explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3167: Car Size

2026-01-05T14:50:21Z

TheErgster: Removed unnecessary incomplete tag. Explanation was fully completed

{{comic
| number = 3167
| date = November 12, 2025
| title = Car Size
| image = car_size_2x.png
| imagesize = 348x754px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'They really shouldn't let those small cars drive in traffic. I worry I'm going to kill someone if I hit one! They should have to drive on the sidewalk, safely out of the way.'
}}

==Explanation==
This comic demonstrates one reason why vehicles have gotten progressively larger and more powerful, due to a type of {{w|arms race}} between drivers. When vehicles of different sizes share the road, passengers in the smaller ones will usually be more at risk in collisions, since the body construction and lower inertia generally provide less protection. So, for safety reasons, people have an incentive to buy larger cars. According to the comic, this causes a cycle of cars for increasingly selfish owners, which reaches a point of absurdity due to the cost and mass of giant cars, implying a never-ending vicious cycle.

In the "Soon" panel, Randall has extrapolated this to adding spiked armor and weaponry to large cars, and other drivers will need to outdo this to compete on the road. This scenario is reminiscent of the vehicles from the {{w|Mad Max}} franchise, and of the [https://wackyraces.fandom.com/wiki/The_Slag_Brothers Slag Brothers] from Wacky Races. Unfortunately, the whirling spike club scenario is problematic (not just in terms of injury or death but even in the happy path): if all the cars on the road have whirling spike clubs, as soon as your car comes in contact, your club will be destroyed or at least damaged. This will make you prey for the cars who have not yet been in an accident.

The title text views this from the opposite perspective. The owner of a large car is worried that they'll kill people in small cars, so believes that small car drivers shouldn't drive on the road at all and should be restricted to the sidewalk for their own safety. Driving the smallest cars in pedestrian spaces is obviously absurd, but follows the prior trend of separating bikes from car traffic "for cyclists' safety" and often having them share pedestrian spaces due to "practical" constraints. While this reduces conflicts between cyclists and drivers of motor vehicles, it results in cyclists and pedestrians becoming an inconvenience and danger to each other instead. In the car-centric view, it is not worth creating separate infrastructure for bicycles and similar small vehicles, so the title text's extension of the trend is to classify small cars as bike-like vehicles, even though this endangers both smaller vehicles and pedestrians.

Biking on sidewalks is illegal in some jurisdictions, with a greater number banning small powered vehicles like e-bikes. Where either kind of bike is allowed, laws generally require that the rider take precautions like riding at reasonable speeds when near pedestrians, alerting pedestrians when passing, and yielding to pedestrians when needed. Small, low-speed carts do routinely share some larger pedestrian spaces, such as golf courses and large airports, but even these would have trouble safely passing on regular sidewalks. Smaller single-occupant electric vehicles (mobility scooters) frequently share pedestrian spaces, but their limited speeds reduce the frequency and potential severity of impacts.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[The comic is made up of four panels, beginning with Cueball talking to Megan and then alternating with each panel, both of them surrounded by progressively larger vehicles.]
:[Panel one is labeled "100 years ago." Cueball and Megan are standing with a bicycle to the left of them and an old-fashioned car to their right.]
:Cueball: It's too dangerous riding a bike with these cars around. I should get a car, too.

:[Panel two is labeled "50 years ago." Cueball and Megan are standing between a small hatchback (right) and a slightly larger sedan (left).]
:Megan: Small cars are less safe in collisions with larger vehicles, so I should get a bigger one.

:[Panel three is labeled "Today." Cueball and Megan are standing between a large SUV (left) and an even larger SUV (right).]
:Cueball: Everyone has huge SUVs now. If I don't get the biggest one, I'm putting my family at risk.

:[Panel four is labeled "Soon." Cueball and Megan are standing to the left of a massive SUV with metal plates bolted to its side, spiked panels attached to the front and back, spiked/off-road tires and two giant spiked clubs hanging from a rotor on top of the car. An even more massive spiked club is visible coming from the left of the panel, presumably attached to a similar (even larger) car. Megan has both arms on her side.]
:Megan: If I don't install more whirling spike clubs, I'll be destroyed by all the other drivers who...

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

Talk:xkcd: volume 0

2025-12-25T03:51:08Z

TheErgster: /* How the pages are counted */

== How the pages are counted ==

The pages are counted in something akin to a trinary number system: the only digits used are 0, 1, and 2. But 2 always rolls over, even if there are digits behind it. So:

<table style="border:solid;border-width:2px;">
<tr>
<td> Number (xkcd v0) </td>
<td> Number in denary </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 1 </td>
<td> 1 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 2 </td>
<td> 2 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 10 </td>
<td> 3 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 11 </td>
<td> 4 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 12 </td>
<td> 5 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 20 </td>
<td> 6 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 100 </td>
<td> 7 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 101 </td>
<td> 8 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 102 </td>
<td> 9 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 110 </td>
<td> 10 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 111 </td>
<td> 11 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 112 </td>
<td> 12 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 120 </td>
<td> 13 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 200 </td>
<td> 14 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 1000 </td>
<td> 15 </td>
</tr>
</table>

How would someone do a base conversion between "xkcd trinary" and denary? I was thinking to do something akin to (value in "normal trinary")-(value of the previous digit in the same trinary) for each magnitude in xkcd trinary, but I can't figure out how rigorous it would be, much less accurate. Any ideas? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.141|108.162.241.141]] 23:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, the recent edits up to {{diff|402245|this point}} don't explain much at all. XORing some numbers, but not others? What about the non-numbers (non-hexadecimal characters, "M", or even words, "Dumper")? Can I request a proper rewrite of those facts to actually make some sort of sense without apparently being selective or just plain consisting of Insane Troll Logic?

The issue with finding info is that the XKCD forum depicting the solving process doesn't really exist. I've kinda had to re-solve entire parts just for the explanation.
[[Special:Contributions/82.132.237.136|82.132.237.136]] 13:40, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

3130: Predicament

2025-12-25T03:48:30Z

TheErgster: Added explanation parts as well as removed incomplete explination tag

{{comic
| number = 3130
| date = August 18, 2025
| title = Predicament
| image = predicament_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I dropped my phone while trying to search, and I tried to unlock it from up here, so can you also search for screen repair places?
}}

==Explanation==

This comic describes a person with stilts asking cueball to use his phone. Before he can say what he wants him to do with the phone, Cueball immediately knows that he wants to know how to get off stilts.

For someone who has never worn stilts before, the method to get down from them safely is not obvious. We can't see the stilt user's feet or legs in the pictures, and the way to get off them will vary depending on whether they are the type of stilt that is braced by a strap around the lower leg or the type where the stilt pole extends upwards and is held in the hand. Based on [https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+get+down+from+stilts Googling how to get down from stilts], it seems that one method for the latter is to use the steps that are built into the stilts themselves, commonly called 'pegs'. These act like a very wobbly ladder and allow you to climb up and down the stilts. Other methods include leaning against a wall, bracing the stilts at the bottom of the wall, and carefully stepping (or, as in the case with the image when there appear to be no pegs, sliding) down the stilts. Another technique is to climb onto (and off) the stilts from a platform at roughly the same height as the (top) stilt pegs, such as a balcony or deck.

For someone who has worn stilts before, the method for getting down from stilts is simply finding a place to sit where your stilts can touch the floor. Then, all that is required to do is to take the stilts off and climb down. There are more complex methods that tend to vary based on the type of stilts used and how one is secured into them. However, as long as you have a place to sit, getting stilts off is simple.

It is somewhat surprising that someone has sufficient mastery to walk and stand still on such high stilts, without also having learnt how to dismount from them, as practicing more than once requires getting off the stilts. One might also expect that someone in this situation might seek rather more direct assistance than looking things up on the internet. [[Randall]] may be lampooning the widespread tendency in today's world to automatically resort to Google for every query that crops up.

The title text explains that this person dropped their phone and tried to unlock it with the stilts, but ended up breaking their phone in the process. ([[530: I'm An Idiot|Presumably]], other unlocking options such as voice, fingerprint, or facial recognition were not enabled or infeasible under the circumstances.) When someone is on stilts, it is actually very hard to stand still because the point of the stilt does not provide the forward-backward length that we are used to our feet having. Beginners generally have a much easier time walking forward, because the momentum helps with balance, and risk falling over if they stop. Unlocking a phone with the stilt would require not only staying still near the phone long enough to do so, but doing so on a single stilt, while lifting the full weight of the other and making those precise motions with an awkward blunt tool that has both considerable {{w|mass}} and considerable {{w|moment of inertia}} on a tiny object a stilt-length away. It is no wonder that instead the person ended up putting too much weight on the stilt while it was above the phone, resulting in considerable force being distributed over a very small area of the phone's fragile screen. All things considered the attempt went much better than it could have, since the person did not fall over.

It is also unlikely that a phone touchscreen could even be operated by a stilt. Most work through {{w|capacitive sensing}}, and are unlikely to work with the stilt-ends unless specifically equipped with a cap of material with electrical properties similar to those of human fingers.

Stilts have been used in other comics, such as [[482: Height]], [[1608: Hoverboard]], [[1663: Garden]], [[2603: Childhood Toys]], [[2669: Things You Should Not Do]], and [[2765: Escape Speed]].

==Transcript==

:[On the left a long stick enters the panel from near the top left. There are "tap tap" sounds where the stick hits the ground. Cueball is on the right, looking left towards the stick.]
:Tap Tap

:[There are now two long sticks closer to the middle of the panel. They cross near the top, and the stick makes three taps near the bottom. Cueball is still looking at them and looking down.]
:Tap Tap Tap

:[The two sticks are almost parallel now, a little further apart at the ground. Cueball is still looking at them, but now not bending his head]
:Voice from above: Do you have your phone?
:Cueball: Yeah.

:[The two sticks are parallel. Cueball is holding a cellphone in his right hand.]
:Voice from above: Can you Google --
:Cueball: -- how to get down from stilts?
:Voice from above: Yes please.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]
[[Category:Stilts]]

xkcd: volume 0

2025-12-23T04:10:37Z

TheErgster: /* Cypher */

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''xkcd: volume 0''}}{{book navigation}}[[File:xkcd_volume_0.jpeg|260px|right|thumb|The cover of the book]]{{incomplete|
*The article is missing a lot of information and links about the book.

*IF YOU HAVE THE BOOK, explain how the pages are counted in the book! (They're ternary-like, except when 2 is reached, it always overflows onto the digit with the next highest magnitude and increments it by one...

*Please help decode each part of the Cipher, and reorganize it into a more readable format (possibly a table, if somebody is up to the task).)}}{{TOC}}

'''''xkcd: volume 0''''' is a book by [[Randall Munroe]] released on August 24, 2010. It features a collection of comics personally chosen by Randall from the initial 600 entries of the webcomic. These comics were assembled from high-resolution original scans and include the original or, sometimes, a different title text. The book is available to [https://archive.org/details/2009Xkcd read in full on the Internet Archive].

{{Quote|<nowiki></nowiki>''xkcd: volume 0'' is the first xkcd book! It features selections from the first 600 comics, including various author and fan favorites. It was lovingly assembled from high-resolution original scans of the comics (the mouseover text is discreetly included), and features a lot of doodles, notes, and puzzles in the margins.
|''[[Randall Munroe]]|[https://web.archive.org/web/20100701115034/http://store.xkcd.com/ Source]}}

