explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1238: Enlightenment

2013-07-15T05:23:11Z

Wotpsycho:

Did anyone else notice the (most likely intentional) typos in that sentence they told her to type? "... and THEIR DEFINATELY good" (they're definitely) {{unsigned ip|‎115.30.33.36}}

Didn't you notice "you're" and "idea's" as well. I would assume it is highly improbable that these were not intentional. [[Special:Contributions/74.125.16.2|74.125.16.2]] 04:51, 15 July 2013 (UTC)GusGold

Of course those were intentional. That was the joke. The exercise for INTERNET enlightenment and getting rid of insecurities is to make typos and grammatical errors freely. You may also notice them saying on the last panel "wasnt" and "its", instead of "wasn't" and "it's".
Megan just wasn't able to do this task of making intentional mistakes, which would result in people online thinking she's dumb (insecurities), so she broke the laptop and left. [[Special:Contributions/95.35.58.179|95.35.58.179]] 05:20, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
−
There's a huge difference between accepting others' misspellings and repeating them yourself...not commenting on someone typing "definately" is completely different than being told to spell it that way yourself. [[User:Wotpsycho|Wotpsycho]] ([[User talk:Wotpsycho|talk]])

10: Pi Equals

2013-06-15T03:09:03Z

Wotpsycho: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 10
| date = September 30, 2005
| title = Pi Equals
| image = pi.jpg
| titletext = My most famous drawing, and one of the first I did for the site
}}

==Explanation==
There are two possible references here. One is from the book ''{{w|Contact (novel)|Contact}}'' by Carl Sagan, where the existence of God was shown in the last chapter to be encoded in the digits of {{w|pi}}. The other is an old joke of a {{w|fortune cookie}} with a fortune that reads "Help! I'm trapped in a fortune cookie factory!". This joke is also referenced in [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]'s title text, where [[Mrs. Roberts]] [[Elaine Roberts|daughter]]'s name is "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory".

[http://www.angio.net/pi/whynotpi.html Probability of Finding Strings In Pi.]

==Trivia==
*This is the eleventh comic originally posted on livejournal. The previous was [[9: Serenity is coming out tomorrow]]. The next was [[14: Copyright]]. View archive [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40 here].
*The book version of this comic (in ''[http://store.xkcd.com/products/xkcd-volume-0 xkcd: volume 0]'') has different title text: ''"I've put rescue instructions in e. You'll need the cheat codes for your universe, which I hid in the square root of two."''

==Transcript==
:Pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7108914...

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal]]
[[Category:Math]]

10: Pi Equals

2013-06-15T03:08:39Z

Wotpsycho: /* Explanation */ Adding in link to 327

{{comic
| number = 10
| date = September 30, 2005
| title = Pi Equals
| image = pi.jpg
| titletext = My most famous drawing, and one of the first I did for the site
}}

==Explanation==
There are two possible references here. One is from the book ''{{w|Contact (novel)|Contact}}'' by Carl Sagan, where the existence of God was shown in the last chapter to be encoded in the digits of {{w|pi}}. The other is an old joke of a {{w|fortune cookie}} with a fortune that reads "Help! I'm trapped in a fortune cookie factory!". This joke is also referenced in [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]'s title text, [[Mrs. Roberts]] [[Elaine Roberts|daughter]]'s name is "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory".

[http://www.angio.net/pi/whynotpi.html Probability of Finding Strings In Pi.]

==Trivia==
*This is the eleventh comic originally posted on livejournal. The previous was [[9: Serenity is coming out tomorrow]]. The next was [[14: Copyright]]. View archive [http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20070927001941/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/?skip=40 here].
*The book version of this comic (in ''[http://store.xkcd.com/products/xkcd-volume-0 xkcd: volume 0]'') has different title text: ''"I've put rescue instructions in e. You'll need the cheat codes for your universe, which I hid in the square root of two."''

==Transcript==
:Pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7108914...

