comment section (http://c.xkcd.com/redirect/comic/now) and in the refresh interval select your desired time (I used 900 s roughly 15 minutes, 1800 should work for every 30 minutes). Now, there is a problem but it's beyond my control. The image is not synced with the current time in my country. Just yesterday we changed our clocks because of time savings but apparently the page has not bring forward its clock yet. I don't know who did the awesome job of setting up a page for us to access it but I hope he/she can update it accordingly so we can enjoy an awesome page or if someone else in the community could help. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.91}}

Hi, I'm the same guy of the above comment. I just checked and it turns out that the page http://c.xkcd.com/redirect/comic/now is synced with xkcd.com/now. so apparently Randall does not change his clock during daylight saving time (he's a well now hater of it isn't he?). So the clock is going to be 1 hour behind until the next daylight saving time change. As a last note regarding the OSX implementation, it's a online version, I'm not really skilled in programming and I haven't tried an offline version yet but if I manage to get an offline version I'll post it here as well. In other comment I have the implementation for windows and it's also 1 hour behind just FYI. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.67}}

;Implementations
Hi, I'm new and a tad confused by how this discussion page editing works, but: I made a time zone converter based on this XKCD comic, over here: http://www.xkcdnow.com - I think it could be fitting to add a link to it somewhere to this article, but I don't wanna come across as spammy, and couldn't find any other explainxkcd articles with an external links section (wikipedia style)... Any thoughts? - wauter
: This is a great site! Maybe we could insert an "Implementations" category into the article. If we do so, I could provide another cool one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.phillab.xkcd_now which is a widget for Android - including tribute to explainxkcd -- [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.146|173.245.53.146]] 16:20, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
:That sounds good to me. The latest release for my version can be found at https://github.com/BruceJohnJennerLawso/xkcd-Now/releases/tag/1.02 on my Github page. By the way, I like your timezones idea, would you mind if I tried to implement that in mine at some point? [[User:BruceJohnJennerLawso|BruceJohnJennerLawso]] ([[User talk:BruceJohnJennerLawso|talk]]) 15:29, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
: I would also like the implementation section. If you use a Windows PC, you can use the script found at http://github.com/leipert/xkcd-now-clock to automatically set your Wallpaper to the current status of xkcd now. It also gives you the possibility to add some an digital clock, an analog clock or fix the image to your time zone. [http://github.com/leipert leipert] 18:02, 6 March 2014 (UTC){{unsigned ip|108.162.254.68}}
: I would love to see an implementation that updates more than once every 15 minutes. I've been trying to find an application that can take two images, and automatically generate the in-between images, i.e. generate 15 images between 00h00m.png and 00h15m.png [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.154|162.158.78.154]] 14:01, 21 September 2017 (UTC) Henry151
:: Spruced up the Implementations section a bit. A quick tip: if you want to make your link work by clicking on the blue text, add a space after the link in the square brackets, & type in the text, ie [link.com This takes you to link.com!!!] {{unsigned|BruceJohnJennerLawso}}
:: Hi there, I'm Henry151 who made the Linux implementation, I want to make an iPhone app for family and friends, does anybody have any experience with that and want to help me out?

As the US has now hit Daylight Savings, I think we can assume the comic won't be updating for it. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.90|173.245.50.90]] 02:54, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

;WEB links
*Who the hell does register an entire domain [http://xkcdnow.com/] for only this comic?
*The JavaScript at the other link doesn't work well for me — but who needs this?
My 0.2 cents. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:57, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Moscow time has been wrong on the map for years now. For 2011-2014, including when this comic was published, Russia had essentially permanent DST and Moscow was at 2014 UTC+4. But on 26 October 2014, they ended that and have since been permanently at UTC+3. Moscow should be at the same spot as Iraq, slightly ahead of Iran, instead of behind it. Something to add to the technical notes section, perhaps? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.197|162.158.183.197]] 15:01, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
:Someone just moved the 'Moscow' entry from +4 to +3, which of course is technically correct right now. But the comic (and the live xkcd version, and the Android app version I use that is inspired by it) still places it at a +4 position. I [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1335:_Now&diff=335494&oldid=335477 reverted it, with modification] to directly explain this issue (I should have said "a couple of years", will go back and change that again, 'twas a slip)... Without checking, I'm wondering if there are other differences, over the last eightish years. Perhaps people could check for other possible 'now wrong' entries. If not shuffle the image-text around in an (auxilliary) updated version on fan-platforms such as this. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.176|172.71.242.176]] 00:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Who made it spin so much faster?! [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 10:23, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

'''Timed Links Fix'''

I've just condensed the raw link dump into a table, each hour gets its own two cells with a label cell and another cell with the four image links related to that hour inside it. (unable to sign properly, ISP is using IPv4 proxy.)[[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.250|172.69.69.250]] 02:40, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
:Looks nice. But was a bit too wide. Overflowed the usual page style (at least for me, YMMV). Possibly three row-sets of eight hours would fit, but it was easier (marginally) to trivially splice out into 4x6hr chunkettes and that definitely isn't too wide nor (IMO) too lengthy.
:I hope you approve. (And I'm 'not signing properly' because I've got nothing else to sign with, whoever you are. ;). ) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 05:21, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

== An idea ==

What if it’s a well calculated gif? If it’s not, I hope it is. {{unsigned|Aprilfoolsupdate!|03:11, 1 July 2025}}

Regarding the "incomplete" tag: I don't think there ''is'' any archive of the comic or the image from the brief window between 5:00 and 5:10 UTC when it was uploaded. At least, I couldn't find one when I checked the Wayback Machine for the comic page, the image page, or the xkcd.com main page. Even the oldest upload of it on Reddit seems to have been made at 5:13 UTC, with no comments about these changes from what I can tell. [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 05:25, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

1079: United Shapes

2025-08-16T04:40:59Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Objects */ Correcting Missouri entry. This is okay, right? This won't get reverted? ...Sorry, I seem to be developing a persecution complex when editing this site. Not relevant here.

{{comic
| number = 1079
| date = July 9, 2012
| title = United Shapes
| image = united_shapes.png
| imagesize = 800px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = That eggplant is in something of a flaccid state.
}}
A larger version of this comic is available [http://xkcd.com/1079/large/ here].

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|
*Need to finish explaining all the states in [[#Objects]]. Some are missing an explanation.}}
In this comic, each state of the United States of America has been filled-in with an object of similar shape. Several years later Randall made a new map of the US mainland [[1653: United States Map]], where he shuffled the positions of the states but filled out the outline. Also in this map Michigan has been split into two separate parts. (Here it is the mitten and the eagle). This comic could also be a reference to {{w|Giuseppe Arcimboldo}}'s portraits, which were composed of objects such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, books, and fish.

Very few, if any, of the shapes used are stereotypes of the state; they are merely objects that look like the state. Some of the objects are those which the states are widely known to resemble. For example, Michigan is represented by a mitten and an eagle, and a pot with handle takes the place of Oklahoma (with the panhandle region of the state filled with a literal handle). Others, however, are more creative. Few would have likely pictured Texas as a dog or Alaska as a bear with a jet pack and laser gun. There are several incredibly simple objects filling some states. Kentucky is filled by a cloud, which conceivably could have been used for any state, and Wyoming, one of the nearly rectangular states, is simply an envelope. There are three pairs of states that are related. Georgia and Missouri each contain an image of the other, drawing attention to their similar shapes, North and South Dakota are the top and bottom halves of a {{w|guitar amplifier}} {{w|speaker cabinet}}, and Alabama and Mississippi are {{w|moai}} facing in opposite directions.

Colorado contains what looks like a Wikipedia article. [http://xkcd.com/1079/colorado/ A close-up of the fake article is provided.] The following references are made in the Colorado article:

*The pronunciation is not that for Colorado, but for {{w|Eyjafjallajökull}}, a volcano in Iceland that erupted in April 2010. There is a missing [[859#Trivia|close parenthesis]].
*The way it has a demilitarized zone towards Wyoming resembles {{W|North Korea}} and {{W|South Korea}}.
*Eleven dimensions refers to {{w|string theory}}.
*A {{w|wormhole}} is a theoretical relative of the {{w|black hole}}. This is a reference to the television series {{w|Stargate SG-1}} where a device capable of creating wormholes is located in the {{w|Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker}} in Colorado.
*A {{w|Horcrux}} is a type of magical object in the world of {{W|Harry Potter}} that prevents the creator of it from passing on. They may die, but their soul remains to be resurrected by another wizard
*The radiation zones around Longmont are caused by {{w|Radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant|radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant}}.
*The fake motto ''Si parare possis, vivere septem'' can be roughly translated as "With preparation, survival is possible for over a week."

New Mexico, according to [https://xkcd.com/1079/info.0.json official transcript], is "A liquid container labeled for something of unusual and silly danger". The labeling is upside down and it refers to the nuclear testing facility White Sands Missile Range located in New Mexico for the nuclear bomb. The joke is that it presents the white sand itself as extremely hazardous. The phrase "contains chemicals known only to the state of Nevada" may be a reference to the nuclear weapons testing that occurred in Nevada (although in that case, it's not really the ''state'' of Nevada that knows those chemicals, but rather the {{w|Nevada Test Site}}, home of Area 51 ''et al''), and is also a reference to California's {{w|1986 California Proposition 65|Proposition 65}} warning label, "WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm."

The title text makes fun of Florida which is sometimes called "The penis of America". Obviously, this penis is somewhat flaccid (not erect). The use of the word "state" is a pun, as it means some particular condition (flaccid state) as well as a political entity (The State of Florida).

===Objects===
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!State!!Image!!Description!!Explanation
|-
! {{w|Alabama}}
|[[File:Alabama.png|200x200px]]
|A moai head facing east.
|{{w|Moai}} are Easter Island stone statues.
|-
! {{w|Alaska}}
|[[File:Alaska1079.png|200x200px]]
|A bear with a jet pack and a ray gun.
|The ray gun and {{w|jet pack}} are fixtures of science fiction during the Cold War era, and the Russian Bear is an often-used personification of the country Russia in political cartoonage; the "teddy bear" image may be related to Alaska's former Russian heritage. The USA acquired Alaska from Russia in the Alaska Purchase of 1867 and it became a state in 1959, during the Cold War. The Cold War often featured baseless worries of a potential Russian invasion of Alaska due to their geographical proximity across the Bering Sea and Bering Strait, which persisted through the 1980s; Alaska was the location of a large number of interceptor missiles as part of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars Defense Initiative" intended to shoot down missiles that might be launched from the USSR. The ray gun is pointed across the Bering Strait at Russia, consistent with Alaska's often being described as the "first line of defense" against Russian aggression. The teddy bear is similar in appearance to {{w|Winnie the Pooh}}.
|-
! {{w|Arizona}}
|[[File:Arizona.png|200x200px]]
|A refrigerated shelf containing milk, bread, and pastries.
|
|-
! {{w|Arkansas}}
|[[File:Arkansas1079.png|200x200px]]
|A measuring cup.
|As the text is illegible, it is unclear if the cup is graduated for imperial units (fractions of a cup) and metric units (milliliters) or both.
|-
! {{w|California}}
|[[File:California1079.png|200x200px]]
|A vacuum.
|An old-fashioned upright vacuum cleaner (lying down to the right), green with a yellow bag.
|-
! {{w|Colorado}}
|[[File:Colorado1079.png|200x200px]]
|The Wikipedia article on Colorado.
|See the [[#Transcript|Transcript section]] to read the text in the fake article. The pronunciation of "Colorado" given by Randall [ˈeːijaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏtl̥] is the phonetic writing of {{w|Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull|Eyjafjallajökull}}, and Icelandic volcano that {{w|Air_travel_disruption_after_the_2010_Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull_eruption|caused disruptions to air travel in Western Europe}} between March and June of 2010. An analogy pronunciation guide, it would be something as "a [as in the letter]-ya-fiat-la-JOE-cutl. The Demilitarized Zone is the official name of the border between North Korea and South Korea. It is impossible for the state to have always existed, as that would require the existence of the United States, which was only founded in 1776. The Motto may be a reference to the very harsh conditions located on especially tall mountains, as the Rocky Mountains run directly through the state. Alternatively, danger may have been introduced via the 'erratic' wildlife and the presence of a wormhole within the state, which would make Colorado nearly uninhabitable.
|-
! {{w|Connecticut}}
|[[File:Connecticut1079.png|200x200px]]
|A train conductor's hat.
|
|-
! {{w|Delaware}}
|[[File:Delaware1079.png|200x200px]]
|A meerkat.
|
|-
! {{w|Florida}}
|[[File:Florida1079.png|200x200px]]
|An eggplant.
|The title text mentions the eggplant being in a flaccid state, which might be a reference to the sexual use of the eggplant emoji. The eggplant may reference the {{w|Florida Man}} meme, which commonly involves undressed males doing unusual things.
|-
! {{w|Georgia}}
|[[File:Georgia1079.png|200x200px]]
|Missouri.
|The outline of the state of Missouri, with the {{w|Gateway Arch}} in St. Louis. This is paired with Missouri, which contains an outline of the state of Georgia.
|-
! {{w|Hawaii}}
|[[File:Hawaii1079.png|200x200px]]
|The island of Hawaii is a snowball. The smaller islands are small bits of snow.
| This may be an ironic reference to the fact that Hawaii is located near the equator and generally receives temperatures far too high to create snow.
|-
! {{w|Idaho}}
|[[File:Idaho1079.png|200x200px]]
|A garden gnome, sitting down.
|
|-
! {{w|Illinois}}
|[[File:Illinois1079.png|200x200px]]
|A gangster with a guitar case, upside down.
|In fiction it's common to depict Prohibition-era gangsters and mobsters smuggling a Thompson submachine gun (also called a "Tommy gun" or "Chicago typewriter") in musical instrument cases.
|-
! {{w|Indiana}}
|[[File:Indiana1079.png|200x200px]]
|The brush of a paintbrush.
|
|-
! {{w|Iowa}}
|[[File:Iowa1079.png|200x200px]]
|A tomato, lettuce, cold cut and cheese sandwich.
|
|-
! {{w|Kansas}}
|[[File:Kansas1079.png|200x200px]]
|A {{w|spinet}} piano.
|
|-
! {{w|Kentucky}}
|[[File:Kentucky1079.png|200x200px]]
|A cloud.
|
|-
! {{w|Louisiana}}
|[[File:Louisiana1079.png|200x200px]]
|A boot with some gum stuck to the bottom of it.
| In grade schools, Louisiana is often remembered via it's shape, being very similar to a boot.
|-
! {{w|Maine}}
|[[File:Maine1079.png|200x200px]]
|A Vulcan salute.
|Maine's camp sunshine has had Star Trek related events in the past, including the opportunity to appear in a film.
|-
! {{w|Maryland}}
|[[File:Maryland1079.png|200x200px]]
|A wolf howling to the moon, upside down.
|
|-
! {{w|Massachusetts}}
|[[File:Massachusetts1079.png|200x200px]]
|An elephant, being ridden by a man, carrying tea.
|Might be a reference to the Boston Tea Party, which occurred in Massachusetts, and the Republican political party. The man seems to be wearing a tricorn hat.
|-
! {{w|Michigan}}
|[[File:Michigan1079.png|200x200px]]
|A mitten for the lower portion, an eagle for the {{w|Upper Peninsula of Michigan}}.
| In grade schools, Michigan is often remembered via it's shape, being very similar to a glove.
|-
! {{w|Minnesota}}
|[[File:Minnesota1079.png|200x200px]]
|$160 in $20 USD bills, tied together.
|
|-
! {{w|Mississippi}}
|[[File:Mississippi1079.png|200x200px]]
|A moai head facing west.
| This is a mirrored image of Alabama, referencing the fact that the two states appear symmetrical at a glance.
|-
! {{w|Missouri}}
|[[File:Missouri1079.png|200x200px]]
|Georgia.
|The outline of the state of Georgia, with a pair of {{w|Georgia Peach|Georgia peaches}}. This is paired with Georgia, which contains an outline of the state of Missouri.
|-
! {{w|Montana}}
|[[File:Montana1079.png|200x200px]]
|One half of a muffin, sideways.
|
|-
! {{w|Nebraska}}
|[[File:Nebraska1079.png|200x200px]]
|A blue VW type 2 with mattresses sticking out the back.
|
|-
! {{w|Nevada}}
|[[File:Nevada1079.png|200x200px]]
|A clothes iron.
|
|-
! {{w|New Hampshire}}
|[[File:NewHampshire1079.png|200x200px]]
|A tall brick factory building.
| There are many brick mill buildings in Manchester, the largest city in the state.
|-
! {{w|New Jersey}}
|[[File:NewJersey1079.png|200x200px]]
|A bent-over old person. He is carrying a cane.
|
|-
! {{w|New Mexico}}
|[[File:NewMexico1079.png|200x200px]]
|A liquid container labeled for something of unusual and silly danger.
|This may be a reference to the many nuclear tests conducted In New Mexico during the {{w|Cold War}}. See the [[#Transcript|Transcript section]] to read the labels on the container.
|-
! {{w|New York}}
|[[File:NewYork1079.png|200x200px]]
|A hybrid transmission with standard manual-style gears and a torque converter sliced in half.
|
|-
! {{w|North Carolina}}
|[[File:NorthCarolina1079.png|200x200px]]
|A bouquet of flowers. They appear similar to {{w|Galium Palustre|marsh bedstraws}}.
|
|-
! {{w|North Dakota}}
|[[File:NorthDakota1079.png|200x200px]]
|The top half of a guitar amplifier speaker cabinet.
| Possibly a {{w|Randall Amplifiers|Randall}} [https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-49c12/images/stencil/1280x1280/products/12694/26126/apihqruad__00850.1479879391.jpg RD412A] angled 4x12" cabinet, which is similar in appearance and bears [[Randall]]'s name.
|-
! {{w|Ohio}}
|[[File:Ohio1079.png|200x200px]]
|Underwear (Briefs).
|Possibly a reference to ''{{w|Captain Underpants}}'', which takes place in Ohio.
|-
! {{w|Oklahoma}}
|[[File:Oklahoma1079.png|200x200px]]
|A covered pot, dripping with boil-over.
|Western Oklahoma is often called "{{w|Oklahoma Panhandle|the panhandle}}"; sure enough, this is where the boiling pot's handle fits.
|-
! {{w|Oregon}}
|[[File:Oregon1079.png|200x200px]]
|A locomotive.
|
|-
! {{w|Pennsylvania}}
|[[File:Pennsylvania1079.png|200x200px]]
|A very thick book with a bookmark.
|
|-
! {{w|Rhode Island}}
|[[File:RhodeIsland1079.png|200x200px]]
|The bow half of a boat's hull.
| This is relevant as the state of Rhode Island is known for it's boating industry. An anchor is also located on the {{w|Flag of Rhode Island|state flag of Rhode Island}}.
|-
! {{w|South Carolina}}
|[[File:SouthCarolina1079.png|200x200px]]
|A slice of pizza.
|
|-
! {{w|South Dakota}}
|[[File:SouthDakota1079.png|200x200px]]
|The bottom half of guitar amplifier speaker cabinet.
| Possibly a {{w|Randall Amplifiers|Randall}} [https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-49c12/images/stencil/1280x1280/products/12694/26126/apihqruad__00850.1479879391.jpg RD412A] angled 4x12" cabinet, which is similar in appearance and bears [[Randall]]'s name.
|-
! {{w|Tennessee}}
|[[File:Tennessee1079.png|200x200px]]
|A number of children's books, placed in a slightly askew pile.
| Possibly a reference to Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. The books are {{w|Where's Waldo?}}, {{w|The Wreck of the Zephyr}}, {{w|The Way Things Work}}, Free Fall, {{w|Paddle-to-the-Sea}}, What It Feels Like to Be a Building, and {{w|The Crab with the Golden Claws}}.
|-
! {{w|Texas}}
|[[File:Texas1079.png|200x200px]]
|A dog sitting in a bowl.
|
|-
! {{w|Utah}}
|[[File:Utah1079.png|200x200px]]
|An oven.
|
|-
! {{w|Vermont}}
|[[File:Vermont1079.png|200x200px]]
|A microscope, upside down.
|
|-
! {{w|Virginia}}
|[[File:Virginia1079.png|200x200px]]
|A {{w|stegosaurus}}.
|
|-
! {{w|Washington}}
|[[File:Washington1079.png|200x200px]]
|A whale.
| The Puget Sound is well known for whale watching
|-
! {{w|Washington DC}}
|[[File:WashingtonDC1079.png|200x200px]]
|A star.
|On most maps, capitals are shown as stars. Washington DC is the capital of the United States.
|-
! {{w|West Virginia}}
|[[File:WestVirginia1079.png|200x200px]]
|A {{w|frog}}.
|
|-
! {{w|Wisconsin}}
|[[File:Wisconsin1079.png|200x200px]]
|A skull.
|
|-
! {{w|Wyoming}}
|[[File:Wyoming1079.png|200x200px]]
|The back side of a white envelope, sealed with red wax, with a black heart next to a signature (lower left corner).
|
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|This transcript isn't detailed enough for our standards. Weirdly enough, the third column of the table above is more descriptive, so you could start by transferring the descriptions from the table over to this section.}}
:The '''United Shapes'''
:A map of things states are shaped like

:[Each state has some item wedged to stay inside its borders]]
:[Washington contains a whale.]
:[Idaho contains a garden gnome sitting down.]
:[Montana contains one half of a muffin, sideways.]
:[North Dakota and South Dakota contain the top and bottom halves of a guitar amplifier speaker cabinet, respectively.]
:[Minnesota contains $160 in $20 bills.]
:[Upper peninsula and lower peninsula of Michigan contain an eagle and a mitten, respectively.]
:[Ohio contains a single piece of underwear.]
:[Pennsylvania contains a very thick book with a bookmark.]
:[New York contains a hybrid transmission with standard manual-style gears and a torque converter sliced in half.]
:[Vermont contains an upside-down microscope.]
:[New Hampshire contains a tall brick factory building.]
:[Maine contains a hand doing a Vulcan salute.]
:[Massachusetts contains an elephant, being ridden by a man who is carrying tea.]
:[Rhode Island contains the bow half of a boat's hull.]
:[Connecticut contains a train conductors hat.]
:[New Jersey contains a bent-over old person carrying a cane.]
:[Delaware contains a meerkat.]
:[Maryland contains a wolf, howling at the moon while upside-down.]
:[Washington D.C. is represented by a star.]
:[Virginia is represented by a stegosaurus.]
:[North Carolina contains a bouquet of flowers which appear similar to Marsh Bedstraws.]
:[South Carolina contains a slice of pizza.]
:[Georgia contains Missouri.]
:[Florida contains an eggplant.]
:[Alabama contains a Moai head facing east.]
:[Mississippi contains a Moai head facing west.]
:[Louisiana contains a boot with gum stuck to the bottom.]
:[Texas contains a dog sitting in a bowl.]

:[New Mexico contains a yellow liquid container with upside-down labeling.]
::This end up!!
::Property of White Sands Missile Range
::Contains White Sand
::[Written inside a hazardous-materials {{w|NFPA 704|NFPA diamond}} with the ? very large, and the three '4' in the three top part of a diamond shape divided in four these three sections being blue(health), red(flammability), and yellow(instability). The lower part has a radioactive sign on the same grey background as the large rectangle.]
::??? 4 4 4
::Flammable
::Warning
::This product contains chemicals known
::Only to the State of Nevada.
::Contents under pressure from parents
::If swallowed, induce labor
::56 fluid ounces
::and 14 other ounces
::NB - There are several chemicals such as {{w|Pentaborane(9)}}(reacts with water) and {{w|tert-Butyl hydroperoxide|''tert''-Butyl hydroperoxide}}(explosive) which have a 4-4-4 rating, however, a substance that is both 4-4-4 and radioactive is unlikely to be handled in bulk.

:Arizona contains a refrigerated shelf containing milk, bread, and pastries.]
:[California contains a vacuum cleaner.]
:[Oregon contains a locomotive.]
:[Wyoming contains the back side of a white envelope, sealed with red wax, with a black heart next to a signature in the lower left corner. ]
:[Nebraska contains a blue VW type 2 with mattresses sticking out the back. ]
:[Iowa contains a tomato, lettuce, cold cut and cheese sandwich.]
:[Illinois contains a gangster with a guitar case, upside down.]
:[Indiana contains the brush end of a paintbrush.]
:[Kentucky contains a cloud.]
:[West Virginia contains a frog.]
:[Tennessee contains a number of children's books, placed in a slightly askew pile.]
:[Arkansas contains a measuring cup.]
:[Oklahoma contains a covered pot, dripping with boil-over.]
:[Nevada contains an iron for clothing.]
:[Utah contains an oven with a towel on a towel bar on the side.]
:[Colorado contains a fake Wikipedia article on Colorado. Below the text as seen in the provided close up:]
:[web address:]
::en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado
:[Headers]
::Wikipedia
::Article Talk
::Colorado
:[Main article]
::Colorado (Pronounced [ˈeːijaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏtl̥] is a US State encompassing portions of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains. The region has been inhabited since at least 11,000 BCE, and some archaeological evidence suggest the state – with roughly its current borders – has literally always existed. Colorado is separated from Wyoming by a 28-mile demilitarized zone, and has at times exercised substantial regional power via the installation of puppet governments in neighboring states. Geographically, Colorado is eleven-dimensional, though seven of those dimensions are tightly compacted and difficult to detect in most areas of the state. Colorado is home to the nation's oldest continually-operated wormhole and two of President Lincoln's horcruxes. The wildlife in Colorado is commonly characterized as "erratic", particularly in the radiation zones around Longmont. The State's timber wolf population is largely bipedal; the Park Service has expressed "concern" at their attempts to enroll in
:[Fact box with correct (though black instead of blue) state flag and emblem and fake motto:]
::State of Colorado
::Motto:
::"Si parare possis, vivere septem."
::(With preparation, survival is possible for over a week.)

:[Kansas contains a spinet piano.]
:[Missouri contains Georgia.]
:[Alaska contains a bear with a jet pack and a ray gun.]
:[Hawaii contains a snowball on the island of Hawaii. The smaller islands are small bits of snow.

==Trivia==
This comic used to be [https://web.archive.org/web/20220125014714/https://store.xkcd.com/products/united-shapes-poster available as a poster] in the xkcd store before it was [[Store|shut down]].

In the [[:Media:Colorado1079.png|fake Wikipedia article about Colorado]], Randall [[859|forgot the closing parentheses]] ')' after the pronunciation.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:US maps]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Dogs]]
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]
[[Category:Star Trek]]
[[Category:Harry Potter]] 
[[Category:Volcanoes]] 
[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]
[[Category:Music]]

Talk:3028: D&D Roll

2025-08-16T04:28:06Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: added comment. you're tearing me apart

Talk:3015: D&D Combinatorics

2025-08-16T04:17:35Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: formatting

The bot originally created this page as “D Combinatorics”. I renamed it to the correct title and tried to get as many of the references as possible (including a few redirects). [[User:JBYoshi|JBYoshi]] ([[User talk:JBYoshi|talk]]) 00:54, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

:The title in the Atom feed (which I'm assuming the bot consumes) is "D Combinatorics". I'm guessing something in Randall's pipeline didn't like the ampersand. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.160|162.158.154.160]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

::Yup, if you look at [https://xkcd.com/3015/info.0.json 3015's JSON] you see that <code>title</code> and <code>safe_title</code> differ, and if you look at the HTML page source you'll see '''3''' different things: <code><title>xkcd: D Combinatorics</title></code>, <code><meta property="og:title" content="D&amp;D Combinatorics"></code>, and <code><div id="ctitle">D&D Combinatorics</div></code>! So probably what happened is Randall entered D&D but was supposed to enter D&amp;D, and the openGraph tags adder code, having to be HTML-aware, decoded & normalized D&D as HTML would, but the other parts of the pipeline just ate it for some reason. {{unsigned ip|172.69.65.224|06:09, 23 November 2024}}

::: The problem now is that the feed doesn't validate (because it contains a bare &) and it's also not updating (maybe because of the previous problem). --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.119.13|172.71.119.13]] 11:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

::: Well, it's updating now, but it still doesn't validate. Sigh... --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.195|172.70.160.195]] 11:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

What are the odds of rolling 16 or higher on 3D6+D4? 3D6 average 10.5, D4 average is 2.5, total average should be 13. I do not know how to proceed from here. {{unsigned ip|172.71.147.206|01:14, 23 November 2024}}
:By raw combinatorics: 71 + 52 + 34 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 1 ways to get each of 16 - 22 respectively, for a total of 192, out of 4(6^3) = 864 total. 192/864 simplifies to exactly 2/9. I have no idea how Randall found this; if anyone has an idea, please let me know. [[User:Kaisheng21|Kaisheng21]] ([[User talk:Kaisheng21|talk]]) 01:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I used some simple python code to loop over every dice and confirm and it's 2/9 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I suspect there is no better way of doing it than looping over the dice. As to how Randall discovered it, it was obvious that at least 2d6 would be needed (since d6 is the only D&D dice that has a multiple of 3 sides), and after that my guess is Randall used a combination of a python script and some experimentation to land on the correct choice of dice. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.56|172.70.162.56]] 14:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

It seems like we edited the transcript at the same time. The odds of rolling 16 or higher in this situation seem to be 2/9? [[User:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|Darkmatterisntsquirrels]] ([[User talk:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|talk]]) 01:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

: There are 864 possible rolls (6 * 6 * 6 * 4). If you enumerate all of the rolls you will find that 192 are 16 or higher. 192/864 = 2/9, the value from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I added a table of outcomes to clarify how it works out to 2/9, anyone know how to make it pretty? -- Laurence Cheers {{unsigned ip|172.71.150.247|02:03, 24 November 2024}}

A much simpler approach: Roll two six sided dice and sum the result. You are successful if the result is 5 or 9. That happens 8 times out of 36. 8/36 = 2/9. (Or successful if the sum is 4 or 6, or 2 or 7, or 2,3,4 or 11, or several other combinations.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Clever, but dice rolls in D&D involving summing all the dice, applying modifiers, if any, and then comparing to one or more threshold values. Your method makes it very difficult to apply modifiers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.8|162.158.41.8]] 02:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I think you misunderstand the problem here. This is not skill, no modifiers apply, it's purely probability [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Minor quibble, arrows aren't fired (unless they're flaming or self-propelled, perhaps), they are shot. (Shotguns are fired of course.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.73|162.158.41.73]] 02:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Arrows are "loosed", even more accurately. At least to avoid the confusion from how so many things may be shot, or ''a'' shot. (Many different nouns, from a physical measure of liquer/coffee/vaccine to a projectile, or an even abstract fundemental of chance; and, as verb, projectiles perhps may be shot, then so may their targets.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 14:32, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Well, lets not quarrel over it.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.67|172.71.103.67]] 14:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
:Too many barbed comments, and I'd be all of a quiver... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.153|141.101.99.153]] 14:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Rolling 22 or lower on percentile dice (or, equivalently, 79 or higher) is close enough, and easier to come up with. (Give or take whether 00 is treated as 100 or zero.) Or directly represent the action: roll a d10. If it's 1-5, you lose. If it's 6-10, roll again; if it's 1-5 you lose, 6-9 you win, 10 roll again. (Modify slightly if you want to distinguish the case of grabbing *two* cursed arrows.) [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Alternative exact solution for getting this probability using dice: Roll: 1d8, 2d6, 1d4 succeed on 19 or higher.{{unsigned ip|172.68.55.11|03:54, 23 November 2024}}

I couldn’t remember the formula for binomial coefficients (“n choose k”), but there’s an easy way to calculate that the probability of drawing no cursed arrows is 2/9 without that formula. You just need to multiply the probabilities that each of the arrows drawn is not cursed. Since only two arrows are drawn, you only have to multiply two numbers.

The probability that the first arrow is not cursed is 5/10 – there are 5 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 10 total. After taking out one non-cursed arrow, there are 4 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 9 total, so the probability that the second arrow is not cursed is 4/9. Multiplying the two probabilities, the probability of drawing two non-cursed arrows is (4*5)/(10*9) = 20/90 = 2/9.