The book is published by {{w|Breadpig}}, a company founded by Randall's friend Alexis, and their portion of the profits will go to build a school in Laos through the charity {{w|Room to Read}}.
{{cot|Comics featured in the book}}
<div style="column-width:20em">
# [[10: Pi Equals]]
# [[242: The Difference]]
# [[249: Chess Photo]]
# [[123: Centrifugal Force]]
# [[214: The Problem with Wikipedia]]
# [[221: Random Number]]
# [[231: Cat Proximity]]
# [[20: Ferret]]
# [[21: Kepler]]
# [[30: Donner]]
# [[37: Hyphen]]
# [[82: Frame]]
# [[44: Love]]
# [[54: Science]]
# [[55: Useless]]
# [[85: Paths]]
# [[105: Parallel Universe]]
# [[108: M.C. Hammer Slide]]
# [[112: Baring My Heart]]
# [[114: Computational Linguists]]
# [[120: Dating Service]]
# [[116: City]]
# [[117: Pong]]
# [[124: Blogofractal]]
# [[128: dPain over dt]]
# [[134: Myspace]]
# [[135: Substitute]]
# [[136: Science Fair]]
# [[137: Dreams]]
# [[138: Pointers]]
# [[149: Sandwich]]
# [[152: Hamster Ball]]
# [[160: Penny Arcade Parody]]
# [[153: Cryptography]]
# [[159: Boombox]]
# [[157: Filler Art]]
# [[161: Accident]]
# [[162: Angular Momentum]]
# [[184: Matrix Transform]]
# [[163: Donald Knuth]]
# [[165: Turn Signals]]
# [[201: Christmas GPS]]
# [[177: Alice and Bob]]
# [[173: Movie Seating]]
# [[179: e to the pi times i]]
# [[191: Lojban]]
# [[210: 90's Flowchart]]
# [[200: Bill Nye]]
# [[182: Nash]]
# [[180: Canada]]
# [[215: Letting Go]]
# [[239: Blagofaire]]
# [[225: Open Source]]
# [[230: Hamiltonian]]
# [[240: Dream Girl]]
# [[247: Factoring the Time]]
# [[248: Hypotheticals]]
# [[253: Highway Engineer Pranks]]
# [[257: Code Talkers]]
# [[258: Conspiracy Theories]]
# [[262: IN UR REALITY]]
# [[276: Fixed Width]]
# [[274: With Apologies to The Who]]
# [[279: Pickup Lines]]
# [[275: Thoughts]]
# [[77: Bored with the Internet]]
# [[150: Grownups]]
# [[167: Nihilism]]
# [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
# [[209: Kayak]]
# [[202: YouTube]]
# [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
# [[472: House of Pancakes]]
# [[556: Alternative Energy Revolution]]
# [[442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel]]
# [[264: Choices: Part 1]]
# [[265: Choices: Part 2]]
# [[266: Choices: Part 3]]
# [[267: Choices: Part 4]]
# [[268: Choices: Part 5]]
# [[282: Organic Fuel]]
# [[280: Librarians]]
# [[320: 28-Hour Day]]
# [[316: Loud Sex]]
# [[284: Tape Measure]]
# [[287: NP-Complete]]
# [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]
# [[303: Compiling]]
# [[291: Dignified]]
# [[305: Rule 34]]
# [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
# [[333: Getting Out of Hand]]
# [[323: Ballmer Peak]]
# [[322: Pix Plz]]
# [[325: A-Minus-Minus]]
# [[340: Fight]]
# [[356: Nerd Sniping]]
# [[349: Success]]
# [[366: Your Mom]]
# [[369: Dangers]]
# [[372: To Be Wanted]]
# [[374: Journal]]
# [[377: Journal 2]]
# [[373: The Data So Far]]
# [[376: Bug]]
# [[380: Emoticon]]
# [[387: Advanced Technology]]
# [[386: Duty Calls]]
# [[412: Startled]]
# [[389: Keeping Time]]
# [[397: Unscientific]]
# [[391: Anti-Mindvirus]]
# [[393: Ultimate Game]]
# [[416: Zealous Autoconfig]]
# [[396: The Ring]]
# [[398: Tap That Ass]]
# [[420: Jealousy]]
# [[429: Fantasy]]
# [[434: xkcd Goes to the Airport]]
# [[435: Purity]]
# [[445: I Am Not Good with Boomerangs]]
# [[475: Further Boomerang Difficulties]]
# [[451: Impostor]]
# [[452: Mission]]
# [[463: Voting Machines]]
# [[500: Election]]
# [[481: Listen to Yourself]]
# [[486: I am Not a Ninja]]
# [[487: Numerical Sex Positions]]
# [[505: A Bunch of Rocks]]
# [[488: Steal This Comic]]
# [[511: Sleet]]
# [[530: I'm An Idiot]]
# [[513: Friends]]
# [[518: Flow Charts]]
# [[540: Base System]]
# [[569: Borders]]
# [[565: Security Question]]
# [[552: Correlation]]
# [[559: No Pun Intended]]
# [[591: Troll Slayer]]
# [[571: Can't Sleep]]
# [[592: Drama]]
# [[585: Outreach]]
</div>
{{cob}}
==Transcript==
{{Incomplete transcript|Expand on the back}}
===Front cover===
:[A bit above the middle of the page, there is the title of the book with the subtitle in a smaller font size below it. Neither the title nor the subtitle are capitalized.]
:xkcd
:volume 0
:[In the bottom right of the page stand Megan, on the right, and Cueball, on the left, holding hands. Cueball looks away from Megan, to the left, and Megan looks away from Cueball, to the right.]

===Back cover===
:[There are several otherwise nondescript gray rectangles on which the characters stand on. Red spiders are present throughout the panel.]
:[Two of these rectangles are attached from the area around the right corner and going off of the cover, in an L-shape. Black Hat stands on it, taking notes on a journal. Twenty-three red spiders lie on the object. Nine of them are clustered in the inner L corner, four of them forming chains. An additional red spider has just fallen off of the object from the right.]
:[To L shape's right, in the air, Cory Doctorow in his red suit is shown punching a red spider.]

==Cypher==
The book also contains many puzzles within it, usually in red.

The bottom of page one has the following characters: 
CNEG BAR BS RVTUG VA URK: RR AVAR RVTUG SVIR BAR BAR RVTUG.

The text is encoded in a Caesar Cipher, {{w|ROT13|shifted 13 letters}}. It translates to: 
PART ONE OF EIGHT IN HEX: EE NINE EIGHT FIVE ONE ONE EIGHT.

This revealed the first part of the hex, and alerted readers to the fact that there was more encoded text..

The bottom of page two, under the strip Chess Photo, has

http://xkcd.com/chesscoaster/

On page 10, next to the comic Centrifugal Force, there is a drawing of Cueball leaning out of a hot air ballon above three mountains.

The bottom right of page 11 contains Cueball sitting next to a block of characters that is four characters tall and eight characters wide. The characters are

I0TAE/KE[New line] 
20IBSWIY[New line] 
ODE65TN8[New line] 
CO25.RAP

[Note: I could not differentiate the 1’s from the “I”’s and the 0’s from the “O”’s in this section, so this transcription may not be entirely accurate.]

Page 12 contains a drawing of Cueball holding a cat next to the comic Cat Proximity. He is saying

KITTY KITTY KITTY 

On page 111, below the comic Useless, there is the text 
CY-O CMLROOCXN. YR M.AOGP. NRK.W ABE ,CYDRGY M.AOGP.M.BY YD.P. JAB X. BR OJC.BJ.V <D.B CY JRM.O YR NRK.W ,.-P. ANN CB YD. EAPTV [[TCBO.F

This text is the result of changing text from a QWERTY keyboard to a DVORAK keyboard. When decoded, it reads: 
IT'S IMPOSSIBLe TO MeASURe LOVe< AND wITHOUT MeASUReMeNT THeRe CAN Be NO SCIeNCe> WHeN IT COMeS TO LOVe< we'Re ALL IN THe DARK> --KINSeY

On the bottom of page 1000, near the comic M.C. Hammer Slide, there is a drawing of Cueball doing the M.C. Hammer slide in a hamster ball with the caption M.C. Hamster written below it.

On page 1010, there is a drawing of Cueball on a one wheeler approaching a ramp to the right

On the page 1012, under the comic DPain Over Dt, there is the text in braille: 
⠊⠞⠀⠞⠁⠅⠑⠎⠀⠍⠕⠗⠑⠀⠞⠊⠍⠑⠀⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠑⠭⠏⠑⠉⠞ ⠃⠥⠞ ⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠋⠑⠁⠗⠲

This is a line of text written in Braille. Translated to English, it reads: 
''it takes more time than you expect but less than you fear.''

This is seemingly unrelated to the cipher, but it is instead a message for those attempting to crack it.

On page 1020, to the upper left of the comic Science Fair, there is a drawing of Cueball saying

I have a wave generator and 
Peter Frampton’s talkbox. Ladies? 

The following pages have the respective 2 characters in the upper right corner

101010 grey LY 
101120 red IK 
102000 red GU 
110100 red EH 
110102 red DO 
110111 red CR 

The bottom of page 10020 under the Dream Girl strip, has
772A3A35 DEF88CA7 0BDFD186 20B05684 934721F8 F64762FD 
03F8D76B 3FA0CB8C 2756B2D0 A9F00A1B CFF1603E DB05426C 

The bottom of page 10112 has a string written in binary, which reads: 
0011001001011100000101100000110111100100001010100110011000010010110011

This, when put through a decoder, translates to

The bottom of page 111000 (2nd last page) says 
123 B 
followed by an arrow bouncing off a vertical line, and the string 
VRDSTLRBYSMRLUVRXGCFHZWXKYNHYKLKWMCLRMFIKOZAIYXJWITOYOVN 

Page 110120 contains the following poem rotated 90 degrees clockwise. 
THE START OF THE TENTH-FAVORITE WORD USED BY BENDER (C in Chump) 
THE TOON THAT WENT SOUTH WHILE COMMANDED BY ENDER (Dumper from [[Ender's Game]]) 
THE NUMBER OF LIGHTS THAT PICARD SAID WERE ON (Four Lights) 
AND THE CLASS OF THE PLANET WHERE KIRK SHOUTED "KHAAAN!" (The planet was M class) 
THE RINGS FOR THE MEN MINUS RINGS FOR THE ELVES (9 for men - 3 for elves = 6) 
AND THE PRODUCT MOD 10 OF A FIVESOME OF TWELVES (0) 
THE END OF A CODE NES GAMERS KNOW ("Start" as in the end of the Konami code, sometimes mapped as 1) 
AND THE BASE USED TO MODEL HOW QUICKLY THINGS GROW (Eulers number or e) 
WHEN THEY'RE XOR'D TOGETHER THE CHECKSUM IS "E" (All numbers above (601 and 9 for e for a reason unknown to me) XOR'd together is 14 which is commonly stated as "E" in hexidecimal formatting, the fact that E = 14 allowed for the final cypher's decription 
WHICH WILL TELL YOU YOU'VE GOT THE PENULTIMATE KEY 

These various cyphers contained clues for several puzzles.
The combination of them led to a final cypher: EE98511873CD4542DA101CBC735646B09BE32BE0D0E0C9A6CB4D62AE8662384F) And was successfully decoded by the [[XKCD Forums]].
EE985118 is from the Caesar cypher shift.
LYIKGUEHDOCR Provided a polyalphabetic shift
The checksum "E" from the XOR poem was then used as a bitwise mask. Each byte of the resulting data was XOR'd with this value to flip specific bits and align the data with standard text encoding.
Once the shifts and bitwise XOR operations were complete, the hexadecimal bytes were converted into ASCII characters.
The solution was a series of coordinates and a time: <3<3<3 2010-06-26 14:28:57 37.769573 -122.483123.
This led to the middle of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, 2010 June 26th at 2:30pm-ish.
A group of about 100 XKCD fans showed up to the location and were rewarded with a limited edition copy of XKCD volume 0.

Not much else is known about the cypher and special edition, and due to the takedown of the [[XKCD Forums]] most of the information as to how the cypher was solved is lost to time.

See also 
* pg 1 [[10: Pi Equals]]
* pg 111 [[55: Useless]]
* pg 1012 [[128: dPain over dt]]
And talk/discussion pages for
* pg 11002 [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
* pg 11002 [[209: Kayak]]
* pg 11011 [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
* pg 100000 [[282: Organic Fuel]]
* pg 100012 [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]

Other pages also have extra text, drawings, or glyphs.

[[Category:Red Spiders| ]]
[[Category:Books]]{{xkcdmeta}}

xkcd: volume 0

2025-12-23T04:02:19Z

TheErgster: /* Cypher */

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''xkcd: volume 0''}}{{book navigation}}[[File:xkcd_volume_0.jpeg|260px|right|thumb|The cover of the book]]{{incomplete|
*The article is missing a lot of information and links about the book.

*IF YOU HAVE THE BOOK, explain how the pages are counted in the book! (They're ternary-like, except when 2 is reached, it always overflows onto the digit with the next highest magnitude and increments it by one...

*Please help decode each part of the Cipher, and reorganize it into a more readable format (possibly a table, if somebody is up to the task).)}}{{TOC}}

'''''xkcd: volume 0''''' is a book by [[Randall Munroe]] released on August 24, 2010. It features a collection of comics personally chosen by Randall from the initial 600 entries of the webcomic. These comics were assembled from high-resolution original scans and include the original or, sometimes, a different title text. The book is available to [https://archive.org/details/2009Xkcd read in full on the Internet Archive].

{{Quote|<nowiki></nowiki>''xkcd: volume 0'' is the first xkcd book! It features selections from the first 600 comics, including various author and fan favorites. It was lovingly assembled from high-resolution original scans of the comics (the mouseover text is discreetly included), and features a lot of doodles, notes, and puzzles in the margins.
|''[[Randall Munroe]]|[https://web.archive.org/web/20100701115034/http://store.xkcd.com/ Source]}}