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal]]
[[Category:Math]]

Talk:1058: Old-Timers

2013-05-23T04:45:35Z

Wotpsycho:

Wouldn't the heat from the servers have thawed the egg and killed her early? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:44, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
* What? That... ''What''? The egg isn't actually sent through the internet, if that's what you mean. The information from the parents' genes was taken from their proteins, encoded in digital format on the computer at the lab, sent to another lab, then re-encoded into protein format to be implanted in an egg. In that context, the egg was an entirely separate part of the process. If you mean the egg would have been thawed by the people at the Venter institute holding the egg up next to the servers, unprotected, while they implanted the synthesized genome (or the people at the lab doing the same thing with the unfertilized egg while sequencing the DNA), that's... well, simply not how that works. As for "killed her early": I'm not sure of a good way to ''start'' asking what you mean by that. As opposed to killing her at the intended time? As opposed to killing the unfertilized egg before they could sequence the DNA? Or even killing the physical egg while it was somehow being transported via the internet? [[User:JET73L|JET73L]] ([[User talk:JET73L|talk]]) 11:07, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
**Sincerely, Summer Glau
To me the title text seems to be referencing something completely different, as it seems to be coming from Neckbeard, to Buns, saying that he was on the internet before he was born as well, possibly in the form of pornography while his mother was pregnant. Just my idea. [[User:Tyman2651|Tyman2651]] ([[User talk:Tyman2651|talk]]) 20:43, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Little Bobby Tables

2013-05-18T02:04:19Z

Wotpsycho:

{{Infobox character
| image =
| imagesize =
| caption =
| first_appearance = [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
}}

'''<code>Robert'); DROP TABLE students;--</code>''', also known as '''Little Bobby Tables''', is the youngest son of elite hacker [[Mrs. Roberts]]. His older sister is [[Elaine Roberts]]. His "full" name is known to cause problems with some computers. When he was first enrolled in school ([[327: Exploits of a Mom]]) it exploited a vulnerability in the parsing of student's names into the school's student database resulting in the school losing all the student records for the year.

In {{w|SQL}}, commands are separated by semicolons ";" and data is often quoted using single quotes -'-. Commands may also be enclosed in parentheses '(' and ')'. Data is stored in tables of similar items (e.g. "students") and individual entries are "rows" in the table. To delete an entire table (and every row of data in that table), you use the command "DROP" (e.g. "DROP TABLE students"). The "--" represents the start of a {{w|Comment_(computer_programming)#SQL|SQL comment}} which ensures that the rest of the command is ignored so an error will not occur.

The exploited vulnerability is that the single quote in the name input was not properly "escaped" by the software. Thus, when the name is embedded into some SQL statement, the quote is erroneously parsed as a closing quote inside some SQL statement, instead of being parsed as part of the name. Lack of such escaping is a common SQL vulnerability; this type of exploit is referred to as {{w|SQL injection}}.

A similarly named character appears in [[884: Rogers St.]], with the same code injection in his middle name.

{{navbox-characters}}
[[Category:Characters]]

Talk:912: Manual Override

2013-05-17T02:50:42Z

Wotpsycho:

I think that the joke here is actually that the pilot is attempting a manual override (I.E. overriding the automatic pilot and switch to manual control) by typing in 'manual override'(which is also the title, in fact), and the parser instead opens the manual under the 'manual' command for the 'override' program (as explained in this page), not that the manual is too long to be read in that specific situation (while that is a valid argument). [[Special:Contributions/93.144.215.90|93.144.215.90]] 12:36, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
:Agreed. [[User:Wotpsycho|Wotpsycho]] ([[User talk:Wotpsycho|talk]]) 02:50, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk:270: Merlin

2013-05-17T02:48:47Z

Wotpsycho:

Immediately after watching Memento, I spliced it together in chronological order and watched it again. Definitely straightforward, and much more boring that way. [[User:Wotpsycho|Wotpsycho]] ([[User talk:Wotpsycho|talk]]) 02:48, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk:270: Merlin

2013-05-17T02:48:14Z

Wotpsycho: Created page with "Immediately after watching Memento, I spliced it together in chronological order and watched it again. Definitely straightforward, and much bore boring that way. ~~~~"

Immediately after watching Memento, I spliced it together in chronological order and watched it again. Definitely straightforward, and much bore boring that way. [[User:Wotpsycho|Wotpsycho]] ([[User talk:Wotpsycho|talk]]) 02:48, 17 May 2013 (UTC)