I was considering writing this observation in the Explanation section of the page, but I’m not if it belongs there. This solution avoids using formulas from combinatorics, so it might not be connected enough to the comic.—[[User:Roryokane|Roryokane]] ([[User talk:Roryokane|talk]]) 06:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

My simple-minded approach:
* Roll d10 once for your first arrow: if 1 to 5, the arrow is cursed, otherwise not;
* Roll d10 again for your second arrow: same rules, but repeat until you have a different number from the first one (so d10 is in fact only a d9 this time)
* I won't calculate probabilities – these are your arrows, live with it ;-) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.51|172.69.109.51]] 07:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:That has the benefit (over 3d6+1d4) of telling you which arrow(s) (if either) was cursed. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 07:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::Also tells you how many cursed arrows are left, which is useful if the next player wants to take their chances with them too.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.68|172.71.103.68]] 14:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
:If you don't like re-rolls, you can make d9 out of 2d3. Nine possibilities, so just assign one of them (perhaps by rolling them one at a time) to be the more significant digit. Don't have a d3 handy? Use d6 and modulo off the extra! (1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=1, 5=2, 6=3) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.150.91|172.68.150.91]] 05:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be doubt that a "N locks and M keys to unlock them" system could be easily accomplished. I think it could be trivial, with strategically interlocking locked-restraints. A chain formed of bike-locks can give a larger locked loop that can be unlocked by just unlocking any ''single'' one of the constituent locks, leaving the other locked loops to not matter (or you could also try the {{w|Borromean rings}} system, whereby it is again secure against itself, until just one ring is opened up to reveal that the rest now ''aren't even locked at all''...). With almost arbitrary ability to cross-link (or, if you will, repeated/alternating-reflected Borromean triplet connections), you can extend the requirements to more than one unlocking being required (by looping chain elements to mre than just the 'adjacent' loops, sideways onto a parallel meta-loop or up/down the chain, all you might do is allow some slack (could be sufficient to get a thing held directly closed by the taut loop-of-loops, but not enough if the passage of the loop through a hasp/sneck actually prevents the otherwise free movement of the final slide-to-unlock action to occur), but a second (or third, or fourth) unlocking can be required to open-end the whole metaloop of locks. At the top end, M=N solutions are also trivial (e.g. two keys, two locks popularly of safety deposit boxes or [[2677: Two Key System|other things]]). Which is not to say that a specific M-of-N puzzle (where 1<M<N) might not need a ''little'' bit of thought to actually design and implement, but there's no obvious reason why all such combinations shouldn't be nicely doable. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 14:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Can we first confirm that the M-of-N Encryption was what Randall was referencing in the first place? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.140|172.71.154.140]] 03:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::No, first confirm that this is what the explanation treats as what Randall was referencing. As it was, "complicated lock mechanics" and/or "magic" were suggested as the only ways of doing this, when this (or what we thought this was) just needs a little thought and N bike-locks suitably entangled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.45|172.70.58.45]] 13:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:I'm glad someone else chimed in on this, because it is definitely ''not'' difficult to require unlocking of multiple discrete locks! I can't even figure out why one might think it would be? [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::I had assumed that the locks were built into the chests (as they sometimes are), and that the chests were physically separated. Using m of n keys on a single chest would merely be complicated, but wouldn't really fulfill the description. Leaving the chests unlocked, but tightly wrapped in a locked chain would be more like drawers of a single "chest". I instead assumed that each of m chests had to be individually opened with its own proper key, but you had n chests to choose from. It was unspecified what would happen if you tried pairing a chest to the wrong key; perhaps both the key and the chest would be disabled (melted/stuck/burned/teleported). (And yes, needing only a subset of the chests, but any sufficiently large subset will do, is a semi-standard class of problem; a search for Byzantine Generals or PAXOS algorithm will get you started.) [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:::For certain combinations of Ms and Ns, one solution is to have each chest have M locks (that must all be unlocked), such that each possible combination of M keys fully opens (at least) one chest, within which are the necessary complimentary keys to now fully unlock every other chest. A looser version is to have possibly only M/2 (or M/3, etc) locks in a configuration whereby you get to open any given two (or 3+) chests that only produce the full set of keys (and probably spares), but does leave it open to being exploited as "we could only open the one chest, and maybe one or two others with (M/2)<(owned keys)<(M) partial key overlap but at least it had ''some'' of the available treasure", unless designed to not work like that.
:::The limited subset of workable {M,N} values makes it impractical as "I have N chests and M chests, how do I...?" puzzle-setting, but still leaves it possible to force a puzzle from scratch that works this way (e.g. "you must have visited at least M antechambers and deceated the Key Guardians within, before you can open the chests within which are all the components necessary to create the potion that makes you ElementalLevelBoss-Proof"), for which you can determine a convenient set of requirements.
:::One (simple) combination would be two of three distinct keys (#1, #2 and #3) and three chests ("A", needs #1+2, contains #3; "B" needs 1+3, contains 2; "C" need 2+3, contains 1).
:::Add in the feature of duplicate keys but also a mechanism (or magic, or valid physical reason) which causes keys to be stuck in the locks (or vanish/melt/shatter/etc) upon being used, and you can create an even more complex puzzle, whereby having keys enough to (theoretically) open two chests is actually only enough to open one of them initially as you then lose the ability to attempt to open the other... at least until the opened chest provides new keys enough to open (perhaps by opening a different interim chest, with its own new keys, etc) the one that you did not initially choose. This would greatly expand the number of higher-order "M-of-N" combinations that you could facilitate. And could even created "M>N" requirements (three keys, two (combo-)locks: chest A needs 1+2, chest B needs 1+3; both render any keys inserted beyond further use but also contain a 'spare' 1; you need to externally gain 1+2+3 to eventually open A+B).
:::Exactly how (and why) you do it is open to your own needs.
:::And, if you're open to add an intermediate "locked box", you can exploit the trivial many:one ''and'' one:many relationships by just compounding them together, and maybe even adding more steps; e.g. with the last example of keys 1+2+3 opening A+B, you can offer up (from A, 4)+(from B, 5). To unlock C needs both 4+5 (thus 1+2+3, once removed), which itself handily contains ''all'' the further individual keys (or copies of the one key) required to open D, E, F, ... Z, so grants the stipulation of "3 needed to open 23". Or the earlier 2 keys (non-sticking, or regained by copies) for 3 chests grants the full co-keys needed to open that same key-store (see also {{w|Annett's key}}). Arbitrarily higher permutations of pretty much any initial number of (original) keys and however many intermediate openings (to match the singular key-safe's relatively simple multi-key requirements) steps you through the means to then open an arbitrary number of (final) locks, but you won't get ''any'' of the last locks unlocked if you have not fully satisfied the very first requirement.
:::...although it'd be neater if it was an M-and-N that was more direct, I still think. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.85|141.101.99.85]] 18:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

"other polyhedral dice, with the number of faces denoted by dX (e.g., d10 is a 10-sided die, with numbers from 1 to 10 on it)." - the d10 may be a poor choice as exemplar here; Back in the last century, when I was playing D&D, d10 were typically (and uniquely) numbered 0-9, not 1-10. This may no longer be the case, and I may be showing my age, but if it is still the norm, the d8 or d20 might be a better choice of example. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.6|172.68.210.6]] 02:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:Typically, I've only seen 0-9 d10s, as part of a "d100" dice pair, with one reading 0-9 & the other reading 0⁰-9⁰... Single d10, mostly seem to come in 1-10? Maybe it depends which reseller one shops at... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::They are usually numbered 0-9, but the 0 represents 10, since writing 10 would require that face to have a different font size. It is still a d10, since the die has ten sides, and still cannot roll at 0. The d100 variant does the same thing with 100, but for the added reason that the 00 face actually does mean 0 when the other die rolls a 1-9. This is the convention, so a die that actually writes 10 on it instead of 0 will be rare. [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 23:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

You've all been nerd-sniped. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:53, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Combinatorics degree? Does such a degree really exist? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.130.37|162.158.130.37]] 17:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:There are degrees for all kinds of things. A quick search reveals a number of "Combinatorics" or "Combinatorics and <Foo>" (e.g. "Optimisation") degrees. Some of them are marked as Masters degrees, and I haven't dug into the others to see if there are any 'pure' undergraduate ones (apart from anything else, I know there are crucial differences between the structures and scopes of UK and US 'degree courses' to consider, in particular), but there seems to be representation on both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere, e.g. Oceana).
:At the very least, it could be a selected specialised segment of an even wider mathematical degree course, or a cross-disciplinary one (like my own, which was part under Physics and part under Computing, but could have included a Stats-based element). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 19:07, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::So "Combinatorics and <Foo>" would be meta-combinatorics, since it is combining something with something else. :) [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 20:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
:::I shall do my degree in "Combinatorics, Selectivity, Comparison, Decision Making and/or Cross-Designation (Choose Any Three)"... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.5|172.70.90.5]] 21:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm trying this on my DM. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Can someone put into the Explanation the current details regarding the nature of cursed arrows, in whatever edition of DnD we're currently up to. (8th? I've lost track.) In different DnD-like media, I know that it can act somewhat negatively (reduces aim accuracy) or even outright problematic (it curses the person loosing the projectile; or even renders the bow otherwise useless, as analogue to a cursed weapon), or else reduces/inverts the damage (breaks easier, or essentially acts like a thrown beneficial potion to increase health/strength/stamina/etc of the target). I assume that it one of these, from the assumption that the player desires a "good enough" roll to avoid. On the other hand, cursed projectiles could be treated akin to poisoned arrows or vengeful weapons in doing more, better or more targeted damage (in which case it's a powerful aid, the archer is instead taking a chance of using up a stock of 'special arrows', perhaps in line with not knowing whether their foe ''needs'' that extra degree of offensive power). But, at least from the explaining text's approach to dice-roll results, that doesn't exactly mesh with the typical "higher is better" rolling mantra. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.129|172.70.86.129]] 22:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think making an M-of-N mechanism with physical locks would be "extremely cumbersome". For example you could have a bolt that must be drawn back to open the mechanism, with several padlocks over it, where the shackle of each padlock blocks the motion of the bolt, such that the distance you can draw the bolt is proportional to how many padlocks are removed. Removing any m of the n padlocks gives you enough range of motion to open the mechanism.
[[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.224|172.71.154.224]] 23:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

A DM with a degree in Combinatorics would be unlikely to find this annoying.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.245|162.158.62.245]] 05:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

With up to three D&D dice, it is impossible to achieve 2/9 exactly. The closest you can get is with d6 + 2d10x10 >= 146 (where d10x10 denotes the tens die, ranging from 10 to 100) yielding a probability of 133/600 = 0.2216667. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

With four D&D dice, 2d6 + d8 + d10 >= 21 and d10 + 2d12 + d20 >= 36 are alternate solutions. The former is more feasible than 3d6 + d4 for those who don't have three d6's. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

You can do it with two dice, although not by summation. Roll 2d3; if 1,1, or 3,3 pass, else fail. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.88|162.158.167.88]] 19:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Could someone explain option 6, multiplying two six-sided dice, with a threshold of > 20? I think 66, 65, 64, 56, 55, and 46 all work, making it ... equivalent to 1D6.
[[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:It's >= 20, so 54 and 45 work as well. That brings the probability up to 8/36 = 2/9. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 13:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

;Scales for locking
Wouldn't using scales for the chests that measure their current mass and lock/open the doors based on whether the chest still has the object work for an M-of-N encryption? A simple example: A chest has 2.5 kg of Au, with the chest itself and its combination lock being 20 kg. The next door opens iff the chest's total mass is less than 21 kg. Removing all the Au from the chest opens the door. The second one has an object with the mass of 3 kg, and the chest itself is 22 kg, with ''that'' door opening if the chest's mass is between 23 and 24 kg. Removing the object and replacing it with 1 kg of Au opens the door. Long story short: no, one does not need magic for realizing an M-of-N encryption, one just needs scales for a physical M-of-N encryption. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.25|172.68.245.25]] 08:16, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

== Randall doesn't understand probability or games ==

You don't need to combine the probabilities. You just make two checks. The first check is even odds of cursed / normal. If the check fails and it's cursed, presumably you proceed with the consequences of grabbing a cursed arrow, whatever that might be. In any case, whether the first arrow was normal, or the curse doesn't prevent you from grabbing and firing another arrow, the second check is either 4:9 (if the first arrow was normal) or 5:9 (if it was cursed). (These odds are written as the number of normal arrows remaining : the total number of arrows.)

There is no reason to roll the dice given in the comic. He just made up some dice rolls vaguely similar to those that he heard someone mention in the context of tabletop games, and he's certainly never actually played in one. You can convert these probabilities into decimal form and use a d100 for every check. Probabilistic results like these are the reason the d100 is in the game. (You can also roll 2d10, selecting one of them to be the tens digit and the other to be the units digit.)

The chance of succeeding (choosing a normal arrow) on the first check is 50%, so you can use any type of dice, and success is rolling above X/2, X = faces of the dice.

The chance of succeeding on the second check is 4/9 if the first arrow was normal, or about 44%. So you succeed on a roll of 44 or less. The chance is 5/9 if the first arrow was cursed, or about 56%. So you succeed on a roll of 56 or less.

You don't need a degree in anything to reach these conclusions. {{unsigned ip|172.70.83.67|20:51, 17 March 2025‎}}

== Am i the only one being '''extremely''' confused by the trivia section? ==

This is the current trivia section, emphasis mine:
:When this comic was originally released, the '''official title of this page was "xkcd: D Combinatorics", instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics", due to an apparent error on Randall's end.''' [...]

:Whatever the precise problem, the ampersand also presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]], an issue that is said to be only fixable by [[User:Jeff]], who has been inactive for over a year now.

Am i the only one who sees the issue?
*3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.
**"official title", so on xkcd.com
**""xkcd: D Combinatorics", instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics"" - only pages on xkcd.com start with "xkcd: "
**"error on Randall's end"

*2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.
**"title of this page" - "this" means the one you're reading, the wiki
**"presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]" - Our wiki's rss feed

Am I missing something? Was this an error on xkcd.com, on this wiki, or both? People keep treating it as if it's coherent. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:10, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:Ok the trivia is definitely wrong, as you can see [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ here], it's the official xkcd.com page name that was wrong. Also, and this isn't mentioned anywhere, the official title displayed on the xkcd.com site was wrong too! It had an additional semicolon. The trivia needs to be updated, i also added it to edited comics cat. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:22, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
::As I understand it (and understood it at the time), Randall did something wrong in creating his initial comic such that the "Created by a BOT" script created the page (and Talk page, and ''possibly'' populated a new RSS entry) with erroneous data.
::Whether that was done before or after the web.archive page, I don't know (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there), nor if/when any subsequent change was done by Randall.
::I do know that I tested several browsers, at the time, and "&D" (and/or "&D;") and the lower-case equivalents only ever showed as a literal. But some kind of ''cleanHTML()'' function might well have been less willing to 'transmit' an unknown code, as it doesn't necessarily have access to all the DTD <!ENTITY ...> settings that a downstream browser might use (or the inbuilt latest HTML5 standards) so might have wanted to play safe upon finding ''anything'' that vaguely fits the "<ampersand><NAME><semicolon>" format, and just splice it out. I have no idea how RSS writers/readers deal with this (except some basic sanity checking for allowable character sequences, which seems to be the exact problem here after initially invalid data was entered upstream if it should have been &a&zwj;mp;ed when added in). I would check how my Perl environment and HTML-related modules deal with it, but I suspect it's done through sometging like PHP instead.
::(Escaped/unescaped data is notorious, when raw data is HTMLised, but that read in as raw and ''further'' HTMLised in multiple cycles, you end up with stuff like &a&zwj;mp;amp;amp;pound; popping up in things.)
::As far as most of the Trivia is concerned (including the currently hidden bits of it) I don't think it's wrong, though I can't say it's right without investigating the editor's(/editors'?) line of thinking all the way through at leisure. But it's a short and sweet precis of the basic issue, unless you want to start with XHTML Processing 101 and then get properly into DOM object parsing and various applicable WebTestKit criteria before deciding ''exactly'' where the fail-unsafe happened.
::With the "xkcd: D Combinatorics" bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing "<site name>: <page title>", but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that. I've used more different browsers than you've had hot keyboards, however, and I can believe that someone's does that sort of thing. If it's not a non-browser renderer/scraper, instead. Noting that the error came from xkcd(.com) and then caused problems on explainxkcd(.com), so I don't think there's an issue with that, but it's trivial to change to the browser-nonspecific (''and'' site-nonspecific) barebones "D Combinatorics" if that's what it is for someone ''with'' a better title-bar or tab-titling system than I have at the moment.
::Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.45|172.71.241.45]] 22:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
{{Outdent|:::}}
(my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there)
In Chrome at least, you can type "thisisunsafe" to bypass security prompts.

With the "xkcd: D Combinatorics" bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing "<site name>: <page title>", but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that.
I'm not sure what you mean? [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ This link's browser tab name] is always "xkcd: D Combinatorics" when i try it, both on mobile and on desktop Chrome.

Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail.
All i'm saying is that the most basic thing, "Was this problem of the wiki or of the official site?", not only isn't clearly answered but the problem itself isn't even fully mentioned (see last sentence of message you replied to). It can't be complete if it includes only half of the information, right? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:14, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
:I believe what you might be missing, that it seems everyone else missed that you missed, is that there are bots who create the new ExplainXKCD pages '''''using''''' XKCD's new page when one appears. So, if Randall put it wrong - as everything keeps saying - that means the bots copy said mistake into the new ExplainXKCD page. What all these authors are doing is assuming everyone knows that THIS is how this site works. Have I addressed your issue now? (Assuming you ever come back and see this, and assuming I ever come back and see your reply, LOL!). I note that, running 5 months late, that the webpage title on XKCD is still "D", not "D&D", while the visible title is correct. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
::Thank you. Yes, I knew that the bot creates the new page, and that this also meant the page on this wiki was wrong initially, but, unlike xkcd.com, this wiki's RSS was seemingly broken by this comic, while xkcd.com wasn't. Anyway, I think i have a pretty good picture, but it still isn't clear enough to rewrite the Trivia section. Good catch! I had also noted that incorrect tab title on xkcd.com on my last comment, which further complicates explaining the situation in the actual trivia section. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:53, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

'''Ok so here's what we know so far:'''
* The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Combinatorics" instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics". This was never fixed.

* The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Roll" instead of "xkcd: D&D Roll". This was never fixed.

----

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D&D; Combinatorics". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D&D; Roll". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/

----

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D Combinatorics". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&oldid=357629

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D Roll". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&oldid=360160

----

*Our RSS feed was broken: [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]

* I don't know if there were other errors.
**Did Randall's RSS feed also break? Or just explainxkcd's?
**Did our RSS break again when [[3028: D&D Roll]] was released?

----

The inconsistencies I pointed out in the beginning are still valid:

*3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.
**"official title", so on xkcd.com
**""xkcd: D Combinatorics", instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics"" - only pages on xkcd.com start with "xkcd: "
**"error on Randall's end"

*2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.
**"title of this page" - "this" means the one you're reading, the wiki
**"presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]" - Our wiki's rss feed

Someone just needs to reasearch this a bit more and create a simple and clear Trivia section, explaining what happened. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 12:57, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
:It seems like you're vastly overthinking this. (Apologies for the delay, due to a device change I've been away from XKCD for a while and actually my comment here was the last one I made before my switch and is the only evidence of where I left off). Randall's site made a mistake because ampersand is a special character in HTML (the language of webpages), apparently his site doesn't sanitize input (remember Bobby Tables?), or not properly, it just dropped it as "I don't know what you want, so I'm skipping it". I'm not sure if it's used for anything else, but for one it's used to show special characters, such as itself: showing an ampersand is "[ampersand]amp;" (for the same reasons I don't want to use an ACTUAL ampersand here, and I don't want to make the detour of finding out how to do the same thing in wiki language), and a non-breaking space is "[ampersand]nbsp;" (meaning don't use THIS space to wrap the line, permanently keep these words together, and don't lump multiple spaces into one, like to indent things), I've used them both a lot when writing my own websites. Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.

:Also, trying to understand by comparing the sites is inappropriate and doesn't make sense. All Wikis seem to be built on the same foundations, so a technical mistake like this that would happen on one, we can reasonably assume would similarly happen on other wikis. THEN comparing would make sense. But Randall's site isn't a wiki, there's no reason to believe it has equivalent vulnerabilities, it's a separate site, programmed separately, maybe XKCD sanitizes better or worse than wikis do, than this wiki does. Who knows, it doesn't really matter, this is just noting that the page titles weren't created properly.

:Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying "this page" means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily. This wiki is about another website, so "this page" is also a valid way to talk about this comic's original page, on XKCD. Honestly, I don't know anything about the RSS feed, what it does, and how it's relevant to this issue in order to address that evidence, but you're down to 4 references to XKCD vs. 1 to ExplainXKCD. Or 3-1 plus 1 ambiguous. And what all this has to do with this wiki is the same as always: This site is about his. When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA. Like if Randall misspells something, we put that in the Trivia, if he replaces the comic with a corrected one, that goes in the Trivia too.

:In summary, XKCD made a mistake, Randall didn't notice to fix it, the bots copied it. Most likely, nothing HERE did anything wrong, as far as I can tell. The bots correctly copied the comic's name as it was listed, like it should, they couldn't know to look for a more complete title. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 00:23, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

::Welcome back!

Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.
::To me, it doesn't seem like that's everything. Randall's site was broken in two different ways for two different comics on two different occasions, and only one of the two issues was later fixed in both comics, while the other one was never fixed in both comics. Also, we know it broke this wiki's RSS feed. Did it break Randall's RSS feed too? Did our RSS break ''again'' when Randall released the second broken comic [[3028: D&D Roll]]? I don't know because the Trivia sections for these two comics are ambiguous.

Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying "this page" means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily.
:: I wish that were the case, but many editors here oftentimes use "this page" to refer to this wiki's page, "the one you're reading right now", '''especially''' in trivia sections.

When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA.
::That's true, but we sometimes use the trivia sections to talk about explainxkcd, such as the trivia section for comics {{cn}} and [[Papyrus]]. In these 2 D&D comics, I think the errors on both sites are relevant, but they should be clearly defined in their respective Trivia sections and currently they are not.

::We can now either rephrase the current trivia sections, or write up new ones. Since you seem to be the only person actively engaged in this discussion, could you give it a try, even if the details about the RSS feeds aren't known yet? You can use [[#help|this list I made earlier]] if you want. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:39, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
::: Funny, I just reached 3028, with the same issue. I note down a list of which comics I've edited/commented on, to try to remember to check for replies, and seeing the issue there I realized I forgot to note this one so came back to double-check if I had done anything here, and saw your replies :) I feel fairly sure that once upon a time I got some familiarity with the terms "RSS" and "RSS feed", possibly in a class, but that'd be 20, 25 years ago. I now have '''NOTHING'''. I don't know what it is, what it does, how to check if it's broken, why to care, or even how to look at it. Therefore I am completely unable to speak about it, and all I'm getting here about it is that's the main thing anyone thinks should be in the Trivia! Meaning, no, I'm not the one to write/edit the Trivia. What I know is what I said, that the issue is obvious to those of us who have handwritten webpages: Ampersand is an escape character used in HTML, to do special things, like display itself, non-breaking spaces, even an alternate way to show special characters like accented characters, music notes, things that can't be typed on a standard keyboard. It's worth noting that in programming for Windows, ampersand marks a character to underline, usually for menus to identify the hotkey, like "Files" means Alt-F opens the Files menu, the name would be typed programmatically "&Files". I've seen programs that don't sanitize their input that would render the name of this comic as "DD Combinatorics". BTW, for this I went to the Wiki Editing help to check what I had to do for an ampersand (turns out: nothing, it's generally fine), and the Wiki editor ALSO makes use of the ampersand for such things as special characters, so you could look there to see examples - I spotted one was to display such a code instead of interpret it, like &nbsp; [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:22, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

::::Welcome back! Thanks for your reply.

[A]ll I'm getting here about it is that [the RSS feed] is the main thing anyone thinks should be in the Trivia!

::::You are mistaken. At the bottom of this talk page, I have tried to make a lis tof all the things previous editors tried to clealrly add to the Trivia section. There are currently 4 errors, and only 1 of them is about the RSS feed. All the other errors aren't related to the RSS feed (even though they broke it). Thus, if one doesn't know anything about RSS feeds, they can still write up three quarters of the Trivia section. I think that's better than nothing! --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 15:26, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

:Our RSS didn't break twice. It was made broken, due to [[3015]]'s error making it invalid, and was still broken by the time [[3028]] added its own example.
:If you do whatever you need to look at the RSS 'raw' (e.g. by using <code>view-source:https://explainxkcd.com/rss.xml</code>, if that's what works in your browser), you'll note that the first problematic ampersands are in 3028's data, in data which is ordered in newest-to-oldest order. Before that existed, it would have been 3015's initial-breaking ampersanding, which is still wrong. If someone went in and "ampersand-coded" the ampersand, they could 'fix' 3028 and it would still fail on 3015, or vice-versa. You (or someone who could) would of course have to solve both, to get it working. And it was made broken (thanks to being served 'bad' data, without anything having any instruction to re-present it in the 'good' form) consistently from 3015's time onwards. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 16:45, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

::Makes sense! Thanks. Did Randall's also break? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:33, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
:::His site? Probably not so that casual browsing would notice. There are more strict and less strict ways to deal with HTML data, and a lone ampersand can probably sneak through a standard web-page and be intepreted normally if it doesn't match an "&entity;" code. And xkcd.com's RSS feed only features the last three comics. I assume, therefore, only last week's... but ask me again when we get an additional special comic, not Monday, Wednesday or Friday, and we either get a four-deep history (being set to a week) or a three-deep history (drops the "just under one week ago" one out, early). But it means that the feed is absent of either 3015 or 3028 data, and is short and sweet and working ''at the moment''. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 23:38, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
:::...but, doing the research tha you could have done:
:::*Google for "xkcd 3015" and "D: Combinatrics" (no ampersand-D at all) is the 'hit' title, directly above "3015: D&D Combinatorics" of this site.
:::**Google is probably being consistent with the target page data for xkcd (see below) ''and'' the current site of the target explainxkcd page, which we've changed to be 'right'.
:::*Within the source for xkcd's 3015 comic, there's <code><nowiki><title>xkcd: D Combinatorics</title></nowiki></code> (no ampersand-D, probably because the ampersand-D was considered invalid and fell out of the publishing process for the title-tag).
:::*Next up, there's a meta-tag: <code><nowiki><meta property="og:title" content="D&amp;D Combinatorics"></nowiki></code>, which I had to make work here (it's an amp-entity, which I've had to write as amp-entity-for-amp, etc). This was either 'corrected' automatically, or later sanitised manually.
:::*There's then <code><nowiki><div id="ctitle">D&D Combinatorics</div></nowiki></code> with a 'raw' ampersand(-D), seemingly happily being treated as entirely literal, not broken-entity.
:::*Within the img-tag for the comic, there's <code><nowiki>... alt="D&amp;D Combinatorics" ...</nowiki></code> (again, I had to meta-it, in this edit, to outwardly show as the simple ampersand entity that it is). Sanitised/corrected/whatever, who knows.
:::Either tag-parameters derived from composed data are automatically sanitised, by whatever publishing mechanism Randall employs, or he got enough errors when it was wrong to go back in and change the othem so that they wouldn't error on him.
:::Neither inducing an error, nor getting corrected (even automatically), the content of the title-tag is in a zone of uncaring-strictness where it 'is wrong' but fails-safe in a way that nobody has done anything about, rather than ever having halted the page-rendering.
:::Meanwhile, all other 'plaintext' non-tag (but of course extenrally tagged) content is happily working with no strictness worries.
:::This is my "took two minutes to actually look at this issue" answer, of course, and maybe you've looked and deduced alternative explanations for what I see. But then probably you wouldn't have been asking any of these questions in the first place. I don't usually specifically read any of your contributions here (too much work, deciding whether your latest blitz on the wiki was worth it or not), but you got my attention as it's part of a larger conversation with other people. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 00:05, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

::::Sure! That's also what the IP at the top of this talk page pointed out, but you were more detailed. I guess that's also trivially related to the comic, which eans we should probably place that TOO in the trivia section. Argh it never ends! At least your comment is relatively easy to parse and could be just inserted in the articles directly with a few tweaks. But, we should probably change it a bit to connect it to the first issue in the to-do list for the trivia sections.

::::So, to recap, what we need to add to the trivia section is:

* The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Combinatorics" instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics". '''This is also what appears in Google results.''' This was never fixed.

* The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Roll" instead of "xkcd: D&D Roll". '''This is also what appears in Google results.''' This was never fixed.
**We now know these issues are caused by the... thing you described in your comment.
----

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D&D; Combinatorics". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D&D; Roll". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/

**I'm not sure if you covered this in your reply? "D&D;" seems a weird failure, why would the semicolon be after the "D"? This was fixed but I guess you could do your magic by inspecting the source of the archived version to see what went wrong.

----

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D Combinatorics". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&oldid=357629

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D Roll". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&oldid=360160
**Caused by the issue in the first bullet

----

*Our RSS feed was broken (and remained broken after [[3028: D&D Roll]]): [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]

*Randall's RSS feed didn't noticeably break.

----

::::And i think that's everything? Now we just need to actually polish it and put it in the two articles. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Hey, [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]], what was actually wrong with my edit? (For some reason when I made that edit I was logged into an old account I had forgotten about, [[User:Unexplainedthing]]; I guess the login was saved in my browser... but only used that account in that tab... idk, probably user error, but anyway, it was my edit.) 
I summarized some of the points that had already been made just above. The parts I added were things I could confirm for myself: the browser title is wrong, the archive of the site shows that the on-site title was originally wrong, the same holds for 3028. And the explain xkcd RSS feed is what was broken, according to all of the other discussion I see, though I don't really know how to go about verifying that myself. I did remove part of the explanation that (to me) felt pointlessly speculative, and I removed the 'incomplete' tag because I felt the explanation was now adequate; this may have been mistaken and/or premature, but based on your edit summary, it doesn't seem to me like that's the part you took issue with. Am I missing something? [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 20:33, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

:You can read everything that was wrong in your edit by reading what's above your reply. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 19:43, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

::Do you mean the bullet points that I largely used as a basis when making my edits? Look, I don't know, maybe I just lose all my sanity and intelligence when I open this site. I'm barely even kidding, I might honestly just be doing a terrible job at comprehending things and mucking it all up for everyone else. But I certainly don't ''see'' what I'm getting wrong. Apologies, but I could use an actual explanation, if anyone wants to give one. [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 04:17, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3015: D&D Combinatorics

2025-08-16T04:17:00Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: added comment. i'm dying over here. 90% chance that i'm gonna be so embarrassed when I find out what mistake I'm consistently making on these pages.

The bot originally created this page as “D Combinatorics”. I renamed it to the correct title and tried to get as many of the references as possible (including a few redirects). [[User:JBYoshi|JBYoshi]] ([[User talk:JBYoshi|talk]]) 00:54, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

:The title in the Atom feed (which I'm assuming the bot consumes) is "D Combinatorics". I'm guessing something in Randall's pipeline didn't like the ampersand. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.160|162.158.154.160]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

::Yup, if you look at [https://xkcd.com/3015/info.0.json 3015's JSON] you see that <code>title</code> and <code>safe_title</code> differ, and if you look at the HTML page source you'll see '''3''' different things: <code><title>xkcd: D Combinatorics</title></code>, <code><meta property="og:title" content="D&amp;D Combinatorics"></code>, and <code><div id="ctitle">D&D Combinatorics</div></code>! So probably what happened is Randall entered D&D but was supposed to enter D&amp;D, and the openGraph tags adder code, having to be HTML-aware, decoded & normalized D&D as HTML would, but the other parts of the pipeline just ate it for some reason. {{unsigned ip|172.69.65.224|06:09, 23 November 2024}}

::: The problem now is that the feed doesn't validate (because it contains a bare &) and it's also not updating (maybe because of the previous problem). --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.119.13|172.71.119.13]] 11:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

::: Well, it's updating now, but it still doesn't validate. Sigh... --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.195|172.70.160.195]] 11:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

What are the odds of rolling 16 or higher on 3D6+D4? 3D6 average 10.5, D4 average is 2.5, total average should be 13. I do not know how to proceed from here. {{unsigned ip|172.71.147.206|01:14, 23 November 2024}}
:By raw combinatorics: 71 + 52 + 34 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 1 ways to get each of 16 - 22 respectively, for a total of 192, out of 4(6^3) = 864 total. 192/864 simplifies to exactly 2/9. I have no idea how Randall found this; if anyone has an idea, please let me know. [[User:Kaisheng21|Kaisheng21]] ([[User talk:Kaisheng21|talk]]) 01:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I used some simple python code to loop over every dice and confirm and it's 2/9 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I suspect there is no better way of doing it than looping over the dice. As to how Randall discovered it, it was obvious that at least 2d6 would be needed (since d6 is the only D&D dice that has a multiple of 3 sides), and after that my guess is Randall used a combination of a python script and some experimentation to land on the correct choice of dice. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.56|172.70.162.56]] 14:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

It seems like we edited the transcript at the same time. The odds of rolling 16 or higher in this situation seem to be 2/9? [[User:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|Darkmatterisntsquirrels]] ([[User talk:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|talk]]) 01:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

: There are 864 possible rolls (6 * 6 * 6 * 4). If you enumerate all of the rolls you will find that 192 are 16 or higher. 192/864 = 2/9, the value from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I added a table of outcomes to clarify how it works out to 2/9, anyone know how to make it pretty? -- Laurence Cheers {{unsigned ip|172.71.150.247|02:03, 24 November 2024}}

A much simpler approach: Roll two six sided dice and sum the result. You are successful if the result is 5 or 9. That happens 8 times out of 36. 8/36 = 2/9. (Or successful if the sum is 4 or 6, or 2 or 7, or 2,3,4 or 11, or several other combinations.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Clever, but dice rolls in D&D involving summing all the dice, applying modifiers, if any, and then comparing to one or more threshold values. Your method makes it very difficult to apply modifiers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.8|162.158.41.8]] 02:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I think you misunderstand the problem here. This is not skill, no modifiers apply, it's purely probability [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Minor quibble, arrows aren't fired (unless they're flaming or self-propelled, perhaps), they are shot. (Shotguns are fired of course.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.73|162.158.41.73]] 02:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Arrows are "loosed", even more accurately. At least to avoid the confusion from how so many things may be shot, or ''a'' shot. (Many different nouns, from a physical measure of liquer/coffee/vaccine to a projectile, or an even abstract fundemental of chance; and, as verb, projectiles perhps may be shot, then so may their targets.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 14:32, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Well, lets not quarrel over it.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.67|172.71.103.67]] 14:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
:Too many barbed comments, and I'd be all of a quiver... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.153|141.101.99.153]] 14:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Rolling 22 or lower on percentile dice (or, equivalently, 79 or higher) is close enough, and easier to come up with. (Give or take whether 00 is treated as 100 or zero.) Or directly represent the action: roll a d10. If it's 1-5, you lose. If it's 6-10, roll again; if it's 1-5 you lose, 6-9 you win, 10 roll again. (Modify slightly if you want to distinguish the case of grabbing *two* cursed arrows.) [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Alternative exact solution for getting this probability using dice: Roll: 1d8, 2d6, 1d4 succeed on 19 or higher.{{unsigned ip|172.68.55.11|03:54, 23 November 2024}}

I couldn’t remember the formula for binomial coefficients (“n choose k”), but there’s an easy way to calculate that the probability of drawing no cursed arrows is 2/9 without that formula. You just need to multiply the probabilities that each of the arrows drawn is not cursed. Since only two arrows are drawn, you only have to multiply two numbers.

