explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2374: 10,000 Hours

2020-10-20T18:15:22Z

YMS: You are not chewing for 2 hours a day

{{comic
| number = 2374
| date = October 19, 2020
| title = 10,000 Hours
| image = 10000_hours.png
| titletext = I'm proud to announce that as of this year I've become a world-class expert at chewing.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic references an urban myth that [https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/8/23/20828597/the-10000-hour-rule-debunked one must do something for 10,000 hours] to become an expert on it. Worse, the myth implies that anybody can reach the status of a world-class expert by spending that 10,000 hours. The linked article states:

Practice matters, yes. But at the same time, it’s unlikely to bridge the gap between natural superstars and your average player.

In this comic, [[Cueball]]'s phone tells him that, assuming that idea is correct, he is now a master of a task, because the amount of time he spends on his phone. It is not clear exactly what set of tasks Cueball is supposed to have mastered, however.

The title text refers to the fact that people eat a lot, [https://www.statista.com/chart/13226/where-people-spend-the-most-time-eating-drinking/ 1-2 hours a day], though not all of this time is spent chewing. At the time of this comic's publication, [[Randall]] was just over 36 years old (13,151 days), so he has spent a large amount of time eating, well over 10,000 hours.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is staring at his phone. A report is shown above his head]
:If you buy into the "10,000 hours" thing, you are now a world-class expert!

:[Caption below comic]
:My screen time reports have started trying to put a positive spin on things.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Screen Time]]

Talk:2365: Messaging Systems

2020-10-02T23:21:39Z

YMS: re

I guess ordinary email should be in the same section as SMS as well. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.171|162.158.158.171]] 00:20, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

The comic should mention MMS, which is well integrated into SMS, so that it's supported by not quite as much as SMS but still by almost everybody, and counts as vaguely modern in that you can attach images and have no length limit. ―[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 00:46, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

My DynaTAC doesn't get SMS. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.150|172.69.22.150]] 00:56, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Okay, got a basic explanation up; The comic is missing a bunch of different messaging services I feel. Also, I knew that somebody would say that their phone doesn't support SMS, I guess that habit of hedging writing with mostly is paying off.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.63.143|172.69.63.143]] 01:01, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

"It [Whatsapp] is popular in multiple countries, namely Latin America and India." I have no idea what this means: should "namely" be "mainly"? But is the fixed version even true? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.225|162.158.158.225]] 11:28, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
: Both "namely" and "mainly" are valid and mean very similar things in this context. Saying "... mainly Latin America and India" suggests most of Whatsapp's popularity is in Latin America and India and Whatsapp has little popularity anywhere else. On the other hand, saying "... namely Latin America and India" suggests that Latin America and India are some of the countries where Whatsapp is particularly popular without implying that Whatsapp is significantly unpopular elsewhere. That said, it's a pretty subtle distinction that almost no one will actually care about except hardcore language geeks. With love from your friendly neighborhood Grammar Communist. <3 [[User:Gertuviti|Gertuviti]] ([[User talk:Gertuviti|talk]]) 12:57, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
:: In any case: Wouldn't it be easier to list countries where it's not popular? Because to what I know there are a few markets where it didn't get a foothold (''namely'' Northern America, Australia, China), but in most of the rest of the world it basically is ''the'' way of messaging since many years (others, like Signal, Telegram, Threema, are coming, but usually have a hard time fighting WhatsApp predominancy). SMS didn't disappear and is still used by some technical systems (like for sending TANs or alarms), but I can't remember when I last heard about someone sending an SMS privately (my current phone, in service since one year, for sure never received one). --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 14:17, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
::: FIFY by avoiding both terms, & by adding the missing "in." Your friendly & useful Grammar democratic republican.
:::: This Grammar socialist-conservative thinks "in multiple countries, especially India & in Latin America" has other issues. I appreciate the need for "countries, especially (...) in Latin America" to be integrated with "countries, especially India (...)", but the mix of the multiple and singular examples as equivalent list-subitems jars. The "Set of (Item, Set of (Items))" thing is a complex linguistic construct. Perhaps "in multiple regions, especially India and Latin America" works better (both qualify as regions, or contain more implicitly relevent sub-regions if you prefer that interpretation, without worrying about precise country-level boundries). This also switches the ampersand out (incongruous eyesore, an unnecessary ''abbr.'' that clashes with the "in; and, particularly if used as the reordered "in Latin America & India", would actually imply stronger linking than merely being two examples plucked from a clearly unexhausted larger list). But I leave this suggestion here only for consideration. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.52|141.101.98.52]] 16:04, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
::::: I now removed the list completely. While India has the highest absolute number of WhatsApp users for sure (400 million - only China would theoretically be able to top that, but WhatsApp basically is not used there), and Brazil probably comes second with some 120 million users, WhatsApp has a higher market share in many other countries, with more than 80% of smartphone owners using WhatsApp in a whole bunch of European countries, for example. All in all it totals to over 2 billion users per https://blog.whatsapp.com/two-billion-users-connecting-the-world-privately - I don't think we should highlight just two regions when a quarter of the world population is said to use WhatsApp. --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 23:21, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Discord is slowly moving towards supported by everyone because of Covid-19. [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 12:27, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