The book is published by {{w|Breadpig}}, a company founded by Randall's friend Alexis, and their portion of the profits will go to build a school in Laos through the charity {{w|Room to Read}}.
{{cot|Comics featured in the book}}
<div style="column-width:20em">
# [[10: Pi Equals]]
# [[242: The Difference]]
# [[249: Chess Photo]]
# [[123: Centrifugal Force]]
# [[214: The Problem with Wikipedia]]
# [[221: Random Number]]
# [[231: Cat Proximity]]
# [[20: Ferret]]
# [[21: Kepler]]
# [[30: Donner]]
# [[37: Hyphen]]
# [[82: Frame]]
# [[44: Love]]
# [[54: Science]]
# [[55: Useless]]
# [[85: Paths]]
# [[105: Parallel Universe]]
# [[108: M.C. Hammer Slide]]
# [[112: Baring My Heart]]
# [[114: Computational Linguists]]
# [[120: Dating Service]]
# [[116: City]]
# [[117: Pong]]
# [[124: Blogofractal]]
# [[128: dPain over dt]]
# [[134: Myspace]]
# [[135: Substitute]]
# [[136: Science Fair]]
# [[137: Dreams]]
# [[138: Pointers]]
# [[149: Sandwich]]
# [[152: Hamster Ball]]
# [[160: Penny Arcade Parody]]
# [[153: Cryptography]]
# [[159: Boombox]]
# [[157: Filler Art]]
# [[161: Accident]]
# [[162: Angular Momentum]]
# [[184: Matrix Transform]]
# [[163: Donald Knuth]]
# [[165: Turn Signals]]
# [[201: Christmas GPS]]
# [[177: Alice and Bob]]
# [[173: Movie Seating]]
# [[179: e to the pi times i]]
# [[191: Lojban]]
# [[210: 90's Flowchart]]
# [[200: Bill Nye]]
# [[182: Nash]]
# [[180: Canada]]
# [[215: Letting Go]]
# [[239: Blagofaire]]
# [[225: Open Source]]
# [[230: Hamiltonian]]
# [[240: Dream Girl]]
# [[247: Factoring the Time]]
# [[248: Hypotheticals]]
# [[253: Highway Engineer Pranks]]
# [[257: Code Talkers]]
# [[258: Conspiracy Theories]]
# [[262: IN UR REALITY]]
# [[276: Fixed Width]]
# [[274: With Apologies to The Who]]
# [[279: Pickup Lines]]
# [[275: Thoughts]]
# [[77: Bored with the Internet]]
# [[150: Grownups]]
# [[167: Nihilism]]
# [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
# [[209: Kayak]]
# [[202: YouTube]]
# [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
# [[472: House of Pancakes]]
# [[556: Alternative Energy Revolution]]
# [[442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel]]
# [[264: Choices: Part 1]]
# [[265: Choices: Part 2]]
# [[266: Choices: Part 3]]
# [[267: Choices: Part 4]]
# [[268: Choices: Part 5]]
# [[282: Organic Fuel]]
# [[280: Librarians]]
# [[320: 28-Hour Day]]
# [[316: Loud Sex]]
# [[284: Tape Measure]]
# [[287: NP-Complete]]
# [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]
# [[303: Compiling]]
# [[291: Dignified]]
# [[305: Rule 34]]
# [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
# [[333: Getting Out of Hand]]
# [[323: Ballmer Peak]]
# [[322: Pix Plz]]
# [[325: A-Minus-Minus]]
# [[340: Fight]]
# [[356: Nerd Sniping]]
# [[349: Success]]
# [[366: Your Mom]]
# [[369: Dangers]]
# [[372: To Be Wanted]]
# [[374: Journal]]
# [[377: Journal 2]]
# [[373: The Data So Far]]
# [[376: Bug]]
# [[380: Emoticon]]
# [[387: Advanced Technology]]
# [[386: Duty Calls]]
# [[412: Startled]]
# [[389: Keeping Time]]
# [[397: Unscientific]]
# [[391: Anti-Mindvirus]]
# [[393: Ultimate Game]]
# [[416: Zealous Autoconfig]]
# [[396: The Ring]]
# [[398: Tap That Ass]]
# [[420: Jealousy]]
# [[429: Fantasy]]
# [[434: xkcd Goes to the Airport]]
# [[435: Purity]]
# [[445: I Am Not Good with Boomerangs]]
# [[475: Further Boomerang Difficulties]]
# [[451: Impostor]]
# [[452: Mission]]
# [[463: Voting Machines]]
# [[500: Election]]
# [[481: Listen to Yourself]]
# [[486: I am Not a Ninja]]
# [[487: Numerical Sex Positions]]
# [[505: A Bunch of Rocks]]
# [[488: Steal This Comic]]
# [[511: Sleet]]
# [[530: I'm An Idiot]]
# [[513: Friends]]
# [[518: Flow Charts]]
# [[540: Base System]]
# [[569: Borders]]
# [[565: Security Question]]
# [[552: Correlation]]
# [[559: No Pun Intended]]
# [[591: Troll Slayer]]
# [[571: Can't Sleep]]
# [[592: Drama]]
# [[585: Outreach]]
</div>
{{cob}}
==Transcript==
{{Incomplete transcript|Expand on the back}}
===Front cover===
:[A bit above the middle of the page, there is the title of the book with the subtitle in a smaller font size below it. Neither the title nor the subtitle are capitalized.]
:xkcd
:volume 0
:[In the bottom right of the page stand Megan, on the right, and Cueball, on the left, holding hands. Cueball looks away from Megan, to the left, and Megan looks away from Cueball, to the right.]

===Back cover===
:[There are several otherwise nondescript gray rectangles on which the characters stand on. Red spiders are present throughout the panel.]
:[Two of these rectangles are attached from the area around the right corner and going off of the cover, in an L-shape. Black Hat stands on it, taking notes on a journal. Twenty-three red spiders lie on the object. Nine of them are clustered in the inner L corner, four of them forming chains. An additional red spider has just fallen off of the object from the right.]
:[To L shape's right, in the air, Cory Doctorow in his red suit is shown punching a red spider.]

==Cypher==
The book also contains many puzzles within it, usually in red.

The bottom of page one has the following characters: 
CNEG BAR BS RVTUG VA URK: RR AVAR RVTUG SVIR BAR BAR RVTUG.

The text is encoded in a Caesar Cipher, {{w|ROT13|shifted 13 letters}}. It translates to: 
PART ONE OF EIGHT IN HEX: EE NINE EIGHT FIVE ONE ONE EIGHT.

This revealed the first part of the hex, and alerted readers to the fact that there was more encoded text..

The bottom of page two, under the strip Chess Photo, has

http://xkcd.com/chesscoaster/

On page 10, next to the comic Centrifugal Force, there is a drawing of Cueball leaning out of a hot air ballon above three mountains.

The bottom right of page 11 contains Cueball sitting next to a block of characters that is four characters tall and eight characters wide. The characters are

I0TAE/KE[New line] 
20IBSWIY[New line] 
ODE65TN8[New line] 
CO25.RAP

[Note: I could not differentiate the 1’s from the “I”’s and the 0’s from the “O”’s in this section, so this transcription may not be entirely accurate.]

Page 12 contains a drawing of Cueball holding a cat next to the comic Cat Proximity. He is saying

KITTY KITTY KITTY 

On page 111, below the comic Useless, there is the text 
CY-O CMLROOCXN. YR M.AOGP. NRK.W ABE ,CYDRGY M.AOGP.M.BY YD.P. JAB X. BR OJC.BJ.V <D.B CY JRM.O YR NRK.W ,.-P. ANN CB YD. EAPTV [[TCBO.F

This text is the result of changing text from a QWERTY keyboard to a DVORAK keyboard. When decoded, it reads: 
IT'S IMPOSSIBLe TO MeASURe LOVe< AND wITHOUT MeASUReMeNT THeRe CAN Be NO SCIeNCe> WHeN IT COMeS TO LOVe< we'Re ALL IN THe DARK> --KINSeY

On the bottom of page 1000, near the comic M.C. Hammer Slide, there is a drawing of Cueball doing the M.C. Hammer slide in a hamster ball with the caption M.C. Hamster written below it.

On page 1010, there is a drawing of Cueball on a one wheeler approaching a ramp to the right

On the page 1012, under the comic DPain Over Dt, there is the text in braille: 
⠊⠞⠀⠞⠁⠅⠑⠎⠀⠍⠕⠗⠑⠀⠞⠊⠍⠑⠀⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠑⠭⠏⠑⠉⠞ ⠃⠥⠞ ⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠋⠑⠁⠗⠲

This is a line of text written in Braille. Translated to English, it reads: 
''it takes more time than you expect but less than you fear.''

This is seemingly unrelated to the cipher, but it is instead a message for those attempting to crack it.

On page 1020, to the upper left of the comic Science Fair, there is a drawing of Cueball saying

I have a wave generator and 
Peter Frampton’s talkbox. Ladies? 

The following pages have the respective 2 characters in the upper right corner

101010 grey LY 
101120 red IK 
102000 red GU 
110100 red EH 
110102 red DO 
110111 red CR 

The bottom of page 10020 under the Dream Girl strip, has
772A3A35 DEF88CA7 0BDFD186 20B05684 934721F8 F64762FD 
03F8D76B 3FA0CB8C 2756B2D0 A9F00A1B CFF1603E DB05426C 

The bottom of page 10112 has a string written in binary, which reads: 
0011001001011100000101100000110111100100001010100110011000010010110011

This, when put through a decoder, translates to

The bottom of page 111000 (2nd last page) says 
123 B 
followed by an arrow bouncing off a vertical line, and the string 
VRDSTLRBYSMRLUVRXGCFHZWXKYNHYKLKWMCLRMFIKOZAIYXJWITOYOVN 

Page 110120 contains the following poem rotated 90 degrees clockwise. 
THE START OF THE TENTH-FAVORITE WORD USED BY BENDER (C in Chump) 
THE TOON THAT WENT SOUTH WHILE COMMANDED BY ENDER (Dumper from [[Ender's Game]]) 
THE NUMBER OF LIGHTS THAT PICARD SAID WERE ON (Four Lights) 
AND THE CLASS OF THE PLANET WHERE KIRK SHOUTED "KHAAAN!" (The planet was M class) 
THE RINGS FOR THE MEN MINUS RINGS FOR THE ELVES (9 for men - 3 for elves = 6) 
AND THE PRODUCT MOD 10 OF A FIVESOME OF TWELVES (0) 
THE END OF A CODE NES GAMERS KNOW ("Start" as in the end of the Konami code, sometimes mapped as 1) 
AND THE BASE USED TO MODEL HOW QUICKLY THINGS GROW (Eulers number or e) 
WHEN THEY'RE XOR'D TOGETHER THE CHECKSUM IS "E" (All numbers above (601 and 9 for e for a reason unknown to me) XOR'd together is 14 which is commonly stated as "E" in hexidecimal formatting, the fact that E = 14 allowed for the final cypher's decription 
WHICH WILL TELL YOU YOU'VE GOT THE PENULTIMATE KEY 

These various cyphers contained clues for several puzzles.
The combination of them led to a final cypher: EE98511873CD4542DA101CBC735646B09BE32BE0D0E0C9A6CB4D62AE8662384F) And was successfully decoded by the [[XKCD Forums]].
The solution was a series of coordinates and a time: <3<3<3 2010-06-26 14:28:57 37.769573 -122.483123.
This led to the middle of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, 2010 June 26th at 2:30pm-ish.
A group of about 100 XKCD fans showed up to the location and were rewarded with a limited edition copy of XKCD volume 0.

Not much else is known about the cypher and special edition, and due to the takedown of the [[XKCD Forums]] most of the information as to how the cypher was solved is lost to time.

See also 
* pg 1 [[10: Pi Equals]]
* pg 111 [[55: Useless]]
* pg 1012 [[128: dPain over dt]]
And talk/discussion pages for
* pg 11002 [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
* pg 11002 [[209: Kayak]]
* pg 11011 [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
* pg 100000 [[282: Organic Fuel]]
* pg 100012 [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]

Other pages also have extra text, drawings, or glyphs.

[[Category:Red Spiders| ]]
[[Category:Books]]{{xkcdmeta}}

xkcd: volume 0

2025-12-23T03:59:12Z

TheErgster: /* Cypher */ Added more details and answers for certain parts of the cypher

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''xkcd: volume 0''}}{{book navigation}}[[File:xkcd_volume_0.jpeg|260px|right|thumb|The cover of the book]]{{incomplete|
*The article is missing a lot of information and links about the book.

*IF YOU HAVE THE BOOK, explain how the pages are counted in the book! (They're ternary-like, except when 2 is reached, it always overflows onto the digit with the next highest magnitude and increments it by one...

*Please help decode each part of the Cipher, and reorganize it into a more readable format (possibly a table, if somebody is up to the task).)}}{{TOC}}

'''''xkcd: volume 0''''' is a book by [[Randall Munroe]] released on August 24, 2010. It features a collection of comics personally chosen by Randall from the initial 600 entries of the webcomic. These comics were assembled from high-resolution original scans and include the original or, sometimes, a different title text. The book is available to [https://archive.org/details/2009Xkcd read in full on the Internet Archive].

{{Quote|<nowiki></nowiki>''xkcd: volume 0'' is the first xkcd book! It features selections from the first 600 comics, including various author and fan favorites. It was lovingly assembled from high-resolution original scans of the comics (the mouseover text is discreetly included), and features a lot of doodles, notes, and puzzles in the margins.
|''[[Randall Munroe]]|[https://web.archive.org/web/20100701115034/http://store.xkcd.com/ Source]}}