The probability that the first arrow is not cursed is 5/10 – there are 5 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 10 total. After taking out one non-cursed arrow, there are 4 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 9 total, so the probability that the second arrow is not cursed is 4/9. Multiplying the two probabilities, the probability of drawing two non-cursed arrows is (4*5)/(10*9) = 20/90 = 2/9.

I was considering writing this observation in the Explanation section of the page, but I’m not if it belongs there. This solution avoids using formulas from combinatorics, so it might not be connected enough to the comic.—[[User:Roryokane|Roryokane]] ([[User talk:Roryokane|talk]]) 06:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

My simple-minded approach:
* Roll d10 once for your first arrow: if 1 to 5, the arrow is cursed, otherwise not;
* Roll d10 again for your second arrow: same rules, but repeat until you have a different number from the first one (so d10 is in fact only a d9 this time)
* I won't calculate probabilities – these are your arrows, live with it ;-) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.51|172.69.109.51]] 07:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:That has the benefit (over 3d6+1d4) of telling you which arrow(s) (if either) was cursed. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 07:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::Also tells you how many cursed arrows are left, which is useful if the next player wants to take their chances with them too.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.68|172.71.103.68]] 14:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
:If you don't like re-rolls, you can make d9 out of 2d3. Nine possibilities, so just assign one of them (perhaps by rolling them one at a time) to be the more significant digit. Don't have a d3 handy? Use d6 and modulo off the extra! (1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=1, 5=2, 6=3) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.150.91|172.68.150.91]] 05:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be doubt that a "N locks and M keys to unlock them" system could be easily accomplished. I think it could be trivial, with strategically interlocking locked-restraints. A chain formed of bike-locks can give a larger locked loop that can be unlocked by just unlocking any ''single'' one of the constituent locks, leaving the other locked loops to not matter (or you could also try the {{w|Borromean rings}} system, whereby it is again secure against itself, until just one ring is opened up to reveal that the rest now ''aren't even locked at all''...). With almost arbitrary ability to cross-link (or, if you will, repeated/alternating-reflected Borromean triplet connections), you can extend the requirements to more than one unlocking being required (by looping chain elements to mre than just the 'adjacent' loops, sideways onto a parallel meta-loop or up/down the chain, all you might do is allow some slack (could be sufficient to get a thing held directly closed by the taut loop-of-loops, but not enough if the passage of the loop through a hasp/sneck actually prevents the otherwise free movement of the final slide-to-unlock action to occur), but a second (or third, or fourth) unlocking can be required to open-end the whole metaloop of locks. At the top end, M=N solutions are also trivial (e.g. two keys, two locks popularly of safety deposit boxes or [[2677: Two Key System|other things]]). Which is not to say that a specific M-of-N puzzle (where 1<M<N) might not need a ''little'' bit of thought to actually design and implement, but there's no obvious reason why all such combinations shouldn't be nicely doable. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 14:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Can we first confirm that the M-of-N Encryption was what Randall was referencing in the first place? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.140|172.71.154.140]] 03:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::No, first confirm that this is what the explanation treats as what Randall was referencing. As it was, "complicated lock mechanics" and/or "magic" were suggested as the only ways of doing this, when this (or what we thought this was) just needs a little thought and N bike-locks suitably entangled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.45|172.70.58.45]] 13:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:I'm glad someone else chimed in on this, because it is definitely ''not'' difficult to require unlocking of multiple discrete locks! I can't even figure out why one might think it would be? [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::I had assumed that the locks were built into the chests (as they sometimes are), and that the chests were physically separated. Using m of n keys on a single chest would merely be complicated, but wouldn't really fulfill the description. Leaving the chests unlocked, but tightly wrapped in a locked chain would be more like drawers of a single "chest". I instead assumed that each of m chests had to be individually opened with its own proper key, but you had n chests to choose from. It was unspecified what would happen if you tried pairing a chest to the wrong key; perhaps both the key and the chest would be disabled (melted/stuck/burned/teleported). (And yes, needing only a subset of the chests, but any sufficiently large subset will do, is a semi-standard class of problem; a search for Byzantine Generals or PAXOS algorithm will get you started.) [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:::For certain combinations of Ms and Ns, one solution is to have each chest have M locks (that must all be unlocked), such that each possible combination of M keys fully opens (at least) one chest, within which are the necessary complimentary keys to now fully unlock every other chest. A looser version is to have possibly only M/2 (or M/3, etc) locks in a configuration whereby you get to open any given two (or 3+) chests that only produce the full set of keys (and probably spares), but does leave it open to being exploited as "we could only open the one chest, and maybe one or two others with (M/2)<(owned keys)<(M) partial key overlap but at least it had ''some'' of the available treasure", unless designed to not work like that.
:::The limited subset of workable {M,N} values makes it impractical as "I have N chests and M chests, how do I...?" puzzle-setting, but still leaves it possible to force a puzzle from scratch that works this way (e.g. "you must have visited at least M antechambers and deceated the Key Guardians within, before you can open the chests within which are all the components necessary to create the potion that makes you ElementalLevelBoss-Proof"), for which you can determine a convenient set of requirements.
:::One (simple) combination would be two of three distinct keys (#1, #2 and #3) and three chests ("A", needs #1+2, contains #3; "B" needs 1+3, contains 2; "C" need 2+3, contains 1).
:::Add in the feature of duplicate keys but also a mechanism (or magic, or valid physical reason) which causes keys to be stuck in the locks (or vanish/melt/shatter/etc) upon being used, and you can create an even more complex puzzle, whereby having keys enough to (theoretically) open two chests is actually only enough to open one of them initially as you then lose the ability to attempt to open the other... at least until the opened chest provides new keys enough to open (perhaps by opening a different interim chest, with its own new keys, etc) the one that you did not initially choose. This would greatly expand the number of higher-order "M-of-N" combinations that you could facilitate. And could even created "M>N" requirements (three keys, two (combo-)locks: chest A needs 1+2, chest B needs 1+3; both render any keys inserted beyond further use but also contain a 'spare' 1; you need to externally gain 1+2+3 to eventually open A+B).
:::Exactly how (and why) you do it is open to your own needs.
:::And, if you're open to add an intermediate "locked box", you can exploit the trivial many:one ''and'' one:many relationships by just compounding them together, and maybe even adding more steps; e.g. with the last example of keys 1+2+3 opening A+B, you can offer up (from A, 4)+(from B, 5). To unlock C needs both 4+5 (thus 1+2+3, once removed), which itself handily contains ''all'' the further individual keys (or copies of the one key) required to open D, E, F, ... Z, so grants the stipulation of "3 needed to open 23". Or the earlier 2 keys (non-sticking, or regained by copies) for 3 chests grants the full co-keys needed to open that same key-store (see also {{w|Annett's key}}). Arbitrarily higher permutations of pretty much any initial number of (original) keys and however many intermediate openings (to match the singular key-safe's relatively simple multi-key requirements) steps you through the means to then open an arbitrary number of (final) locks, but you won't get ''any'' of the last locks unlocked if you have not fully satisfied the very first requirement.
:::...although it'd be neater if it was an M-and-N that was more direct, I still think. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.85|141.101.99.85]] 18:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

"other polyhedral dice, with the number of faces denoted by dX (e.g., d10 is a 10-sided die, with numbers from 1 to 10 on it)." - the d10 may be a poor choice as exemplar here; Back in the last century, when I was playing D&D, d10 were typically (and uniquely) numbered 0-9, not 1-10. This may no longer be the case, and I may be showing my age, but if it is still the norm, the d8 or d20 might be a better choice of example. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.6|172.68.210.6]] 02:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:Typically, I've only seen 0-9 d10s, as part of a "d100" dice pair, with one reading 0-9 & the other reading 0⁰-9⁰... Single d10, mostly seem to come in 1-10? Maybe it depends which reseller one shops at... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::They are usually numbered 0-9, but the 0 represents 10, since writing 10 would require that face to have a different font size. It is still a d10, since the die has ten sides, and still cannot roll at 0. The d100 variant does the same thing with 100, but for the added reason that the 00 face actually does mean 0 when the other die rolls a 1-9. This is the convention, so a die that actually writes 10 on it instead of 0 will be rare. [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 23:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

You've all been nerd-sniped. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:53, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Combinatorics degree? Does such a degree really exist? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.130.37|162.158.130.37]] 17:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:There are degrees for all kinds of things. A quick search reveals a number of "Combinatorics" or "Combinatorics and <Foo>" (e.g. "Optimisation") degrees. Some of them are marked as Masters degrees, and I haven't dug into the others to see if there are any 'pure' undergraduate ones (apart from anything else, I know there are crucial differences between the structures and scopes of UK and US 'degree courses' to consider, in particular), but there seems to be representation on both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere, e.g. Oceana).
:At the very least, it could be a selected specialised segment of an even wider mathematical degree course, or a cross-disciplinary one (like my own, which was part under Physics and part under Computing, but could have included a Stats-based element). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 19:07, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::So "Combinatorics and <Foo>" would be meta-combinatorics, since it is combining something with something else. :) [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 20:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
:::I shall do my degree in "Combinatorics, Selectivity, Comparison, Decision Making and/or Cross-Designation (Choose Any Three)"... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.5|172.70.90.5]] 21:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm trying this on my DM. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Can someone put into the Explanation the current details regarding the nature of cursed arrows, in whatever edition of DnD we're currently up to. (8th? I've lost track.) In different DnD-like media, I know that it can act somewhat negatively (reduces aim accuracy) or even outright problematic (it curses the person loosing the projectile; or even renders the bow otherwise useless, as analogue to a cursed weapon), or else reduces/inverts the damage (breaks easier, or essentially acts like a thrown beneficial potion to increase health/strength/stamina/etc of the target). I assume that it one of these, from the assumption that the player desires a "good enough" roll to avoid. On the other hand, cursed projectiles could be treated akin to poisoned arrows or vengeful weapons in doing more, better or more targeted damage (in which case it's a powerful aid, the archer is instead taking a chance of using up a stock of 'special arrows', perhaps in line with not knowing whether their foe ''needs'' that extra degree of offensive power). But, at least from the explaining text's approach to dice-roll results, that doesn't exactly mesh with the typical "higher is better" rolling mantra. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.129|172.70.86.129]] 22:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think making an M-of-N mechanism with physical locks would be "extremely cumbersome". For example you could have a bolt that must be drawn back to open the mechanism, with several padlocks over it, where the shackle of each padlock blocks the motion of the bolt, such that the distance you can draw the bolt is proportional to how many padlocks are removed. Removing any m of the n padlocks gives you enough range of motion to open the mechanism.
[[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.224|172.71.154.224]] 23:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

A DM with a degree in Combinatorics would be unlikely to find this annoying.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.245|162.158.62.245]] 05:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

With up to three D&D dice, it is impossible to achieve 2/9 exactly. The closest you can get is with d6 + 2d10x10 >= 146 (where d10x10 denotes the tens die, ranging from 10 to 100) yielding a probability of 133/600 = 0.2216667. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

With four D&D dice, 2d6 + d8 + d10 >= 21 and d10 + 2d12 + d20 >= 36 are alternate solutions. The former is more feasible than 3d6 + d4 for those who don't have three d6's. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

You can do it with two dice, although not by summation. Roll 2d3; if 1,1, or 3,3 pass, else fail. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.88|162.158.167.88]] 19:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Could someone explain option 6, multiplying two six-sided dice, with a threshold of > 20? I think 66, 65, 64, 56, 55, and 46 all work, making it ... equivalent to 1D6.
[[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:It's >= 20, so 54 and 45 work as well. That brings the probability up to 8/36 = 2/9. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 13:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

;Scales for locking
Wouldn't using scales for the chests that measure their current mass and lock/open the doors based on whether the chest still has the object work for an M-of-N encryption? A simple example: A chest has 2.5 kg of Au, with the chest itself and its combination lock being 20 kg. The next door opens iff the chest's total mass is less than 21 kg. Removing all the Au from the chest opens the door. The second one has an object with the mass of 3 kg, and the chest itself is 22 kg, with ''that'' door opening if the chest's mass is between 23 and 24 kg. Removing the object and replacing it with 1 kg of Au opens the door. Long story short: no, one does not need magic for realizing an M-of-N encryption, one just needs scales for a physical M-of-N encryption. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.25|172.68.245.25]] 08:16, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

== Randall doesn't understand probability or games ==

You don't need to combine the probabilities. You just make two checks. The first check is even odds of cursed / normal. If the check fails and it's cursed, presumably you proceed with the consequences of grabbing a cursed arrow, whatever that might be. In any case, whether the first arrow was normal, or the curse doesn't prevent you from grabbing and firing another arrow, the second check is either 4:9 (if the first arrow was normal) or 5:9 (if it was cursed). (These odds are written as the number of normal arrows remaining : the total number of arrows.)

There is no reason to roll the dice given in the comic. He just made up some dice rolls vaguely similar to those that he heard someone mention in the context of tabletop games, and he's certainly never actually played in one. You can convert these probabilities into decimal form and use a d100 for every check. Probabilistic results like these are the reason the d100 is in the game. (You can also roll 2d10, selecting one of them to be the tens digit and the other to be the units digit.)

The chance of succeeding (choosing a normal arrow) on the first check is 50%, so you can use any type of dice, and success is rolling above X/2, X = faces of the dice.

The chance of succeeding on the second check is 4/9 if the first arrow was normal, or about 44%. So you succeed on a roll of 44 or less. The chance is 5/9 if the first arrow was cursed, or about 56%. So you succeed on a roll of 56 or less.

You don't need a degree in anything to reach these conclusions. {{unsigned ip|172.70.83.67|20:51, 17 March 2025‎}}

== Am i the only one being '''extremely''' confused by the trivia section? ==

This is the current trivia section, emphasis mine:
:When this comic was originally released, the '''official title of this page was "xkcd: D Combinatorics", instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics", due to an apparent error on Randall's end.''' [...]

:Whatever the precise problem, the ampersand also presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]], an issue that is said to be only fixable by [[User:Jeff]], who has been inactive for over a year now.

Am i the only one who sees the issue?
*3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.
**"official title", so on xkcd.com
**""xkcd: D Combinatorics", instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics"" - only pages on xkcd.com start with "xkcd: "
**"error on Randall's end"

*2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.
**"title of this page" - "this" means the one you're reading, the wiki
**"presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]" - Our wiki's rss feed

Am I missing something? Was this an error on xkcd.com, on this wiki, or both? People keep treating it as if it's coherent. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:10, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:Ok the trivia is definitely wrong, as you can see [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ here], it's the official xkcd.com page name that was wrong. Also, and this isn't mentioned anywhere, the official title displayed on the xkcd.com site was wrong too! It had an additional semicolon. The trivia needs to be updated, i also added it to edited comics cat. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:22, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
::As I understand it (and understood it at the time), Randall did something wrong in creating his initial comic such that the "Created by a BOT" script created the page (and Talk page, and ''possibly'' populated a new RSS entry) with erroneous data.
::Whether that was done before or after the web.archive page, I don't know (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there), nor if/when any subsequent change was done by Randall.
::I do know that I tested several browsers, at the time, and "&D" (and/or "&D;") and the lower-case equivalents only ever showed as a literal. But some kind of ''cleanHTML()'' function might well have been less willing to 'transmit' an unknown code, as it doesn't necessarily have access to all the DTD <!ENTITY ...> settings that a downstream browser might use (or the inbuilt latest HTML5 standards) so might have wanted to play safe upon finding ''anything'' that vaguely fits the "<ampersand><NAME><semicolon>" format, and just splice it out. I have no idea how RSS writers/readers deal with this (except some basic sanity checking for allowable character sequences, which seems to be the exact problem here after initially invalid data was entered upstream if it should have been &a&zwj;mp;ed when added in). I would check how my Perl environment and HTML-related modules deal with it, but I suspect it's done through sometging like PHP instead.
::(Escaped/unescaped data is notorious, when raw data is HTMLised, but that read in as raw and ''further'' HTMLised in multiple cycles, you end up with stuff like &a&zwj;mp;amp;amp;pound; popping up in things.)
::As far as most of the Trivia is concerned (including the currently hidden bits of it) I don't think it's wrong, though I can't say it's right without investigating the editor's(/editors'?) line of thinking all the way through at leisure. But it's a short and sweet precis of the basic issue, unless you want to start with XHTML Processing 101 and then get properly into DOM object parsing and various applicable WebTestKit criteria before deciding ''exactly'' where the fail-unsafe happened.
::With the "xkcd: D Combinatorics" bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing "<site name>: <page title>", but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that. I've used more different browsers than you've had hot keyboards, however, and I can believe that someone's does that sort of thing. If it's not a non-browser renderer/scraper, instead. Noting that the error came from xkcd(.com) and then caused problems on explainxkcd(.com), so I don't think there's an issue with that, but it's trivial to change to the browser-nonspecific (''and'' site-nonspecific) barebones "D Combinatorics" if that's what it is for someone ''with'' a better title-bar or tab-titling system than I have at the moment.
::Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.45|172.71.241.45]] 22:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
{{Outdent|:::}}
(my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there)
In Chrome at least, you can type "thisisunsafe" to bypass security prompts.

With the "xkcd: D Combinatorics" bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing "<site name>: <page title>", but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that.
I'm not sure what you mean? [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ This link's browser tab name] is always "xkcd: D Combinatorics" when i try it, both on mobile and on desktop Chrome.

Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail.
All i'm saying is that the most basic thing, "Was this problem of the wiki or of the official site?", not only isn't clearly answered but the problem itself isn't even fully mentioned (see last sentence of message you replied to). It can't be complete if it includes only half of the information, right? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:14, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
:I believe what you might be missing, that it seems everyone else missed that you missed, is that there are bots who create the new ExplainXKCD pages '''''using''''' XKCD's new page when one appears. So, if Randall put it wrong - as everything keeps saying - that means the bots copy said mistake into the new ExplainXKCD page. What all these authors are doing is assuming everyone knows that THIS is how this site works. Have I addressed your issue now? (Assuming you ever come back and see this, and assuming I ever come back and see your reply, LOL!). I note that, running 5 months late, that the webpage title on XKCD is still "D", not "D&D", while the visible title is correct. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
::Thank you. Yes, I knew that the bot creates the new page, and that this also meant the page on this wiki was wrong initially, but, unlike xkcd.com, this wiki's RSS was seemingly broken by this comic, while xkcd.com wasn't. Anyway, I think i have a pretty good picture, but it still isn't clear enough to rewrite the Trivia section. Good catch! I had also noted that incorrect tab title on xkcd.com on my last comment, which further complicates explaining the situation in the actual trivia section. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:53, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

'''Ok so here's what we know so far:'''
* The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Combinatorics" instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics". This was never fixed.

* The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Roll" instead of "xkcd: D&D Roll". This was never fixed.

----

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D&D; Combinatorics". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D&D; Roll". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/

----

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D Combinatorics". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&oldid=357629

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D Roll". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&oldid=360160

----

*Our RSS feed was broken: [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]

* I don't know if there were other errors.
**Did Randall's RSS feed also break? Or just explainxkcd's?
**Did our RSS break again when [[3028: D&D Roll]] was released?

----

The inconsistencies I pointed out in the beginning are still valid:

*3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.
**"official title", so on xkcd.com
**""xkcd: D Combinatorics", instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics"" - only pages on xkcd.com start with "xkcd: "
**"error on Randall's end"

*2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.
**"title of this page" - "this" means the one you're reading, the wiki
**"presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]" - Our wiki's rss feed

Someone just needs to reasearch this a bit more and create a simple and clear Trivia section, explaining what happened. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 12:57, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
:It seems like you're vastly overthinking this. (Apologies for the delay, due to a device change I've been away from XKCD for a while and actually my comment here was the last one I made before my switch and is the only evidence of where I left off). Randall's site made a mistake because ampersand is a special character in HTML (the language of webpages), apparently his site doesn't sanitize input (remember Bobby Tables?), or not properly, it just dropped it as "I don't know what you want, so I'm skipping it". I'm not sure if it's used for anything else, but for one it's used to show special characters, such as itself: showing an ampersand is "[ampersand]amp;" (for the same reasons I don't want to use an ACTUAL ampersand here, and I don't want to make the detour of finding out how to do the same thing in wiki language), and a non-breaking space is "[ampersand]nbsp;" (meaning don't use THIS space to wrap the line, permanently keep these words together, and don't lump multiple spaces into one, like to indent things), I've used them both a lot when writing my own websites. Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.

:Also, trying to understand by comparing the sites is inappropriate and doesn't make sense. All Wikis seem to be built on the same foundations, so a technical mistake like this that would happen on one, we can reasonably assume would similarly happen on other wikis. THEN comparing would make sense. But Randall's site isn't a wiki, there's no reason to believe it has equivalent vulnerabilities, it's a separate site, programmed separately, maybe XKCD sanitizes better or worse than wikis do, than this wiki does. Who knows, it doesn't really matter, this is just noting that the page titles weren't created properly.

:Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying "this page" means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily. This wiki is about another website, so "this page" is also a valid way to talk about this comic's original page, on XKCD. Honestly, I don't know anything about the RSS feed, what it does, and how it's relevant to this issue in order to address that evidence, but you're down to 4 references to XKCD vs. 1 to ExplainXKCD. Or 3-1 plus 1 ambiguous. And what all this has to do with this wiki is the same as always: This site is about his. When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA. Like if Randall misspells something, we put that in the Trivia, if he replaces the comic with a corrected one, that goes in the Trivia too.

:In summary, XKCD made a mistake, Randall didn't notice to fix it, the bots copied it. Most likely, nothing HERE did anything wrong, as far as I can tell. The bots correctly copied the comic's name as it was listed, like it should, they couldn't know to look for a more complete title. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 00:23, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

::Welcome back!

Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.
::To me, it doesn't seem like that's everything. Randall's site was broken in two different ways for two different comics on two different occasions, and only one of the two issues was later fixed in both comics, while the other one was never fixed in both comics. Also, we know it broke this wiki's RSS feed. Did it break Randall's RSS feed too? Did our RSS break ''again'' when Randall released the second broken comic [[3028: D&D Roll]]? I don't know because the Trivia sections for these two comics are ambiguous.

Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying "this page" means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily.
:: I wish that were the case, but many editors here oftentimes use "this page" to refer to this wiki's page, "the one you're reading right now", '''especially''' in trivia sections.

When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA.
::That's true, but we sometimes use the trivia sections to talk about explainxkcd, such as the trivia section for comics {{cn}} and [[Papyrus]]. In these 2 D&D comics, I think the errors on both sites are relevant, but they should be clearly defined in their respective Trivia sections and currently they are not.

::We can now either rephrase the current trivia sections, or write up new ones. Since you seem to be the only person actively engaged in this discussion, could you give it a try, even if the details about the RSS feeds aren't known yet? You can use [[#help|this list I made earlier]] if you want. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:39, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
::: Funny, I just reached 3028, with the same issue. I note down a list of which comics I've edited/commented on, to try to remember to check for replies, and seeing the issue there I realized I forgot to note this one so came back to double-check if I had done anything here, and saw your replies :) I feel fairly sure that once upon a time I got some familiarity with the terms "RSS" and "RSS feed", possibly in a class, but that'd be 20, 25 years ago. I now have '''NOTHING'''. I don't know what it is, what it does, how to check if it's broken, why to care, or even how to look at it. Therefore I am completely unable to speak about it, and all I'm getting here about it is that's the main thing anyone thinks should be in the Trivia! Meaning, no, I'm not the one to write/edit the Trivia. What I know is what I said, that the issue is obvious to those of us who have handwritten webpages: Ampersand is an escape character used in HTML, to do special things, like display itself, non-breaking spaces, even an alternate way to show special characters like accented characters, music notes, things that can't be typed on a standard keyboard. It's worth noting that in programming for Windows, ampersand marks a character to underline, usually for menus to identify the hotkey, like "Files" means Alt-F opens the Files menu, the name would be typed programmatically "&Files". I've seen programs that don't sanitize their input that would render the name of this comic as "DD Combinatorics". BTW, for this I went to the Wiki Editing help to check what I had to do for an ampersand (turns out: nothing, it's generally fine), and the Wiki editor ALSO makes use of the ampersand for such things as special characters, so you could look there to see examples - I spotted one was to display such a code instead of interpret it, like &nbsp; [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:22, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

::::Welcome back! Thanks for your reply.

[A]ll I'm getting here about it is that [the RSS feed] is the main thing anyone thinks should be in the Trivia!

::::You are mistaken. At the bottom of this talk page, I have tried to make a lis tof all the things previous editors tried to clealrly add to the Trivia section. There are currently 4 errors, and only 1 of them is about the RSS feed. All the other errors aren't related to the RSS feed (even though they broke it). Thus, if one doesn't know anything about RSS feeds, they can still write up three quarters of the Trivia section. I think that's better than nothing! --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 15:26, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

:Our RSS didn't break twice. It was made broken, due to [[3015]]'s error making it invalid, and was still broken by the time [[3028]] added its own example.
:If you do whatever you need to look at the RSS 'raw' (e.g. by using <code>view-source:https://explainxkcd.com/rss.xml</code>, if that's what works in your browser), you'll note that the first problematic ampersands are in 3028's data, in data which is ordered in newest-to-oldest order. Before that existed, it would have been 3015's initial-breaking ampersanding, which is still wrong. If someone went in and "ampersand-coded" the ampersand, they could 'fix' 3028 and it would still fail on 3015, or vice-versa. You (or someone who could) would of course have to solve both, to get it working. And it was made broken (thanks to being served 'bad' data, without anything having any instruction to re-present it in the 'good' form) consistently from 3015's time onwards. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 16:45, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

::Makes sense! Thanks. Did Randall's also break? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:33, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
:::His site? Probably not so that casual browsing would notice. There are more strict and less strict ways to deal with HTML data, and a lone ampersand can probably sneak through a standard web-page and be intepreted normally if it doesn't match an "&entity;" code. And xkcd.com's RSS feed only features the last three comics. I assume, therefore, only last week's... but ask me again when we get an additional special comic, not Monday, Wednesday or Friday, and we either get a four-deep history (being set to a week) or a three-deep history (drops the "just under one week ago" one out, early). But it means that the feed is absent of either 3015 or 3028 data, and is short and sweet and working ''at the moment''. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 23:38, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
:::...but, doing the research tha you could have done:
:::*Google for "xkcd 3015" and "D: Combinatrics" (no ampersand-D at all) is the 'hit' title, directly above "3015: D&D Combinatorics" of this site.
:::**Google is probably being consistent with the target page data for xkcd (see below) ''and'' the current site of the target explainxkcd page, which we've changed to be 'right'.
:::*Within the source for xkcd's 3015 comic, there's <code><nowiki><title>xkcd: D Combinatorics</title></nowiki></code> (no ampersand-D, probably because the ampersand-D was considered invalid and fell out of the publishing process for the title-tag).
:::*Next up, there's a meta-tag: <code><nowiki><meta property="og:title" content="D&amp;D Combinatorics"></nowiki></code>, which I had to make work here (it's an amp-entity, which I've had to write as amp-entity-for-amp, etc). This was either 'corrected' automatically, or later sanitised manually.
:::*There's then <code><nowiki><div id="ctitle">D&D Combinatorics</div></nowiki></code> with a 'raw' ampersand(-D), seemingly happily being treated as entirely literal, not broken-entity.
:::*Within the img-tag for the comic, there's <code><nowiki>... alt="D&amp;D Combinatorics" ...</nowiki></code> (again, I had to meta-it, in this edit, to outwardly show as the simple ampersand entity that it is). Sanitised/corrected/whatever, who knows.
:::Either tag-parameters derived from composed data are automatically sanitised, by whatever publishing mechanism Randall employs, or he got enough errors when it was wrong to go back in and change the othem so that they wouldn't error on him.
:::Neither inducing an error, nor getting corrected (even automatically), the content of the title-tag is in a zone of uncaring-strictness where it 'is wrong' but fails-safe in a way that nobody has done anything about, rather than ever having halted the page-rendering.
:::Meanwhile, all other 'plaintext' non-tag (but of course extenrally tagged) content is happily working with no strictness worries.
:::This is my "took two minutes to actually look at this issue" answer, of course, and maybe you've looked and deduced alternative explanations for what I see. But then probably you wouldn't have been asking any of these questions in the first place. I don't usually specifically read any of your contributions here (too much work, deciding whether your latest blitz on the wiki was worth it or not), but you got my attention as it's part of a larger conversation with other people. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 00:05, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

::::Sure! That's also what the IP at the top of this talk page pointed out, but you were more detailed. I guess that's also trivially related to the comic, which eans we should probably place that TOO in the trivia section. Argh it never ends! At least your comment is relatively easy to parse and could be just inserted in the articles directly with a few tweaks. But, we should probably change it a bit to connect it to the first issue in the to-do list for the trivia sections.

::::So, to recap, what we need to add to the trivia section is:

* The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Combinatorics" instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics". '''This is also what appears in Google results.''' This was never fixed.

* The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Roll" instead of "xkcd: D&D Roll". '''This is also what appears in Google results.''' This was never fixed.
**We now know these issues are caused by the... thing you described in your comment.
----

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D&D; Combinatorics". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D&D; Roll". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/

**I'm not sure if you covered this in your reply? "D&D;" seems a weird failure, why would the semicolon be after the "D"? This was fixed but I guess you could do your magic by inspecting the source of the archived version to see what went wrong.

----

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D Combinatorics". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&oldid=357629

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D Roll". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&oldid=360160
**Caused by the issue in the first bullet

----

*Our RSS feed was broken (and remained broken after [[3028: D&D Roll]]): [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]

*Randall's RSS feed didn't noticeably break.

----

::::And i think that's everything? Now we just need to actually polish it and put it in the two articles. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Hey, [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]], what was actually wrong with my edit? (For some reason when I made that edit I was logged into an old account I had forgotten about, [[User:Unexplainedthing]]; I guess the login was saved in my browser... but only used that account in that tab... idk, probably user error, but anyway, it was my edit.) 
I summarized some of the points that had already been made just above. The parts I added were things I could confirm for myself: the browser title is wrong, the archive of the site shows that the on-site title was originally wrong, the same holds for 3028. And the explain xkcd RSS feed is what was broken, according to all of the other discussion I see, though I don't really know how to go about verifying that myself. I did remove part of the explanation that (to me) felt pointlessly speculative, and I removed the 'incomplete' tag because I felt the explanation was now adequate; this may have been mistaken and/or premature, but based on your edit summary, it doesn't seem to me like that's the part you took issue with. Am I missing something? [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 20:33, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

:You can read everything that was wrong in your edit by reading what's above your reply. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 19:43, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Do you mean the bullet points that I largely used as a basis when making my edits? Look, I don't know, maybe I just lose all my sanity and intelligence when I open this site. I'm barely even kidding, I might honestly just be doing a terrible job at comprehending things and mucking it all up for everyone else. But I certainly don't ''see'' what I'm getting wrong. Apologies, but I could use an actual explanation, if anyone wants to give one. [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 04:17, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

3028: D&D Roll

2025-08-14T20:44:57Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Trivia */ more cautious edit, adding only things that are clear and unambiguously true, and if you revert this edit I will be extremely confused unless there's a very good explanation

{{comic
| number = 3028
| date = December 23, 2024
| title = D&D Roll
| image = dnd_roll_2x.png
| imagesize = 312x313px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Under some circumstances, if you throw a D8 and then a D12 at an enemy, thanks to the D8's greater pointiness you actually have to roll a D12 and D8 respectively to determine damage.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a scene from a tabletop roleplaying game, probably {{w|Dungeons & Dragons}}. In [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]], the same people, [[Cueball]], [[Megan]], [[Ponytail]], [[White Hat]] and [[Knit Cap]], are seated playing D&D in the same seats, where Cueball seems to represent [[Randall]].