"Discord being used by everyone" (ref. Explanation rather than above Talk comment), I have deliberately kept off Discord, so clearly not. The reason for Discord (as per Talk comment) applies more so to Zoom/Teams, though. Although I've kept off those too, where I can (using Zoom on a Raspberry Pi on a few occasions, which tends to overheat it). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.140|162.158.159.140]] 13:45, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
: Good for you; you're fighting the system! Note that the explanation has been updated from "everyone" to "many groups". [[User:OhFFS|OhFFS]] ([[User talk:OhFFS|talk]]) 18:02, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Separate comment: I'm not sure if this helps or hinders the comic's assertions, but friends and family continually tend to send Texts to my dumb-phone that contain emoji I keep telling them that it can't show (i.e. any of them). Only by context can I guess if the anonymous 'square' character is more thumbs-up/smiley-face or otherwise. Or if the three squares after the birthday greeting might include candles/cake. Making them no more clarified than the plain-text message they think they're clarifying. I suppose the single, sole 'emojibox' reply ''does'' work as a basic read-receipt notification, though. Regardless of if it's actually winky-face, poo, zombie, rainbow, cablecar, flag-of-Liberia or whatever they decided to send me... ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.140|162.158.159.140]] 13:45, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
:That's one reason why SMS isn't in the "Vaguely Modern" category. Although it can transmit and receive emojis, many devices that only support SMS can't display them. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:28, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Why isn't there a category for Venn Diagrams? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 18:58, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
:Uh, yes there is... — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 11:31, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Aww, Telegram didn't even get mentioned, despite having 200 times as many users as Signal. :( [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 21:26, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
:Telegram is not really E2E encrypted by default. One-on-one conversations can be upgraded to E2E encryption ("secret chat") but group conversations not at all. -> [https://telegra.ph/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-to-End-Encrypted-by-Default-08-14 From the horse's mouth]. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.164|141.101.98.164]] 20:24, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
::Skype is also not E2E by default (and it's not even supported on all devices), but listed in the E2E category here. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 21:30, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I for one would support using Randall's local-mobile-TID-gateway protocol [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.157|173.245.52.157]] 22:41, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

: Whatsapp is also used as main service in most of the European Union, to the point even everybody with iPhones or access to iMessage is using it as main protocol, and most youngsters have a habit of using it for everything instead of Email (then wondering why pictures and videos got degraded). Maybe this should be mentioned.

The Forward article at the kosher-phone link has a biased and faintly derogatory tone. The Wikipedia entry [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone#Kosher_phone], while not perfect, would be a better choice. [[User:Wolfsbane2019|Wolfsbane2019]] ([[User talk:Wolfsbane2019|talk]]) 20:33, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

== Regarding Skype encryption: ==

My understanding is that Skype uses end-to-end encryption on messages from one Skype user to another, ''unless'' Microsoft has (surreptitiously) switched the user account to server-side encryption, or in cases where the other end is not a Skype contact (telephone calls, for example). The question of how to tell whether both clients are using client-side encryption seems most relevant to this explanation. (This question is not addressed by the linked source, nor any of the associated pages I found while checking it just now.) Anyone have a good phrasing to clarify this situation, in the explanation?
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 23:24, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