The book is published by {{w|Breadpig}}, a company founded by Randall's friend Alexis, and their portion of the profits will go to build a school in Laos through the charity {{w|Room to Read}}.
{{cot|Comics featured in the book}}
<div style="column-width:20em">
# [[10: Pi Equals]]
# [[242: The Difference]]
# [[249: Chess Photo]]
# [[123: Centrifugal Force]]
# [[214: The Problem with Wikipedia]]
# [[221: Random Number]]
# [[231: Cat Proximity]]
# [[20: Ferret]]
# [[21: Kepler]]
# [[30: Donner]]
# [[37: Hyphen]]
# [[82: Frame]]
# [[44: Love]]
# [[54: Science]]
# [[55: Useless]]
# [[85: Paths]]
# [[105: Parallel Universe]]
# [[108: M.C. Hammer Slide]]
# [[112: Baring My Heart]]
# [[114: Computational Linguists]]
# [[120: Dating Service]]
# [[116: City]]
# [[117: Pong]]
# [[124: Blogofractal]]
# [[128: dPain over dt]]
# [[134: Myspace]]
# [[135: Substitute]]
# [[136: Science Fair]]
# [[137: Dreams]]
# [[138: Pointers]]
# [[149: Sandwich]]
# [[152: Hamster Ball]]
# [[160: Penny Arcade Parody]]
# [[153: Cryptography]]
# [[159: Boombox]]
# [[157: Filler Art]]
# [[161: Accident]]
# [[162: Angular Momentum]]
# [[184: Matrix Transform]]
# [[163: Donald Knuth]]
# [[165: Turn Signals]]
# [[201: Christmas GPS]]
# [[177: Alice and Bob]]
# [[173: Movie Seating]]
# [[179: e to the pi times i]]
# [[191: Lojban]]
# [[210: 90's Flowchart]]
# [[200: Bill Nye]]
# [[182: Nash]]
# [[180: Canada]]
# [[215: Letting Go]]
# [[239: Blagofaire]]
# [[225: Open Source]]
# [[230: Hamiltonian]]
# [[240: Dream Girl]]
# [[247: Factoring the Time]]
# [[248: Hypotheticals]]
# [[253: Highway Engineer Pranks]]
# [[257: Code Talkers]]
# [[258: Conspiracy Theories]]
# [[262: IN UR REALITY]]
# [[276: Fixed Width]]
# [[274: With Apologies to The Who]]
# [[279: Pickup Lines]]
# [[275: Thoughts]]
# [[77: Bored with the Internet]]
# [[150: Grownups]]
# [[167: Nihilism]]
# [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
# [[209: Kayak]]
# [[202: YouTube]]
# [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
# [[472: House of Pancakes]]
# [[556: Alternative Energy Revolution]]
# [[442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel]]
# [[264: Choices: Part 1]]
# [[265: Choices: Part 2]]
# [[266: Choices: Part 3]]
# [[267: Choices: Part 4]]
# [[268: Choices: Part 5]]
# [[282: Organic Fuel]]
# [[280: Librarians]]
# [[320: 28-Hour Day]]
# [[316: Loud Sex]]
# [[284: Tape Measure]]
# [[287: NP-Complete]]
# [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]
# [[303: Compiling]]
# [[291: Dignified]]
# [[305: Rule 34]]
# [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
# [[333: Getting Out of Hand]]
# [[323: Ballmer Peak]]
# [[322: Pix Plz]]
# [[325: A-Minus-Minus]]
# [[340: Fight]]
# [[356: Nerd Sniping]]
# [[349: Success]]
# [[366: Your Mom]]
# [[369: Dangers]]
# [[372: To Be Wanted]]
# [[374: Journal]]
# [[377: Journal 2]]
# [[373: The Data So Far]]
# [[376: Bug]]
# [[380: Emoticon]]
# [[387: Advanced Technology]]
# [[386: Duty Calls]]
# [[412: Startled]]
# [[389: Keeping Time]]
# [[397: Unscientific]]
# [[391: Anti-Mindvirus]]
# [[393: Ultimate Game]]
# [[416: Zealous Autoconfig]]
# [[396: The Ring]]
# [[398: Tap That Ass]]
# [[420: Jealousy]]
# [[429: Fantasy]]
# [[434: xkcd Goes to the Airport]]
# [[435: Purity]]
# [[445: I Am Not Good with Boomerangs]]
# [[475: Further Boomerang Difficulties]]
# [[451: Impostor]]
# [[452: Mission]]
# [[463: Voting Machines]]
# [[500: Election]]
# [[481: Listen to Yourself]]
# [[486: I am Not a Ninja]]
# [[487: Numerical Sex Positions]]
# [[505: A Bunch of Rocks]]
# [[488: Steal This Comic]]
# [[511: Sleet]]
# [[530: I'm An Idiot]]
# [[513: Friends]]
# [[518: Flow Charts]]
# [[540: Base System]]
# [[569: Borders]]
# [[565: Security Question]]
# [[552: Correlation]]
# [[559: No Pun Intended]]
# [[591: Troll Slayer]]
# [[571: Can't Sleep]]
# [[592: Drama]]
# [[585: Outreach]]
</div>
{{cob}}
==Transcript==
{{Incomplete transcript|Expand on the back}}
===Front cover===
:[A bit above the middle of the page, there is the title of the book with the subtitle in a smaller font size below it. Neither the title nor the subtitle are capitalized.]
:xkcd
:volume 0
:[In the bottom right of the page stand Megan, on the right, and Cueball, on the left, holding hands. Cueball looks away from Megan, to the left, and Megan looks away from Cueball, to the right.]

===Back cover===
:[There are several otherwise nondescript gray rectangles on which the characters stand on. Red spiders are present throughout the panel.]
:[Two of these rectangles are attached from the area around the right corner and going off of the cover, in an L-shape. Black Hat stands on it, taking notes on a journal. Twenty-three red spiders lie on the object. Nine of them are clustered in the inner L corner, four of them forming chains. An additional red spider has just fallen off of the object from the right.]
:[To L shape's right, in the air, Cory Doctorow in his red suit is shown punching a red spider.]

==Cypher==
The book also contains many puzzles within it, usually in red.

The bottom of page one has the following characters: 
CNEG BAR BS RVTUG VA URK: RR AVAR RVTUG SVIR BAR BAR RVTUG.

The text is encoded in a Caesar Cipher, {{w|ROT13|shifted 13 letters}}. It translates to: 
PART ONE OF EIGHT IN HEX: EE NINE EIGHT FIVE ONE ONE EIGHT.

This revealed the first part of the hex, and alerted readers to the fact that there was more encoded text..

The bottom of page two, under the strip Chess Photo, has

http://xkcd.com/chesscoaster/

On page 10, next to the comic Centrifugal Force, there is a drawing of Cueball leaning out of a hot air ballon above three mountains.

The bottom right of page 11 contains Cueball sitting next to a block of characters that is four characters tall and eight characters wide. The characters are

I0TAE/KE[New line] 
20IBSWIY[New line] 
ODE65TN8[New line] 
CO25.RAP

[Note: I could not differentiate the 1’s from the “I”’s and the 0’s from the “O”’s in this section, so this transcription may not be entirely accurate.]

Page 12 contains a drawing of Cueball holding a cat next to the comic Cat Proximity. He is saying

KITTY KITTY KITTY 

On page 111, below the comic Useless, there is the text 
CY-O CMLROOCXN. YR M.AOGP. NRK.W ABE ,CYDRGY M.AOGP.M.BY YD.P. JAB X. BR OJC.BJ.V <D.B CY JRM.O YR NRK.W ,.-P. ANN CB YD. EAPTV [[TCBO.F

This text is the result of changing text from a QWERTY keyboard to a DVORAK keyboard. When decoded, it reads: 
IT'S IMPOSSIBLe TO MeASURe LOVe< AND wITHOUT MeASUReMeNT THeRe CAN Be NO SCIeNCe> WHeN IT COMeS TO LOVe< we'Re ALL IN THe DARK> --KINSeY

On the bottom of page 1000, near the comic M.C. Hammer Slide, there is a drawing of Cueball doing the M.C. Hammer slide in a hamster ball with the caption M.C. Hamster written below it.

On page 1010, there is a drawing of Cueball on a one wheeler approaching a ramp to the right

On the page 1012, under the comic DPain Over Dt, there is the text in braille: 
⠊⠞⠀⠞⠁⠅⠑⠎⠀⠍⠕⠗⠑⠀⠞⠊⠍⠑⠀⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠑⠭⠏⠑⠉⠞ ⠃⠥⠞ ⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠋⠑⠁⠗⠲

This is a line of text written in Braille. Translated to English, it reads: 
''it takes more time than you expect but less than you fear.''

This is seemingly unrelated to the cipher, but it is instead a message for those attempting to crack it.

On page 1020, to the upper left of the comic Science Fair, there is a drawing of Cueball saying

I have a wave generator and 
Peter Frampton’s talkbox. Ladies? 

The following pages have the respective 2 characters in the upper right corner

101010 grey LY 
101120 red IK 
102000 red GU 
110100 red EH 
110102 red DO 
110111 red CR 

The bottom of page 10020 under the Dream Girl strip, has
772A3A35 DEF88CA7 0BDFD186 20B05684 934721F8 F64762FD 
03F8D76B 3FA0CB8C 2756B2D0 A9F00A1B CFF1603E DB05426C 

The bottom of page 10112 has a string written in binary, which reads: 
0011001001011100000101100000110111100100001010100110011000010010110011

This, when put through a decoder, translates to

The bottom of page 111000 (2nd last page) says 
123 B 
followed by an arrow bouncing off a vertical line, and the string 
VRDSTLRBYSMRLUVRXGCFHZWXKYNHYKLKWMCLRMFIKOZAIYXJWITOYOVN 

Page 110120 contains the following poem rotated 90 degrees clockwise. 
THE START OF THE TENTH-FAVORITE WORD USED BY BENDER (C in Chump) 
THE TOON THAT WENT SOUTH WHILE COMMANDED BY ENDER (Dumper from [[Ender's Game]]) 
THE NUMBER OF LIGHTS THAT PICARD SAID WERE ON (Four Lights) 
AND THE CLASS OF THE PLANET WHERE KIRK SHOUTED "KHAAAN!" (The planet was M class) 
THE RINGS FOR THE MEN MINUS RINGS FOR THE ELVES (9 for men - 3 for elves = 6) 
AND THE PRODUCT MOD 10 OF A FIVESOME OF TWELVES (2) 
THE END OF A CODE NES GAMERS KNOW ("Start" as in the end of the Konami code) 
AND THE BASE USED TO MODEL HOW QUICKLY THINGS GROW (Eulers number or e) 
WHEN THEY'RE XOR'D TOGETHER THE CHECKSUM IS "E" (All numbers above XOR'd together is 14 which is commonly stated as "E" in hexidecimal formatting, the fact that E = 14 allowed for the final cypher's decription 
WHICH WILL TELL YOU YOU'VE GOT THE PENULTIMATE KEY 

These various cyphers contained clues for several puzzles.
The combination of them led to a final cypher: EE98511873CD4542DA101CBC735646B09BE32BE0D0E0C9A6CB4D62AE8662384F) And was successfully decoded by the [[XKCD Forums]].
The solution was a series of coordinates and a time: <3<3<3 2010-06-26 14:28:57 37.769573 -122.483123.
This led to the middle of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, 2010 June 26th at 2:30pm-ish.
A group of about 100 XKCD fans showed up to the location and were rewarded with a limited edition copy of XKCD volume 0.

Not much else is known about the cypher and special edition, and due to the takedown of the [[XKCD Forums]] most of the information as to how the cypher was solved is lost to time.

See also 
* pg 1 [[10: Pi Equals]]
* pg 111 [[55: Useless]]
* pg 1012 [[128: dPain over dt]]
And talk/discussion pages for
* pg 11002 [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
* pg 11002 [[209: Kayak]]
* pg 11011 [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
* pg 100000 [[282: Organic Fuel]]
* pg 100012 [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]

Other pages also have extra text, drawings, or glyphs.

[[Category:Red Spiders| ]]
[[Category:Books]]{{xkcdmeta}}

3144: Phase Changes

2025-11-13T15:31:08Z

TheErgster: Removed Incomplete explanation as it gave no actual reason for explanation missing and the explanation was complete

{{comic
| number = 3144
| date = September 19, 2025
| title = Phase Changes
| image = phase_changes_2x.png
| imagesize = 409x341px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = People looking for the gaps in our understanding where the meaning of consciousness or free will might hide often turn to quantum uncertainty or infinite cosmologies, as if we don't have breathtakingly complex emergent phenomena right there in our freezers.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic illustrates the difference between the simplified idealised version of science that is often taught in the classroom, and the much weirder, more unexpected and complicated phenomena that can happen in reality.

In the first panel, [[Blondie]] is teaching the textbook version of the freezing of water, which is that it changes from a liquid to a solid at exactly 0°C. The expectation might be that the next panel will explain that it's rather more complicated than that, due to factors such as impurities and mixing of ice and liquid water, which mean that both solid and liquid water, or a mix of the two, can exist at temperatures above and below 0°C.

Instead, it illustrates a much more surprising effect — that of {{w|ice spike}}s. Normally, water freezes uniformly when still, and creates a relatively smooth, flat surface. However, very occasionally, all but a small portion of the surface freezes. Because water expands by ~9% as it freezes, and the water below the surface has only this hole to expand through, the liquid water seeps out through the hole as it expands, freezes at the edges, the remaining water seeps out of this extension to the hole, and so on until there is no more water capable of seeping past the freezing. This creates shapes such as spikes, where the rate of seepage is marginally less than the ability to disperse over the advancing ice-'tunnel', or inverted pyramids, where the rate slightly exceeds the ability to be retained. Cross-sectionally, they tend to have six-fold symmetry, for the same reasons as snowflake nucleation does. (That ''both'' structures are observed emerging from the single freezing body of water would make the comic's example somewhat counterintuitive, but we are already dealing with an example where two separate seepage holes must have developed without either losing their ability to extend due to the other's possibly preferential release of water.)

When remarking about the ice spike in the right panel, Blondie says that the water is "trying to give us a present." This may come from the fact that ice spikes are generally diagonally extended, as dictated by the initial dominant plane of ice-crystallization, making them look as if they are reaching out towards someone or something. It may also reference the fact that many people would experience surprised delight at finding such an odd formation.

The title text mocks people who look at things that remain gaps in scientific knowledge, like free will and consciousness, and try to assign deeper meaning to them them through fuzzy ideas like quantum uncertainty (e.g. {{w|Roger Penrose}}'s theory of {{w|orchestrated objective reduction}}) or infinite cosmologies (e.g. {{w|Multiverse#Anthropic_principle|multiverse hypotheses with the anthropic principle}}), when phenomena like ice spikes show that even in simple systems, emergent properties can cause unexpected results. This suggests that consciousness is also an emergent property of a simpler system, and not something that relies on some "magical" secret sauce like quantum uncertainty or infinite cosmologies.

Ice spikes were also referenced in the title text of [[3025: Phase Change]].

==Transcript==
:[Blondie is standing to the right of a table, with her right hand gesturing toward a bowl of ice sitting on a table. There is a header above the comic. There is a line underneath the header.]
:Header: Phase change in theory
:Blondie: As you can see, when water is cooled to below 0°C, it changes from a liquid to a solid.

:[Blondie is standing in the same position, but the bowl now contains ice which has uneven structures growing out of it. To the left of the bowl, the ice is growing a trapezoid longer at the top than the bottom, and on the right side, the bowl is growing a large diagonal spike, which has a wider lower half then the upper half, the tip of which hangs over the edge of the bowl. There is a line underneath the header.]
:Header: Phase change in practice
:Blondie: When water freezes, it sometimes sends out long weird spikes.
:Blondie: Physics tells us the water is "trying to give us a present."

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category: Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category: Physics]]

3085: About 20 Pounds

2025-11-13T14:55:14Z

TheErgster: trimmed explination by deleting a few unecesary paragraphs

{{comic
| number = 3085
| date = May 5, 2025
| title = About 20 Pounds
| image = about_20_pounds_2x.png
| imagesize = 666x278px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = In addition to gravity, burritos interact through the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, which is believed to be a major contributor to their popularity.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|
*'''The article might be off-topic'''. We should focus on explaining the comic. If this is solved, remove this notice.