Here Cueball announces "I roll D20... 18," referring to rolling a 20-sided die and getting the relatively high score of 18, presumably while in a fight with a {{w|kobold (Dungeons & Dragons)|kobold}} (a small reptilian humanoid creature in D&D.) The {{w|gamemaster|Dungeon Master}} (DM, or game master), Ponytail, responds that the kobold is unaffected, but suggests using a sword instead, pointing out the absurdity of trying to defeat an enemy by rolling dice at them. (Ponytail was also the dungeon master in the previous D&D comic).

Cueball made the mistake of assuming that Ponytail would understand which of his weapons or other {{w|melee}} attacks he intended to use, but she had no way of knowing that, so she decided to gently tease him about the omission. This is a common mistake, and being gently made fun of is a common result. The player will usually be allowed to state the specific attack intended and roll again.{{acn}} It could also have to do with the idea that some people forget D&D is a roleplaying game and just roll dice without explaining, for example, ''how'' they charm the shopkeeper.

However, the possibility exists that the players' characters have actual dice, such as those which were role-played as being produced in [[244: Tabletop Roleplaying]]. The title text suggests that if you literally threw dice as weapons, an eight-sided die (D8) would do more damage than a twelve-sided die (D12) because of its {{w|Dice#Common variations|pointier shape}}, so ironically, you might need to roll the D12 to determine the D8's damage and vice versa, in "some circumstances." As per the Background below, those circumstances are considerably slight. The effectiveness of the [[2626: d65536|d65536]] in this context has yet to be determined.

===Background===
When attacking an enemy in D&D, regardless of the weapon used, the attack starts with a d20 roll to see if it lands a solid hit. If a sufficiently high (or in the earliest editions, sufficiently low) number is rolled, the attack hits, and then further dice (chosen depending on the weapon's form and any magic it might possess) are rolled to determine damage. Before any dice can be rolled at all, however, the player must declare which enemy they are attacking and what with. This is trivial if the attacking character always uses the same weapon and is facing a single enemy, but becomes an important question if the fight is more complex. Consider a case where there are two kobolds present, one wearing plate armor while the other has only a loincloth on (the armor requiring a better d20 roll to defeat), and the player carries both a greatsword (dealing heavy general damage) and the magical "Icepick of Instant Kobold Death" (normally ignored but in this case very useful) and also has magic item that can shoot a destructive [https://5e.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scorchingRay.htm ''Scorching Ray'']. There are also certain weapons that deal subpar damage on a typical attack, but trigger a powerful extra effect on a very good roll such as 18, making it even more important to specify which weapon one is using before making the roll. A cheating player might roll first, and then decide which weapon they were using and on which target. This could also be used to avoid wasting a weapon (or [[3015: D&D Combinatorics|particular ammunition]]) with limited uses.

By D&D 5 rules, a stone hurled from a sling does [https://5e.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#simpleWeapons 1d4 bludgeoning damage]. A sling bullet typically weighs [https://5e.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/equipment.htm#tableAdventuringGear 3/40 pound (1.2 oz, 35 g)], a plausible weight for a normal-sized die made of a moderately dense material. Presumably, an object of similar weight that's thrown "by hand" rather than with a sling would do less damage, though a heavier object might do similar damage (albeit with less range). The D&D 3.5 spell [https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicStone.htm ''Magic Stone''] enhances ordinary small stones so they do 1d6+1 damage when hurled, or 2d6+2 when striking undead creatures. So depending on the setup, a D&D character throwing a die at an enemy could theoretically cause considerable harm, but would normally be much better served with an intentionally crafted weapon.

Alternately, DMs may take umbrage at a player's presumption to roll dice for actions before being asked to, and this could be interpreted as a chiding. Sometimes rolls are not necessary in cases where success is automatic (the kobold is effectively helpless) or impossible (the kobold is magically immune to physical attacks), although it should be the DM's own choice whether to still test for a meaningful critical [https://rpgmuseum.fandom.com/wiki/Critical_failure failure] or [https://rpgmuseum.fandom.com/wiki/Critical_hit success], despite it being an apparently foregone conclusion of either kind. There are also other circumstances where the required dice is(/are) different ''in this instance'' from that which the player may assume. From a practical perspective, if the performed rolling of the dice is not required (or correctly composed) for the DM's purposes, they can choose to ignore it and/or ask for some other roll(s) to be made. It may then be the player that might be most upset by having rolled a 'good' roll that has been 'wasted', on the principle that they would have liked it to have it happen later, when it actually mattered, despite this being statistically irrelevant, assuming that the DM doesn't keep any such details mysteriously hidden.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, Megan, Ponytail, White Hat, and Knit Cap are sitting around a table in a tabletop gaming session. Both Cueball and Knit Cap are sitting in office chairs at the ends of the table, with Cueball leaning forward and holding his hand above the table and Knit Cap leaning back on her arm. Behind the table, Megan sits to the left of Ponytail and White Hat to the right. They are both looking at Ponytail, while Ponytail is looking at Cueball. Objects such as dice, miniatures, a map, and papers are on the table.]
:Cueball: I roll D20... 18.
:Ponytail: The kobold is unaffected.
:Ponytail: Honestly, I don't know why you thought dice would help. You should probably try a sword or something instead.

==Trivia==
{{incomplete|The trivia section is incomplete. Add the missing info from '''[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Talk:3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics#help this talk page section].''' See also the [[3015: D&D Combinatorics#Trivia|trivia section of the comic 3015: D&D Combinatorics]].}}

This comic's title in the browser is mistakenly displayed as "xkcd: D Roll" instead of "xkcd: D&D Roll." This was likely due to a technical error in how the ampersand character (“&”) was processed by the system that generated the title. It seems the software may have misinterpreted "&D" as the beginning of an HTML character entity, even though "&D" is not a valid one. When originally uploaded, the title above the comic was incorrectly displayed as "D&D; Roll"; this was later fixed.

Whatever the precise problem, a similar error also [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]] (just of this wiki or also xkcd's?), an issue that can only be fixed by [[User:Jeff]], who has been inactive since July 2023.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]

Talk:3015: D&D Combinatorics

2025-08-14T20:34:34Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: formatting

Talk:3015: D&D Combinatorics

2025-08-14T20:33:22Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: added comment

The bot originally created this page as “D Combinatorics”. I renamed it to the correct title and tried to get as many of the references as possible (including a few redirects). [[User:JBYoshi|JBYoshi]] ([[User talk:JBYoshi|talk]]) 00:54, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

:The title in the Atom feed (which I'm assuming the bot consumes) is "D Combinatorics". I'm guessing something in Randall's pipeline didn't like the ampersand. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.160|162.158.154.160]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

::Yup, if you look at [https://xkcd.com/3015/info.0.json 3015's JSON] you see that <code>title</code> and <code>safe_title</code> differ, and if you look at the HTML page source you'll see '''3''' different things: <code><title>xkcd: D Combinatorics</title></code>, <code><meta property="og:title" content="D&amp;D Combinatorics"></code>, and <code><div id="ctitle">D&D Combinatorics</div></code>! So probably what happened is Randall entered D&D but was supposed to enter D&amp;D, and the openGraph tags adder code, having to be HTML-aware, decoded & normalized D&D as HTML would, but the other parts of the pipeline just ate it for some reason. {{unsigned ip|172.69.65.224|06:09, 23 November 2024}}

::: The problem now is that the feed doesn't validate (because it contains a bare &) and it's also not updating (maybe because of the previous problem). --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.119.13|172.71.119.13]] 11:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

::: Well, it's updating now, but it still doesn't validate. Sigh... --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.195|172.70.160.195]] 11:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

What are the odds of rolling 16 or higher on 3D6+D4? 3D6 average 10.5, D4 average is 2.5, total average should be 13. I do not know how to proceed from here. {{unsigned ip|172.71.147.206|01:14, 23 November 2024}}
:By raw combinatorics: 71 + 52 + 34 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 1 ways to get each of 16 - 22 respectively, for a total of 192, out of 4(6^3) = 864 total. 192/864 simplifies to exactly 2/9. I have no idea how Randall found this; if anyone has an idea, please let me know. [[User:Kaisheng21|Kaisheng21]] ([[User talk:Kaisheng21|talk]]) 01:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I used some simple python code to loop over every dice and confirm and it's 2/9 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I suspect there is no better way of doing it than looping over the dice. As to how Randall discovered it, it was obvious that at least 2d6 would be needed (since d6 is the only D&D dice that has a multiple of 3 sides), and after that my guess is Randall used a combination of a python script and some experimentation to land on the correct choice of dice. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.56|172.70.162.56]] 14:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

It seems like we edited the transcript at the same time. The odds of rolling 16 or higher in this situation seem to be 2/9? [[User:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|Darkmatterisntsquirrels]] ([[User talk:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|talk]]) 01:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

: There are 864 possible rolls (6 * 6 * 6 * 4). If you enumerate all of the rolls you will find that 192 are 16 or higher. 192/864 = 2/9, the value from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I added a table of outcomes to clarify how it works out to 2/9, anyone know how to make it pretty? -- Laurence Cheers {{unsigned ip|172.71.150.247|02:03, 24 November 2024}}

A much simpler approach: Roll two six sided dice and sum the result. You are successful if the result is 5 or 9. That happens 8 times out of 36. 8/36 = 2/9. (Or successful if the sum is 4 or 6, or 2 or 7, or 2,3,4 or 11, or several other combinations.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Clever, but dice rolls in D&D involving summing all the dice, applying modifiers, if any, and then comparing to one or more threshold values. Your method makes it very difficult to apply modifiers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.8|162.158.41.8]] 02:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I think you misunderstand the problem here. This is not skill, no modifiers apply, it's purely probability [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Minor quibble, arrows aren't fired (unless they're flaming or self-propelled, perhaps), they are shot. (Shotguns are fired of course.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.73|162.158.41.73]] 02:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Arrows are "loosed", even more accurately. At least to avoid the confusion from how so many things may be shot, or ''a'' shot. (Many different nouns, from a physical measure of liquer/coffee/vaccine to a projectile, or an even abstract fundemental of chance; and, as verb, projectiles perhps may be shot, then so may their targets.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 14:32, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Well, lets not quarrel over it.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.67|172.71.103.67]] 14:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
:Too many barbed comments, and I'd be all of a quiver... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.153|141.101.99.153]] 14:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Rolling 22 or lower on percentile dice (or, equivalently, 79 or higher) is close enough, and easier to come up with. (Give or take whether 00 is treated as 100 or zero.) Or directly represent the action: roll a d10. If it's 1-5, you lose. If it's 6-10, roll again; if it's 1-5 you lose, 6-9 you win, 10 roll again. (Modify slightly if you want to distinguish the case of grabbing *two* cursed arrows.) [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Alternative exact solution for getting this probability using dice: Roll: 1d8, 2d6, 1d4 succeed on 19 or higher.{{unsigned ip|172.68.55.11|03:54, 23 November 2024}}

I couldn’t remember the formula for binomial coefficients (“n choose k”), but there’s an easy way to calculate that the probability of drawing no cursed arrows is 2/9 without that formula. You just need to multiply the probabilities that each of the arrows drawn is not cursed. Since only two arrows are drawn, you only have to multiply two numbers.

The probability that the first arrow is not cursed is 5/10 – there are 5 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 10 total. After taking out one non-cursed arrow, there are 4 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 9 total, so the probability that the second arrow is not cursed is 4/9. Multiplying the two probabilities, the probability of drawing two non-cursed arrows is (4*5)/(10*9) = 20/90 = 2/9.

I was considering writing this observation in the Explanation section of the page, but I’m not if it belongs there. This solution avoids using formulas from combinatorics, so it might not be connected enough to the comic.—[[User:Roryokane|Roryokane]] ([[User talk:Roryokane|talk]]) 06:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

My simple-minded approach:
* Roll d10 once for your first arrow: if 1 to 5, the arrow is cursed, otherwise not;
* Roll d10 again for your second arrow: same rules, but repeat until you have a different number from the first one (so d10 is in fact only a d9 this time)
* I won't calculate probabilities – these are your arrows, live with it ;-) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.51|172.69.109.51]] 07:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:That has the benefit (over 3d6+1d4) of telling you which arrow(s) (if either) was cursed. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 07:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::Also tells you how many cursed arrows are left, which is useful if the next player wants to take their chances with them too.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.68|172.71.103.68]] 14:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
:If you don't like re-rolls, you can make d9 out of 2d3. Nine possibilities, so just assign one of them (perhaps by rolling them one at a time) to be the more significant digit. Don't have a d3 handy? Use d6 and modulo off the extra! (1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=1, 5=2, 6=3) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.150.91|172.68.150.91]] 05:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be doubt that a "N locks and M keys to unlock them" system could be easily accomplished. I think it could be trivial, with strategically interlocking locked-restraints. A chain formed of bike-locks can give a larger locked loop that can be unlocked by just unlocking any ''single'' one of the constituent locks, leaving the other locked loops to not matter (or you could also try the {{w|Borromean rings}} system, whereby it is again secure against itself, until just one ring is opened up to reveal that the rest now ''aren't even locked at all''...). With almost arbitrary ability to cross-link (or, if you will, repeated/alternating-reflected Borromean triplet connections), you can extend the requirements to more than one unlocking being required (by looping chain elements to mre than just the 'adjacent' loops, sideways onto a parallel meta-loop or up/down the chain, all you might do is allow some slack (could be sufficient to get a thing held directly closed by the taut loop-of-loops, but not enough if the passage of the loop through a hasp/sneck actually prevents the otherwise free movement of the final slide-to-unlock action to occur), but a second (or third, or fourth) unlocking can be required to open-end the whole metaloop of locks. At the top end, M=N solutions are also trivial (e.g. two keys, two locks popularly of safety deposit boxes or [[2677: Two Key System|other things]]). Which is not to say that a specific M-of-N puzzle (where 1<M<N) might not need a ''little'' bit of thought to actually design and implement, but there's no obvious reason why all such combinations shouldn't be nicely doable. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 14:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Can we first confirm that the M-of-N Encryption was what Randall was referencing in the first place? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.140|172.71.154.140]] 03:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::No, first confirm that this is what the explanation treats as what Randall was referencing. As it was, "complicated lock mechanics" and/or "magic" were suggested as the only ways of doing this, when this (or what we thought this was) just needs a little thought and N bike-locks suitably entangled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.45|172.70.58.45]] 13:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:I'm glad someone else chimed in on this, because it is definitely ''not'' difficult to require unlocking of multiple discrete locks! I can't even figure out why one might think it would be? [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::I had assumed that the locks were built into the chests (as they sometimes are), and that the chests were physically separated. Using m of n keys on a single chest would merely be complicated, but wouldn't really fulfill the description. Leaving the chests unlocked, but tightly wrapped in a locked chain would be more like drawers of a single "chest". I instead assumed that each of m chests had to be individually opened with its own proper key, but you had n chests to choose from. It was unspecified what would happen if you tried pairing a chest to the wrong key; perhaps both the key and the chest would be disabled (melted/stuck/burned/teleported). (And yes, needing only a subset of the chests, but any sufficiently large subset will do, is a semi-standard class of problem; a search for Byzantine Generals or PAXOS algorithm will get you started.) [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:::For certain combinations of Ms and Ns, one solution is to have each chest have M locks (that must all be unlocked), such that each possible combination of M keys fully opens (at least) one chest, within which are the necessary complimentary keys to now fully unlock every other chest. A looser version is to have possibly only M/2 (or M/3, etc) locks in a configuration whereby you get to open any given two (or 3+) chests that only produce the full set of keys (and probably spares), but does leave it open to being exploited as "we could only open the one chest, and maybe one or two others with (M/2)<(owned keys)<(M) partial key overlap but at least it had ''some'' of the available treasure", unless designed to not work like that.
:::The limited subset of workable {M,N} values makes it impractical as "I have N chests and M chests, how do I...?" puzzle-setting, but still leaves it possible to force a puzzle from scratch that works this way (e.g. "you must have visited at least M antechambers and deceated the Key Guardians within, before you can open the chests within which are all the components necessary to create the potion that makes you ElementalLevelBoss-Proof"), for which you can determine a convenient set of requirements.
:::One (simple) combination would be two of three distinct keys (#1, #2 and #3) and three chests ("A", needs #1+2, contains #3; "B" needs 1+3, contains 2; "C" need 2+3, contains 1).
:::Add in the feature of duplicate keys but also a mechanism (or magic, or valid physical reason) which causes keys to be stuck in the locks (or vanish/melt/shatter/etc) upon being used, and you can create an even more complex puzzle, whereby having keys enough to (theoretically) open two chests is actually only enough to open one of them initially as you then lose the ability to attempt to open the other... at least until the opened chest provides new keys enough to open (perhaps by opening a different interim chest, with its own new keys, etc) the one that you did not initially choose. This would greatly expand the number of higher-order "M-of-N" combinations that you could facilitate. And could even created "M>N" requirements (three keys, two (combo-)locks: chest A needs 1+2, chest B needs 1+3; both render any keys inserted beyond further use but also contain a 'spare' 1; you need to externally gain 1+2+3 to eventually open A+B).
:::Exactly how (and why) you do it is open to your own needs.
:::And, if you're open to add an intermediate "locked box", you can exploit the trivial many:one ''and'' one:many relationships by just compounding them together, and maybe even adding more steps; e.g. with the last example of keys 1+2+3 opening A+B, you can offer up (from A, 4)+(from B, 5). To unlock C needs both 4+5 (thus 1+2+3, once removed), which itself handily contains ''all'' the further individual keys (or copies of the one key) required to open D, E, F, ... Z, so grants the stipulation of "3 needed to open 23". Or the earlier 2 keys (non-sticking, or regained by copies) for 3 chests grants the full co-keys needed to open that same key-store (see also {{w|Annett's key}}). Arbitrarily higher permutations of pretty much any initial number of (original) keys and however many intermediate openings (to match the singular key-safe's relatively simple multi-key requirements) steps you through the means to then open an arbitrary number of (final) locks, but you won't get ''any'' of the last locks unlocked if you have not fully satisfied the very first requirement.
:::...although it'd be neater if it was an M-and-N that was more direct, I still think. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.85|141.101.99.85]] 18:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

"other polyhedral dice, with the number of faces denoted by dX (e.g., d10 is a 10-sided die, with numbers from 1 to 10 on it)." - the d10 may be a poor choice as exemplar here; Back in the last century, when I was playing D&D, d10 were typically (and uniquely) numbered 0-9, not 1-10. This may no longer be the case, and I may be showing my age, but if it is still the norm, the d8 or d20 might be a better choice of example. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.6|172.68.210.6]] 02:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:Typically, I've only seen 0-9 d10s, as part of a "d100" dice pair, with one reading 0-9 & the other reading 0⁰-9⁰... Single d10, mostly seem to come in 1-10? Maybe it depends which reseller one shops at... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::They are usually numbered 0-9, but the 0 represents 10, since writing 10 would require that face to have a different font size. It is still a d10, since the die has ten sides, and still cannot roll at 0. The d100 variant does the same thing with 100, but for the added reason that the 00 face actually does mean 0 when the other die rolls a 1-9. This is the convention, so a die that actually writes 10 on it instead of 0 will be rare. [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 23:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

You've all been nerd-sniped. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:53, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Combinatorics degree? Does such a degree really exist? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.130.37|162.158.130.37]] 17:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:There are degrees for all kinds of things. A quick search reveals a number of "Combinatorics" or "Combinatorics and <Foo>" (e.g. "Optimisation") degrees. Some of them are marked as Masters degrees, and I haven't dug into the others to see if there are any 'pure' undergraduate ones (apart from anything else, I know there are crucial differences between the structures and scopes of UK and US 'degree courses' to consider, in particular), but there seems to be representation on both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere, e.g. Oceana).
:At the very least, it could be a selected specialised segment of an even wider mathematical degree course, or a cross-disciplinary one (like my own, which was part under Physics and part under Computing, but could have included a Stats-based element). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 19:07, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::So "Combinatorics and <Foo>" would be meta-combinatorics, since it is combining something with something else. :) [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 20:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
:::I shall do my degree in "Combinatorics, Selectivity, Comparison, Decision Making and/or Cross-Designation (Choose Any Three)"... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.5|172.70.90.5]] 21:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm trying this on my DM. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Can someone put into the Explanation the current details regarding the nature of cursed arrows, in whatever edition of DnD we're currently up to. (8th? I've lost track.) In different DnD-like media, I know that it can act somewhat negatively (reduces aim accuracy) or even outright problematic (it curses the person loosing the projectile; or even renders the bow otherwise useless, as analogue to a cursed weapon), or else reduces/inverts the damage (breaks easier, or essentially acts like a thrown beneficial potion to increase health/strength/stamina/etc of the target). I assume that it one of these, from the assumption that the player desires a "good enough" roll to avoid. On the other hand, cursed projectiles could be treated akin to poisoned arrows or vengeful weapons in doing more, better or more targeted damage (in which case it's a powerful aid, the archer is instead taking a chance of using up a stock of 'special arrows', perhaps in line with not knowing whether their foe ''needs'' that extra degree of offensive power). But, at least from the explaining text's approach to dice-roll results, that doesn't exactly mesh with the typical "higher is better" rolling mantra. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.129|172.70.86.129]] 22:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think making an M-of-N mechanism with physical locks would be "extremely cumbersome". For example you could have a bolt that must be drawn back to open the mechanism, with several padlocks over it, where the shackle of each padlock blocks the motion of the bolt, such that the distance you can draw the bolt is proportional to how many padlocks are removed. Removing any m of the n padlocks gives you enough range of motion to open the mechanism.
[[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.224|172.71.154.224]] 23:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

A DM with a degree in Combinatorics would be unlikely to find this annoying.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.245|162.158.62.245]] 05:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

With up to three D&D dice, it is impossible to achieve 2/9 exactly. The closest you can get is with d6 + 2d10x10 >= 146 (where d10x10 denotes the tens die, ranging from 10 to 100) yielding a probability of 133/600 = 0.2216667. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

With four D&D dice, 2d6 + d8 + d10 >= 21 and d10 + 2d12 + d20 >= 36 are alternate solutions. The former is more feasible than 3d6 + d4 for those who don't have three d6's. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

You can do it with two dice, although not by summation. Roll 2d3; if 1,1, or 3,3 pass, else fail. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.88|162.158.167.88]] 19:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Could someone explain option 6, multiplying two six-sided dice, with a threshold of > 20? I think 66, 65, 64, 56, 55, and 46 all work, making it ... equivalent to 1D6.
[[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:It's >= 20, so 54 and 45 work as well. That brings the probability up to 8/36 = 2/9. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 13:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

;Scales for locking
Wouldn't using scales for the chests that measure their current mass and lock/open the doors based on whether the chest still has the object work for an M-of-N encryption? A simple example: A chest has 2.5 kg of Au, with the chest itself and its combination lock being 20 kg. The next door opens iff the chest's total mass is less than 21 kg. Removing all the Au from the chest opens the door. The second one has an object with the mass of 3 kg, and the chest itself is 22 kg, with ''that'' door opening if the chest's mass is between 23 and 24 kg. Removing the object and replacing it with 1 kg of Au opens the door. Long story short: no, one does not need magic for realizing an M-of-N encryption, one just needs scales for a physical M-of-N encryption. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.25|172.68.245.25]] 08:16, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

== Randall doesn't understand probability or games ==

You don't need to combine the probabilities. You just make two checks. The first check is even odds of cursed / normal. If the check fails and it's cursed, presumably you proceed with the consequences of grabbing a cursed arrow, whatever that might be. In any case, whether the first arrow was normal, or the curse doesn't prevent you from grabbing and firing another arrow, the second check is either 4:9 (if the first arrow was normal) or 5:9 (if it was cursed). (These odds are written as the number of normal arrows remaining : the total number of arrows.)

There is no reason to roll the dice given in the comic. He just made up some dice rolls vaguely similar to those that he heard someone mention in the context of tabletop games, and he's certainly never actually played in one. You can convert these probabilities into decimal form and use a d100 for every check. Probabilistic results like these are the reason the d100 is in the game. (You can also roll 2d10, selecting one of them to be the tens digit and the other to be the units digit.)

The chance of succeeding (choosing a normal arrow) on the first check is 50%, so you can use any type of dice, and success is rolling above X/2, X = faces of the dice.

The chance of succeeding on the second check is 4/9 if the first arrow was normal, or about 44%. So you succeed on a roll of 44 or less. The chance is 5/9 if the first arrow was cursed, or about 56%. So you succeed on a roll of 56 or less.

You don't need a degree in anything to reach these conclusions. {{unsigned ip|172.70.83.67|20:51, 17 March 2025‎}}

== Am i the only one being '''extremely''' confused by the trivia section? ==

This is the current trivia section, emphasis mine:
:When this comic was originally released, the '''official title of this page was "xkcd: D Combinatorics", instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics", due to an apparent error on Randall's end.''' [...]

:Whatever the precise problem, the ampersand also presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]], an issue that is said to be only fixable by [[User:Jeff]], who has been inactive for over a year now.

Am i the only one who sees the issue?
*3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.
**"official title", so on xkcd.com
**""xkcd: D Combinatorics", instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics"" - only pages on xkcd.com start with "xkcd: "
**"error on Randall's end"

*2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.
**"title of this page" - "this" means the one you're reading, the wiki
**"presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]" - Our wiki's rss feed

Am I missing something? Was this an error on xkcd.com, on this wiki, or both? People keep treating it as if it's coherent. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:10, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:Ok the trivia is definitely wrong, as you can see [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ here], it's the official xkcd.com page name that was wrong. Also, and this isn't mentioned anywhere, the official title displayed on the xkcd.com site was wrong too! It had an additional semicolon. The trivia needs to be updated, i also added it to edited comics cat. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:22, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
::As I understand it (and understood it at the time), Randall did something wrong in creating his initial comic such that the "Created by a BOT" script created the page (and Talk page, and ''possibly'' populated a new RSS entry) with erroneous data.
::Whether that was done before or after the web.archive page, I don't know (my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there), nor if/when any subsequent change was done by Randall.
::I do know that I tested several browsers, at the time, and "&D" (and/or "&D;") and the lower-case equivalents only ever showed as a literal. But some kind of ''cleanHTML()'' function might well have been less willing to 'transmit' an unknown code, as it doesn't necessarily have access to all the DTD <!ENTITY ...> settings that a downstream browser might use (or the inbuilt latest HTML5 standards) so might have wanted to play safe upon finding ''anything'' that vaguely fits the "<ampersand><NAME><semicolon>" format, and just splice it out. I have no idea how RSS writers/readers deal with this (except some basic sanity checking for allowable character sequences, which seems to be the exact problem here after initially invalid data was entered upstream if it should have been &a&zwj;mp;ed when added in). I would check how my Perl environment and HTML-related modules deal with it, but I suspect it's done through sometging like PHP instead.
::(Escaped/unescaped data is notorious, when raw data is HTMLised, but that read in as raw and ''further'' HTMLised in multiple cycles, you end up with stuff like &a&zwj;mp;amp;amp;pound; popping up in things.)
::As far as most of the Trivia is concerned (including the currently hidden bits of it) I don't think it's wrong, though I can't say it's right without investigating the editor's(/editors'?) line of thinking all the way through at leisure. But it's a short and sweet precis of the basic issue, unless you want to start with XHTML Processing 101 and then get properly into DOM object parsing and various applicable WebTestKit criteria before deciding ''exactly'' where the fail-unsafe happened.
::With the "xkcd: D Combinatorics" bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing "<site name>: <page title>", but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that. I've used more different browsers than you've had hot keyboards, however, and I can believe that someone's does that sort of thing. If it's not a non-browser renderer/scraper, instead. Noting that the error came from xkcd(.com) and then caused problems on explainxkcd(.com), so I don't think there's an issue with that, but it's trivial to change to the browser-nonspecific (''and'' site-nonspecific) barebones "D Combinatorics" if that's what it is for someone ''with'' a better title-bar or tab-titling system than I have at the moment.
::Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.45|172.71.241.45]] 22:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
{{Outdent|:::}}
(my browser insists it can't open a secure connection there)
In Chrome at least, you can type "thisisunsafe" to bypass security prompts.

With the "xkcd: D Combinatorics" bit, that looks like a browser header (or browser-tab's 'tab') announcing "<site name>: <page title>", but the only browsers I can test right now (Chrome and Firefox, both as Android versions) don't do that.
I'm not sure what you mean? [https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/ This link's browser tab name] is always "xkcd: D Combinatorics" when i try it, both on mobile and on desktop Chrome.

Barring some rephrasing/reformatting, it looks Ok to me. But then I think I understood it already, so maybe I'm just not spotting the n00b-trap detail.
All i'm saying is that the most basic thing, "Was this problem of the wiki or of the official site?", not only isn't clearly answered but the problem itself isn't even fully mentioned (see last sentence of message you replied to). It can't be complete if it includes only half of the information, right? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:14, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
:I believe what you might be missing, that it seems everyone else missed that you missed, is that there are bots who create the new ExplainXKCD pages '''''using''''' XKCD's new page when one appears. So, if Randall put it wrong - as everything keeps saying - that means the bots copy said mistake into the new ExplainXKCD page. What all these authors are doing is assuming everyone knows that THIS is how this site works. Have I addressed your issue now? (Assuming you ever come back and see this, and assuming I ever come back and see your reply, LOL!). I note that, running 5 months late, that the webpage title on XKCD is still "D", not "D&D", while the visible title is correct. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
::Thank you. Yes, I knew that the bot creates the new page, and that this also meant the page on this wiki was wrong initially, but, unlike xkcd.com, this wiki's RSS was seemingly broken by this comic, while xkcd.com wasn't. Anyway, I think i have a pretty good picture, but it still isn't clear enough to rewrite the Trivia section. Good catch! I had also noted that incorrect tab title on xkcd.com on my last comment, which further complicates explaining the situation in the actual trivia section. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:53, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

'''Ok so here's what we know so far:'''
* The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Combinatorics" instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics". This was never fixed.

* The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Roll" instead of "xkcd: D&D Roll". This was never fixed.

----

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D&D; Combinatorics". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D&D; Roll". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/

----

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D Combinatorics". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&oldid=357629

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D Roll". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&oldid=360160

----

*Our RSS feed was broken: [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]

* I don't know if there were other errors.
**Did Randall's RSS feed also break? Or just explainxkcd's?
**Did our RSS break again when [[3028: D&D Roll]] was released?

----

The inconsistencies I pointed out in the beginning are still valid:

*3 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) Randall made a misktake on the xkcd.com website, which has nothing to do with this wiki.
**"official title", so on xkcd.com
**""xkcd: D Combinatorics", instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics"" - only pages on xkcd.com start with "xkcd: "
**"error on Randall's end"

*2 times it says (or alludes to the fact that) the issue was on '''our''' end.
**"title of this page" - "this" means the one you're reading, the wiki
**"presumably [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken|broke the RSS feed]]" - Our wiki's rss feed

Someone just needs to reasearch this a bit more and create a simple and clear Trivia section, explaining what happened. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 12:57, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
:It seems like you're vastly overthinking this. (Apologies for the delay, due to a device change I've been away from XKCD for a while and actually my comment here was the last one I made before my switch and is the only evidence of where I left off). Randall's site made a mistake because ampersand is a special character in HTML (the language of webpages), apparently his site doesn't sanitize input (remember Bobby Tables?), or not properly, it just dropped it as "I don't know what you want, so I'm skipping it". I'm not sure if it's used for anything else, but for one it's used to show special characters, such as itself: showing an ampersand is "[ampersand]amp;" (for the same reasons I don't want to use an ACTUAL ampersand here, and I don't want to make the detour of finding out how to do the same thing in wiki language), and a non-breaking space is "[ampersand]nbsp;" (meaning don't use THIS space to wrap the line, permanently keep these words together, and don't lump multiple spaces into one, like to indent things), I've used them both a lot when writing my own websites. Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.

:Also, trying to understand by comparing the sites is inappropriate and doesn't make sense. All Wikis seem to be built on the same foundations, so a technical mistake like this that would happen on one, we can reasonably assume would similarly happen on other wikis. THEN comparing would make sense. But Randall's site isn't a wiki, there's no reason to believe it has equivalent vulnerabilities, it's a separate site, programmed separately, maybe XKCD sanitizes better or worse than wikis do, than this wiki does. Who knows, it doesn't really matter, this is just noting that the page titles weren't created properly.

:Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying "this page" means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily. This wiki is about another website, so "this page" is also a valid way to talk about this comic's original page, on XKCD. Honestly, I don't know anything about the RSS feed, what it does, and how it's relevant to this issue in order to address that evidence, but you're down to 4 references to XKCD vs. 1 to ExplainXKCD. Or 3-1 plus 1 ambiguous. And what all this has to do with this wiki is the same as always: This site is about his. When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA. Like if Randall misspells something, we put that in the Trivia, if he replaces the comic with a corrected one, that goes in the Trivia too.

:In summary, XKCD made a mistake, Randall didn't notice to fix it, the bots copied it. Most likely, nothing HERE did anything wrong, as far as I can tell. The bots correctly copied the comic's name as it was listed, like it should, they couldn't know to look for a more complete title. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 00:23, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

::Welcome back!