== End-To-End Encryption alone only prevents casual surveillance ==

It should be noted in the explanation of E2E encrypted systems, that E2E encryption ≠ unsurveillable, unless the devices at each end (at a minimum) are free of third-party monitoring at the keyboard (or mic), display buffer, unprotected ''or protected'' memory, operating system, & application levels. Ensuring this would require ongoing knowledge of ''all'' operative code & hardware functions, on both devices, which is not possible on devices using closed-source hardware, firmware, or software. (For a 4G cellular phone designed to avoid closed-source dependencies, read up on the challenges met developing the PinePhone.)

Users of devices running Microsoft or Apple operating systems (among others); or Intel or AMD or Broadcom or Qualcomm chips (among others); or closed-source keyboards, system utilities, or messaging apps; can only seek out statements from those companies as assurance that their end systems are not subject to surveillance.

In most cases, such assurances cannot be made, as these providers are bound by non-disclosure requirements as part of their compliance with regulatory & intelligence agencies. Such agencies (& even third-party contractors) have repeatedly been revealed to routinely obtain access to these systems (including iOS). In rare cases where access is not already made possible by one of the two users' devices, systems, apps, or services, then trojan attempts are made.

In turn, these mandated undisclosed access methods add to ''unintentional'' vulnerabilities, providing additional attack vectors to wholly unauthorized actors, including (so far) criminal organizations, terrorist groups, openly hostile nation states, supposedly peaceful nation states (allegedly), shady copyright-enforcement providers given free rein under revised (corporate authored) legislation, & highly motivated or resource-rich individuals.

So end-to-end encryption is essentially just a barrier to casual surveillance at the network infrastructure level; it doesn't close any of the other modes of access, which we know (hopefully, from seemingly endless disclosures over the course of decades) are leveraged at will, by everybody from US intelligence agencies to hirelings in aging office buildings who-knows-where. End-to-end encryption is step 3, after step 1, which is starting with hardware known to lack backdoors or leaks, & step 2, which is running only code that has been examined for backdoors or leaks ''on the whole system.''

Evading surveillance is primarily a matter of not getting noticed in the first place. Once one is under surveillance, it's ''extremely'' difficult to transact wireless communication with diverse peers securely.

There's no reasonable expectation of privacy from almost any of our devices, so end-to-end encryption at the app level seems like a necessary component bolted to a pile of broken parts.

Not sure how to express this without a tirade (obviously); Seems like describing E2E Encryption without context does a potentially dangerous disservice to readers seeking explanation here...

Anyone care to discuss how we can clarify the role of E2E Encryption in the most common private messaging usage scenarios?

[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 23:24, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

In the most common private-messaging scenarios, casual surveillance at the network infrastructure level is the only surveillance that people are actually worried about ''when deciding what protocol to use for communication''. 1) Any security at the device level can't be a concern of the choice of messaging service - if you've got a keylogger, it's going to log your keys in all messaging services, encrypted or not. 2) If you've got highly motivated and resource-rich individuals or hostile foreign governments trying to tail you specifically, you're presumably doing something that would necessitate learning about more secure communication methods in the first place. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.14|108.162.241.14]] 05:13, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

2365: Messaging Systems

2020-10-02T23:13:38Z

YMS: WhatsApp: 2 billion users worldwide per https://blog.whatsapp.com/two-billion-users-connecting-the-world-privately - I don't think highlighting only two regions fits that

{{comic
| number = 2365
| date = September 28, 2020
| title = Messaging Systems
| image = messaging_systems.png
| titletext = SMS is just the worst, but I'm having trouble convincing people to adopt my preferred system, TLS IRC with a local server and a patched DOSBox gateway running in my mobile browser.
}}

==Explanation==
Messaging systems suffer from the {{w|network effect}}, as in order to communicate, both parties need to be using the same system.
Though relatively ancient by modern standards, {{w|SMS}} is supported by almost every mobile device (unless you're using a {{w|kosher phone}} or still on a {{w|DynaTAC}}) that has a phone number attached, which means if you want to send a message to someone, but aren't sure if you have a messaging protocol in common, you can be sure at least they have SMS.