*It should be divided into one or more sections.}}
The nature of {{w|dark matter}} is a significant {{w|List of unsolved problems in physics|unsolved problem in physics}}. We observe that galaxies spin faster than we expect based on the nearby observable matter. Also, Galaxies seemed more clumped than are supposed to be only observing the normal matter, and this has led to physicists to believe there is non-visible mass that is clumping the galaxies together. Dark matter is the name we give to this mass. In the comic, [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] consult an {{w|oracle}} to learn about dark matter.

The pentagram and candles suggest that the oracle is supernatural, summoned by an occult ritual; something which would present its own challenges to our understanding of the physical world. There may be a pun here, in that they may be using 'dark magic' to communicate with something from the 'dark realm' on the assumption that it will know about dark matter. However, the word 'dark' in dark matter simply means that we do not know how to observe it; we have no evidence that dark matter is evil or satanic, though [[Randall]] may consider it [[:Category:Comics with cursed items|cursed]]. The oracle is used very similarly to how people have been using and customizing {{w|large language model|large language models}}.

In general, not all forces interact with all particles; indeed, {{w|gravity}} is believed to be the only force that interacts with everything we have observed. If a force doesn't interact with a particle, then the particle's existence cannot be directly observed via disturbances in that force. In particular, something that doesn't interact with electromagnetism cannot be 'seen', as photons will pass through it relatively unaffected, and likewise cannot be felt, because collision is a side effect of the {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}}.

Even {{w|neutrino}}s, famous for {{what if|73|interacting with ''almost'' nothing}}, still interact via the {{w|weak force}}, allowing them to be detected with sufficiently large tanks of dense material. This is the main reason neutrinos cannot be dark matter: they interact far too much to be a viable option. A particle that interacts with ''nothing'' except gravity could only be detected by a {{w|LIGO|gravitational telescope}}.

There is one dark matter candidate where the only interaction is overwhelmingly gravitational: black holes formed through collapse in the early Universe. These {{w|primordial black holes}} may not be detectable through any terrestrial experiment. However, even these objects can be found through their lensing effects if they are sufficiently large and common to account for the 'missing mass' we are looking for. Black holes of around 10 kg would also likely quickly evaporate through Hawking radiation, so are not a good dark matter candidate. Black holes of around asteroid mass would be extremely hard to detect and are a good dark matter candidate given current information.

The particle's mass is described vaguely as ''about twenty pounds'', roughly 10 kilograms, in line with how all-knowing oracles legendarily use ambiguous statements. This is a ludicrous amount of energy for particle physics. Any interaction would have to involve an equally ludicrous amount of other particle mass being in exactly the right place and time, a coincidence that might be so rare that one would not expect it to occur ever in the history of the universe. By comparison, the {{w|top quark|heaviest single particle}} we have observed, with a mass over a hundred times that of the proton, is around a tenth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a pound.

Under more normal circumstances, we might still hope to observe the properties of the particle via creating it ourselves under controlled laboratory conditions. But again, there is no reasonable way to focus the energy required into a single particle interaction. The {{w|Large Hadron Collider|most powerful particle accelerator in the world}}, for example, peaks at about ten thousand times the mass of the proton (a solid billion times less energy than required) so it's out too. 20 pounds is about 2.6e36 eV which is way over any accelerator could achieve in the foreseeable future.

Despite all this, twenty pounds is also much too ''small'' to be detectable via gravitational interaction; its {{w|Perturbation (astronomy)|influence on the orbits of planets}}, say, or the strength of its {{w|gravitational lensing}} effect, would be entirely negligible. In the scenario posed by the comic, then, there is no plausible way to observe more about dark matter while on Earth. Even if we did find some such particles naturally occurring, and had instruments that could measure such small gravitational forces, since it would interact only via gravity, the only properties it could have other than mass would be its decay rates from other particles. Which, again, would all be essentially nil, due to its mass.

The oracle proceeds to break expectations by suggesting that Ponytail and Cueball go out for {{w|burrito}}s. When faced with the apparent futility of continuing to try to investigate dark matter, the oracle predicts that going out for burritos is precisely as productive as any other approach. It justifies the suggestion by burritos being "pretty" good, again neither exactly quantifying the oracularity, and likely not even giving the optimal idea.

The title text observes that burritos interact through all four known {{w|fundamental interactions}}, making burritos popular. The electromagnetic force mediates the chemical reactions leading to a burrito's taste, the strong force keeps atomic nuclei together, and gravity gives burritos heft, all of which are helpful for enjoying them. It's hard to see how the weak force, which takes part in radioactive decay, helps with burrito enjoyment or popularity, but the weak force is responsible for the nuclear fusion that allowed the complex elements of the burrito to exist in the first place.

The previous comic [[3084: Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object]] dealt with particles which do not even interact with gravity.
In [[2035: Dark Matter Candidates]] these 20 lb dark matter particles fit between magic 8 balls and space cows. The squirrels that make up [[2186: Dark Matter]] near the earth must be pretty chunky. Talking to a floating sphere is becoming a returning subject in xkcd. See more about other instances of this on the page for the [[:Category:Time traveling Sphere|Time traveling Sphere]] series.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Ponytail are standing in front of a pentacle with lit candles at the corners. A black sphere, the oracle, is floating above the middle of the pentacle.]
:Ponytail: Dear oracle,
:Ponytail: What is the nature of dark matter?
:Oracle: It's about 20 pounds.

:[Close up of oracle]
:Off-panel: What?
:Oracle: Dark matter is a particle. It weighs about 20 pounds.
:Oracle: It only interacts through gravity.

:[Same view as first panel]
:Cueball: Only gravity, huh?
:Cueball: So none of our experiments are really going to tell us any more about it, then.
:Oracle: Afraid not.

:[Same view as first and third panels, except Cueball lifted his forearm.]
:Cueball: So what do we do?
:Oracle: You should go out for burritos.
:Ponytail: How will that help?
:Oracle: Well
:Oracle: Burritos are pretty good.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Cosmology]]
[[Category:Food]]

3130: Predicament

2025-11-13T14:52:54Z

TheErgster: Added input as I have use stilts before (its not as hard as it looks

{{comic
| number = 3130
| date = August 18, 2025
| title = Predicament
| image = predicament_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I dropped my phone while trying to search, and I tried to unlock it from up here, so can you also search for screen repair places?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Further input from someone who's actually ridden stilts welcomed. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

This comic describes a person with stilts asking cueball to use his phone. Before he can say what he wants him to do with the phone, Cueball immediately knows that he wants to know how to get off stilts.

For someone who has never worn stilts before, the method to get down from them safely is not obvious. We can't see the stilt user's feet or legs in the pictures, and the way to get off them will vary depending on whether they are the type of stilt that is braced by a strap around the lower leg or the type where the stilt pole extends upwards and is held in the hand. Based on [https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+get+down+from+stilts Googling how to get down from stilts], it seems that one method for the latter is to use the steps that are built into the stilts themselves, commonly called 'pegs'. These act like a very wobbly ladder and allow you to climb up and down the stilts. Other methods include leaning against a wall, bracing the stilts at the bottom of the wall, and carefully stepping (or, as in the case with the image when there appear to be no pegs, sliding) down the stilts. Another technique is to climb onto (and off) the stilts from a platform at roughly the same height as the (top) stilt pegs, such as a balcony or deck.

For someone who has worn stilts before, the method for getting down from stilts is simply finding a place to sit where your stilts can touch the floor. Then, all that is required to do is to take the stilts off and climb down. There are more complex methods that tend to vary based on the type of stilts used and how one is secured into them.

It is somewhat surprising that someone has sufficient mastery to walk and stand still on such high stilts, without also having learnt how to dismount from them, as practicing more than once requires getting off the stilts. One might also expect that someone in this situation might seek rather more direct assistance than looking things up on the internet. [[Randall]] may be lampooning the widespread tendency in today's world to automatically resort to Google for every query that crops up.

The title text explains that this person dropped their phone and tried to unlock it with the stilts, but ended up breaking their phone in the process. ([[530: I'm An Idiot|Presumably]], other unlocking options such as voice, fingerprint, or facial recognition were not enabled or infeasible under the circumstances.) When someone is on stilts, it is actually very hard to stand still because the point of the stilt does not provide the forward-backward length that we are used to our feet having. Beginners generally have a much easier time walking forward, because the momentum helps with balance, and risk falling over if they stop. Unlocking a phone with the stilt would require not only staying still near the phone long enough to do so, but doing so on a single stilt, while lifting the full weight of the other and making those precise motions with an awkward blunt tool that has both considerable {{w|mass}} and considerable {{w|moment of inertia}} on a tiny object a stilt-length away. It is no wonder that instead the person ended up putting too much weight on the stilt while it was above the phone, resulting in considerable force being distributed over a very small area of the phone's fragile screen. All things considered the attempt went much better than it could have, since the person did not fall over.

It is also unlikely that a phone touchscreen could even be operated by a stilt. Most work through {{w|capacitive sensing}}, and are unlikely to work with the stilt-ends unless specifically equipped with a cap of material with electrical properties similar to those of human fingers.

Stilts have been used in other comics, such as [[482: Height]], [[1608: Hoverboard]], [[1663: Garden]], [[2603: Childhood Toys]], [[2669: Things You Should Not Do]], and [[2765: Escape Speed]].

==Transcript==

:[On the left a long stick enters the panel from near the top left. There are "tap tap" sounds where the stick hits the ground. Cueball is on the right, looking left towards the stick.]
:Tap Tap

:[There are now two long sticks closer to the middle of the panel. They cross near the top, and the stick makes three taps near the bottom. Cueball is still looking at them and looking down.]
:Tap Tap Tap

:[The two sticks are almost parallel now, a little further apart at the ground. Cueball is still looking at them, but now not bending his head]
:Voice from above: Do you have your phone?
:Cueball: Yeah.

:[The two sticks are parallel. Cueball is holding a cellphone in his right hand.]
:Voice from above: Can you Google --
:Cueball: -- how to get down from stilts?
:Voice from above: Yes please.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]
[[Category:Stilts]]

3162: Heart Mountain

2025-11-13T14:47:34Z

TheErgster: Removed "incomplete transcript" tag as transcript was complete

{{comic
| number = 3162
| date = October 31, 2025
| title = Heart Mountain
| image = heart_mountain_2x.png
| imagesize = 669x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Even geology papers about Heart Mountain are like, "Look, we all agree this 'volcanic gas earthquake hovercraft' thing seems like it can't possibly be right, but..."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a GIANT SLIDING ROBOT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
The structure of the {{w|Heart Mountain (Wyoming)#Geology|geology of Heart Mountain}}, in Wyoming, is a geological anomaly whose current best scientific explanation is highly unusual. This is humorously summarized as, "49 million years ago, Heart Mountain, Wyoming slid sideways 15 miles like a giant stone hovercraft", with a similarly oversimplified functional diagram. Those not following the evidence that leads to this unusual conclusion may decide those involved do not have a normal state of mind ('are not doing ok'), and potentially sliding into pseudoscience like that of {{w|Pyramidology}}. The geologists acknowledge this, but ask, "Hey, you come up with a better explanation!" - as all more 'reasonable' explanations have been eliminated, and only the seemingly absurd remain.

The main anomaly is that the rock at the top of the mountain is far older than that of its base. There are {{w|Nappe|other processes}} that can result in such {{w|inverted stratigraphy}}, but in this case the evidence does indeed seem to suggest that sometime 48-50 million years ago (most likely 48.9 Mya) a massive landslide was rapidly (in parts at the quoted speed of 90 mph (145 km/h), or more, lasting perhaps just ''half an hour'') forced to slide a significant distance over younger rocks, through the contribution of one or other volcanic processes on and above a near-horizontal {{w|Fault (geology)|geological fault}}.

While the comic implies the mountain by itself levitating on volcanic gasses as it moved across the ground, Heart Mountain is in reality a remnant closer to the leading edge of a massive landslide (the Heart Mountain Detachment) that covered several thousand square kilometers of the Absaroka basin. It would have accompanied and been partially or fully buried by other, looser debris before being uncovered by erosion. However, the remainder of the landslide debris over younger rocks either did not remain upright during the landslide or has been eroded away. Many of the other remaining upright formations did not slide nearly so far, still remaining above older rock formations. Therefore, Heart Mountain remains as the main rock formation with the anomalous inverted stratigraphy caused by the landslide.

As an added bonus, the first 'European' maps of the mountain also {{w|Heart Mountain (Wyoming)#Hart Mountain|may have placed it}} in the wrong position, but this was purely human error and totally unconnected to the prehistoric rearrangement of material.

==Transcript==

:[Cueball is on the left, Ponytail is facing him from the right.]
:Cueball: We haven't checked in on the Geology Department for a while. I wonder if they're doing okay.

:[Ponytail is walking to the right.]
:Ponytail: I'll go see what they're up to.

:[Ponytail is now seen having opened a door at the left side of a room, within which White Hat, Megan and another Cueball are looking at a chart on the wall, the other Cueball gesturing towards the chart. Most of the chart is illegible, but near the top it says "90 MPH", and below that there's a diagram of geologic strata, with the label "Bighorn Dolomite", upon which a sharply rectangular and isolated rock 'block' is depicted. The rock block has speed-lines indicating its rapid movement from left to right.]
:Cueball: 49 million years ago, Heart Mountain, Wyoming slid sideways 15 miles like a giant stone hovercraft.

:[Ponytail walks back to the Cueball from the first panel's scene.]
:Ponytail: ... They're not okay.
:Voice from off the right side of the panel: Hey, '''''you''''' come up with a better explanation!