Because XKCD got it wrong, the bots on ExplainXKCD copied the wrong incomplete title. That's it.
::To me, it doesn't seem like that's everything. Randall's site was broken in two different ways for two different comics on two different occasions, and only one of the two issues was later fixed in both comics, while the other one was never fixed in both comics. Also, we know it broke this wiki's RSS feed. Did it break Randall's RSS feed too? Did our RSS break ''again'' when Randall released the second broken comic [[3028: D&D Roll]]? I don't know because the Trivia sections for these two comics are ambiguous.

Also, you're misinterpreting some things. Like your evidence saying "this page" means the ExplainXKCD page. No, not necessarily.
:: I wish that were the case, but many editors here oftentimes use "this page" to refer to this wiki's page, "the one you're reading right now", '''especially''' in trivia sections.

When there's some mistake or inconsistency by Randall, it gets noted here, in the TRIVIA.
::That's true, but we sometimes use the trivia sections to talk about explainxkcd, such as the trivia section for comics {{cn}} and [[Papyrus]]. In these 2 D&D comics, I think the errors on both sites are relevant, but they should be clearly defined in their respective Trivia sections and currently they are not.

::We can now either rephrase the current trivia sections, or write up new ones. Since you seem to be the only person actively engaged in this discussion, could you give it a try, even if the details about the RSS feeds aren't known yet? You can use [[#help|this list I made earlier]] if you want. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:39, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
::: Funny, I just reached 3028, with the same issue. I note down a list of which comics I've edited/commented on, to try to remember to check for replies, and seeing the issue there I realized I forgot to note this one so came back to double-check if I had done anything here, and saw your replies :) I feel fairly sure that once upon a time I got some familiarity with the terms "RSS" and "RSS feed", possibly in a class, but that'd be 20, 25 years ago. I now have '''NOTHING'''. I don't know what it is, what it does, how to check if it's broken, why to care, or even how to look at it. Therefore I am completely unable to speak about it, and all I'm getting here about it is that's the main thing anyone thinks should be in the Trivia! Meaning, no, I'm not the one to write/edit the Trivia. What I know is what I said, that the issue is obvious to those of us who have handwritten webpages: Ampersand is an escape character used in HTML, to do special things, like display itself, non-breaking spaces, even an alternate way to show special characters like accented characters, music notes, things that can't be typed on a standard keyboard. It's worth noting that in programming for Windows, ampersand marks a character to underline, usually for menus to identify the hotkey, like "Files" means Alt-F opens the Files menu, the name would be typed programmatically "&Files". I've seen programs that don't sanitize their input that would render the name of this comic as "DD Combinatorics". BTW, for this I went to the Wiki Editing help to check what I had to do for an ampersand (turns out: nothing, it's generally fine), and the Wiki editor ALSO makes use of the ampersand for such things as special characters, so you could look there to see examples - I spotted one was to display such a code instead of interpret it, like &nbsp; [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:22, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

::::Welcome back! Thanks for your reply.

[A]ll I'm getting here about it is that [the RSS feed] is the main thing anyone thinks should be in the Trivia!

::::You are mistaken. At the bottom of this talk page, I have tried to make a lis tof all the things previous editors tried to clealrly add to the Trivia section. There are currently 4 errors, and only 1 of them is about the RSS feed. All the other errors aren't related to the RSS feed (even though they broke it). Thus, if one doesn't know anything about RSS feeds, they can still write up three quarters of the Trivia section. I think that's better than nothing! --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 15:26, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

:Our RSS didn't break twice. It was made broken, due to [[3015]]'s error making it invalid, and was still broken by the time [[3028]] added its own example.
:If you do whatever you need to look at the RSS 'raw' (e.g. by using <code>view-source:https://explainxkcd.com/rss.xml</code>, if that's what works in your browser), you'll note that the first problematic ampersands are in 3028's data, in data which is ordered in newest-to-oldest order. Before that existed, it would have been 3015's initial-breaking ampersanding, which is still wrong. If someone went in and "ampersand-coded" the ampersand, they could 'fix' 3028 and it would still fail on 3015, or vice-versa. You (or someone who could) would of course have to solve both, to get it working. And it was made broken (thanks to being served 'bad' data, without anything having any instruction to re-present it in the 'good' form) consistently from 3015's time onwards. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 16:45, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

::Makes sense! Thanks. Did Randall's also break? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:33, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
:::His site? Probably not so that casual browsing would notice. There are more strict and less strict ways to deal with HTML data, and a lone ampersand can probably sneak through a standard web-page and be intepreted normally if it doesn't match an "&entity;" code. And xkcd.com's RSS feed only features the last three comics. I assume, therefore, only last week's... but ask me again when we get an additional special comic, not Monday, Wednesday or Friday, and we either get a four-deep history (being set to a week) or a three-deep history (drops the "just under one week ago" one out, early). But it means that the feed is absent of either 3015 or 3028 data, and is short and sweet and working ''at the moment''. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 23:38, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
:::...but, doing the research tha you could have done:
:::*Google for "xkcd 3015" and "D: Combinatrics" (no ampersand-D at all) is the 'hit' title, directly above "3015: D&D Combinatorics" of this site.
:::**Google is probably being consistent with the target page data for xkcd (see below) ''and'' the current site of the target explainxkcd page, which we've changed to be 'right'.
:::*Within the source for xkcd's 3015 comic, there's <code><nowiki><title>xkcd: D Combinatorics</title></nowiki></code> (no ampersand-D, probably because the ampersand-D was considered invalid and fell out of the publishing process for the title-tag).
:::*Next up, there's a meta-tag: <code><nowiki><meta property="og:title" content="D&amp;D Combinatorics"></nowiki></code>, which I had to make work here (it's an amp-entity, which I've had to write as amp-entity-for-amp, etc). This was either 'corrected' automatically, or later sanitised manually.
:::*There's then <code><nowiki><div id="ctitle">D&D Combinatorics</div></nowiki></code> with a 'raw' ampersand(-D), seemingly happily being treated as entirely literal, not broken-entity.
:::*Within the img-tag for the comic, there's <code><nowiki>... alt="D&amp;D Combinatorics" ...</nowiki></code> (again, I had to meta-it, in this edit, to outwardly show as the simple ampersand entity that it is). Sanitised/corrected/whatever, who knows.
:::Either tag-parameters derived from composed data are automatically sanitised, by whatever publishing mechanism Randall employs, or he got enough errors when it was wrong to go back in and change the othem so that they wouldn't error on him.
:::Neither inducing an error, nor getting corrected (even automatically), the content of the title-tag is in a zone of uncaring-strictness where it 'is wrong' but fails-safe in a way that nobody has done anything about, rather than ever having halted the page-rendering.
:::Meanwhile, all other 'plaintext' non-tag (but of course extenrally tagged) content is happily working with no strictness worries.
:::This is my "took two minutes to actually look at this issue" answer, of course, and maybe you've looked and deduced alternative explanations for what I see. But then probably you wouldn't have been asking any of these questions in the first place. I don't usually specifically read any of your contributions here (too much work, deciding whether your latest blitz on the wiki was worth it or not), but you got my attention as it's part of a larger conversation with other people. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 00:05, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

::::Sure! That's also what the IP at the top of this talk page pointed out, but you were more detailed. I guess that's also trivially related to the comic, which eans we should probably place that TOO in the trivia section. Argh it never ends! At least your comment is relatively easy to parse and could be just inserted in the articles directly with a few tweaks. But, we should probably change it a bit to connect it to the first issue in the to-do list for the trivia sections.

::::So, to recap, what we need to add to the trivia section is:

* The xkcd.com page for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] https://xkcd.com/3015/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Combinatorics" instead of "xkcd: D&D Combinatorics". '''This is also what appears in Google results.''' This was never fixed.

* The xkcd.com page for [[3028: D&D Roll]] https://xkcd.com/3028/ still has the browser title "xkcd: D Roll" instead of "xkcd: D&D Roll". '''This is also what appears in Google results.''' This was never fixed.
**We now know these issues are caused by the... thing you described in your comment.
----

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D&D; Combinatorics". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241123024448/https://www.xkcd.com/

* The initial title displayed on xkcd.com for [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D&D; Roll". This was fixed: https://web.archive.org/web/20241224095655/https://xkcd.com/

**I'm not sure if you covered this in your reply? "D&D;" seems a weird failure, why would the semicolon be after the "D"? This was fixed but I guess you could do your magic by inspecting the source of the archived version to see what went wrong.

----

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] was "D Combinatorics". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3015: D Combinatorics]] (now deleted) to [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3015:_D%26D_Combinatorics&oldid=357629

* The name used in the '''article title''' and in the {{tl|comic}} template on explainxkcd.com for the page [[3028: D&D Roll]] was "D Roll". The wiki editors manually moved the page from [[3028: D Roll]] (now deleted) to [[3028: D&D Roll]] and fixed the name in the {{tl|comic}} template: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3028:_D%26D_Roll&oldid=360160
**Caused by the issue in the first bullet

----

*Our RSS feed was broken (and remained broken after [[3028: D&D Roll]]): [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#RSS_Feed_Broken]]

*Randall's RSS feed didn't noticeably break.

----

::::And i think that's everything? Now we just need to actually polish it and put it in the two articles. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Hey, [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]], what was actually wrong with my edit? (For some reason when I made that edit I was logged into an old account I had forgotten about, [[User:Unexplainedthing]]; I guess the login was saved in my browser... but only used that account in that tab... idk, probably user error, but anyway, it was my edit.)

I summarized some of the points that had already been made just above. The parts I added were things I could confirm for myself: the browser title is wrong, the archive of the site shows that the on-site title was originally wrong, the same holds for 3028. And the explain xkcd RSS feed is what was broken, according to all of the other discussion I see, though I don't really know how to go about verifying that myself. I did remove part of the explanation that (to me) felt pointlessly speculative, and I removed the 'incomplete' tag because I felt the explanation was now adequate; this may have been mistaken and/or premature, but based on your edit summary, it doesn't seem to me like that's the part you took issue with. Am I missing something? [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 20:33, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

Talk:2251: Alignment Chart Alignment Chart

2025-08-14T20:11:55Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: alignment chart. i mean, added comment.

OK, hope someone will now explain it after I created this page. I'm lost on this one ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:49, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Arrgh, edit conflict! [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 11:55, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the Punnet Square is ''also'' a meme template...[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.229|162.158.154.229]] 15:59, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I vaguely remember Randall to refer to the clay-sand diagram (or whatever it is called) as his all time favorite diagram on what-if somewhere. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 12:35, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
:You vaguely remember "Starsand" from https://what-if.xkcd.com/83/ with the quote "Fortunately, there's a wonderful chart by the US Geologic Survey that answers all these questions and more. For some reason, I find this chart very satisfying—it's like the erosion geology edition of the electromagnetic spectrum chart." directly applicabe to this chart[[User:Tier666|Tier666]] ([[User talk:Tier666|talk]]) 17:57, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I fear any attempt to "explain" the CIE chromaticity diagram will devolve into arguments about why Randall chose it. I have found that folks outside the world of optics or neurooptical studies have a hard time understanding why the raw colors available in single wavelengths comprise that short curvy line inside the full colorspace. The way our brain processes the relative signal strengths from the different types of retinal cones is quite amazing. [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 12:57, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
:CGW I'm shocked! Surely you know that single-wavelengths are the curvy outer boundary while the inner curvy line shows the response to blackbody spectra. ;-) -Fred [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.61|173.245.52.61]] 19:55, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
::Thanks for that; I was about to question the statement myself. All in all, I feel the current explanation of the chromaticity diagram doesn't really explain much, and seems unnecessarily biased to boot. I know just enough about chromaticity to think it's wrong but not enough to correct it. [[User:LtPowers|LtPowers]] ([[User talk:LtPowers|talk]]) 19:58, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
:::I agree that explanation isn't great, if it's not improved when I have free time tonight I'll take a stab at it. Or maybe CelloCGW will, since he IS an optics guru (which is why I had to raz him).[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.61|173.245.52.61]] 20:13, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fred - mea culpa. I should think before writing. Fortunately :-), the ratio of the colorspace to any 1-dimensional line's area is still infinite! [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 20:33, 6 January 2020 (UTC) .... now that someone did post some explanation of CIE, more comments. The current CIE spec may be paywalled, but it has changed little if at all over the last 40 or 50 years, so it's not all that hard to get the values. There are several sites (naturally I've lost the URLs) which provide algos to convert HSM to RGB to HSV and so on. See Wikipedia, https://law.resource.org/pub/us/cfr/ibr/003/cie.15.2004.tables.xls , and similar repositories [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 20:44, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

:I redid the CIE explanation - focusing on describing the diagram, rather than one thing it might get used for (e.g. black body). I think the diagrams on the right are labeled chaotic because they are not some neat geometric shape over-all. I didn't really follow much of what was there, so feel free to revive some of it if it seems useful. (My background in color theory comes from computer science and graphics, rather than from physics or hardware design.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.201|162.158.107.201]] 00:57, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
::It's better! Though it might be nice to explain what the x and y coordinates on the CIE diagram represent. (I personally have no clue, even after perusing Wikipedia.) As for chaoticness and shape, really CN and CE are the one two that aren't simple geometric shapes; even CG is a trapezoid. [[User:LtPowers|LtPowers]] ([[User talk:LtPowers|talk]]) 15:04, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm only familiar with 4th and 5th edition, but should the "Good/neutral/evil:" axis eplanation be changed to "selfless deeds or selfish deeds"? Good and evil are highly subjective ("One person's 'freedom fighter' is another person's 'terrorist'.") but at least in 5e the axis is explained as risking/sacrificing yourself for the benefit of others (Good) vs. sacrificing others for your own benefit (Evil). Also, the explanation of the CN character may benefit from dividing which parts of the explanation are "chatoic" vs "neutral". Finally the "lacking rhyme or reason" part of chaotic is highly debated within D&D circles. There are certainly people who play that way, but there are also others who feel that chaotic characters have just as much motivation and goals as a lawful or neutral character just that part of their motivation is to act contrarily to Tradition/Authority. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.54|162.158.186.54]] 14:37, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

: It seems from this page that even nerds tend to interpret the alignment system by the ‘common sense’ meaning of the names instead of the detailed explanation. I once simply went through the Wikipedia article, which cited the second edition IIRC: ‘lawful’ means sticking to ''some'' code of conduct, whereas ‘chaotic’ is a pure opportunist or behaves randomly. ‘Good’ and ‘evil’ indeed mean selfless vs selfish deeds, but afaik in one of the official explanations ‘evil’ meant exercising authority over others—so all managers would be ‘evil’ automatically. [[User:Aasasd|Aasasd]] ([[User talk:Aasasd|talk]]) 16:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure the phase diagram is for Water - that has nine solid phases. Surely it is merely a simple example.
[[User:Arachrah|Arachrah]] ([[User talk:Arachrah|talk]]) 16:52, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

As an interesting note, this comic's alt-text also ends with a period inside of a quote. This was discussed at length in the previous comic. [[User:Agrasin|Agrasin]] ([[User talk:Agrasin|talk]]) 16:52, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm just upset that both a soil diagram and the QAPF were included, but not the TAS. Where's the love for extrusive igneous rocks? [[User:Mergelong|Mergelong]] ([[User talk:Mergelong|talk]]) 18:22, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

BTW, I offer my condolences and wish luck to the person who's going to make a transcript of this comic. [[User:Aasasd|Aasasd]] ([[User talk:Aasasd|talk]]) 22:28, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

"lawful heterozygous silty liquid" Is this not him being Lawfull, having inherited different forms of a particular gene from each parent, and basically a bag full of salt water? [[User:Nappy|Nappy]] ([[User talk:Nappy|talk]]) 07:51, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

A phase diagram was also used in https://what-if.xkcd.com/138/ [[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.7|162.158.89.7]] 08:23, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

The phase diagrams for oxygen and radon look similar to the Lawful Neutral one here. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.166|172.68.34.166]] 23:06, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Is it coincidence that the evil chaotic diagram looks a bit like a brain? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.9|162.158.158.9]] 10:52, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Made a "real" one using actual picts from the internet based on this comic ... but ALSO using his comic. Meta, meta, meta, maybe? https://imgur.com/gallery/CagOh8s

I'm fairly certain that Randall is classifying himself using the Omnispace classifier, rather than referencing "the true neutral, neutral good, lawful good, and lawful neutral charts in the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart." as the current description suggests. If you look at the Omnispace classifier, Silt, Liquid, Heterozygous, and Lawful Good all share a common point on the chart. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.207|172.69.68.207]] 17:55, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

It is unclear to me why the explanation claims that the chart in the comic is missing the low central vowel ä. The official IPA chart does not include this vowel, and the use of a diaresis to indicate centralization, like all other diacritics for indicating relative articulation, are given in a separate section from the main chart. Granted, the vowel chart on Wikipedia does include ä, but there is no reason that we should expect XKCD to do the same. That said, the omission of ɐ is quite odd, and seems to be an error. {{unsigned|IcarusProblem|01:40, 12 December 2023}}
== Omnispace Classifier ==

I think the Omnispace Classifier is meant to be a horrific Frankenstein amalgamation of the other 8 kinds of chart. Theoretically it can "classify anything" since it can classify anything the other 8 can, but practically it would obviously be totally useless, or at least a lot less useful than just using the specific chart that works for the situation. [[User:Pureawes0me|Pureawes0me]] ([[User talk:Pureawes0me|talk]]) 12:09, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

In the description of the Omnispace Classifier, saying "the diagram created for this comic is considered to be chaotically evil." is wrong. The diagram created for this comic is ''not'' an Omnispace Classifier, it is an alignment chart. It's even in the title "Alignment Chart Alignment Chart". [[User:Pureawes0me|Pureawes0me]] ([[User talk:Pureawes0me|talk]]) 14:11, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
:I concur. [[User:LtPowers|LtPowers]] ([[User talk:LtPowers|talk]]) 15:04, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
I feel the "Omnispace Classifier" is actually chaotic evil due to its mishmash of axes, which change randomly in topic and direction depending where you look on the graph. --[[User:GoldNinja|GoldNinja]] ([[User talk:GoldNinja|talk]]) 17:43, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

== Chart Position Rationale ==

The page currently tries to explain each chart's position based on the content of the chart, e.g. the political compass chart is lawful because politics relates to laws. I think this is wrong: the charts are arranged based on their properties ''as charts''. It's not based on whatever it is they represent. This feels more in character with how Randall tends to do things. It also avoids making a bunch of value judgments about various topics. [[User:Khaim|Khaim]] ([[User talk:Khaim|talk]]) 23:05, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Possible explanations for each chart:
* Soil chart: Information-dense, continuous, triangular
* Punnett square: Simple, square
* IPA vowel chart: Irregular shape
* Phase diagram: Square, continuous
* Alignment chart: "A is A"
* CIE chromaticity diagram: Irregular shape, ''curved'', nonlinear
* Political compass: Square (lawful), highly subjective, not very useful
* QAPF rock diagram: Diamond shape is misleading since it's actually two ternary charts stuck together, not very useful (unless you're a geologist?)
* Omnispace classifier: Totally made up, irregular, completely useless
[[User:Khaim|Khaim]] ([[User talk:Khaim|talk]]) 23:31, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

:I agree with this, and it's how I first interpreted the comic.--[[User:GoldNinja|GoldNinja]] ([[User talk:GoldNinja|talk]]) 23:40, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
:Well, the point is to make any connection to both axis of the chart. Your explanations do not do that properly either. e.g. for IPA vowel chart "Irregular shape" does not explain why it would be considered "good", while it is one of maybe more possible reasons for being considered chaotic. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:39, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

== XKCD Alignment Chart ==

A while back, I was searching for an XKCD alignment chart, with no success, so I made one. It is not perfect, so I'm wondering what other opinions on the alignment of the characters are.

Lawful Good- Beret

Neutral Good- Ponytail

Chaotic Good- Mrs. Roberts

Lawful Neutral-Cueball

Neutral Neutral- Megan

Chaotic Neutral- White hat

Lawful Evil- Hairy

Neutral Evil- Danish

Chaotic Evil- Black Hat

--[[User:Fallencrow305|Fallencrow305]] ([[User talk:Fallencrow305|talk]]) 22:10, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

:What about Help I'm trapped in a drivers license factory Elaine Roberts? --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 15:48, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
::Or Hairbun? Or Science Girl? Here are my predictions: Elaine - Chaotic Good, Hairbun - Lawful Good, Science Girl - Lawful Neutral --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 16:00, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

:What? How can Beret Guy be anything other than chaotic?— {{unsigned|}}

:You did:
:{| class="wikitable"
|-
! !! Lawful !! Neutral !! Chaotic
|-
! Good !! Beret || Ponytail || Mrs. Roberts
|-
! Neutral !! Cueball || Megan || White Hat
|-
! Evil !! Hairy || Danish ||Black Hat
|}
:'''[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|speak]] | [[User:While False/explain xkcd museum|museum]]) 18:10, 17 October 2022 (UTC)'''

...while I see the slight logic of moving the above section away from the Main Page "Talk", it is only associated with this Explanation by having a common subject. Perhaps should have been re-asserted under a suitable bit of the Community Portal, or the (Talk of the) umbrella page for all characters? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.147|172.70.86.147]] 15:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the Punnett square is neutral because the effect of a genetic combination can be good (resistance to HIV) or evil (Huntington disease). [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

I object to the soil chart being lawful good. Two of the categories are concave. You can mix sandy loam with sandy loam and get loam, or silt loam with silt loam and get silt. [[User:DanielLC|DanielLC]] ([[User talk:DanielLC|talk]]) 07:15, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Popping by here only because of someone discovering a couple of redirect pages were not done, due to failure of the 'BOT of the day. (Was it really only four-and-a-half years ago that we were still pre-theusafBOT?) Good catch, that user! Of course, I still wonder what the Omnispace Classifier Classifier would rationalise as (as per the Omnispace Classifier, but with a subordinate Omnispace Classifier also added to the other eight... perhaps even a recursive OC-Clqssifier, in turn an OCC-Classifier). Idle thought, only, whilst I was noting the wikifixes just done! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.18|172.70.162.18]] 12:21, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

== Changed into Charts ==
* 2nd - Punnett square replaced as Keyboard Layout
* 5th - Alignment Chart replaced as Periodic Table
* 7th - Political compass replaced as [[Skew-T Log-P]]
* 8th - QAPF rock diagram replaced as [[Extended NFPA Hazard Diamond|NFPA Hazard Diamond]]
* 9th - Onmispace Classifier replaced as Multiplication Table--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.219.78|172.71.219.78]] 02:19, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
:What are you saying? Also, don't put your signature text in the header (moved). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.115|172.70.86.115]] 09:16, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

These sentences don't make sense:
<blockquote>It's important to note that this is called the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart alignment chart. However, that may be [https://xkcd.com/745/ doing 'doing "doing it wrong" wrong' wrong].</blockquote>
My edit deleting them was reverted, so I won't start an edit war about it, but honestly I don't even know what more I need to explain here beyond "they make no sense"? I guess I'll try.
For one thing, the second sentence has no relevance except the fact that the previous sentence had a lot of repetition; it doesn't even actually describe that sentence accurately in any way.
The first sentence itself also doesn't really make sense. The comic is called "Alignment Chart Alignment Chart", not "Alignment Chart Alignment Chart alignment chart". I guess they're saying that the alignment chart in the middle should be called "the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart alignment chart", because it's an alignment chart that is found on the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart? But the alignment chart isn't "called" the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart alignment chart, that's just something you made up based on its being assigned an alignment on the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart. And there's no good reason to identify this alignment chart as ''the'' Alignment Chart Alignment Chart alignment chart. Sure, it is the type of alignment chart on which the charts aligned by the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart are being aligned. But the conceit of the "Alignment Chart Alignment Chart", as shown by its title, is that it's an alignment chart assigning alignments to alignment charts; thus, every chart assigned an alignment in the alignment chart is itself considered an alignment chart. So if you called the central alignment chart on the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart an Alignment Chart Alignment Chart alignment chart, then for consistency you'd have to label all the other aligned alignment charts as Alignment Chart Alignment Chart alignment charts. And that's just silly. [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 20:11, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

Talk:2263: Cicadas

2025-08-14T19:47:35Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: explaining my edit

Okay, now that title text is an exceptional pun. Also, '''First'''. —[[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 22:51, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
:[[1258: First]] and [[269: TCMP]] to you too. ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:01, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

I just realized that there is a pun in every punchline, which I find oddly pleasing in this specific context. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.215|141.101.104.215]] 23:48, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Randall said in an interview that he first makes the entire comic and only comes up with the title text shortly before publishing. So either he broke his own rule or the comic is not a buildup to the punch line in the title text. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 08:24, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
:Quite sure he got the title text first this time and found a way to make a comic that fitted it. But we will never know if he doesn't make a new interview. Would really like to see a link to that interview to add it to the explanation. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:01, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
::Sorry, I only know it from memory, from when I watched about 10 interviews with and talks by him in a day. :D And it was all YouTube recommendations and a few months old, so it's probably not even in my YouTube history anymore. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 22:50, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

I think the current explanation is sufficient and complete - I'd even go so far to remove the part about why there is a 17-year cycle since for the understanding of the comic it's totally irrelevant. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:48, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
:No that is very relevant. It is the reason why 17 seconds was chosen and very likely why Randall thinks these cicadas are so interesting that he ended up doing a comic on them. But I agree with the completeness. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:01, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
:: If it was 12 years instead it would be 12 seconds in the comic. Being prime or not doesn't matter at all neither for the comic nor the explanation. It's trivia at best. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 14:04, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
:::Twelve years wouldn't work for cicadas as it's not prime. 17 (or any other prime number of) seconds won't work either because a second is an arbitrary amount of time. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.6|162.158.159.6]] 14:28, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
::::And still it's not relevant for the comic. Look, I get your point but for the sake of understanding the comic it simply doesn't matter if it was 12, 17, 23 or 53 years. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 09:05, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
:::::However, the first question I asked myself when I read the first version of this explanation (without of an explanation of the 17 years), was: why is it 17 years? what weird kind of insect is that? I clicked the wiki link and found out. Therefore it is not necessary to put in here, but very interesting, and I assue finding out about the actual 17 years cicadas is the thing most people need an explanation with. Similar things are done for almost all comics. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 09:29, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
::::::Yeah, that this is done with many other explanations is quite frankly a problem I'm having with those explanations. If some specific knowledge is needed to understand the comic it's fine to include that in the explanation. But if it's not needed to understand then it is to be considered trivia at most. Your question "Why is it 17 years?" leads to the question "What is a prime number?" (I know this is a bad example since it's most likely common knowledge among those who visit this page or XKCD. But what if not?) which may lead to even more basic questions. My point is: Where do you stop? In my opinion a comic's explanation should provide the minimum information needed to explain the comic. Not less but also not more. If you want to know more about a specific "thing" in the comic's explanation just click the link. That's why we provide these links in the first place, isn't it? [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:32, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
:::::::I fought the same fight on some comics (e.g. [[2207: Math Work]], where the explanation became very tangential.) I personally prefer concise explanations as well, but it doesn't appear to be the current style of the explanations. Some seem to think: "More means better." - It's really tough to decide where explaining the comic ends and where "further reading" starts. In this comic the excursion on 17 year lifespans is (currently?) quite short, so I do not see it as problematic. Much "worse" is in my opinion the part guessing about the reason of experimenting with cicadas. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 11:24, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
::::::::I agree with Elektrizikekswerk and Lupo. The motivation for the wiki is to explain the comic and possibly help people locate and understand hidden jokes or hints. Non of this requires the information about why the Cicades have a 17 year lifecycle. It is however very interesting and nice to know (I didn't know either) which is in my mind precisely what a trivia section is for. The guessing on why the experiment is performed in the first place is completely unnecessary. In order to understand and appreciate the humour in the comic a simple "because that's what scientists do" would suffice. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 11:34, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
:::::::::I added the section on prime numbered lifecycles, but I do agree, it is irrelevant to understanding the comic. It's a pretty cool fact, but it is cidada trivia at best. If it breaks the flow of the explanation at present, I'm happy for it to be moved or removed. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 11:40, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
::::::::::Since there seems to be consesus I just removed the part about the "why did they do the research" and moved the part about the prime numbers to the trivia section. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 11:56, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
:::::::::::I don't know if it's still Trivial enough to be in Trivia, but I expanded it to (best guess, and I think current) thinking on the background to the septendecenial insect. That the actual proposed mechanism/cause for the 17-year natural Cicada cannot really have anything to do with the fictional reason behind their roughly 31556952-times more frequent offspring (unless someone engineered the lab environment to express seasonal pulses in heat, surrogate root bichemistry, etc, at the faster rate to cue the more vastly more responsive experimental subjects) probably means it should ''stay'' in Trivia rather than form any kind of Explanation (beyond, as it already does, explaining that the original insect actually exists). Or can be reverted, to leave people wondering what the marvel of God Or Nature it is, until they decide to go and look it up themselves. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.117|162.158.158.117]] 19:39, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

::: (reduced the indenting) The process of evolution is that benefits happen '''not for any ultimate purpose''' but are randomly selected by environmental circumstances. If cicadas randomly reproduce on 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 or multiples of those numbers then it is more likely that their predators will be able to match that cycle and it will be less effective. So if the random changes in their maturity cycles happen to hit upon 13 or 17 then it is less likely that the predators will match that cycle. Therefore it becomes a more successful reproductive method and that's how it happens. The prime number is not a '''reason or cause''' of the 17 year cycle. It is a consequence that this particular random change in cycle provides ('''after the fact''') a better survival chance than any other cycle. This is an important distinction in understanding evolution. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 20:20, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
::: (Yeah, sorry, +1 on indent aain.) Indeed, it's difficult to use the right language to get that point across, though. In my Trivia edit I put in the word "happenstance" at one point. An awkward word, but trying to make that point. Ditto demonstrating why 16 years is 'worse' (while mentioning just one reason why, e.g., 282,589,933−1 would be an impractical choice of Prime, too!). So DNA/etc that ''just happens to'' produce an effective counter-to-N (of external cues indicating another year has passed) before provoking a given stage of life transition is better when that N is 17 (or 13), and other Ns are less advantageous. They may well have arisen, but died out. (As did the 13-year Brood-21, IIRC, for whatever reason, maybe anthropogenic, at the end of the 19thC.) Not that we're entirely sure why 'better' (I would firmly side with it being likely related to predator and/or resource-competitor avoidance, with self-reinforcing temporal divergence from their relatives that chose a different frequency and/or offset, but there could be other advantages not observed), and the cicadas probably don't know or properly appreciate what {{w|Dayworld_(novel_series)|they're doing}}. Their ancestors definitely did not go "Hey, chaps, I've got a ''brilliant'' plan...", just before one of their kind decided to make his inaugural multi-year nap. But something happened, and a fascinating emergent behaviour resulted. Don't you just love the Universe, sometimes? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.118|141.101.98.118]] 22:56, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
::::The intendation gets pretty confusing with my reply below for a comment far above. Anyway, are you sure that 2⁸²⁵⁸⁹⁹³³-1 is a prime number? :D I couldn't even get an online "big number calculator" to just print out the number for me, especially not check for being prime. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 23:06, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
:::::It actually is the {{w|Largest known prime number}} as of January 2020. It was discovered (according to the linked wiki article) in December 2018. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:40, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

:Why did you make an edit to replace "go so far to remove" with "go so far and remove"? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 18:47, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
::Because I'm a dumb German and "to" just sounds wrong in my head ;) Reverted it again, thanks :) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 09:13, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
:::The correct phrase you want is "go so far as to remove". :) You were missing the word "as". The phrase "go so far as" is very common. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:27, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

I used to listen to, a lot to R.E.M.'s 'Daysleeper' where they mention 'circadian rhytm' (at the end of the first verse) - that line I always overheard as 'cicadian rhytm' (the 'r' is disappearing)... wonder if this has something to do with the pun too? Or coincidence? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.121|162.158.154.121]] 13:47, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I've removed the following paragraph from the explanation:
<blockquote>This entire comic seems to only have been a lead-up to the "cicadian rhythm" punchline. This is an interesting suggestion since [[Randall]] has mentioned in an interview that he makes up the title text after completing the comic.{{Actual citation needed}} Seems like he made an exception here; unless he didn't.</blockquote>
The reason I deleted it rather than rephrasing or editing it is that it is an utterly pointless paragraph to begin with. It's an editor who thought the title text was a better punchline, so Randall ''must'' have thought it up first; then another editor comments on the first editor's assumption, and a third editor (with their tongue in cheek, I believe) reinforces that the preceding sentences are just a guess. This paragraph doesn't need to be revised; it doesn't need to exist at all. [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 19:47, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

2263: Cicadas

2025-08-14T19:37:41Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: i'm redoing my previous edit, but I'll add a comment to the talk page explaining my reasoning this time, since my edit summary last time was just me condescending

{{comic
| number = 2263
| date = February 3, 2020
| title = Cicadas
| image = cicadas.png
| titletext = After a while you adjust to the new cicadian rhythm.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Cicada|Cicadas}} are a species of insect whose nymphs burrow underground and emerge as adults to reproduce several years later. One common species in North America is the 17-year cicada, also known as the {{w|periodical cicada}}. These cicadas form distinct {{w|Periodical_cicadas#Map_of_brood_locations|broods}} which burrow and emerge as a group every 17 years, with different broods starting the cycle at different times. This results in a couple of weeks every 17 years when the cicadas swarm in huge numbers, then vanish just as quickly when the adults die off. Cicadas also make a distinctive buzzing sound, which makes their periodic appearance even more memorable.