The comic mentions many other communication systems, which offer various advantages in either security ({{w|end to end encryption}}) and or a bunch of general improvements filed under the label "vaguely modern", such as longer character limits and the ability to share media such as images in-service.

The messaging systems are shown in a {{w|Venn Diagram}}, with the categories corresponding to these three advantages. The intersections between the categories are very minimal: there are a few systems that have both E2E encryption and are modern, but no intersections with "supported by everyone", and SMS is the only system in that category. So when choosing a method of communication, you're usually faced with a compromise.

The title text proposes an alternative, absurd mingling of technologies in the vein of [[1636: XKCD Stack]]. IRC is Internet Relay Chat, a similarly antiquated messaging service that may also never die, as suggested in [[1782: Team Chat]]. {{w|Transport Layer Security}} (TLS) is a layer of networking software that provides encrypted communication. {{w|DOSBox}} is an emulator that recreates the operating environment of {{w|MS-DOS}}; part of the absurdity is that DOSBox is intended almost solely for video games.

Various other comics have referenced the issue of chat services, including [[1810: Chat Systems]], [[1254: Preferred Chat System]], and [[1782: Team Chat]].

=== Vaguely Modern ===
'''Slack'''
* {{w|Slack (software)|Slack}} is a workplace messaging service that offers the ability for administrators to create channels in order to organize the discussion. It is asynchronous, which means that conversations can occur out of time, hours apart from each other. It also keeps track of every message, and everything in a public channel stays there forever for everyone to see. It is not encrypted and has been moving towards being less privacy-focused for end-users over the years as corporate demand for employee surveillance has prompted the company to offer ever more invasive services to administrators. Overall, it is a popular service with some large companies and non-profit organisations but does not yet have universal adoption.

'''Facebook Messenger'''
* {{w|Facebook Messenger}} is {{w|Facebook}}'s messaging app for phones, but not everyone has a Facebook account, or uses Facebook regularly.

'''Hangouts'''
* {{w|Google Hangouts}} is a messaging service that can be accessed through the online Gmail client, as a separate web page and a standalone app for the phone. Theoretically, that means everybody has access to it, but modern usage patterns mean that most people do not use the attached web client and don't bother downloading the app. It allows users to make group or 1-on-1 voice or video calls, upload images, videos, links, and other media along with text messaging.

'''Discord'''
* {{w|Discord (software)|Discord}} is a communications program that offers both direct messages and "servers", membership groups with a variety of voice and text channels. Discord was initially designed to serve the needs of online gaming communities, but is now used by many other groups.

'''Various DMs'''
* A {{w|Personal message|DM}} (direct message) is a private message between two or more users. The term DM originated from {{w|Twitter}}, but is now broadly applied to any user-to-user messaging feature within a larger service.

=== Vaguely Modern & E2E Encrypted ===

'''Signal'''
*{{w|Signal (software)|Signal}} is an encrypted messaging service owned by the Signal Foundation a 501c3 nonprofit, popular among protesters and hackers who wish to remain anonymous. Signal allows for highly secure messaging and for messages to be deleted after a period of time.

'''iMessage'''
*{{w|iMessage}} is the instant messaging service for Apple devices. iMessage features end-to-end encryption; however, it only works between Apple devices, so users of Android devices are not able to receive or send messages through iMessage.

'''WhatsApp'''
*{{w|WhatsApp}} is a messaging service owned by Facebook. It has more than two billion users worldwide, according to the company's own information from February 2020.

=== E2E Encrypted ===
{{w|End-to-end encryption}} is another messaging system where only the communicating users can read the messages posted. In principle, it prevents potential eavesdroppers – including {{w|telecom provider}}s, {{w|internet provider}}s, and even the provider of the communication service – from being able to access the {{w|cryptographic key}}s needed to decrypt the conversation.