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Geology]]

3097: Bridge Types

2025-11-13T14:46:06Z

TheErgster: Removed incomplete transcript tag as transcript was complete

{{comic
| number = 3097
| date = June 2, 2025
| title = Bridge Types
| image = bridge_types_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x581px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Pontoon bridges are just linear open-sided waterbeds.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic shows, in a four-by-four grid of images, a series of bridge types. As with [[1714: Volcano Types]] and [[1874: Geologic Faults]], the comic starts off with real bridge types, and then swiftly proceeds to make things up for absurdity. That said, real-life examples of some of the joke bridges exist, as shown in the table below. The joke lies in the progression of bridge types from the simple and straightforward to the complex and ridiculous.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Name given
! style="width:7em;"| Status
! Type
! Explanation
|-
! Plank
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Beam bridge}}
|A straightforward piece of solid material (in this case, made of solid wood, but there are {{w|Clapper bridge|other materials}}) is the most basic form of bridge, and generally the easiest to construct, but also the weakest. Consequently, such bridges are only suitable for small spans and light weights (such as a footbridge over a stream).
|-
! Rope
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Simple suspension bridge}}
|Rope bridges consist of several lengths of rope anchored on both sides of the span. Typically, one or more ropes will be intended to support the crossing load (possibly with boards or some other walkway between them), and additional ropes will act as handrails, reducing the risk of falling. These are typically only intended for foot traffic, due to their light construction and lack of rigidity. Because of the simple materials and relative ease of construction, they're often used as improvised bridges. However, a ridiculous design for this bridge type was explored in [[3048: Suspension Bridge]], in which the rope functions as a road.
|-
! Truss
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Truss bridge}}
|A truss is a common type of framework consisting of supports connected in a series of triangles which provide support for a load. This design provides significant strength and rigidity with minimal material and weight. A truss bridge can either have the truss above the bridge platform (as in the drawing) or underneath it (also known as a deck truss). This is the first bridge type on this list which is commonly used for vehicle traffic.
|-
! Trestle
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Trestle bridge}}
|A trestle bridge is held up by supports reaching all the way to the ground beneath. Typically at least some of the supports will slope outward to give a larger base of support. Once common for railroads, these are less popular nowadays, but are still seen in certain areas and applications.
|-
! Arch
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Arch bridge}}
|Arches are one of the oldest kinds of bridges for carrying significant loads. They can be made out of rock or metal. Each span consists of an arch resting on supports. Simple arch bridges rest on both sides of a river or other gap, but longer bridges (as in the drawing) will have intermediate pillars to support multiple arches. The arches distribute the load, allowing a relatively small number of pillar to support weight across the entire deck of the bridge.
|-
! Suspended Arch
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Through-arch bridge}}, possibly {{w|Tied-arch bridge}}
|A through arch bridge uses a similar concept as an arch bridge, but the deck is entirely or partially suspended below the top of the arch (in this case fully suspended, at the bottom of the arch). The tie of a tied arch bridge refers to using the deck as a tension member to restrain the horizontal spreading of the arch; without a tie, the arch's foundation must resist that horizontal loading. From the picture, it is not clear whether the deck is acting as a tie. Such bridges may use a single arch (as in the drawing) or multiple arches in succession.
|-
! Draw
| {{Yes|Real}}
|Drawbridge (more precisely a fixed-trunnion {{w|Bascule_bridge|bascule bridge}})
|Drawbridges are used to allow ships to pass through obstacles like bridges. They use various methods to raise one or multiple sections of the bridge to create enough height clearance for vessels to pass through, in this case using a cable to rotate the bridge about a pivot point (trunnion).
|-
! Suspension
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Suspension bridge}}
|A suspension bridge suspends its deck with cables or rods from a cable linked to a pillar and a point a certain distance from each pillar
|-
! Filler
|{{Maybe|Real}} method of maintaining {{w|Grade (slope)|grade}}, not really a 'bridge'
|{{w|Embankment (earthworks)|Embankment}}, {{w|Causeway}} or even a {{w|Dam}}
|Serves the purpose of allowing travel across the gap, but by removing (or {{w|Culvert|mostly removing}}) passage through the gap itself. By filling the gap with hard, irregular material (most commonly rocks), support can be provided, while still allowing water to flow through the gaps. Due to the generally small size of the gaps, generally only slow-flowing water can reliably get through.
|-
! Budget Overrun
| {{Yes|Real}} (with an absurd name)
|{{w|Cable-stayed bridge}}
|Specifically, the pictured bridge is a {{w|cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge}}, similar in appearance to the {{w|Samuel Beckett Bridge}} in Dublin or the {{w|Erasmusbrug}} in Rotterdam. Many bridges in this category suffer severe cost overruns. Randall may be drawing upon his local knowledge of the {{w|Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge|Zakim Bridge}} in downtown Boston's {{w|Big Dig}}, also strongly associated with cost overruns. Also, while not a bridge, the budget overrun and diagonally inclined tower supporting cables may be a reference to {{w|Montreal Tower}} and {{w|Olympic Stadium (Montreal)|Olympic Stadium}}, which has suffered infamous budget overruns, costing over 6.7 times the initially planned amount.
|-
! Jump
| {{No|Not real}}
|Similar to a pair of small {{w|cantilever bridge}}s, constructed at an incline.
|A "bridge" that appears to be being used by a skateboarder, though in a manner far more dangerous than any jump in a typical skatepark. While not {{w|London Buses route 78#History|normally}} a feature of the highway, jump ramps can be used for gap-crossing stunts by almost any vehicle with sufficient speed. Partial bridges, which allow ''some'' vehicles using them to safely cross the gap, iconically featured in {{w|The Dukes of Hazzard}} TV show, as well as common in various {{w|The Man with the Golden Gun (film)#Car stunts|action}} {{w|Speed (1994 film)#Filming|films}}, though typically less easy to use correctly than the setting implies.
|-
! Halfhearted
|{{Maybe|Not}} real under this name, but with real analogs
|[https://www.archdaily.com/184921/moses-bridge-road-architecten Moses bridge]
|The diagram shows that there was barely any attempt to bridge the gap in the landscape at all, just take the 'deck' down into it and back up out again. The concept may have been inspired, in part, by [https://www.fastcompany.com/90186315/the-strange-art-of-the-melting-bridges-of-google-earth an artifact in Google Earth software].
Structures exist, at the {{w|Fort de Roovere}} in Halsteren, Netherlands and elsewhere, that resemble this 'solution', though these would have involved much thought and commitment in their building, possibly more 'hearted', even, than any more conventional bridge design, especially in the provision of stairs to allow easier ingress/egress (at least for foot traffic) than in the comic's version.
|-
! Waterbed
| {{No|Not a bridge}}
|{{w|Waterbed}}
|Rather than a bridge, it is more like another version of a causeway (see 'Filler') using trapped water to maintain the upper surface.
Named for a 'mattress' type, which is usually a raised surface ''on top of'' a piece of bedframe, with an unusual approach to padding and comfort.
|-
! L'Engle
| {{No|Not real}}
|[https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2018/03/192728/tesseract-definition-wrinkle-in-time-space-dimension Tesseract AWIT] not {{w|Tesseract|Tesseract (geometry)}} cf. {{w|Einstein–Rosen bridge}}
|References {{w|A Wrinkle In Time}} by Madeleine L'Engle. Characters cross great distances by "tessering", moving via a tesseract through a higher dimension which essentially brings the two ends of the journey together from the perspective of the traveler. The image shows the two ends of the gap being brought together, with the gap apparently crumpled in between them.
|-
! Fun
| {{No|Not real}}
|{{w|Vertical loop}}
|It is a loop-de-loop, not normally a practical or necessary way of bridging a gap. Something previously seen, in an arguably even more impractical manner, in [[2935: Ocean Loop]].
|-
! Repurposed Elevator
|{{Maybe|Real}}, but not as displayed
|Horizontal elevator/{{w|People mover}}
|There are various implementations of such designs, the best-known one is probably the {{w|Schmid Peoplemover|Schmid Peoplemover}}. However, unlike a regular people mover, where the door stays upright, the image shows a regular elevator that has been rotated 90 degrees. This not actually its own type of bridge, but just a type of plank bridge where the elevator shaft (or one side of the elevator shaft) is used as a plank - closing the circle to the first image. This could also be a reference to Wellington Station on the Boston Subway, {{w|Wellington_station_(MBTA)#People_mover|where there was a vertical people mover}} over the yard but was later repurposed into a walkway (bridge).
|-
! (Title text)
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Pontoon bridge}}
|Pontoon bridges are described as a series of fictitious "waterbed bridges", as shown above, but constructed without sides. This would mean that that the 'bed'-supporting water flows in one side and out the other, if there is any passage or tidal flow of water. It may technically mean that you cannot cross {{w|The Same River Twice|the same bridge twice}}.
Pontoons rely upon buoyancy, either of the whole deck or distinct floating elements, whereas an enclosed "waterbed" bridge would rely upon the strength of the membrane to keep the mass of water within it, and thus the deck above that mass.
|}

==Transcript==
:Bridge Types

:[A 4x4 matrix of 16 ways to cross the same rectangular hole in the ground]

:Plank [A plank laid over the hole, with Cueball standing on the left side of the plank, just past the edge of the hole.]

:Rope [A rope bridge with rope guardrail. Cueball is standing in the middle, causing the bridge to sag about one Cueball-length down.]

:Truss [A truss bridge with a triangular truss above the bridge deck. Cueball is visible in the center of the third truss from the left.]

:Trestle [A trestle bridge, slightly higher than the edges of the hole, with small ramps at either end. Cueball is standing about a third of the way from the left.]

:Arch [A straight deck, supported by what looks like three stone or brick arches. Cueball is notably absent.]

:Suspended Arch [A single large arch spanning the entire gap, with the bridge deck suspended from the arch by nine support cables. Cueball is standing approximately in the middle, between the fourth and fifth cables from the left.]

:Draw [A truss bridge split into two parts, the right half supported by a single straight pillar in the hole and the left half being pulled upwards by a large winch. One Cueball is standing on the outermost part of the left half and another is standing on the innermost part of the right half, directly over the pillar.]

:Suspension [A bridge deck supported by cables hung from two pillars and going to the edges of the hole, with smaller cables linking those to the deck. Cueball is standing just left of center on the bridge.]

:Filler [The hole is filled with rocks, which are larger than Cueball at the bottom but diminish in size the further up they are. Cueball is standing a third of the way from the left edge of the hole.]

:Budget Overrun [A bridge deck suspended from a single pillar that starts in the bottom left corner of the hole, then angles to the right such that the top of it is above the middle of the deck. Nine support cables are visible, but another one is likely behind the pillar itself. Cueball is standing between the thoitd and fourth cables from the right.]

:Jump [Ramps are present on both sides of the hole. Cueball, riding a skateboard, is in the air approximately a third of the way from the left, indicating that he has jumped off of the left ramp.]

:Halfhearted [A simple bridge deck, sagging so much that the majority of it is on the floor of the hole. Cueball is standing in the hole, about two-fifths of the way from the left.]

:Waterbed [The hole is now full of water, with two fish and an octopus visible in the water. Two Cueballs are crossing, and seem to be struggling to maintain their balance as the bridge warps and undulates under their feet.]

:L'Engle [There is no bridge; instead, the terrain itself is warped such that the top corners appear to be pulled together to join in the center, with arrows illustrating their movement, although there is still a void in the lower center of the hole. Cueball is hopping from the left protrusion to the right.]

:Fun [The bridge does a rollercoaster-style loop in the center. The entirety of the bridge is supported by vertical struts. Cueball, on a skateboard, is halfway to the top of the loop.]

:Repurposed Elevator [Instead of a bridge, there is an elevator tower rotated on its side, with 7 evenly spaced exits. One Cueball is standing to the left of the elevator tower, one Cueball is on top of it and appears to be hugging it, and one Cueball is in the elevator carriage on the "seventh floor," on the right side of the hole.]

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Engineering]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1849: Decades

2025-11-13T14:35:32Z

TheErgster: Added current radio tagline

{{comic
| number = 1849
| date = June 12, 2017
| title = Decades
| image = decades.png
| titletext = In the 90s, our variety radio station used the tagline "the best music of the 70s, 80s, and 90s." After 2000, they switched to "the best music of the 80s, 90s, and today." I figured they'd change again in 2010, but it's 2017 and they're still saying "80s, 90s, and today." I hope radio survives long enough for us to find out how they deal with the 2020s.
}}

==Explanation==
From the 1960s to the 1990s, it was common to group eras by decades. Fashion, music, and other cultural trends that changed relatively quickly were often defined by those decades. People casually and commonly referred to "the sixties", and so on, to separate these periods.

This pattern broke down after 1999, because it didn't naturally lend itself to an analogous phrase for the year from 2000-2009. A number of different terms have been proposed and used: "the {{w|Aughts}}", and "[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-66199129 the noughties]" had been used for 1900-1909, but have an archaic flavor that may not work for everyone. "The {{w|2000s}}" and "the millenium" are ambiguous and clunky. None of these terms ever became popular enough to become a consensus term. Similarly for the period from 2010-2019, terms like "the 2010s" and "the teens" have been used, but not widely accepted.

The practical upshot of all of this is that verbally splitting time periods into clear decades simply became less obvious for the periods since 2000. While people still refer to earlier time periods by decades, it is far less common to do so when referring to recent years. The roll-over text gives the example that we still refer to "music of the '80s and '90s" (although the comic omits the apostrophes that might normally indicate the missing century digits), but rarely refer to "music of the 2000s" or something similar.

The time-line in the comic stretches into the future (as of the time of publication), and uses question marks to present uncertainty over whether the decade-grouping trend will return in the 2020s. On the one hand, such was a well-established custom, and we once again have clear language for it. On the other hand, after largely abandoning the custom for 20 years, it is far from certain that people will adopt it again.