In the comic, [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] have accidentally created 17-''second'' cicadas using {{w|genetic engineering}}. This means that rather than seeing a massive swarm every 17 years that lasts for a few weeks, they have to deal with a swarm every 17 seconds that lasts for a few moments. This makes it very difficult for them to do their work, especially to figure out how the cicadas were created because the swarm keeps interrupting their work. Note that the comic has been drawn differently to most other straight four-panel comics, probably to highlight the interruptions of the buzzing swarm - see the [[#Transcript|transcript]]. Also see the [[#Trivia|trivia section]] below for more details on the 17-year cicadas. Those were referenced again in the title text of [[2633: Astronomer Hotline]].

It's worth noting that every 17th word in the comic is "bzzzzzzz", implying that every word spoken takes one second. The caption also includes 17 words (if "17" is one word). 

The title text is a pun on "{{w|circadian rhythm}}." In particular, it might resemble something said to someone getting adjusted to a new sleep schedule. But here it is the 17 seconds interruption, not a time zone shift, that has to be adjusted for.

==Transcript==
:[This comic is laid out in a variation of a regular four-panel comic. One wide panel is overlaid by two smaller panels, which are placed where the second and fourth panels would be. These panels are slightly offset so they extend above the wide panel.]

:[Cueball and Ponytail are facing each other across a desk while having a conversation. Cueball is holding up a tablet in his hand while Ponytail is typing at a laptop on the desk.]
:Cueball: What can you tell from genome comparison?
:Ponytail: I think there's a duplication on the -
:Ponytail: ''Look out!''

:[An overlaid panel shows that the air is full of flying cicadas, many of which have landed on Cueball, Ponytail, the laptop, the tablet, and the desk. Ponytail and Cueball have their arms up in a futile attempt to shield themselves from the bugs, with Cueball having put the tablet down on the table.]
:<big>'''''Bzzzzzzz'''''</big>

:[The cicadas are gone, and Cueball and Ponytail resume their conversation. Cueball has picked up the tablet again]
:Ponytail: - a duplication on the gene right before the cleavage site, so the resulting protein -
:Ponytail: ''Look out!''

:[An overlaid panel shows that the air is again full of flying cicadas, which have once again landed on Cueball, Ponytail, the laptop, the tablet, and the desk. Ponytail and Cueball have raised their arms to shield themselves again.]
:<big>'''''Bzzzzzzz'''''</big>

:[Caption below the large panel:]
:Our genetics work has produced 17-second cicadas, but we're having a hard time figuring out how.

==Trivia==
The widely-accepted scientific explanation for the long and seemingly arbitrary 17-year lifecycle is that seventeen is a {{w|prime number}} - it's believed that this is an evolutionary adaptation against lifecycles of competitors taking easy advantage of the cicada as a food source (if a predator) or emerging early to dominate their shared food source (if a fellow feeder), since 17 years cannot be divided by any whole number of years other than itself and 1.

A 16-year cicada might find a creature with an 8-year, 4-year, or [[1602:_Linguistics_Club|biennial]] cycle could profit from it in a 'clash' of expectations, but only a cycle that is a multiple of 17 (by an identical accident of evolution, that must also match the 'beat' years of the Cicada to be useful) would affect the presumed ancestors of the comic-strip breed. Predators often work to yearly cycles of plenty and scarcity of food or can survive a low number of famine years between the better ones, but if they have less than one year of 'bounty' for every decade or so of 'normal' feeding then they cannot build up the numbers needed to threaten such prey that plays the long-game.

Other broods of cicada have 13-year lifecycles (the next lowest prime number), and would potentially clash for resources (or hybridize) only every 221 years. Even if this causes a single bad cycle, for both sub-species, the next cycle of appearance is their own once more (for each) and the respective populations have plenty of opportunity to recover from this event by the time a further two centuries pass. Thus it is theorized the happenstance evolution of a period of dormancy that gives a cycle of a significantly large prime-number of years - though still low enough to ''survive'' that period - is ultimately more advantageous than any cousins who tried to evolve to a period with smaller factors/shorter harmonics.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Puns]]

Talk:2265: Tax AI

2025-08-14T19:32:01Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: added my unreasonably angry comment

Could "atomizing" be a pun on "amortizing" as opposed to "itemizing"? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.34|108.162.219.34]] 17:44, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I thought 20202 could be a reference to February 2020 in YYYYM format, but the explanation provided is better.[[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 17:53, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Anyone else want to go out to lunch for wheat clams? Anyone? Okay, I'll just have these to myself... [[User:ChessCake|ChessCake]] ([[User talk:ChessCake|talk]]) 18:38, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Is "a really friendly pretrained neural net" a reference to a human tax preparer? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.63.159|172.69.63.159]] 19:17, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I think "a really friendly pretrained neural net" is a reference to comic 2173.[[User:Dromaeosaur|Dromaeosaur]] ([[User talk:Dromaeosaur|talk]]) 19:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I laugh a lot at anything to do with Tax Returns. {{w|Pay-as-you-earn_tax#United_Kingdom|PAYE}} works well enough for me (not having any particularly complicated incomes and expenditures to argue over, either way) and I'm glad I'm not forced to do several days of such work for the government, each year, in return for a zero or even negative effective hourly rate... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.173|162.158.158.173]] 23:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
* Unfortunately, here in the US, even with withholding from paychecks, the numbers never come out right due to dependents and exemptions, so a tax return is needed. Using a website, mine takes me about a half hour a year. There's nothing like watching the government inaction.
* (Previous unsigned bullet-point from 172.69.62.22 being replied to by 162.158.158.173 again, from somewhere slightly different on the subnet mask.) Given how it seems to be "a thing", all the cultural references about makes your situation sounds like a exception or recent redevelopment of the situation. For me {{w|Pay-as-you-earn_tax#Nature|tax codes}} deal straight with the major fuss. {{w|Child_tax_credit#United_Kingdom|Dependents}} aren't an issue for me anyway; but while our system has problems, the paperwork itself doesn't seem to be an annual rigmorole to maintain. Still, it seems there's an ocean between me and thee, in several senses, so forgive me my possibly misplaced amusement. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.42|162.158.159.42]] 23:43, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
* Another way to look at it is as if the tax return software is a gambling video game, with the score being the amount of tax paid or the refund due. The rules change every year so it is a matter of playing with the deductions until you are comfortable with the balance between audit risk and money returned.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 14:52, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Might the title-text be Randall in this case?
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.65|173.245.54.65]] 16:45, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Randall has trained others to do his taxes before in [[1566: Board Game]] - Currently I am not sure HOW to introduce that to the explanation/Trivia, but wanted to make aware of it. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:46, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

From a European perspective, the following is unclear: "The deadline for filing tax returns in the United States is April 15, so many people in the US are beginning the process of filing their taxes at the time of this comic's publication.". Why does April 15 mean you have to begin filing now? If I'm gonna bake a cake in two months, I don't have to buy ingredients now, I can do that a couple days before I will bake the cake. Is there another reason that better explains why the comic was made? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.215|141.101.104.215]] 09:18, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
: The reason many people file earlier than the April 15 deadline is because the amount they paid in taxes throughout the year is more than the amount owed per the tax return, so they will get a refund of part of the amount they paid. If you're getting money back, you're going to file as soon as possible and not wait until April 15. If you have to pay taxes on the return, you will probably wait until the deadline. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 15:17, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
::I understand that. I do the same with my German tax returns: Do them as early as possible, to get some money back. But the april deadline still gives no indication that people should be beginning doing this work on February 7th. Why not on January 1st? The date of the comic is arbitrary and has no relation to the 15th of April in my view. If there is a connection it needs to be explained. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:37, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
:::Employers in the US are normally required to provide summary income and payment forms (Form W-2 and variations of Form 1099, for example) by January 31 of each year. Until the taxpayer has their forms, they can't file their taxes. Copies of the forms are sent to both the government and the taxpayer, and mismatched numbers tend to raise the probability of an audit.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.24|108.162.241.24]] 19:06, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
::::That sound much more like a reason to start in early February, than the reason that was given about the deadline being in mid april. However I have already edited that line, so I do not see a need to add this information. Do so however if you feel it would be beneficial to understanding the comic. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:35, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

The origin of "seitan" meaning "wheat gluten" is interesting - it was purportedly coined Japanese-French writer {{w|George Ohsawa}} using the Sino-Japanese roots ''sei'' "raw" and ''tan'' "egg", but this term was never used in Japanese. Instead, seitan ({{wiktionary|せいたん}} can mean a number of abstract concepts in Japanese depending on context, ranging from "Christmas" to "plain food" to "making charcoal". I've included a little bit of this in the main explanation. [[User:Chloroplaster|Chloroplaster]] ([[User talk:Chloroplaster|talk]]) 11:40, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

*About seitan, couldn't it be a pun about seitan, the Arabic word for devil?
**That seems unlikely. In English, "Satan", which is pronounced fairly similarly to "seitan", is used as a personal name for the devil, so no Arabic-language connection is necessary. Besides, if Cueball had trained his neural net differently, it might have wound up referring to "Satan local income tax" instead of "seitan local income tax" or the correct "state and local income tax", and there would still have been a joke there, but it would have been a different joke than the one Randall actually used. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.94|172.68.38.94]] 00:41, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Regarding the explanation of the title as possibly being "...an exhortation to tax AI entities, as a possible slogan supporting Robot tax": no, no it isn't. I removed that part but the edit was reverted, and I don't want to start an edit war, so I'm bringing it to the talk section here. Come on, guys. Look, I can usually ''tolerate'' this site's annoying tendency to go off on tangents because a single editor came up with a less funny, strained interpretation of the obvious joke. And this probably isn't the most egregious example. But for the love of GOD, you can't actually think this is in any way a plausible interpretation, can you?! Do you understand how titles work?! It's called "Tax AI", and you know why it's called that, it's because it's about a TAX AI. Why would it be an imperative saying to create new taxes, unrelated to the content of the comic, even though said content is already about centered around taxes-- honestly, I find it hard to believe that ''anyone'' would actually interpret that title in such a way, unless they hadn't read the comic yet. The editor that reverted my removal said "many POVs exist", and maybe they do, but some POVs are ''absurd'' and ''obviously wrong'' when given even the slightest thought! I know I'm getting worked up and rude over something both insignificant and harmless, but christ, it's driving me MAD. Sorry for the self-righteous tirade. [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 19:32, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

Talk:1506: xkcloud

2025-08-14T19:05:29Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: added comment

The lack of a hover text breaks all sorts of things :) e.g. Floern's unofficial xkcd browser linked here via the hover text but it won't display the link or the lack of give text if there's no hover text! We may get a few less visitors for this comic as a result...

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.115|108.162.229.115]] 08:42, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
:Still getting swamped, it's business as usual for April 1st. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:06, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Why is "literally on fire" a question? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.163|108.162.249.163]] 09:52, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

:It indicates uncertainty. He's not really asking a question, but making a statement hesitantly. {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.22}}

::Indeed, see also {{w|uptalk}}. [[User:Pesthouse|Pesthouse]] ([[User talk:Pesthouse|talk]]) 10:03, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

How does i work? Does it work? When i click the "Help us"-Button i just get a blank comic with "..." written at the top :( [[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.148|108.162.254.148]] 10:14, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
:same here. any hint? --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.92.82|141.101.92.82]] 22:58, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Oh boy, time to find out if mediawiki does imagemaps.--[[User:Henke37|Henke37]] ([[User talk:Henke37|talk]]) 10:31, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The image was updated on xkcd.com the button now reads "Click here to help us recover user data before facebook & ca notice we lost it [[User:ẞ qwertz|ẞ qwertz]] ([[User talk:ẞ qwertz|talk]]) 10:48, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
:Can someone update the picture without just making a screen shoot? It is not like you can save it the normal way. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
::I have never understood how this works. I did try to change to the new version, but it somehow keeps loading the old version, even though I know that I did load a new version up. Even on the file page my file loads as the wrong one. I have tried this more than once... Previously the image has updates to the new version later without a new upload appearing. But I have no idea why...? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I decided to '''man up''', get the train rolling and submitted the '''first revision''' of the explanation. Do expand, retouch, overwrite, format and correct my simple explanation. I didn't know if the 3 already existing posts, the ambiguous text posts or the drawings are user-based, so I avoided saying so in the explanation. I'll just add something about the covet/thirst/hanker/crave in a moment, and I'm done. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.151|173.245.53.151]] 11:11, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

This comic has an empty alt text. See http://m.xkcd.com/1506/. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.201|108.162.221.201]] 13:50, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

* There's a silent character limit (no error message, just non-acceptance; You can still comment the image again, but the text is lost unless you copied it first) somewhere between 222 and 298 chars. I tried to make a start at playing Identik with an image, but only came half way through. Guess, I have to write shorter...
* Someone figured out, how to copy&paste some grayscale image.
* I managed to submit a color image, but haven't seen it coming back yet. Tell me when you find a red one.
* There is at least one image that is too fine to have been drawn in that minimal editor (squirrel+football). I guess, it's one of the initial images that Randall provided. -- [[User:Xorg|Xorg]] ([[User talk:Xorg|talk]]) 14:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
** There's also an image of Buzz Lightyear that appears to be copy-pasted in. I'm not sure how someone would have accomplished that. How did you mange to get color, user 2 above me? If anyone seems a stick-figure comic titled 2006 in which one character says to the other "You're never going to achieve anything if you spend all your time on that web comic ... Now back to my Zune research", that's mine. Post here and let me know! [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
:::Here is the Buzz lightyear permalink http://xkcd.com/1506/#post/c5e85bbb-6757-5912-91d1-b51e2703144d Below is a description on how to "copy paste" a picture in. Although it has nothing to do with copy. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:17, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
::::Gone. —[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User:While False/explain xkcd museum|'''museum''']] | [[User talk:While False|talk]] | [[special:Contributions/While_False|contributions]] | [[special:Log/While_False|logs]] | [[Special:UserRights/While_False|rights]] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:While_False&printable=yes printable version] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:While_False&action=info page information] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:WhatLinksHere/User:While_False what links there] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:RecentChangesLinked&days=30&from=&target=User%3AWhile_False related changes] | [https://www.google.com Google search] | current time: {{CURRENTTIME}}) 18:27, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
*** I used the web console to get a drawing context on the canvas object. After submission the image was actually transferred to the lower area, but now, I suspect that it wasn't really the data that got uploaded... -- [[User:Xorg|Xorg]] ([[User talk:Xorg|talk]]) 15:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
**** I used a similar method (injecting modified base64 directly into the stream) to submit goatse :) --[[User:Okofish|Okofish]] ([[User talk:Okofish|talk]]) 22:41, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
:Yes although I'm certain that most of the images are from users, it would be nice to hear from someone who can confirm that one of their images has been spotted {{unsigned|Kynde}}
::I can at least confirm that one of my texts has been spottet by someone else. I got the black image and wrote "I finally managed to disable the flashlight of my camera". Later I saw an image combining a hammer, a nail and a camera to depict my description. -- [[User:Xorg|Xorg]] ([[User talk:Xorg|talk]]) 15:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
::(I'm not sure if I'm doing this commenting thing right, but) on the "Pictures posted by users" page here I saw a drawing I did in response to text along the lines of "Sauron, stop staring."[[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.160|173.245.50.160]] 21:02, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
::The last computer device at the far right is a first generation SNES. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.193|173.245.56.193]] 15:12, 1 April 2015 (UTC)X
:::I keep reading the unidentified computer (second to rightmost) as a SunSPARC (that could kinda be the Sun logo) or a NEXT cube (right shape but no match to the logo) or something. Not sure where someone got 'radio transmitter'. [[User:Ijkcomputer|Ijkcomputer]] ([[User talk:Ijkcomputer|talk]]) 19:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
:::My first reaction to the second-to-rightmost was some kind of homebrew like an S-100 CP/M system with open-air cards in slots and a cased power supply or maybe a storage device, and a CRT with a graphic shown on it.[[User:Taibhse|Taibhse]] ([[User talk:Taibhse|talk]]) 04:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
*I think the general idea is based on a game that I think is called the fax machine game? [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.5|198.41.242.5]] 15:29, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I really, really, hope that some people have seen my contributions. They're pretty damn funny. [[User:YourLifeisaLie|The Goyim speaks]] ([[User talk:YourLifeisaLie|talk]]) 17:20, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

There's a link(Don't contact us) at the bottom of the list on the left that leads to a chatroom.[[User:Foldark|Foldark]] ([[User talk:Foldark|talk]]) 22:29, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Seems like the comic stopped working right now? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:46, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
:It is also not working for me. I had assumed I was personally blocked for polling the server too often... but maybe we DDOSed it. -[[User:452|452]] ([[User talk:452|talk]]) 22:55, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
:It's working for me again. -[[User:452|452]] ([[User talk:452|talk]]) 22:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I believe the 'Don't contact us' button is slowly fading away. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.137|173.245.50.137]] 02:18, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
:I believe the chat has been removed, I just got booted with a "This room requires a passcode", and now it won't load: https://euphoria.io/room/xkcd/ -[[User:452|452]] ([[User talk:452|talk]]) 02:33, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
::The contact is fading, but I can still see the text by tilting my screen. The link is still there. Maybe this is for the reason mentioned above in the explain. So only those who keeps coming back will remember eventually... And they can have the kind of chat forum that Randal talks about in [[1305]]. I have just been at the chat. Maybe "452" just tried at a time when there were to many users on-line`--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:17, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
:::Since being disconnected from the caht with the "This room requires a passcode", I have tried multiple times to rejoin, and it never connects. -[[User:452|452]] ([[User talk:452|talk]]) 13:01, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Looks like something Randall drew originally... https://xkcd.com/1506/#post/d6e6524c-80a5-5672-a539-8076c5c0342f
--[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.172|199.27.128.172]] 06:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
:Yes it sure does. Of course if someone used the method mentioned below they cold draw better than most can on the xkloud app. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:17, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

For people who wonder how to insert a picture that is not mouse-drawn. Follow these steps:
: Find the picture you like.
: In a grapical editor (such as GIMP) on your computer, make sure that the image only has two colours: black and white. in GIMP this is the 'posterize' option under the 'colors' menu. Save and export the image.
: Go to http://base64online.org/encode/ and upload your image there. Tick the 'format as Data URL' checkbox.
: In the following script, replace the 'BASE_64_ENCODED_IMAGE_HERE' for the dataURL you've made in the previous step. Copy this to your clipboard.

function draw_custom_image(){
context = $('canvas')[0].getContext('2d');
context.clearRect(0,0,100000,10000);
base_image = new Image();
base_image.src = 'BASE_64_ENCODED_IMAGE_HERE';
base_image.onload = function(){
context.drawImage(base_image, 0, 0);
}
}
draw_custom_image();

: In Chrome or FireFox (open on the xcloud page where you can draw an image), press Ctrl+Shift+I to open the Developer Panel.
: Go to the 'Console' and paste the script from step 4 here. Press Enter.
: If all went well, you'll see the image appear on the canvas, and you can submit it by clicking 'Upload Image' on the xkcloud page.
For the best results, ensure that your images are 451x338 pixels in size (as this is the size of the canvas).
Good luck!
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.64.83|141.101.64.83]] 13:27, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Does clicking the "want" ("hanker", etc.) button do anything? Like, increase the chance that the picture/caption pair will be reused for other viewers? [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 20:18, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
:Clicking the "want" button first requests a token from http://c0.xkcd.com/xb/csrf/token then sends a POST request to "http://c0.xkcd.com/xb/praise/c794eb88-5cde-5024-8301-c7e261b3ae11" where the final segment is the comic ID, and the token is send as x-csrf-token in the request. Response from server is "Good taste!" on success. Whether or not this makes the post more popular is unclear. But Randall does appear to be recording the button presses. -[[User:452|452]] ([[User talk:452|talk]]) 21:57, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I have created a [[1506:_xkcloud/Transcript#User_names|table out of the names]] listed in the extended transcript. I have started explaining the more obvious names. Maybe someone can have a look at some of the others. I'm sure many of the names I haven't touched yet have an obvious explanation. Good luck ;-) By the way at this moment 205 different names are listed... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 23:26, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

The eraser does not actually erase, it paints over it in white. The PNG is saved with a transparent background, so the erased portions can be clearly seen when displayed over a non-white background. -[[User:452|452]] ([[User talk:452|talk]]) 03:31, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Look at the main image for xkcloud. Up in the top right corner.... is that... what I think it is? http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x0ybZk68wk0/ULgs9fEPRKI/AAAAAAAAHP4/WsZx6N0euxY/s1600/TeleGames+Pong+Console.jpg.. A pong console? --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 16:20, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

It's broken for me. I get the three dots right now. Does this happen to anyone else? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.229|172.68.189.229]] 23:01, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Also broken for me, same three dots. Persisting for every refresh after pressing the red button on the first panel. Comic now broken? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.119|162.158.187.119]] 19:44, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

The page is working, but none of the images load. Help. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.221|172.68.189.221]] 03:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

: That's happening for me as well. [[User:Unpopular Opinions|Goodbye, world!]] ([[User talk:Unpopular Opinions|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Unpopular Opinions|contributions]]|[[wikipedia:{{#if:Special:Random|{{ucfirst:Special:Random}}{{!}}wikilink of the day]]|{{ucfirst:{{PAGENAME}}}}{{!}}{{PAGENAME}}]] at [[wikipedia:|Wikipedia]]}}) 20:47, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
the website in which the room is located is down :(
 
i've added a footnote linking to a mirror of the room in case anyone wants to enter. [[User:An user who has no account yet|An user who has no account yet]] ([[User talk:An user who has no account yet|talk]]) 15:19, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

The page loads for me, but it's always the exact same, regardless of hard refreshing, using a different browser, etc. [[User:Revolutionary girl euclid|Revolutionary girl euclid]] ([[User talk:Revolutionary girl euclid|talk]]) 19:05, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

Category:Software updates

2025-08-14T18:46:39Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: don't think it needs the "incomplete" tag anymore; i searched for "update" and added the category to the handful of pages it seemed applicable to me

[[Category:Computers]]

2474: First Time Since Early 2020

2025-08-14T18:43:56Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: added category "Software updates"

{{comic
| number = 2474
| date = June 9, 2021
| title = First Time Since Early 2020
| image = first_time_since_early_2020.png
| titletext = Gotten the Ferris wheel operator's attention
}}

==Explanation==

This is yet another comic part of the [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] on the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.

This comic is a chart that orders things based on the level of alarm that would occur if it were revealed that someone had not done a given thing since early 2020. Many of the items, but not all, are linked to new constraints due to the pandemic.

The title text serves as another chart point, though it isn't given where it is on the chart.

;Been to a birthday party
Going to a birthday party was a normal task before the pandemic, and it's normal to say you haven't gone to one since early 2020.

;Eaten at a restaurant
Eating at a restaurant was also common before governments instated lockdowns, but during the lockdowns many restaurants had to limit their service to delivery and take-out.

;Seen my family
Seeing your family was fairly common before the governments instated lockdowns. However, there were emergency visits during the lockdown period.

;Been on a plane
Governments around the world cancelled commercial flights during the pandemic. However, businessmen like Bill Gates used private jets during the pandemic.

;Gone to a movie
Many cinema halls around the world closed due to the pandemic. Several movies were instead released directly to TV via OTT platforms.

;Gone to a store
Although some stores were closed during the lockdown period, others were open for essential commodities. Therefore, going to a store for the first time since early 2020 is little strange.

;Installed software updates
Regularly installing software updates is recommended, mainly for security reasons. However, many people don't follow these recommendations (mostly by fear of software inconsistency or instability), although a delay of more than one year is quite long. Mentioning software updates is weird, because it is not directly related to the COVID pandemic. On the contrary, since many people spent much more time at home and worked at home, it was all the more important to keep software up to date, especially due to zero-day exploits.

;Eaten a vegetable
Since vegetables are essential to a healthy diet, not eating a single vegetable in a whole year is not recommended.{{citation needed}} Anxiety due to the pandemic and disruption of social relations may have caused people to consume more junk food than usual.

;Opened the fridge
This is quite weird, since most people use their refrigerators to store fresh food. Maybe some people became anorexic because of anxiety due to the pandemic or stopped consuming fresh food and relied more on junk food. Moreover, most food products will alter or rot if stored in a fridge for more than one year, and become dangerous to eat.{{citation needed}}

;Paid taxes
Although some people, depending on where they live and their income, may not pay taxes in an immediately obvious way, there are some taxes, such as {{w|VAT}} in many countries and {{w|sales tax}} in the United States or Canada, which almost everyone would pay in the natural course of everyday life, though may not be 'obvious' in the paying, or even be extracted at source (withheld from payroll) in the simpler cases. (Randall lives in {{w|Massachusetts}}, which does not have a VAT, but does have a 6.25% sales tax.) It is therefore strange that someone could have gone a year without paying any taxes, implying they made almost no monetary transactions in the period, nor are made (directly) responsible for any residential or property-owning taxations that might otherwise be payable to one or other layer of government.

If the statement refers specifically to filing income taxes (which is often the case when people refer to "taxes", because the paperwork and large sums of money transferred at once makes the income tax highly noticeable and memorable), it might describe someone who filed a tax return for 2019 early in 2020 and then waited until later in 2021 to file a return for 2020.

;Washed my hands
One of the main pieces of advice during the pandemic was to wash one's hands, frequently. Even in normal circumstances, washing hands is a good idea to remain hygienic,{{citation needed}} and not do so for a year would be disgusting to most people, and a good way of catching diseases.

Like paying taxes, it is very common to wash one's hands inadvertently as part of another activity, so someone who actually has not washed their hands since early 2020 likely also never bathed or showered.

;Seen another person
Despite the restrictions, most people will have seen another person during the pandemic, virtually or otherwise.

;Seen a ghost
The fact that the speaker apparently has seen a ghost, both now and presumably before early 2020 (else they would simply say it was the 'first time' they saw a ghost) is unusual.{{citation needed}}

In addition, it is possible that someone who tells you that they haven't seen a ghost recently is implying that ''you'' are a ghost they currently see. If true, this would be quite alarming to most people.

;Served as a decoy
Similar to the previous point, this is not a normal activity, so the specificity is unusual.

;Sighted land
Most people live on land,{{citation needed}} so sighting land should not be unusual, even during a pandemic. The fact that someone has gone over a year without sighting land suggests they have been lost at sea for the duration. There are several reported cases of ships' crews refused permission to disembark, due to local restrictions and/or because their scheduled relief were unable to embark, but the unluckily held-on persons forced to remain beyond their originally planned obligations should never have been left permanently beyond any tantalizingly unreachable view of the shore.

Taken more literally, it could simply mean that the person remained indoors and did not look outside, or that the person was temporarily blind.

;Checked the news
If someone has not checked the news since early 2020, they will likely be in for a shock upon checking. Noting that this could possibly (if increasingly absurdly) still apply to someone like [[Ponytail]] (as portrayed in strip [[2396: Wonder Woman 1984]]).

;Checked on the customers in the {{w|escape room}}
The implication is that the customers in question have been trapped in the escape room since early 2020. Most escape rooms are not equipped to support a person for that length of time, so unless the customers actually escaped, they would likely not have survived.{{citation needed}}

;Contracted a novel bat virus
As a 'novel bat virus' is what kicked off the whole pandemic, contracting another one may send the whole world into a new pandemic, which is certainly alarming.{{Citation needed}}

;Gotten the Ferris wheel operator's attention (title text)
It seems that the speaker has been stuck in a {{w|Ferris wheel}} for a year. It is unclear how they may have survived, unless the speaker is [[Beret Guy|a certain xkcd character]].

Alternately, it would be perfectly normal that the speaker has not been at an amusement park with a working Ferris wheel since early 2020 - but it would be unusual to focus on interacting with the operator versus enjoying the attraction.

Several [https://ask.metafilter.com/78414/The-Rotating-Prison-in-the-Mountain science fiction stories] include wheel-like prisons where people stay for years, but generally they are underground and horizontal rather than in the air and vertical like Ferris wheels are.

==Transcript==
: [Heading:]
: "This is actually the first time I've _____ since early 2020."
: [Below is a long vertical arrow with the words "normal" and "alarming" at the top and the bottom of the arrow respectively. To the right side of the arrow is a list of text, with each item starting with a triangle.]
: ◀ been to a birthday party
: ◀ eaten at a restaurant
: ◀ seen my family
: ◀ been on a plane
: ◀ gone to a movie
: ◀ gone to a store
: ◀ installed software updates
: ◀ eaten a vegetable
: ◀ opened the fridge
: ◀ paid taxes
: ◀ washed my hands
: ◀ seen another person
: ◀ seen a ghost
: ◀ served as a decoy
: ◀ sighted land
: ◀ checked the news
: ◀ checked on the customers in the escape room
: ◀ contracted a novel bat virus

==Trivia==

On July 6, 2021, four weeks after the release of this comic, an emergency patch update was released for Windows 7. Since support for Windows 7 had otherwise ended in mid-January 2020, this means that people whose computers ran Windows 7 could have installed software updates for the first time since early 2020.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Taxes]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Software updates]]

2615: Welcome Back

2025-08-14T18:32:06Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: added category "Software updates"

{{comic
| number = 2615
| date = May 4, 2022
| title = Welcome Back
| image = welcome_back.png
| titletext = 'We're shocked by the Notre Dame fire. Click for our tribute to--' [okay] 'Now that we're all staying at home these past few weeks thanks to this new coronavirus, we--' [okay]
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is opening an app called TornadoGuard, a reference to comic [[937: TornadoGuard]]. In that comic the app is described to have a function so it "plays a loud alert sound when there is a tornado warning for your area". {{w|Tornado|Tornadoes}} are a [[:Category:Tornadoes|recurring theme]] on xkcd.

In the background, a tornado is approaching, so presumably a loud alert sound has just played and Cueball has opened the app. It is also possible that [[937|the app didn't play any alert]], but Cueball saw the tornado and thus opened the app to check whether it had any news.

However, before he can interact with the app and learn more about the tornado, he has to click through various old messages from the app, since he hasn't opened the app in a while. This is feasible because May, which is the month in which this comic was published and typically the most active month for tornadoes, had seen fewer-than-average tornadoes in the previous two years but not during this year – see this [https://weather.com/storms/tornado/news/2022-05-02-may-tornadoes-2020-2021-recent-luck Tornado Central story]. So Cueball would have been more likely to have to worry about tornadoes this year than in the previous two years.

The comic is poking fun at the obtrusiveness of these kind of messages by presenting a scenario where they cause a significant delay before Cueball would be able to read the very urgent information about current tornadoes.

The messages include a description of a big update, a response to user feedback about one specific feature, and a social post seemingly unrelated to the app.

This continues in the title text where there are two more messages that refer to specific world events and can therefore be dated: The fire that {{w|Notre-Dame_de_Paris_fire|damaged the church of Notre Dame}} in Paris April 15th 2019; and the early attempts to limit the spread of Covid-19 disease, which was {{w|COVID-19_pandemic|declared a pandemic}} on March 11th 2020. It has been a while since the last [[:Category:COVID-19|reference to the pandemic]], actually the previous comic about this, [[2563: Throat and Nasal Passages]], was released almost exactly 4 months prior to this one.

The two mentioned news stories were relevant about three and two years before this comic was published, respectively. Neither of these are important to know right now, whereas an announcement about an [[2224: Software Updates|update]] that [[1172: Workflow|changes its functionality]] could be [[1328: Update|important to know about]].

Although it is possible that there are no more messages to click through if nothing of significance has happened [[2459: March 2020|subsequent to the title text ones]], the reader can easily imagine that the development team has posted further 'real time' messages that Cueball will still have to scroll through and/or dismiss, with very little immediate importance compared with the imminent proximity of an actual funnel-cloud.

==Transcript==
:[A large cloud fills the upper 3/4 of the panel. That it is a cloud is indicated by curved lines at the bottom of the cloud. Below the cloud lines is a tornado in the right part of the background. It is throwing up dust on or near the mid-distance horizon and creating an active debris cloud. In the foreground Cueball is standing holding his phone up in one hand, looking at the screen, which is on as indicated by five "light lines" coming of his display. Three paragraphs of text fills most of the white cloud space above Cueball, they are connected by lines, with the last leading down to the top of Cueball's phone. There are two rounded boxes to the right and below the first two paragraphs with text. They represents buttons Cueball presses on the screen to get to the next text message.]
:Hi! The TornadoGuard™ team is proud to announce a big update! We've added-
:''Okay''

:Note to users of sentinel mode: We've heard your feedback, and the controls are now-
:''Got it''

:The TornadoGuard™ team saw this cool leaf shaped like a spider; do you want to see...

:[Caption below the panel:]
:When you open an app for the first time in a while, you have to wait around while it tells you about all the cool adventures it's had.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Tornadoes]]
[[Category:Spiders]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Software updates]]

2010: Update Notes

2025-08-14T18:20:11Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: added category "Software updates"

{{comic
| number = 2010
| date = June 22, 2018
| title = Update Notes
| image = update_notes.png
| titletext = v3.0.2: Hey, if anyone still using this app is headed to the beach, can you stop at 4th and River St and grab the sunscreen from my car? Trunk should be unlocked. Thanks!
}}

==Explanation==
Update notes or {{w|release notes}} are notes (or documents) released when software has been updated, to inform the user of any important changes to the software.

In this comic, Randall and his friend are using release notes of their {{w|Mobile application|app}}s as a form of chat service, instead of actual software change information. He says this is possible because the two apps are no longer being maintained, so theoretically, there are not many people using the app who would read the update / change notes. Incidentally, one can still argue that the chat is still technically update notes, only instead of updating users on what has changed about an app, it is now giving Randall and his friend status "updates".

This comic has a similar theme as [[1305: Undocumented Feature]] both use old software forums as a chat application.

This "chat service" would not be in real time, so presumably, Randall and his friend would have to be constantly checking each other's apps to see if there are updates.

On the "stars" app, the last "actual" notes says "Introduced bugs and degraded performance". This is a very common change when new features are added, however, developers will normally describe what the new features are rather than just state the negative consequences. It goes in contrast with the typical change note "fixed bugs and improved performance" that usually follows.

The comic also refers to a meteor shower occurring in August, most likely the {{w|Perseids|Perseid meteor shower}}.

The title text says that Randall, who is at the beach, has left his {{w|sunscreen}} in his car, but that the {{w|Trunk (car)|trunk}} (a pun with the name of the main software development branch in SVN) is unlocked, for whoever is still reading the updates for this app. This may invite the attention of thieves, who are now informed that Randall's trunk is unlocked. However they may not know what city Randall lives in, and conversely readers of the release notes could be anywhere in the world so most are probably not in a position to physically make contact with Randall's car.

This comic could be seen as a subtle reference to how plain sight communication such as gang codes and steganography are used by people, possibly out of coerced necessity, to communicate information both deniably and publicly. It is likely that this often happens in real app update messages in real life. This kind of communication would more realistically allow a criminal worker to communicate with a contact point without endangering their anonymity by associating with them directly.

This comic could also be poking fun at the non-descriptive updates many popular apps post in the "What's new" or change log. One example of this would be the Uber app stating "We update the app as often as possible" as a "new" feature every update. Apple recently changed AppStore guidelines[https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#accurate-metadata] to require clear descriptions of new features and product changes, effectively putting an end to the problem Randall is highlighting.

Realistically, even if it were permitted, this would be a rather slow form of communication, especially on platforms such as Apple’s App Store, where Randall and his friend would need to wait from a few hours to a few days for their app to be manually reviewed for each “update”.

==Transcript==
:[There are two panels that show smartphone-esque screens with two different apps with different update notes, showing a conversation between two people. New updates are added to the top, so to follow the conversation flow one would start from the bottom and alternate between the second app and the first one.]
:[At the top, the status bars between the two panels are slightly different: telephone reception, WiFi strength, battery, GPS...]

:["Updates" is written in uppercase at the top. The first app's icon is an "A" symbol. Next to it, there is the following information:]
:[The app name is a scribble]
:Version 3.0.1
:June 22, 2018

:Update Notes:

:v3.0.1
:I'm actually off work Monday so that's perfect.

:v3.0
:Oh, that sounds fun! What night?

:v2.8.31
:Are you around this weekend? We're heading to the beach.

:v2.8.3
:Hey Mike, you there?

:["Updates" is written in uppercase at the top. The second app's icon consists of three stars arranged in a triangle. Next to it, there is:]
:[The app name is a scribble followed by two stars in parentheses]
:Version 7.0
:June 22, 2018

:Update Notes:

:v7.0
:It peaks August 12-13th.

:v6.8.16
:Sorry, no, going to a wedding. But do you want to camp out for the meteor shower in August?

:v6.8.15
:Yeah, what's up?

:v6.8.14
:Introduced bugs and degraded performance[.]

:[At the bottom of each panel, there are menu icons: a star, a stack of rectangles, a bullet list, a magnifying glass and an arrow pointing down to a square]

:[Caption below the panels:]
:My friend and I both have apps we've stopped maintaining, so we just use the updates to chat.

:[For convenience, here are the update notes in order of release (note that the first is not part of the conversation with Mike):]

:"3-star" app (v6.8.14): Introduced bugs and degraded performance[.]

:"A" app (v2.8.3): Hey Mike, you there?

:3-star (v6.8.15): Yeah, what's up?

:A (v.2.8.31): Are you around this weekend? We're heading to the beach.

:3-star (v6.8.16): Sorry, no, going to a wedding. But do you want to camp out for the meteor shower in August?

:A (v3.0): Oh, that sounds fun! What night?

:3-star (v7.0): It peaks August 12-13th.

:A (v3.0.1): I'm actually off work Monday so that's perfect.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Smartphones]]
[[Category:Software updates]]

3028: D&D Roll

2025-08-14T18:17:19Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Trivia */ improved trivia section, along with the one for 3015. (The first paragraph here is describing a different error now, but I think the presumptive explanation is still pretty much the same)

{{comic
| number = 3028
| date = December 23, 2024
| title = D&D Roll
| image = dnd_roll_2x.png
| imagesize = 312x313px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Under some circumstances, if you throw a D8 and then a D12 at an enemy, thanks to the D8's greater pointiness you actually have to roll a D12 and D8 respectively to determine damage.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a scene from a tabletop roleplaying game, probably {{w|Dungeons & Dragons}}. In [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]], the same people, [[Cueball]], [[Megan]], [[Ponytail]], [[White Hat]] and [[Knit Cap]], are seated playing D&D in the same seats, where Cueball seems to represent [[Randall]].

Here Cueball announces "I roll D20... 18," referring to rolling a 20-sided die and getting the relatively high score of 18, presumably while in a fight with a {{w|kobold (Dungeons & Dragons)|kobold}} (a small reptilian humanoid creature in D&D.) The {{w|gamemaster|Dungeon Master}} (DM, or game master), Ponytail, responds that the kobold is unaffected, but suggests using a sword instead, pointing out the absurdity of trying to defeat an enemy by rolling dice at them. (Ponytail was also the dungeon master in the previous D&D comic).

Cueball made the mistake of assuming that Ponytail would understand which of his weapons or other {{w|melee}} attacks he intended to use, but she had no way of knowing that, so she decided to gently tease him about the omission. This is a common mistake, and being gently made fun of is a common result. The player will usually be allowed to state the specific attack intended and roll again.{{acn}} It could also have to do with the idea that some people forget D&D is a roleplaying game and just roll dice without explaining, for example, ''how'' they charm the shopkeeper.

However, the possibility exists that the players' characters have actual dice, such as those which were role-played as being produced in [[244: Tabletop Roleplaying]]. The title text suggests that if you literally threw dice as weapons, an eight-sided die (D8) would do more damage than a twelve-sided die (D12) because of its {{w|Dice#Common variations|pointier shape}}, so ironically, you might need to roll the D12 to determine the D8's damage and vice versa, in "some circumstances." As per the Background below, those circumstances are considerably slight. The effectiveness of the [[2626: d65536|d65536]] in this context has yet to be determined.

===Background===
When attacking an enemy in D&D, regardless of the weapon used, the attack starts with a d20 roll to see if it lands a solid hit. If a sufficiently high (or in the earliest editions, sufficiently low) number is rolled, the attack hits, and then further dice (chosen depending on the weapon's form and any magic it might possess) are rolled to determine damage. Before any dice can be rolled at all, however, the player must declare which enemy they are attacking and what with. This is trivial if the attacking character always uses the same weapon and is facing a single enemy, but becomes an important question if the fight is more complex. Consider a case where there are two kobolds present, one wearing plate armor while the other has only a loincloth on (the armor requiring a better d20 roll to defeat), and the player carries both a greatsword (dealing heavy general damage) and the magical "Icepick of Instant Kobold Death" (normally ignored but in this case very useful) and also has magic item that can shoot a destructive [https://5e.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scorchingRay.htm ''Scorching Ray'']. There are also certain weapons that deal subpar damage on a typical attack, but trigger a powerful extra effect on a very good roll such as 18, making it even more important to specify which weapon one is using before making the roll. A cheating player might roll first, and then decide which weapon they were using and on which target. This could also be used to avoid wasting a weapon (or [[3015: D&D Combinatorics|particular ammunition]]) with limited uses.

By D&D 5 rules, a stone hurled from a sling does [https://5e.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#simpleWeapons 1d4 bludgeoning damage]. A sling bullet typically weighs [https://5e.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/equipment.htm#tableAdventuringGear 3/40 pound (1.2 oz, 35 g)], a plausible weight for a normal-sized die made of a moderately dense material. Presumably, an object of similar weight that's thrown "by hand" rather than with a sling would do less damage, though a heavier object might do similar damage (albeit with less range). The D&D 3.5 spell [https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicStone.htm ''Magic Stone''] enhances ordinary small stones so they do 1d6+1 damage when hurled, or 2d6+2 when striking undead creatures. So depending on the setup, a D&D character throwing a die at an enemy could theoretically cause considerable harm, but would normally be much better served with an intentionally crafted weapon.

Alternately, DMs may take umbrage at a player's presumption to roll dice for actions before being asked to, and this could be interpreted as a chiding. Sometimes rolls are not necessary in cases where success is automatic (the kobold is effectively helpless) or impossible (the kobold is magically immune to physical attacks), although it should be the DM's own choice whether to still test for a meaningful critical [https://rpgmuseum.fandom.com/wiki/Critical_failure failure] or [https://rpgmuseum.fandom.com/wiki/Critical_hit success], despite it being an apparently foregone conclusion of either kind. There are also other circumstances where the required dice is(/are) different ''in this instance'' from that which the player may assume. From a practical perspective, if the performed rolling of the dice is not required (or correctly composed) for the DM's purposes, they can choose to ignore it and/or ask for some other roll(s) to be made. It may then be the player that might be most upset by having rolled a 'good' roll that has been 'wasted', on the principle that they would have liked it to have it happen later, when it actually mattered, despite this being statistically irrelevant, assuming that the DM doesn't keep any such details mysteriously hidden.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, Megan, Ponytail, White Hat, and Knit Cap are sitting around a table in a tabletop gaming session. Both Cueball and Knit Cap are sitting in office chairs at the ends of the table, with Cueball leaning forward and holding his hand above the table and Knit Cap leaning back on her arm. Behind the table, Megan sits to the left of Ponytail and White Hat to the right. They are both looking at Ponytail, while Ponytail is looking at Cueball. Objects such as dice, miniatures, a map, and papers are on the table.]
:Cueball: I roll D20... 18.
:Ponytail: The kobold is unaffected.
:Ponytail: Honestly, I don't know why you thought dice would help. You should probably try a sword or something instead.

==Trivia==
When this comic was first released, its title was mistakenly displayed as "xkcd: D&D; Roll" instead of "xkcd: D&D Roll." This was likely due to a technical error in how the ampersand character (“&”) was processed by the system that generated the title. It seems the software may have misinterpreted "&D" as the beginning of an HTML character entity, even though "&D" is not a valid one.

The browser title for this comic's page is "xkcd: D Roll", presumably caused by a similar error. This has not been fixed.

The earlier comic [[3015: D&D Combinatorics]] also had similar issues.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]

491: Twitter

2025-08-14T17:06:56Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ Updated and revised to explanation. I don't think this explanation needs to go THAT in depth on newer information, though. It's an explanation for one comic, not for all of Twitter.

{{comic
| number = 491
| date = October 20, 2008
| title = Twitter
| image = twitter.png
| titletext = If long tooltips / cut off for you / then upgrade from / Firefox 2 / Burma Shave
}}

==Explanation==
This comic plays off of an old shaving cream product's {{w|Burma-Shave}} advertising campaign employed on American highways from {{w|1925}} to {{w|1963}}. These ads used short poems, each line arranged sequentially on a sign along a highway, the last line always being "Burma-Shave," the name of the shaving cream. Originally, these ads only described the product, but others included driving safety messages. This notorious advertising gimmick could be considered an "ancient meme", having ended more than a decade before the term {{w|Meme|''meme''}} was even coined.

{{w|Twitter}} is a text-based social media service where posts are restricted in length (originally 140 characters, though the limit would be doubled to 280 characters from 2017 onward), so to get a longer essay sent, you will need to break it up in smaller fragments — like the {{w|Burma-Shave}} messages, although the whole of the text of this comic is considerably less than 140 characters and would not actually need to be broken up on Twitter. (Long after the release of this comic, Twitter would be {{w|Acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk|acquired by Elon Musk}} and later renamed to X. The platform is still commonly referred to as Twitter, though, including in {{w|Twitter|its Wikipedia article}}.)

[[Cueball]] gets five messages from Twitter on his device that give the following message: "On Twitter feeds - An odd regression: - Ancient memes - Find new expression - Burma-Shave." Thus the "ancient meme" of Burma-Shave advertisements is revived in the form of a broken-up Twitter thread.

{{w|Firefox 2}} had a long-standing annoying bug where only the initial part of the title text was shown as a tooltip, preventing you from seeing the rest of the text unless you right-clicked show-property, which would let you see a sideways scrollable field of the title-text in the properties for the image.

This bug is also still mentioned in [https://xkcd.com/about xkcd.com's About page]:

{{Quote|<big>'''Why can't I read the whole comic mouseover text in Firefox?'''</big>

''They can be read with extensions like [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1715/ Long Titles], or by right-clicking on the images and going to 'properties', then clicking and dragging to read the whole thing. This is a bug in [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id{{=}}45375 Firefox, Mozilla Bug #45375]. It has been outstanding for many years now.

''Note: It looks like it's been fixed in Firefox 3.0. Now, as an added tweak, to keep the tooltips from expiring while you're reading, you can use [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11233 this].|[[Randall Munroe]]|[https://xkcd.com/about About xkcd]}}

==Transcript==
:[Cueball with a handheld device sits on an office chair.]
:Device: ''Beep beep''

:Device: On Twitter feeds

:Device: ''Beep beep''

:Device: An odd regression:

:Device: ''Beep beep''

:Device: Ancient memes

:Device: ''Beep beep''

:Device: Find new expression

:Device: ''Beep beep''

:Device: Burma-shave

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

1922: Interferometry

2025-06-10T19:25:11Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ the phrase "good dog" does not a meme make

{{comic
| number = 1922
| date = November 29, 2017
| title = Interferometry
| image = interferometry.png
| titletext = It's important to note that while the effective size of the dog can be arbitrarily large, it's not any more of a good dog than the two original dogs.
}}

==Explanation==

Interferometry is the practice of overlapping two different waves to get a different signal, which can be used to determine the distance between two reflecting surfaces. An {{w|astronomical interferometer}} uses this principle to build an array of separate telescopes that are able to work together as a single telescope, effectively providing higher resolution using a process known as {{w|Aperture Synthesis|aperture synthesis}}.

In the comic, [[Beret Guy]] and [[Cueball]] are walking Beret Guy's dogs when Beret Guy makes a comment on how interferometry is really cool. Beret Guy states that two dogs placed at a consistent interval will function as a larger dog — a play on the astronomical interferometer. While this idea works on waves, it probably won't work on dogs{{Citation needed}} (though since h/p=λ it might), which is why Cueball is confused and starts to correct him. Before he can respond, however, Beret Guy jumps on his "large" dog and appears to be floating in midair. The existence of a large dog is further proven when it gives out a large bark. Cueball looks on speechless while Beret Guy appears to exhibit another of his [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]]: he perceives reality in a certain way and reality alters itself to how he perceives it.

In [[1614: Kites]], Beret Guy is "walking" a dog. It is possible that one of the dogs in this comic is the dog from that comic.

The title text states that the effective giant dog is not any more 'good' than the two original dogs. This is analogous to sensitivity for astronomical interferometers. Interferometry does not increase the light-gathering area, so it cannot view dim objects as well as a single large telescope could. This is also a reference generally to dog-owners calling their dogs "good dog" or "good boy/girl" when they behave well; presumably, Beret Guy's giant interferometry dog is only as well-behaved as the dogs they are derived from. (However, as interferometry does collect more light than any individual telescope used, the interferometry dog is presumably more good than either individual dog. Considering the destructive potential of a giant bad dog, this is a good thing.)

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is walking behind Beret Guy, who is walking two small dogs on two leashes.]
:Beret Guy: Interferometry. Is so cool!

:[They stop and Beret Guy is holding the leashes in his hand. He has taken them off the dogs and points at the dogs, which he has placed facing outward so they are standing a couple of paces apart. The distance between them is indicated by a labeled line.]
:Beret Guy: If you put two small dogs a large distance apart, they can function as a single giant dog.
:Line: d

:[Cueball begins to speak but is cut off by Beret Guy yelling as he jumps into the space above the two dogs, with each leg a good distance above one of the dogs. (The leashes have disappeared, as well as the distance line).]
:Cueball: I'm not sure that's-
:Beret Guy: '''''Hyah!'''''

:[As Cueball watches, Beret Guy floats on top of the invisible giant dog about a meter above the two small dogs, and then rides away with the two small dogs still seen below as they run to the right, leaving Cueball standing in the dust the "big" dog creates in its wake. The invisible giant dog barks from a position just in front of Beret Guy's face, far above the two small dogs.]
:Invisible giant dog: <big>'''''WOOF'''''</big>
:Beret Guy: ''Away!''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Dogs]]

2271: Grandpa Jason and Grandpa Chad

2025-06-09T04:29:20Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ it's not actually referencing that one

{{comic
| number = 2271
| date = February 21, 2020
| title = Grandpa Jason and Grandpa Chad
| image = grandpa_jason_and_grandpa_chad.png
| titletext = The AARP puts the average age of a first-time grandparent close to 50, and the CDC has some data. But I don't have first-parent age distributions for specific names, or generational first-child age correlations, so the dotted line is just a guess. Still, let's be honest: No further research is really *needed.*
}}

==Explanation==
This is another comic with one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Fun fact|fun facts]].

The comic contains three separate curves, with the x-axis being the date and the y-axis being the frequency of three separate sets of data:
* The number of people in the US with the name "Jason", a curve that reaches its maximum in 1977, when Jason became the [http://www.babynames.it/top100/1/year-1977.html second most common name] and reached the [https://www.everything-birthday.com/name/m/Jason maximum number of babies born with that name]
* The number of people in the US with the name "Chad," a similar curve that reaches its maximum in 1973, when [https://www.everything-birthday.com/name/m/Chad the number of babies named Chad reached ''its'' maximum]
* An estimate of the birth years of people that are becoming grandparents, with its maximum in 1968, 52 years ago. The title text explains this is the age at which, on average, most people become grandparents, citing an [https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/surveys_statistics/life-leisure/2019/aarp-grandparenting-study.doi.10.26419-2Fres.00289.001.pdf AARP study]

The graph shows that the names "Jason" and "Chad" were extremely uncommon in the US prior to the 1960's, but then experienced a surge in popularity, peaking in the late 1970's, and falling off thereafter. There are a couple of interesting effects when certain names become temporarily trendy. It means that those names become closely associated with a particular age cohort, so one can guess a person's age range based solely on their first name, and therefore predict other tendencies associated with age (this is also explored in [[1950: Chicken Pox and Name Statistics]]). A side effect of this is that, when this cohort first comes of age, those names enter the public consciousness as being associated with youth, trendiness and irresponsibility. Of course, that cohort continues to age, and eventually becomes the adult cohort, then the senior cohort, but stereotypes are often slow to change. [[2165: Millennials]] is similarly about how a label has outlived the demographic that it was used to describe, while the people described by the label have outgrown the traits that the label entails.

In addition to dealing with with the inertia of our assumptions and stereotype, this comic also continues a long XKCD tradition of [[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|pointing out how quickly time is passing, and how slow we often are to realize it.]] In this case, those of us in Randall's general age range are used to thinking of "Jason" and "Chad" as names for young, trendy, party animals. The fact that only a small fraction of people with these names are under the age of 30, and a growing number of them are now grandparents (and that trend is likely to increase rapidly in the next few years), forces us to acknowledge that quite a bit of time has passed since we first formed our world views, and that means we've aged, even if we haven't noticed it.

The title text adds a caveat to the assertion, mentioning the lack of any real evidence for the distribution of ages of Grandparents, but tacitly admits that the matter is not sufficiently important to seek any further precision.

Other possible caveats of the data:
* The Y-axis is in percent of the highest year, not absolute numbers. So while it jokingly implies that, in a few years, all grandparents will be named Jason and Chad, in actuality it will probably be in the order of the hundreds of thousands of people (less than 2% of [https://www.aarp.org/home-family/friends-family/info-2017/record-number-grandparents.html all grandparents]), but still common enough compared to other "ages" to be "the age of Grandpa Jason and Grandpa Chad"
* There are many fewer [https://www.mynamestats.com/First-Names/C/CH/CHAD/index.html people whose legal name is Chad] than [https://www.mynamestats.com/First-Names/J/JA/JASON/index.html people whose legal name is Jason], so "Grandpa Jason" will probably be much more common than "Grandpa Chad"
* Chad is really more of a {{w|Chad_(name)|nickname}}, so data on people assigned the name Chad at birth may be meaningless

The title text ends with the text "No further research is really *needed,*" which could be taken as a reference to [[2268: Further Research is Needed]]. This is also a joke in itself. The emphasis on *needed* is an admission that although more research is *possible*, it's simply not warranted, given the fairly trivial nature of the topic.

==Transcript==
:[A progression chart covering the period of years between 1950 to 1995. One line, representing the birth years of people becoming grandparents, is dotted and begins low at the start, climbs, then steeply declines. Two solid lines, representing the birth years of people named "Chad" or "Jason", begin in the early 1960s, rise almost concurrently, however one declines steadily while the other has a curve almost before the end of the chart. The overlapping area between the dotted and solid lines is shaded. The lines show the following data:]

:Birth years of people becoming grandparents this year (United States, very rough estimate)
:[A dotted line which begins at 1950, rises to its peak at 1970, then steeply declines to zero by the late '70s.]

:Birth years of people named "Jason" and "Chad" (Social Security data)
:[Chad: A solid line beginning at 1962, rises to its peak by 1975, then drops through the '80s and '90s. Jason crosses underneath it in 1985, but then re-crosses it in 1993.]
:[Jason: A solid line beginning at 1963, rises to its peak between 1977-80, then declines, dropping beneath Chad around 1985 but climbing above it again in 1993.]

:[Caption below the comic:]
:Fun fact: We have now entered the era of "Grandpa Jason" and "Grandpa Chad."

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Fun fact]]

2265: Tax AI

2025-06-09T04:25:54Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ it's called "Tax AI" because it's about a tax AI

{{comic
| number = 2265
| date = February 7, 2020
| title = Tax AI
| image = tax_ai.png
| titletext = I ended up getting my tax return prepared at a local place by a really friendly pretrained neural net named Greg.
}}

==Explanation==
The deadline for filing tax returns in the United States is April 15, so many people in the US are already in the process of filing their taxes at the time of this comic's publication. Traditionally, people used tax provider companies, but it is becoming more popular to use tax preparation software, such as {{w|TurboTax}} or a service from the {{w|Free File Alliance}}, which helps to fill in the tax forms after a user enters their income information and {{w|Tax deduction|deduction}}s for the year.

In this comic, [[Cueball]] has attempted to train an {{w|artificial neural net}} to prepare his {{w|Tax return (United States)|US tax return}}, but it has made several comical errors, purportedly because it was not trained extensively enough. Most of the errors consist of {{w|malapropism}}s, words that sound almost the same but mean very different things switched for comic effect. This suggests Cueball trained the neural net by talking to it.

The title text references [[2173: Trained a Neural Net]], which indicates that getting a human to do something is basically using a "pretrained neural net". Cueball has chosen to use a local tax provider to help him file his taxes, aka a "pretrained neural net" in the form of a human named Greg.

Randall also "trained" humans to do his tax returns in [[1566: Board Game]]. Tax returns and the troubles of filling them out were also the subjects of [[1971: Personal Data]] and [[1977: Paperwork]].

===Types of errors===
* "claim up to 1040 defendants": typically, taxpayers may claim "{{w|dependent}}s" (not "{{w|defendant}}s", persons being sued or accused of crimes) to deduct a certain amount of money from their taxable income, which is intended to represent money used for their care. Dependents include children, wards, elderly parents, and others for whom the taxpayer is the primary caregiver, so 1040 would be an [https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/families/2016/cps-2016/tabavg1.xls absurdly high number]. {{w|Form 1040}} is the number of the primary tax document that must be filed in the United States.
* "seitan local income tax" is a reference to "{{w|state income tax|state and local income tax}}" which can be deducted from federal income taxes in the US. Most states in the United States have income taxes that must be prepared separately, but some do not. In English, {{wiktionary|seitan}} is another name for wheat gluten, used in vegetarian or vegan dishes. This is most likely a byproduct of the AI mishearing "state and" as "seitan".
* "fiscal year 20202": presumably the neural net got carried away with 2's and 0's in 2020. However, at the date the comic was published, Cueball should be filing his 2019 taxes anyway. Alternately, the comic could take place in the future and it took the way most people will speak the year 2022 ("twenty twenty-two") and then transferred this directly to numbers ("20" "20" "2" becoming 20202).
* "standard deduckling" : the "{{w|standard deduction}}", which is what many taxpayers opt to do rather than attempting to {{w|itemized deduction|itemize their deductions}}. The standard deduction is based on filing status and typically increases each year. "Deduckling" is not a word, but "duckling" is: namely, a baby duck.
* "atomizing" his "clams": instead of "itemizing his claims" which, as mentioned above, wouldn't make sense if he was taking the standard deduction anyway. Itemized deductions means to "itemize" or list individual deductions, such as charitable donations, medical expenses, mortgage interest payments, etc. Choosing to itemize deductions may lead to a greater deduction, but requires more effort and supporting documentation, in case of a {{w|Income tax audit|tax audit}}. Alternatively, it could be referencing the term "Liquidating finances."

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting, hands on his knees, in his office chair at his desk reading a message on the screen of his laptop. The message is shown above the laptop an is indicated to be on the screen with a zigzag line starting at a starburst on the screen.]
:Laptop: You may claim up to 1040 defendants on your seitan local income tax for fiscal year 20202 by taking the standard deduckling and atomizing your clams.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I used a neural net to prepare my tax returns, but I think I cut off its training too early.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Language]]

2263: Cicadas

2025-06-09T04:23:24Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ come on guys

2251: Alignment Chart Alignment Chart

2025-06-09T04:14:09Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ neither of these sentences make sense

{{comic
| number = 2251
| date = January 6, 2020
| title = Alignment Chart Alignment Chart
| image = alignment_chart_alignment_chart.png
| titletext = I would describe my personal alignment as "lawful heterozygous silty liquid."
}}

==Explanation==
"Alignment" and "alignment charts" come from tabletop roleplaying games, most prominently ''{{w|Dungeons & Dragons}}''. Every character has an {{w|Alignment (Dungeons & Dragons)|alignment}}, which very roughly identifies their tendencies. The most widely used alignment system was introduced in the ''{{w|Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set}}'' in 1977 and has been reused in many (but not all) subsequent editions of the game. This system uses two perpendicular axes, each divided into three levels (for a total of nine categories). The two axes are:
* Lawful/neutral/chaotic: this axis says whether a character is strongly devoted to, indifferent about, or categorically opposed to following established rules.
* Good/neutral/evil: this axis says whether a character is generally inclined to commit good deeds or evil deeds.

In this system, the "lawful" attribute is independent from the "good" attribute. Lawful alignment means that a character is committed to a set of rules, which can refer to actual established laws, or to something like a rigid personal code, a set of traditions, or a chain of command, while a chaotic alignment means that a character has no interest in those, and may actively oppose them. The good vs evil scale is generally based on a character's concern for the lives and well-being of others; a good character will actively seek to help others and prevent harm, while an evil character will have no such concern and may actively harm others. Being 'good' is assumed to be independent of being 'lawful'. For example, a character who actively breaks laws to help those who are unjustly imprisoned or oppressed would be considered to be "chaotic good". In both cases, a neutral alignment can indicate a character's indifference to a concept, or that their commitment is conditional, or that they consciously seek to balance both sides. A character with the "neutral neutral" alignment is called a true neutral.

An alignment chart is a grid that divides the alignments, usually for the purpose of putting descriptions or particular characters on it. Alignment charts are frequently used as a [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mcdonalds-alignment-chart meme template], where humorous or absurdist things are organized into different alignments. In addition to the "classic" Dungeons and Dragons alignment chart, there are a number of variant alignment charts in use as meme templates. Many keep the three-by-three grid structure but replace the lawful-neutral-chaotic and good-neutral-evil axes with descriptions.

This comic claims to be a meta-alignment chart, where nine "alignment charts" are themselves sorted into the nine Dungeons and Dragons alignments, following the use of alignment charts to humorously classify abstract concepts. However, these "alignment charts" are mostly diagrams used in academic classifications, which are being treated as if they were blank meme templates. There are two levels of absurdity here: first, the idea of using these diagrams to classify things they were never intended for, and second, the conflation of chaos as a physics concept and an assigned moral weight as it applies to each of these classification systems.

The title text describes Randall's alignment as "lawful heterozygous silty liquid" which references the true neutral, neutral good, lawful good, and lawful neutral charts in the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart. Lawful is the left side of an alignment chart, heterozygous is the top right or bottom left of a Punnett Square, silty is the bottom right of a soil chart, and liquid is the top right of a phase diagram. As such, the title text describes Randall's alignment as between Lawful Neutral and Neutral Good on this chart.

{| class="wikitable"
!Alignment
!Chart
!Explanation
|-
|Lawful Good
|{{w|Soil texture|Soil chart}}
|This chart shows the USDA classification of soil types by their relative proportions of sand, clay and silt. The chart is a ternary diagram (very common in geology), so soils with more clay plot towards the upper corner, soils with more sand to the bottom left, and soils with more silt to the bottom right. This chart has been used humorously as an alignment chart ([https://www.reddit.com/r/PrequelMemes/comments/8wakd4/anakin_soil_reference_chart/ for example]) and may have been the inspiration for Randall to use scientific diagrams as alignment charts. In addition to being Lawful Good, this grid cell is also the upper left cell of the chart and will be read first, making it a good place to put this chart as a "jumping off point". [https://what-if.xkcd.com/83/ What If 83 "Star Sand"] cites Randall as "...very satisfied with this chart, it's like the erosion geology edition of the electromagnetic spectrum chart..."
|-
|Neutral Good
|{{w|Punnett square}}
| Punnett squares are a visual method of determining what traits an organism might have based on the traits of the organism's parents. It relies on the principle that a trait is either dominant (indicated with capital letters) or recessive (indicated with lowercase letters). The exact combination of dominant or recessive genes that a child organism receives from their parents determines their traits. Heterozygous and homozygous refers to the pairs of alleles in an organism’s genotype, indicating mixed or same alleles, respectively. Randall later uses "heterozygous" in the title text. Note that it is possible for a phenotype to be expressed the same between some heterozygotes and homozygotes, e.g., persons with genotypes heterozygous "Aa" and homozygous "AA" will both express blood type A.
Therefore, the Punnett Square is a good chart because it is both a simple and true geometric predictor of inheritance, but it tends to be neutral because of complicating factors such as polygenic inheritance; these and other factors will cause genotypic frequency to deviate from expected 1:2:1 patterns.
|-
|Chaotic Good
|{{w|IPA vowel chart with audio|IPA vowel chart }}
|This chart shows the relationship between different vowels according to the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet}}. The position of the vowel on the chart serves roughly as an indicator of the position of the tongue in the mouth of the speaker. As different vowel sounds are created by changes in different parts of the mouth, including lip roundness which is expressed in the chart implicitly as an invisible third dimension, vowel identification is qualitative and often up to interpretation, and vowel expression can change dramatically from region to region or even person to person within the same language, the categories described by the chart might be considered chaotic. The chart is missing the near-open central vowel [ɐ] and the open central vowel [ä] (often written as /a/).
|-
|Lawful Neutral
|{{w|Phase diagram}}
|A phase diagram shows the equilibrium phases of matter present for a particular temperature, pressure, and composition. The diagram included is a unary phase diagram of a typical material that has a solid, liquid, and gas phase depending on the temperature and pressure for a fixed composition. Phase diagrams are useful for understanding how a material may change as its conditions change. For example, the air pressure of Mars is such that there is no temperature at which liquid water can exist in equilibrium on its surface. Water exists as ice until the temperature reaches a point where it sublimates directly into steam.

This phase diagram does not specify what material is depicted, but it is certainly ''not'' the phase diagram of water. On this diagram, compressing the liquid phase will transform the material into a solid, which is how most materials behave, but the solid/liquid phase line for water tilts the opposite direction. This is why water ice floats on liquid water, for example.

Phase diagrams follow the laws of thermodynamics and concern themselves with the order in which things ''should'' be, so they are inherently lawful.
|-
|True Neutral
|Alignment chart
|All alignment charts are neutral unless humans contaminate them. The chart in this cell has the same overall shape as the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart in the comic.
|-
|Chaotic Neutral
|CIE chromaticity diagram
|The {{w|chromaticity}} diagram is a chart of colors. Visible colors form a shape like a triangle with two bulging sides in the diagram. The curved line within the diagram shows the chromaticities of {{w|Black body|black bodies}} over a range of color temperatures. The chromaticity diagram shows colors independent of luminance.
The chart is not a simple geometric shape, so it is labeled as chaotic. Points on the diagram can be specified as combinations of three underlying illuminants (the colors of which may not all be visible). It can also be described in polar form with angle and radial distance from some central point, where the maximum radial distance depends on the angle.
The fact that the colors may not show properly on a screen, making the diagram incorrect, may also contribute to its chaotic aspect, as well as the fact that the official standard is behind a paywall.
|-
|Lawful Evil
|Political compass
|[https://www.politicalcompass.org/ Political Compass] separates ideas about governance into economic and social political thought. For example, Gandhi and Stalin supposedly both had similar economic perspectives (collectivist) but radically different social perspectives (libertarian vs authoritarian).