What isn't mentioned in the comic, but may be relevant, is that, in the absence of those decade categories, it has become more common to refer to time periods and the people who grew up in them by somewhat arbitrary generational categories: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Gen Z, and so on. This has provided an adequate substitute, since youth culture in the 2000s and 2010s has been more commonly defined as "{{w|Millennials#Cultural_identity|millennial culture}}". There are drawbacks to this (both because the terms are more loosely defined, and because they often come with negative connotations), but these trends may have become sufficiently ingrained that they could displace the older decade-based divisions.

The title text gives the specific example of [[Randall]]'s local radio station dividing music by decades, and points out they simply started talking around the decades from 2000 to 2019. He implies that whether they resume this pattern in the 2020s will be a good indicator of whether this speech pattern will resume, but expressed doubt whether radio will last long enough to find out. This is a jab at the radio industry, which has been in decline for a long time as it has faced increasing competition from other communications technologies. While it is unlikely that the radio industry will cease to exist in the near future, further decline seems probable.

In the title text, he refers to his radio station changing taglines. The station is most likely referring to "Mix 104.1" as [https://radiodiscussions.com/threads/80s-gone-from-wbmx.592448/ this forum] recounts both the original and second tagline.
The station currently has the tagline "90s, 2000s, & Now" (Circa 2025)

Twenties were discussed again later in [[2249: I Love the 20s]].

==Transcript==
:[A timeline across the top of the box marks decades from 1960 to 2030, the labels are above the line and the ticks marking each decade are below.]

:[Label: 1960]
:60s Music; 60s Fashion; 60s Movies; 60s Culture

:[Label: 1970]
:70s Music; 70s Fashion; 70s Movies; 70s Culture

:[Label: 1980]
:80s Music; 80s Fashion; 80s Movies; 80s Culture

:[Label: 1990]
:90s Music; 90s Fashion; 90s Movies; 90s Culture

:[Label: 2000 and 2010]
:[Items grouped over two decades.]
:Fashion; Culture; Music; Movies

:[Label: 2020]
:[The text is in light grey font.]
:20s Music?; 20s Fashion?; 20s Movies?; 20s Culture?

:[Label: 2030]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:It's weird how for 20 years we stopped grouping our cultural memories by decade because "2000s" is ambiguous and and "Aughts" and "Teens" never really stuck.

==Trivia==
* Randall has, probably by mistake, written "and and aughts" in the caption for this comic, instead of "and aughts".

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Language]]

xkcd: volume 0

2025-11-03T21:05:36Z

TheErgster: Added info about the vol 0 cypher

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''xkcd: volume 0''}}{{book navigation}}[[File:xkcd_volume_0.jpeg|260px|right|thumb|The cover of the book]]{{incomplete|
*The article is missing a lot of information and links about the book.

*IF YOU HAVE THE BOOK, explain how the pages are counted in the book! (They're ternary-like, except when 2 is reached, it always overflows onto the digit with the next highest magnitude and increments it by one...)}}{{TOC}}

'''''xkcd: volume 0''''' is a book by [[Randall Munroe]] released on August 24, 2010. It features a collection of comics personally chosen by Randall from the initial 600 entries of the webcomic. These comics were assembled from high-resolution original scans and include the original or, sometimes, a different title text. The book is available to [https://archive.org/details/2009Xkcd read in full on the Internet Archive].

{{Quote|<nowiki></nowiki>''xkcd: volume 0'' is the first xkcd book! It features selections from the first 600 comics, including various author and fan favorites. It was lovingly assembled from high-resolution original scans of the comics (the mouseover text is discreetly included), and features a lot of doodles, notes, and puzzles in the margins.
|''[[Randall Munroe]]|[https://web.archive.org/web/20100701115034/http://store.xkcd.com/ Source]}}

The book is published by {{w|Breadpig}}, a company founded by Randall's friend Alexis, and their portion of the profits will go to build a school in Laos through the charity {{w|Room to Read}}.
{{cot|Comics featured in the book}}
<div style="column-width:20em">
# [[10: Pi Equals]]
# [[242: The Difference]]
# [[249: Chess Photo]]
# [[123: Centrifugal Force]]
# [[214: The Problem with Wikipedia]]
# [[221: Random Number]]
# [[231: Cat Proximity]]
# [[20: Ferret]]
# [[21: Kepler]]
# [[30: Donner]]
# [[37: Hyphen]]
# [[82: Frame]]
# [[44: Love]]
# [[54: Science]]
# [[55: Useless]]
# [[85: Paths]]
# [[105: Parallel Universe]]
# [[108: M.C. Hammer Slide]]
# [[112: Baring My Heart]]
# [[114: Computational Linguists]]
# [[120: Dating Service]]
# [[116: City]]
# [[117: Pong]]
# [[124: Blogofractal]]
# [[128: dPain over dt]]
# [[134: Myspace]]
# [[135: Substitute]]
# [[136: Science Fair]]
# [[137: Dreams]]
# [[138: Pointers]]
# [[149: Sandwich]]
# [[152: Hamster Ball]]
# [[160: Penny Arcade Parody]]
# [[153: Cryptography]]
# [[159: Boombox]]
# [[157: Filler Art]]
# [[161: Accident]]
# [[162: Angular Momentum]]
# [[184: Matrix Transform]]
# [[163: Donald Knuth]]
# [[165: Turn Signals]]
# [[201: Christmas GPS]]
# [[177: Alice and Bob]]
# [[173: Movie Seating]]
# [[179: e to the pi times i]]
# [[191: Lojban]]
# [[210: 90's Flowchart]]
# [[200: Bill Nye]]
# [[182: Nash]]
# [[180: Canada]]
# [[215: Letting Go]]
# [[239: Blagofaire]]
# [[225: Open Source]]
# [[230: Hamiltonian]]
# [[240: Dream Girl]]
# [[247: Factoring the Time]]
# [[248: Hypotheticals]]
# [[253: Highway Engineer Pranks]]
# [[257: Code Talkers]]
# [[258: Conspiracy Theories]]
# [[262: IN UR REALITY]]
# [[276: Fixed Width]]
# [[274: With Apologies to The Who]]
# [[279: Pickup Lines]]
# [[275: Thoughts]]
# [[77: Bored with the Internet]]
# [[150: Grownups]]
# [[167: Nihilism]]
# [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
# [[209: Kayak]]
# [[202: YouTube]]
# [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
# [[472: House of Pancakes]]
# [[556: Alternative Energy Revolution]]
# [[442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel]]
# [[264: Choices: Part 1]]
# [[265: Choices: Part 2]]
# [[266: Choices: Part 3]]
# [[267: Choices: Part 4]]
# [[268: Choices: Part 5]]
# [[282: Organic Fuel]]
# [[280: Librarians]]
# [[320: 28-Hour Day]]
# [[316: Loud Sex]]
# [[284: Tape Measure]]
# [[287: NP-Complete]]
# [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]
# [[303: Compiling]]
# [[291: Dignified]]
# [[305: Rule 34]]
# [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
# [[333: Getting Out of Hand]]
# [[323: Ballmer Peak]]
# [[322: Pix Plz]]
# [[325: A-Minus-Minus]]
# [[340: Fight]]
# [[356: Nerd Sniping]]
# [[349: Success]]
# [[366: Your Mom]]
# [[369: Dangers]]
# [[372: To Be Wanted]]
# [[374: Journal]]
# [[377: Journal 2]]
# [[373: The Data So Far]]
# [[376: Bug]]
# [[380: Emoticon]]
# [[387: Advanced Technology]]
# [[386: Duty Calls]]
# [[412: Startled]]
# [[389: Keeping Time]]
# [[397: Unscientific]]
# [[391: Anti-Mindvirus]]
# [[393: Ultimate Game]]
# [[416: Zealous Autoconfig]]
# [[396: The Ring]]
# [[398: Tap That Ass]]
# [[420: Jealousy]]
# [[429: Fantasy]]
# [[434: xkcd Goes to the Airport]]
# [[435: Purity]]
# [[445: I Am Not Good with Boomerangs]]
# [[475: Further Boomerang Difficulties]]
# [[451: Impostor]]
# [[452: Mission]]
# [[463: Voting Machines]]
# [[500: Election]]
# [[481: Listen to Yourself]]
# [[486: I am Not a Ninja]]
# [[487: Numerical Sex Positions]]
# [[505: A Bunch of Rocks]]
# [[488: Steal This Comic]]
# [[511: Sleet]]
# [[530: I'm An Idiot]]
# [[513: Friends]]
# [[518: Flow Charts]]
# [[540: Base System]]
# [[569: Borders]]
# [[565: Security Question]]
# [[552: Correlation]]
# [[559: No Pun Intended]]
# [[591: Troll Slayer]]
# [[571: Can't Sleep]]
# [[592: Drama]]
# [[585: Outreach]]
</div>
{{cob}}
==Transcript==
{{Incomplete transcript|Expand on the back}}
===Front cover===
:[A bit above the middle of the page, there is the title of the book with the subtitle in a smaller font size below it. Neither the title nor the subtitle are capitalized.]
:xkcd
:volume 0
:[In the bottom right of the page stand Megan, on the right, and Cueball, on the left, holding hands. Cueball looks away from Megan, to the left, and Megan looks away from Cueball, to the right.]

===Back cover===
:[There are several otherwise nondescript gray rectangles on which the characters stand on. Red spiders are present throughout the panel.]
:[Two of these rectangles are attached from the area around the right corner and going off of the cover, in an L-shape. Black Hat stands on it, taking notes on a journal. Twenty-three red spiders lie on the object. Nine of them are clustered in the inner L corner, four of them forming chains. An additional red spider has just fallen off of the object from the right.]
:[To L shape's right, in the air, Cory Doctorow in his red suit is shown punching a red spider.]

==Cypher==
The book also contains many puzzles within it, usually in red.

The bottom of page one has the following characters

CNEG BAR BS RVTUG VA URK: RR AVAR RVTUG SVIR BAR BAR RVTUG. 

The bottom of page two, under the strip Chess Photo, has

http://xkcd.com/chesscoaster/

On page 10, next to the comic Centrifugal Force, there is a drawing of Cueball leaning out of a hot air ballon above three mountains.

The bottom right of page 11 contains Cueball sitting next to a block of characters that is four characters tall and eight characters wide. The characters are

I0TAE/KE[New line] 
20IBSWIY[New line] 
ODE65TN8[New line] 
CO25.RAP

[Note: I could not differentiate the 1’s from the “I”’s and the 0’s from the “O”’s in this section, so this transcription may not be entirely accurate.]

Page 12 contains a drawing of Cueball holding a cat next to the comic Cat Proximity. He is saying

KITTY KITTY KITTY 

On page 111, below the comic Useless, there is the text

CY-O CMLROOCXN. YR M.AOGP. NRK.W ABE ,CYDRGY M.AOGP.M.BY YD.P. JAB X. BR OJC.BJ.V <D.B CY JRM.O YR NRK.W ,.-P. ANN CB YD. EAPTV [[TCBO.F

On the bottom of page 1000, near the comic M.C. Hammer Slide, there is a drawing of Cueball doing the M.C. Hammer slide in a hamster ball with the caption M.C. Hamster written below it.

On page 1010, there is a drawing of Cueball on a one wheeler approaching a ramp to the right

On the page 1012, under the comic DPain Over Dt, there is the text in braille

⠊⠞⠀⠞⠁⠅⠑⠎⠀⠍⠕⠗⠑⠀⠞⠊⠍⠑⠀⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠑⠭⠏⠑⠉⠞ ⠃⠥⠞ ⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠋⠑⠁⠗⠲

On page 1020, to the upper left of the comic Science Fair, there is a drawing of Cueball saying

I have a wave generator and 
Peter Frampton’s talkbox. Ladies? 

The following pages have the respective 2 characters in the upper right corner

101010 grey LY 
101120 red IK 
102000 red GU 
110100 red EH 
110102 red DO 
110111 red CR 

The bottom of page 10020 under the Dream Girl strip, has
772A3A35 DEF88CA7 0BDFD186 20B05684 934721F8 F64762FD 
03F8D76B 3FA0CB8C 2756B2D0 A9F00A1B CFF1603E DB05426C 

The bottom of page 10112 has the string 
0011001001011100000101100000110111100100001010100110011000010010110011 

The bottom of page 111000 (2nd last page) says 
123 B 
followed by an arrow bouncing off a vertical line, and the string 
VRDSTLRBYSMRLUVRXGCFHZWXKYNHYKLKWMCLRMFIKOZAIYXJWITOYOVN 

Page 110120 contains the following poem rotated 90 degrees clockwise. 
THE START OF THE TENTH-FAVORITE WORD USED BY BENDER 
THE TOON THAT WENT SOUTH WHILE COMMANDED BY ENDER 
THE NUMBER OF LIGHTS THAT PICARD SAID WERE ON 
AND THE CLASS OF THE PLANET WHERE KIRK SHOUTED "KHAAAN!" 
THE RINGS FOR THE MEN MINUS RINGS FOR THE ELVES 
AND THE PRODUCT MOD 10 OF A FIVESOME OF TWELVES 
THE END OF A CODE NES GAMERS KNOW 
AND THE BASE USED TO MODEL HOW QUICKLY THINGS GROW 
WHEN THEY'RE XOR'D TOGETHER THE CHECKSUM IS "E" 
WHICH WILL TELL YOU YOU'VE GOT THE PENULTIMATE KEY 

These various cyphers contained clues for several puzzles.
The combination of them led to a final cypher: EE98511873CD4542DA101CBC735646B09BE32BE0D0E0C9A6CB4D62AE8662384F) And was successfully decoded by the [[XKCD Forums]].
The solution was a series of coordinates and a time: <3<3<3 2010-06-26 14:28:57 37.769573 -122.483123.
This led to the middle of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, 2010 June 26th at 2:30pm-ish.
A group of about 100 XKCD fans showed up to the location and were rewarded with a limited edition copy of XKCD volume 0.