As politics is how laws are made, this is inherently lawful. Representing all politics in terms of two very general axes is not only a gross oversimplification, it is often used to put one's favored ideology as far away from Hitler or Stalin. This common use of a fallacy similar to the straw man makes this chart evil.

Like the USDA soil chart, the political compass has actually been [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/political-compass used as an alignment chart], largely to mock the original political compass chart.
|-
|Neutral Evil
|{{w|QAPF diagram|QAPF rock diagram}}
|This diagram is used to classify coarse-grained felsic (low magnesium and iron) igneous rocks by the relative volumes of the minerals quartz, alkali feldspars, plagioclase feldspars, and feldspathoids in the rock. It consists of two ternary diagrams - quartz and feldspathoid minerals cannot coexist (they will react to form feldspars) so only three of these components will be in any given rock. Rocks in the upper triangle of the diagram contain quartz, with rocks with more quartz plotting closer to the top, while rocks in the lower triangle contain feldspathoids, with rocks with more feldspathoids plotting lower. Rocks closer to the left corner of the diagram contain more alkali feldspar and rocks closer to the right corner contain more plagioclase feldspar. The field on the diagram for granite is labeled in the comic, but each area outlined on the diagram has its own rock name (monzonite, syenite, granodiorite, etc.). All the rocks that the QAPF diagram is used to classify look superficially like granite, but their chemistry, mineralogy, and origin differ.
The QAPF diagram and the names of the more obscure rock types on it can be somewhat arcane, which may be why it is considered evil here.
|-
|Chaotic Evil
|Omnispace classifier
|The other eight diagrams shown in this comic, squished together into one, with the shapes of the diagrams corresponding to those of the originals. The diagram is labeled chaotic, since it does not have a simple geometrical shape. Probably self-referential humor, in that the diagram created for this comic is considered to be chaotically evil.
|}

An alignment chart was also featured in [[2408: Egg Strategies]], which was published exactly one year later.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.|There's several Transcript-friendly chart descriptions still need putting in... And probably changes to the existing transcriptisation where it isn't in line with typical Transcript standards.}}

:[A 3×3 grid of squares. Each square contains a label at the top and a drawing of a chart, and each square has a caption below it. From left to right, a row at a time:]

:----

:Soil Chart

:[describe this chart here]

:* Clay
:* Silty Clay
:* […]

:Lawful Good

----

:Punnett Square

:[A 2x2 grid with a capital or lowercase R at either the left or top of each row and column, and each square containing the two letters of its row and column.]

:Neutral Good

:----

:IPA Vowel Chart

:[describe this chart here]

:Chaotic Good

:----

:Phase Diagram

:[describe this chart here]

:Lawful Neutral

:----

:Alignment Chart

:[A 3×3 grid of nine empty squares, each with an unreadable label below it.]

:True Neutral

:----

:CIE Chromaticity Diagram

:[describe this chart here]

:* Green
:* Yellow
:* …

:Chaotic Neutral

:----

:Political Compass

:[describe this chart here]

:Lawful Evil

:----

:QAPF Rock Diagram

:[The diagram is a rhombus with each corner labeled: ‘Q’ at the top, ‘A’ at the left, ‘P’ at the right, and ‘F’ at the bottom. The diagram is divided into trapezoids and triangles, each with labels. The writing in most subdivisions are unreadable. The readable subdivisions:]
:* Granite [around the top left]
:* Basalt [just below the right corner]
:* Foidolite [at the bottom]

:Neutral Evil

:----

:Omnispace Classifier

:[describe this chart here]

:Chaotic Evil

{{comic discussion}}



[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Recursion]]
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]

1068: Swiftkey

2025-06-09T02:58:19Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1068
| date = June 13, 2012
| title = Swiftkey
| image = swiftkey.png
| titletext = Although the Markov chain-style text model is still rudimentary; it recently gave me "Massachusetts Institute of America". Although I have to admit it sounds prestigious.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] has installed {{w|SwiftKey}} on his smartphone and brags about this to [[Megan]]. SwiftKey is a product that is installable on {{w|iOS}}/{{w|Android (operating system)|Android}}-based phones and tablets.

Cueball explains that if you type space bar on the keyboard it auto-completes the word you are currently typing founded on its best guess, and then if you continue to press space it will add new words using this guessing process based on the previous word(s) and what it believes is the most likely words you would use in a sentence containing the previous word(s).

Megan asks what happens if you begin a new message by just using space to automatically create a text. Cueball's best guess it begins with the word SwiftKey has found to be the typical starting word and then continues as normal from that.

Megan then realizes that in this way it builds up his "typical" sentence and she tries this over the next eight small frames: ''I am so sorry- that's never happened before.''

"I am so sorry– that's never happened before." is a typical excuse for a mishap, usually when {{tvtropes|TheLoinsSleepTonight|one fails to produce an erection when it is needed}}. Such a phrase being quoted by an algorithm implies that such mishaps are common, and therefore "I am so sorry– that's never happened before." is a lie.

SwiftKey has noticed their inclusion in xkcd and have created a blog post for other users to comment with their default phrase when they hit the "central prediction key". The results are [http://www.swiftkey.com/swiftkey-on-xkcd pretty funny] (the site now redirects to a website asking to download the keyboard, an archived version can be found [https://web.archive.org/web/20190226120542/https://blog.swiftkey.com/swiftkey-on-xkcd/ here]). In addition, Reddit users have a similar model creating [https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditSimulator /r/subredditsimulator], which is populated by bots generating submissions and comments based on the language of their subreddits.

In the title text, a {{w|Markov chain}} refers to a system that transitions between a countable number of states, based only on the current state and none of the previous ones that led up to it. SwiftKey follows this property since it provides outputs based only on the most recently entered word or words, not the whole sentence.

"Massachusetts Institute of America" is a nonexistent organization. The name appears to have formed by combining "{{w|Massachusetts Institute of Technology}}" and either "[Field] Institute of America" (e.g. Mining) (Wikipedia links needed) or "United States of America". This illustrates the memoryless property of a Markov chain; after generating "Massachusetts Institute of", SwiftKey may have attempted to predict the next word using only the last "of" or "Institute of". Since it was not considering the word "Massachusetts" at all, the word "America" was viewed as the most likely follow-up.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball showing his phone to Megan.]
:Cueball: Have you tried SwiftKey? It's got the first decent language model I've seen. It learns from your SMS/Email archives what words you use together most often.

:[Cueball and Megan in a frameless panel, with Megan now holding Cueball's phone.]
:Cueball: Spacebar inserts its best guess. So if I type "The Empi" and hit space three times, it types "The Empire Strikes Back".
:Megan: What if you mash space in a blank message?

:[Zoomed in on Megan looking at Cueball's phone, with Cueball now off-frame to the left.]
:Cueball: I guess it fills in your most likely first word, then the word that usually follows it...
:Megan: So it builds up your "typical" sentence. Cool! Let's see yours!
:Cueball: Uh—

:[Eight small frames arranged in panel space, 2 frames wide by 4 frames high, showing each word added by Swiftkey as Megan hits space each time:]
:SwiftKey: I
:SwiftKey: Am
:SwiftKey: So
:SwiftKey: Sorry—
:SwiftKey: That's
:SwiftKey: Never
:SwiftKey: Happened
:SwiftKey: Before.

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

1167: Star Trek into Darkness

2025-05-12T23:52:37Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ come on

{{comic
| number = 1167
| date = January 30, 2013
| title = Star Trek into Darkness
| image = star_trek_into_darkness.png
| titletext = Of course, factions immediately sprang up in favor of '~*~sTaR tReK iNtO dArKnEsS~*~', 'xX_StAr TrEk InTo DaRkNess_Xx', and 'Star Trek lnto Darkness' (that's a lowercase 'L').
}}

==Explanation==

The talk page of a Wikipedia article is used to discuss changes to the article. An {{w|Wikipedia:Edit warring|edit war}} is a dispute about a specific edit to an article, manifesting as a series of edits alternating between making and reverting the change, and usually accompanied by a more-or-less heated debate on the talk page.

Here, [[Randall]] is referring to a dispute on the Wikipedia article about ''{{w|Star Trek Into Darkness|Star Trek I(i)nto Darkness}}'' (an upcoming {{w|Star Trek}} film at the time of the comic's posting). On the day before the comic was published, the article name had a lowercase "into", and the talk page looked [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Star_Trek_Into_Darkness&oldid=535542349 like this] (rounded off in a friendly way, with the posting of {{w|User:Frungi/Star Trek Into Darkness capitalization|a summary of the arguments}}, and an exchange of virtual hugs). In summary, the debate centers around whether "I(i)nto Darkness" should be treated as a prepositional phrase (as in "Star Trek[king] I(i)nto Darkness") or an unpunctuated subtitle (as in "Star Trek[:] Into Darkness"), whether compound prepositions like "into" should be capitalized in titles, and whether the capitalization of the title in the movie's official promotional material is relevant. The intensity and multiple facets of a debate over one tiny letter is apparently entertaining to Randall.

[[Cueball]] changes the title to "~*~ StAr TrEk InTo DaRkNeSs ~*~" so that every other letter is capitalized, and the title as a whole is framed by tildes and asterisks (a common, but childish and ugly{{citation needed}} way of emphasizing titles online). This is a particularly silly compromise wherein the title is so obviously wrong, both sides will actually agree on something (that being how bad the compromise title is).

The title text indicates Randall's belief that such arguments are perpetual and will always arise. He suggests that the edit to the Wikipedia page will result in a dispute over variants of Cueballs [[:Category:Compromise|"compromise"]]. One new alternative has the letter cases switched (or shifted, depending on your perspective), one uses a different set of "bracketing" characters (xX_[...]_Xx instead of ~*~[...]~*~), and one uses the original title, but with a lowercase "L" instead of a capital "I" (which appear similar in many fonts).

Alternating-case text later caught on as [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mocking-spongebob an internet meme] in 2017 (four years after this comic strip was published) for representing a mocking tone.

[[Megan|Megan's]] line of "They should have sent a poet." is a quote from the film ''{{w|Contact (1997 American film)|Contact}}''. The quote is also referenced in [[482: Height]]. In the movie, the line was meant to convey that only a poet could adequately capture the beauty seen; here, it indicates that prose is insufficient to capture the ironic beauty of the edit war.

The old "favorite edit war" might be the one referenced in the title text of [[878: Model Rail]] or the one resulting from the addition of the [[739: Malamanteau]] article to Wikipedia

==Transcript==
:[Cueball staring at computer screen.]
:Cueball: Oh, ''wow.'' Look at Wikipedia's Talk page for '''''Star Trek Into Darkness.''''' I have a new favorite edit war.
:Megan (off-panel): Oh?

:Cueball: Forty ''thousand'' words of debate over whether to capitalize "into" in the movie's title. Still no consensus.
:Megan: That's ''magnificent''.
:Cueball: It's breathtaking.
:Megan: They should have sent a poet.

:Cueball: Well, I'm making an executive decision. I hope both sides accept this as a fair compromise.

:[A Wikipedia page titled "''~*~ StAr TrEk InTo DaRkNeSs ~*~''"]

==Trivia==
After the publication of the comic, the debate continued with full force, complete with {{w|Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness/Archive 5#xkcd Mention|a section of xkcd-inspired suggestions}}. The article itself was soon protected, so that only administrators could edit it. A day later, the title was changed to one including a capital "Into" by the administrator {{w|User:Mackensen|Mackensen}}. (The debate continued on {{w|User talk:Mackensen/Archive20#Star Trek into Darkness move|his talk page}}.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/~*~_StAr_TrEk_InTo_DaRkNeSs_~*~ was a valid redirect link for quite some time, having not been deleted when {{w|Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 January 25#~*~ StAr TrEk InTo DaRkNeSs ~*~|requested in 2015}}, but {{w|Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 May 23#~*~ StAr TrEk InTo DaRkNeSs ~*~|2016}}. The link now redirects to {{w|Wikipedia Star Trek Into Darkness controversy|Wikipedia ''Star Trek Into Darkness'' controversy}}.

{{w|The Independent}} published an article about the "[http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/trekkies-take-on-wikis-in-a-grammatical-tizzy-over-star-trek-into-darkness-8475705.html grammatical tizzy]", and the affair as a whole was added to Wikipedia's humorous list of the {{w|WP:Lamest edit wars|lamest edit wars}}.

There is now a whole Wikipedia page about the controversy: {{w|Wikipedia Star Trek Into Darkness controversy|Wikipedia ''Star Trek Into Darkness'' controversy}}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Star Trek]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]
[[Category:Compromise]]
[[Category:CC-BY-SA comics]]

1938: Meltdown and Spectre

2025-05-07T22:10:48Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ no

{{comic
| number = 1938
| date = January 5, 2018
| title = Meltdown and Spectre
| image = meltdown_and_spectre.png
| titletext = New zero-day vulnerability: In addition to rowhammer, it turns out lots of servers are vulnerable to regular hammers, too.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic was inspired by the {{w|Meltdown (security vulnerability)|Meltdown}} and {{w|Spectre (security vulnerability)|Spectre}} bugs found in certain processors; these vulnerabilities were disclosed to the public in the week of this comic. The bugs result from flawed implementations of {{w|speculative execution}}, and made big news because they broke the "walls" between programs executing concurrently on the same computer, in some circumstances allowing malware to steal secrets from normal, bug-free programs.

Speculative execution is a technique used to speed up the execution of computer programs. Processors handle instructions in {{w|Instruction pipelining|a series of steps}}, like an assembly line. The processor works on several successive instructions, each at a different stage in the assembly line. It may start speculatively executing instructions that follow a particular result of a decision before the execution of the logic that makes that decision is finished. Once the decision is made, it keeps results from the selected path, and discards unnecessary results. This allows it to keep doing useful work while some slower decision is made.

In the Meltdown and Spectre bugs, the results of speculatively executed instructions are not completely discarded, allowing them to affect things that the program logic should have prevented.

[[Ponytail]] uses the {{w|Trolley Problem}}, and {{w|Tram|trolley (tram)|trolley}} tracks in general, as an analogy for streams of instructions in a program. The Trolley Problem is a thought experiment where an out-of-control trolley is heading to a switch which you control. Leaving the switch as-is will cause it to kill multiple people (typically five) stuck on the tracks, but switching the track will cause it to kill only one person, who would not have died if the switch was left untouched. This creates the ethical dilemma of passively causing multiple deaths, versus actively causing one. The Trolley Problem has gained significant memetic traction, helped in no small part by its frequent inclusion in “introduction to philosophy” type courses. The problem has seen revitalized interest with the emergence of {{w|autonomous car}}s, which may be faced with what are, essentially, {{w|autonomous car#Moral issues|such choices}} in emergency situations.

As an analogy for multiple mutually exclusive paths being executed at the same time, Ponytail invokes certain {{w|interpretations of quantum mechanics}}, where quantum-level particles can be viewed as taking every possible path at once, with the result being the sum of all of them. This is an idea popularized by the {{w|Copenhagen interpretation|common interpretation}} of {{w|Schrödinger's cat}}, where the cat is both dead and alive until some event results in one of the states being selected.

The phantom trolley driving through walls is an analogy for the computer instructions being able to access areas of memory that should be protected from them. This may also be a reference to {{w|quantum tunnelling}}, or even simply a joke about the phantom trolley being a literal phantom, i.e. incorporeal.

In many cases, contrary to what the comic implies, both paths are not taken simultaneously during speculative execution. A {{w|branch predictor}} may be used to select the most likely path, and the effects should be completely erased if the predicted path is incorrect. To use Ponytail's analogy, a phantom trolley is sent down one path (hopefully the most likely one), and either becomes real once it's determined that that path was correct, or vanishes and is replaced by a real trolley starting down the other path from the branching point. Both branch prediction and taking both paths (known as eager evaluation) are considered speculative execution and are affected by these bugs.

The {{w|Row hammer}} problem had been known for many years before this comic was published. A {{w|Dynamic random-access memory|common form of computer memory}} is constructed from tiny capacitors organized in a two-dimensional grid of rows and columns. Capacitors store charge to represent information. By applying a pattern of memory access that rapidly changes a row of capacitors, you can cause charge to overflow to nearby rows and incorrectly change their states.

Ponytail mentions that we especially suck at building "shared computers" because Row hammer, Spectre, and Meltdown all break down the security divisions built between programs and between users. A hacker running a separate program in a separate account shouldn't be able to access your data or change the behavior of your program, but these problems allow them to. This is particularly dangerous for time-sharing, servers, and {{w|Cloud computing|the cloud}}, where different programs, websites, or even companies can be sharing the same hardware.

Cueball takes her explanation literally, and comes to the conclusion that the cloud "is full of phantom trolleys armed with hammers", and Ponytail cannot be bothered correcting him. Cueball's final line ironically suggests that these exploits can be repaired with a simple software update. This seems to be mocking the naive misunderstanding that software can make up for flawed hardware. However, the exploits discussed in this comic are not trivial oversights, but reflect fundamental issues in the design of modern processors.

A {{w|zero-day (computing)|zero-day}} vulnerability is an attack that takes advantage of a vulnerability that hasn't been published yet, and so is not patched in any vulnerable system. The title text suggests that, until it was 'disclosed' here, nobody was aware that as well as Row hammer, computer servers can also be harmed by regular hammers. In reality, this would be obvious to most people.{{Citation needed}} One might "patch" a server against this attack by plating it with stronger metal.

==Transcript==
:[Zoom out with Cueball and Ponytail walking to the right on the ground.]
:Cueball: The Meltdown and Spectre exploits use "speculative execution?" What's that?
:Ponytail: You know the trolley problem? Well, for a while now, CPUs have basically been sending trolleys down '''''both''''' paths, quantum-style, while awaiting your choice. Then the unneeded "phantom" trolley disappears.

:[Zoom in on only Ponytail who has turned towards Cueball off-panel left.]
:Ponytail: The phantom trolley isn't supposed to touch anyone. But it turns out you can still use it to do stuff.
:Ponytail: And it can drive through walls.

:[Cueball and Ponytail, lifting both her palms up, are standing, facing each other.]
:Cueball: That sounds bad.
:Ponytail: Honestly, I've been assuming we were doomed ever since I learned about Rowhammer.

:[In a frame-less panel they continue talking, both with their arms down.]
:Cueball: What's ''that''?
:Ponytail: If you toggle a row of memory cells on and off really fast, you can use electrical interference to flip nearby bits and—
:Cueball: Do we just suck at...computers?
:Ponytail: Yup. Especially shared ones.

:[Zoom out again as they resume walking to the right on the ground. Cueball is lifting his smartphone up and looks at the screen.]
:Cueball: So you're saying the cloud is full of phantom trolleys armed with hammers.
:Ponytail: ...Yes, that is exactly right.
:Cueball: Okay. I'll, uh... install updates?
:Ponytail: Good idea.

==Trivia==

Although this is clearly not part of the series [[:Category:Code Quality|Code Quality]], it might be the same two characters, with Ponytail again displaying a much better understanding of computers than Cueball with his [[:Category:Cueball Computer Problems|Computer Problems]].

The Trolley problem was mentioned a month before this comic in the last ''milestone'' on this list in [[1925: Self-Driving Car Milestones]]; see more there regarding why this problem might have resurfaced in xkcd. Three years before that comic, a comic was even named after the problem: [[1455: Trolley Problem]].

The fact that compromising IT systems is sometimes easier done physically than logically is also mentioned in [[538: Security]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Computer security]]
[[Category:Programming]]

1523: Microdrones

2025-05-06T18:53:36Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: putting the clearly intended explanation above the others

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

==Explanation==
{{w|Amazon Prime Air}} is a {{w|drone}}-based delivery system by Amazon.com currently being rolled out to cities, but at the time was still in its conceptual stage. While on one level he thinks the idea is cool, [[Cueball]] worries about living in a sci-fi dystopia, with those drones flying all around him, tracking his actions, etc. In the third panel, [[Megan]] suggests sending 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 if they did people would catch them to use for themselves. In the final panel Megan begins to search for {{w|butterfly nets}} so they are ready to catch the microdrones when the law to make it legal to steal the drones goes through.

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 implies that Amazon has seen this idea coming; they've marked butterfly nets as "out of stock", to prevent prospective drone thieves from acquiring them. Alternatively, it could be taken to mean that:
*Amazon is out of stock of butterfly nets due to everyone purchasing them to catch drones with, implying many people had the same idea as Megan.
*Non-Amazon individuals controlling the drones have pre-emptively purchased them all.
*Amazon has put all of its nets into a private stock, in order to steal other companies' or individuals' drones.
*Amazon's drones have already become self-aware, and have altered the database in order to prevent their capture.

Amazon drones is also the subject of the title text in [[1625: Substitutions 2]] and there are two {{w|quadcopters}} over the volcano lake in [[1608: Hoverboard]]. Also, Cueball is abducted by seemly sentient drones in [[1630: Quadcopter]].

==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]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:Butterfly net]]
[[Category:Drones]]

2734: Electron Color

2025-05-06T18:38:12Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ Why did this article have beef with a stick figure? also, I cleaned up explanation a little bit; honestly the whole "correction" is probably unneeded, but I don't want to be too un-pedantic considering what wiki we're on.

{{comic
| number = 2734
| date = February 6, 2023
| title = Electron Color
| image = electron_color_2x.png
| imagesize = 568x256px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = There's quark color, but that's not really color--it's just an admission by 20th century physicists that numbers are boring.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic [[Miss Lenhart]] is teaching a school physics class. One of her students asks what the color of electrons is.

This is a relevant question for a kid to ask since on many scientific diagrams of atoms, the subatomic particles have been assigned colors to identify them for the reader. Neutrons are generally red, green, or gray; protons red or green and electrons might be blue or yellow. But there is no accepted rule for coloring such diagrams, so the kid may be confused. Additionally, some scientific diagrams use color coding rather than actually representative colors, and the kid may be wondering what color particles actually are.

Miss Lenhart correctly responds that ''...'color' isn't even defined for them,'' and states that, unlike the diagrams, which are colored for convenience, the particles are not colored. Her explanation is incorrect, however: ''They're too small to interact with visible light, ...'' This is a simplification; in fact, every optical effect in our world is due to electrons interacting with light. That leads to color because the electrons are usually bound to various atomic nuclei in molecules etc., which leads to differences in how they take up and give out various energies of photon. But the electrons merely govern the possible quanta of energy changes that influence the broad spectrum of light by which matter is seen; they don't reflect or absorb wavelengths themselves, which is what Miss Lenhart is presumably referring to.

She then continues by saying that electrons are definitely yellow. The reason for this isn't clear. She may be:
* meaning that they should be yellow on diagrams, because she feels this is the correct way to depict them in drawings of atoms,
* referring to the Greek etymology of the word electron ({{w|elektron (resin)|elektron}} is an old name for amber, a yellow gem),
* merely teasing her young pupils, or
* stating how she feels they would be, if they could possess color.

But her off-panel pupils take her word for it. One of the kids says "I knew it", to the "fact" that electrons are yellow, and likewise the other pupils completely ignore what Miss Lenhart just told them. The debate then starts as one pupil claims "''and protons are red?''", and another chimes in, with a "''No, they're gray!''" This only makes sense in a debate of how to draw atoms, not regarding their actual color, as Miss Lenhart just explained.

The opinions over the colors are probably based on what kind of diagrams people were initially exposed to, leading to a predisposition to think that those colors are 'correct'.

Although individual electrons do not have a color, it's possible to produce a solution of {{w|Solvated_electron|so-called 'solvated' electrons}}. In ammonia and amines, in certain concentrations, the solution color is blue, and in higher concentrations metallic gold to bronze.

The title text refers to the {{w|color charge}} property of quarks, a property which is part of {{w|quantum chromodynamics}}. In quantum chromodynamics, a quark's color can take one of three values or charges: red, green, and blue. An antiquark can take one of three anticolors: called antired, antigreen, and antiblue. As mentioned by [[Randall]], these have nothing to do with color as we know it, but is just a way to represent interactions between quarks in a sufficiently analogous fashion that avoids inventing entirely new words to describe a particular threefold quality of the necessary {{w|color confinement|inter-quark groupings}}. And he jokingly says that the 20th century physicists that came up with the three color system did this as as admission that numbers are boring. They could just have called the color charges "1", "2" and "3", though this may imply an unwarranted hierarchy, progression or other standard mathematical relationship that does not actually apply.

==Transcript==
:[Miss Lenhart is teaching a class. A boy with spiky hair sits at his desks with his hand raised asking a question. Jill sits in front of him looking back at him while leaning an arm on the back of her chair.]
:Miss Lenhart: You have a question?
:Boy: Yeah-What color are electrons and protons? Are they yellow? Red? Blue?

:[Zoom in on Miss Lenhart's head.]
:Miss Lenhart: Subatomic particles don't have a color.
:Miss Lenhart: They're too small to interact with visible light, so "color" isn't even defined for them.

:[Zoom back out but only showing Miss Lenhart. Three pupils reply from off-panel with speech lines coming from starburst at the right edge of the panel.]
:Miss Lenhart: That said, electrons are '''''definitely''''' yellow.
:Off-panel voice 1: I knew it!
:Off-panel voice 2: And protons are red, right?
:Off-panel voice 3: ''What?'' No! They're gray!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Jill]]
[[Category:Kids]] 
[[Category:Physics]]

187: The Familiar

2025-05-06T02:14:42Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ improved explanation of title text, I feel

{{comic
| number = 187
| date = November 22, 2006
| title = The Familiar
| image = the familiar.png
| titletext = When I say we should do something sometime, I'm secretly hoping you'll say 'Why not now?'
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball|Cueball's]] friend asks him to go with him to view the sunrise over the ocean. Cueball refuses by giving a list of excuses, including the statement that "rationalizing the familiar is easy." This statement is amusing, because Cueball acknowledges the fact that he is making excuses and seems to refuse going out on the basis that rationalizing going to see the sunrise would require much more effort. This criticizes some people's tendency of not trying new things or going out with friends, even though one would likely get more fulfillment by doing these things. It may well be implied that the friend doing the inviting has left to view the sunrise, leaving Cueball behind since he wasn't willing to engage in an activity.

The computer with the egg-shaped profile looks like an iMac G3, sold from 1998 until 2003. It seems that rationalizing the familiar has made Cueball resistant to upgrading his computer long beyond its obsolescence date.

The title text indicates [[Randall|Randall's]] frustration with this mentality. It's common to state vague intentions like "we should hang out sometime" or "let's do something together sometime", but these promises are rarely followed up on. Randall wishes the people he talks to would take the initiative by suggesting they do something together ''now'' instead of putting it off.

==Transcript==
:[A guy is standing behind his friend who sits at a computer. Both look like Cueball.]
:Guy: Let's go see sunrise over the ocean.
:[The friend turns and replies:]
:Friend: That's a long drive, it's cold, I'm tired, and rationalizing the familiar is easy.
:[The guy leaves, and in the next two frames, the friend remains at his computer alone.]

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

554: Not Enough Work

2025-04-26T22:43:08Z

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ added Fun Fact™️ about haiku

{{comic
| number = 554
| date = March 11, 2009
| title = Not Enough Work
| image = not_enough_work.png
| titletext = It's even harder if you're an asshole who pronounces <> brackets.
}}

==Explanation==
In some companies, programmers can find themselves under-employed. This may be because these companies have little programming work until something breaks or needs upgrading, or perhaps they are between projects, or simply waiting for a go-ahead. Coders still need to make themselves available to perform emergency fixes, but they may have no other assigned work. This requires them to find constructive ways to spend their time. Or unconstructive, if that is more fun.

{{w|Dvorak Simplified Keyboard|Dvorak}} is a keyboard layout that was proposed in 1936 as an alternative to the existing, entrenched {{w|Qwerty keyboard|QWERTY}} layout, developed in the 1870s. The QWERTY keyboard is the standard in the US, but its key layout was not designed for (or against) speed, instead evolving organically over time to bend to the needs of Morse code receivers, to evade patents and to solve commonly encountered mechanical issues, while the DVORAK keyboard layout was made with typing efficiency in mind.

The Dvorak keyboard was ultimately unsuccessful. It persists today, but has never threatened the dominance of the QWERTY keyboard. Even if the Dvorak layout is more efficient (which is still a matter of debate, see the uncomfortable truth in [[561: Well]]), QWERTY was and is the standard. This means that every keyboard user has to learn QWERTY anyway, and there is insufficient benefit in spending the time to learn a new layout, especially when you would have to switch back and forth between Dvorak and QWERTY as the situation demands.

Therefore, even seriously considering the switch is a sign that you have nothing better to do. Another joke is that even though the coder has plenty of spare time on his hands to practice on Dvorak, he has only been able to 'almost' match his old typing speed.

This was the first comic to refer to Dvorak, but since then it has become a [[:Category: Dvorak|recurrent theme]] on xkcd. A later comic, [[1445: Efficiency]], mentions, in the title text, how you could waste lots of time testing to see if Dvorak is faster.

{{w|Gopher (protocol)|Gopher}} is a defunct internet protocol, which has been completely superseded by {{w|HTTP}}. It's a perfect example of the kind of thing a programmer might implement in the absence of other, more useful work. (As an aside, the protocol is named for {{w|Goldy Gopher}}, the mascot of the {{w|University of Minnesota}}, where it was developed. But, for the sake of most people who used it across the larger pre-web internet, it may have mostly evoked the essence of the term "{{w|gofer}}"/to ''go for'' something.)

{{w|HTML}} and {{w|XHTML}} are markup languages used to describe web documents. XHTML-strict is a more restricted version of HTML that excludes certain redundant tags like <nowiki><center></nowiki>, which is theoretically no longer necessary now that <nowiki><div> and </nowiki> exist. {{w|Haiku}}, on the other hand, is a kind of Japanese poetry. Rather than having a rhyming meter like Western poetry, Japanese poetry has restrictions on {{w|syllable}} count; a haiku must contain three lines, containing 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively. (Strictly speaking, Japanese haiku counts {{w|Mora (linguistics)#Japanese|morae}}, not syllables, but they're roughly analogous.) The section of code given is HTML markup, and would be read by a web developer like this:

:Div class equals Main
:Span ID equals Marquee
:Blog! end span end div (or slash span slash div)

Which can be [https://www.syllablecount.com/ divided in syllables] like this:

:Div - class - e - quals - Main
:Span - I - D - e - quals - Mar - quee
:Blog! - end - span - end - div

This meets the syllable requirements. Restricting yourself to writing markup in this form would be extremely challenging, time-consuming and pointless, so it, too, is a good sign that coders need more real work to do. The title text notes that if you are one of those assholes that are pronouncing the angle brackets, then it would be even harder to write HTML in Haiku format. "Left angle bracket" and "right angle bracket" take up five syllables each on their own. (The asshole part is Randall's opinion about those who do pronounce <>). Haiku was mentioned later in [[622: Haiku Proof]].

Finally, the last panel mentions the biggest timesink of them all: {{tvtropes|ArchiveBinge|webcomics}}! [This is probably self-referential.] (Or, even worse, [[Main Page|wikis devoted to explaining the jokes in CERTAIN webcomics]].)

==Trivia==
A haiku-compliant programming language does in fact exist: David Morgan-Mar (a creator of many esoteric and parodic languages) invented [https://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/haifu.html Haifu], a language that will only compile if it is arranged into subsets of 5 + 7 + 5 syllables. Unlike the HTML example in the comic, Haifu derives its functions and syntax from concepts in {{w|Eastern philosophy}} (such as naming its variable types after the {{w|five elements}}, replacing true and false with {{w|yin and yang}}, and defining arithmetic in terms of creation and destruction).

The webcomic referred to in the last panel is most likely Xkcd (setting up a Deadpool-like scenario?)

==Transcript==
:[Above the first two panels there is a caption:]
:Signs your coders don't have enough work to do:

:[Cueball sitting in an office chair at his workstation, with Ponytail standing behind him.]
:Cueball: I'm almost up to my old typing speed in Dvorak

:[Cueball is standing next to a server rack pointing at it while looking the other way at a Cueball-like guy. There are three sections filled with servers, two of them together, and space for several more above and below and between those two and the one at the bottom. Behind the rack wires comes down tot he floor from all three servers together and the wires then exits the panel to he right along the floor.]
:Cueball: Our servers now support Gopher.
:Cueball: Just in case.

:[In a frame-less panel Megan is standing near her workstation to the right speaking to Cueball to the left.]
:Megan: Our pages are now HTML, XHTML-Strict, and Haiku-compliant.
:Cueball: Haiku?
:Megan:
::<nowiki><div class="Main"></nowiki>
::<nowiki></nowiki>
::<nowiki>Blog!</div></nowiki>

:[Ponytail sitting in an office chair at her workstation.]
:Ponytail: Hey!
:Ponytail: Have you guys seen this webcomic?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Dvorak]]