Not much else is known about the cypher and special edition, and due to the takedown of the [[XKCD Forums]] most of the information as to how the cypher was solved is lost to time.

See also 
* pg 1 [[10: Pi Equals]]
* pg 111 [[55: Useless]]
* pg 1012 [[128: dPain over dt]]
And talk/discussion pages for
* pg 11002 [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
* pg 11002 [[209: Kayak]]
* pg 11011 [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
* pg 100000 [[282: Organic Fuel]]
* pg 100012 [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]

Other pages also have extra text, drawings, or glyphs.

[[Category:Red Spiders| ]]
[[Category:Books]]{{xkcdmeta}}

997: Wait Wait

2025-11-03T20:41:54Z

TheErgster: added Citation for Kermit the Frog

{{comic
| number = 997
| date = December 30, 2011
| title = Wait Wait
| image = wait_wait.png
| titletext = You can't stab Carl Kasell. He sounds all slow and stentorian, but he moves like a snake.
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete|Provide a detailed explanation for all panels.}}

''{{w|Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me}}'' is an hour-long weekly radio news panel game show produced by {{w|Chicago Public Radio}} and {{w|National Public Radio}}. The show is hosted by {{w|playwright}} and actor {{w|Peter Sagal}}. Each episode ends with the panelists making up a potential future news story, usually with implausible "facts". This comic is making puns on the title of the show based on what Peter Sagal might have done that was newsworthy.

{{w|Carl Kasell}}, who also served as the news anchor on {{w|Morning Edition}}, was the show's official judge and scorekeeper until May 2014 (after this comic was published), when he retired and was replaced by Bill Kurtis.

The 1st row, 3rd paper mocks classic celebrity scandal articles. This example uses {{w|Peter Sagal}} confessing his feelings towards {{w|Kermit the Frog}}

The 1st row, 4th paper may refer to the {{w|Michael_Richards#2006–2012:_Laugh_Factory_incident_and_aftermath| Laugh Factory Incident}} of 2006.

In the 3rd row, first paper, {{w|Lakshmi Singh}} is NPR's national midday newscaster. This paper leads to the second paper on the third row, in which Sagal's wife divorces him over his affair with Singh.

In the 3rd row, 3rd paper is a reference to a protest at {{w|UC Davis}} (on the campus of University of California, Davis) protests in early 2012 in which sitting, peaceful protesters were calmly pepper-sprayed in their faces by a police officer. That spawned an [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-cop internet meme of epic proportions].

In the 4th row, 2nd paper is a reference to the movie, ''{{w|Ghostbusters}}''.

In the 4th row, 3rd paper is a reference to {{w|Granny Weatherwax}} of Terry Pratchett's ''{{w|Discworld}}'' novels; Granny Weatherwax is a witch who carries a sign saying "[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=i%20aten't%20ded I ATEN'T DED]"(sic) when having out-of-body experiences.

In the 5th row, 2nd paper is a reference to another internet meme in where someone leaves out the verb in the sentence. The implication is that the verb is something bad, but ''which'' bad thing is left as an exercise to stew in the reader's mind. See the [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-accidentally I Accidentally ___ meme] for more information.

In the 5th row, 3rd paper is a reference to stories and myths in which an entity can be summoned, awoken, or alerted to someone's presence when its name is spoken. A well-known example of this is the entity Cthulhu in the Lovecraft mythos.

Two years later another New Years comic, [[1311: 2014]], took a similar look at what could happen in 2014, just as this does for 2012. Interesting enough the title of that comic (just the year it was looking at) is more related to the title of the next comic after this one, which is also a New Year comic, and the title is also just the number of the year: [[998: 2012]].

==Transcript==
:Headlines

:Stockpiled in case Peter Sagal, host of NPR's ''Wait Wait Don't Tell Me'', does something newsworthy in 2012.

:[Series of above-the-fold newspapers follows; Each has a headline, picture in most of them, and an explanation.]

:[First row, first newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Shoot Me
:NPR's Sagal in Whole Foods hostage standoff.
:[A fierce Peter Sagal in a balaclava brandishes a gun in a supermarket.]

:[First row, second newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Vote For Me
:Peter Sagal quits race for GOP top spot
:[A sullen and defeated Peter Sagal surrounded by supporters admits defeat.]

:[First row, third newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Judge Me
:Sagal opens up about his Kermit fantasy.
:[Stock profile images of Peter Sagal and Kermit the Frog.]

:[First row, fourth newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Fire Me
:Peter Sagal let go after racist tirade.
:[Stock profile image of Peter Sagal.]

:[Second row, first newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Cancel Me
:NPR axing news quiz.
:[NPR spokesperson delivering announcement.]

:[Second row, second newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Interrupt Me
:Sagal stabs Carl Kasell in on-air dispute.
:[Peter Sagal mid-attack with a knife.]

:[Second row, third newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Look At Me
:Peter Sagal's Poison Ivy Ordeal
:[Peter Sagal with a skin condition.]
:Peter Sagal: "My 'Nam"

:[Second row, fourth newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Friend Me
:Peter Sagal deletes his Facebook account.
:[Person holding up a laptop with an "Facebook account not found" screen.]

:[Third row, first newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Seduce Me
:How Lakshmi Singh stole Sagal's Heart.
:[A wistful Lakshmi Singh being left by a sullen Peter Sagal.]

:[Third row, second newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Leave Me
:Sagal's wife out after affair
:[A wistful Peter Sagal being left by a furious Beth Sagal.]

:[Third row, third newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Spray Me
:Police Raid Sagal's Occupy NPR protest
:[Scummy policeman in riot gear spraying Peter Sagal in the face point blank.]

:[Third row, fourth newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Indict Me
:Sagal, five others named in cash-for-tote-bags scandal
:[Peter Sagal doing a perp walk.]

:[Fourth row, first newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Clone Me
:Peter Sagal 'Outraged' over DNA harvesting.
:[Fiery Peter Sagal, missing a small amount of DNA, at a lectern.]

:[Fourth row, second newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Bust Me
:Peter Sagal's ghost captured
:[Ghostbusters, careful not to cross the streams, capture the ghost of Peter Sagal.]

:[Fourth row, third newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Dissect Me
:Snoozing Sagal nearly snuffed in autopsy snafu
:[Peter Sagal running away from from a very surprised pathologist.]
:Peter Sagal: "I aten't dead"

:[Fourth row, fourth newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Objectify Me
:Peter Sagal is more than just a piece of meat
:[No image]

:[Fifth row, first newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Beatify Me
:Peter Sagal Rebukes Pope
:[Peter Sagal shakes his fist at a picture of the pope.]

:[Fifth row, second newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Me
:Peter Sagal Accidentally
:[Peter Sagal on a blank background upside-down.]

:[Fifth row, third newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Speak Its Name
:Peter Sagal wakes Eldritch terror
:[A pair of eyes on a black background.]
:Peter Sagal:"AAAAAAAA"

:[Fifth row, fourth newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Even For NPR This Is A Bit Much
:''This American Life'' to document the road to recovery for those who suffer the trauma of losing on Wait Wait
:[No image]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Ghostbusters]]
[[Category:Ghosts]]

997: Wait Wait

2025-11-03T20:41:02Z

TheErgster: Added description for 1:3 paper

{{comic
| number = 997
| date = December 30, 2011
| title = Wait Wait
| image = wait_wait.png
| titletext = You can't stab Carl Kasell. He sounds all slow and stentorian, but he moves like a snake.
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete|Provide a detailed explanation for all panels.}}

''{{w|Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me}}'' is an hour-long weekly radio news panel game show produced by {{w|Chicago Public Radio}} and {{w|National Public Radio}}. The show is hosted by {{w|playwright}} and actor {{w|Peter Sagal}}. Each episode ends with the panelists making up a potential future news story, usually with implausible "facts". This comic is making puns on the title of the show based on what Peter Sagal might have done that was newsworthy.

{{w|Carl Kasell}}, who also served as the news anchor on {{w|Morning Edition}}, was the show's official judge and scorekeeper until May 2014 (after this comic was published), when he retired and was replaced by Bill Kurtis.

The 1st row, 3rd paper mocks classic celebrity scandal articles. This example uses {{w|Peter Sagal}} confessing his feelings towards Kermit the Frog

The 1st row, 4th paper may refer to the {{w|Michael_Richards#2006–2012:_Laugh_Factory_incident_and_aftermath| Laugh Factory Incident}} of 2006.

In the 3rd row, first paper, {{w|Lakshmi Singh}} is NPR's national midday newscaster. This paper leads to the second paper on the third row, in which Sagal's wife divorces him over his affair with Singh.

In the 3rd row, 3rd paper is a reference to a protest at {{w|UC Davis}} (on the campus of University of California, Davis) protests in early 2012 in which sitting, peaceful protesters were calmly pepper-sprayed in their faces by a police officer. That spawned an [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-cop internet meme of epic proportions].

In the 4th row, 2nd paper is a reference to the movie, ''{{w|Ghostbusters}}''.

In the 4th row, 3rd paper is a reference to {{w|Granny Weatherwax}} of Terry Pratchett's ''{{w|Discworld}}'' novels; Granny Weatherwax is a witch who carries a sign saying "[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=i%20aten't%20ded I ATEN'T DED]"(sic) when having out-of-body experiences.

In the 5th row, 2nd paper is a reference to another internet meme in where someone leaves out the verb in the sentence. The implication is that the verb is something bad, but ''which'' bad thing is left as an exercise to stew in the reader's mind. See the [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-accidentally I Accidentally ___ meme] for more information.

In the 5th row, 3rd paper is a reference to stories and myths in which an entity can be summoned, awoken, or alerted to someone's presence when its name is spoken. A well-known example of this is the entity Cthulhu in the Lovecraft mythos.

Two years later another New Years comic, [[1311: 2014]], took a similar look at what could happen in 2014, just as this does for 2012. Interesting enough the title of that comic (just the year it was looking at) is more related to the title of the next comic after this one, which is also a New Year comic, and the title is also just the number of the year: [[998: 2012]].

==Transcript==
:Headlines

:Stockpiled in case Peter Sagal, host of NPR's ''Wait Wait Don't Tell Me'', does something newsworthy in 2012.

:[Series of above-the-fold newspapers follows; Each has a headline, picture in most of them, and an explanation.]

:[First row, first newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Shoot Me
:NPR's Sagal in Whole Foods hostage standoff.
:[A fierce Peter Sagal in a balaclava brandishes a gun in a supermarket.]

:[First row, second newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Vote For Me
:Peter Sagal quits race for GOP top spot
:[A sullen and defeated Peter Sagal surrounded by supporters admits defeat.]

:[First row, third newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Judge Me
:Sagal opens up about his Kermit fantasy.
:[Stock profile images of Peter Sagal and Kermit the Frog.]

:[First row, fourth newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Fire Me
:Peter Sagal let go after racist tirade.
:[Stock profile image of Peter Sagal.]

:[Second row, first newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Cancel Me
:NPR axing news quiz.
:[NPR spokesperson delivering announcement.]

:[Second row, second newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Interrupt Me
:Sagal stabs Carl Kasell in on-air dispute.
:[Peter Sagal mid-attack with a knife.]

:[Second row, third newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Look At Me
:Peter Sagal's Poison Ivy Ordeal
:[Peter Sagal with a skin condition.]
:Peter Sagal: "My 'Nam"

:[Second row, fourth newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Friend Me
:Peter Sagal deletes his Facebook account.
:[Person holding up a laptop with an "Facebook account not found" screen.]

:[Third row, first newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Seduce Me
:How Lakshmi Singh stole Sagal's Heart.
:[A wistful Lakshmi Singh being left by a sullen Peter Sagal.]

:[Third row, second newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Leave Me
:Sagal's wife out after affair
:[A wistful Peter Sagal being left by a furious Beth Sagal.]

:[Third row, third newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Spray Me
:Police Raid Sagal's Occupy NPR protest
:[Scummy policeman in riot gear spraying Peter Sagal in the face point blank.]

:[Third row, fourth newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Indict Me
:Sagal, five others named in cash-for-tote-bags scandal
:[Peter Sagal doing a perp walk.]

:[Fourth row, first newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Clone Me
:Peter Sagal 'Outraged' over DNA harvesting.
:[Fiery Peter Sagal, missing a small amount of DNA, at a lectern.]

:[Fourth row, second newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Bust Me
:Peter Sagal's ghost captured
:[Ghostbusters, careful not to cross the streams, capture the ghost of Peter Sagal.]

:[Fourth row, third newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Dissect Me
:Snoozing Sagal nearly snuffed in autopsy snafu
:[Peter Sagal running away from from a very surprised pathologist.]
:Peter Sagal: "I aten't dead"

:[Fourth row, fourth newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Objectify Me
:Peter Sagal is more than just a piece of meat
:[No image]

:[Fifth row, first newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Beatify Me
:Peter Sagal Rebukes Pope
:[Peter Sagal shakes his fist at a picture of the pope.]

:[Fifth row, second newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Me
:Peter Sagal Accidentally
:[Peter Sagal on a blank background upside-down.]

:[Fifth row, third newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Don't Speak Its Name
:Peter Sagal wakes Eldritch terror
:[A pair of eyes on a black background.]
:Peter Sagal:"AAAAAAAA"

:[Fifth row, fourth newspaper.]
:Title: Wait Wait Even For NPR This Is A Bit Much
:''This American Life'' to document the road to recovery for those who suffer the trauma of losing on Wait Wait
:[No image]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Ghostbusters]]
[[Category:Ghosts]]