'''PGP Email'''
*{{w|Pretty Good Privacy|PGP}} (short for "Pretty Good Privacy") is an encryption protocol for privacy and authentication developed in 1991. PGP can be used for signing, encrypting, and decrypting data. It is used to ensure the validity of the nature of the sender of the message (i.e., to make sure you got the email from the sender and not from someone else pretending to be someone else with malicious intent). PGP was also featured in [[1181: PGP]].

'''Various Obscure Projects'''
*Randall is probably referring to the multitude of projects similar to those listed here that had end-to-end encryption but never went far.

'''Skype I Think'''
*{{w|Skype}} is a video conferencing service owned by Microsoft released in 2003; thus Randall does not consider Skype "modern". He is unsure if Skype is end-to-end encrypted or not. Skype used to be E2E encrypted, but that was changed and now {{w|Skype security|it does not have E2E encryption}}.

'''XMPP''' ('''Jabber + TLS''')
*{{w|XMPP}} (short for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), formerly named Jabber, is a communications protocol based on XML that was developed in 1999. The XMPP protocol could be used with {{w|Transport Layer Security}} (TLS) to have a secure communications service.

The first IM service based on XMPP was {{w|Jabber.org}}.

There are several (XEPs) (short for XMPP Extension Protocols).

=== Supported By Everyone ===
'''SMS'''
*{{w|SMS}} (short for Short Message Service) is a text-messaging service formally defined in the {{w|GSM}} standard in 1985 and first used in 1992. It limits messages to 160 characters, text-only. SMS has been extended at least twice, first by {{w|Multimedia Messaging Service|MMS}} (first used in 2002), which allows for "multimedia", including short videos, images and audio. MMS is also supported by most modern phones, but does not have any security features and is less powerful than other messaging apps, making it less modern. {{w|Rich Communication Services|Rich Communication Services}} (abbreviated as RCS) is a more modern protocol, aimed at replacing SMS & MMS protocols. RCS support has been slow to rollout among cellular carriers, due to their preference for proprietary implementations & monetizable usage tracking &\or gatekeeping. Like SMS & MMS, RCS is a federated network, wherein failure of one provider's systems is unlikely to result in a total system outage. The single-provider messaging networks of other widely used systems (such as those mentioned on this page) can experience system-wide outages that prevent all users from communicating via them at all; this has happened multiple times for both Signal & Discord, among others. For this reason, single-provider networks are intrinsically more prone to total system outages than federated networks. The long-standing interoperability of SMS+MMS networks is difficult (if not impossible) to match in terms of communicating with a maximum number of people, & maintaining functionality for other users when one provider experiences an outage.

==Transcript==

A Venn Diagram is shown, framed in a box. It has three components:

Vaguely Modern, E2E Encrypted, Supported By Everyone

'''Items Solely in the Vaguely Modern category are:'''

:Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Discord, Various DMs

'''Items In both 'Vaguely Modern' and 'E2E Encrypted' categories are:'''

:Signal, iMessage, Whatsapp

'''Items Solely in the E2E Encrypted category are:'''

:PGP Email, Various Obscure Projects, Skype I think, XMPP and XMPP + XEP-0384: OMEMO

'''Items Solely in the 'Supported By Everyone' category is:'''

:SMS

All other categories are empty.

[Caption below the comic]: Why SMS refuses to die

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Venn diagrams]]
[[Category:Phones]]
[[Category:Social networking]]

Talk:2365: Messaging Systems

2020-09-29T14:17:56Z

YMS: re

190: IPoD

2019-07-29T19:00:57Z

YMS: Fix link format

{{comic
| number = 190
| date = November 29, 2006
| title = IPoD
| image = ipod.png
| titletext = For smaller numbers he has to SAVE lives. The birthrate channel is even more of a mixed bag.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Internet Protocol|IP}} is one of the main protocols of the Internet. It is used to route data packets from one computer to another, using other computers or even complete networks in between if needed. It is designed to use the fastest (not necessarily the shortest) route to the target, automatically using another route if a connection or a transmitting host fails.

Every participant of the network has to have a so-called {{w|IP address}}. The data is divided into ''packets'', each consisting of a header and the payload. The header tells the transmitting parties where the packet comes from and where it should go (together with some other details). The payload is the data to be transmitted.

IP packets can be carried by a variety of transport networks. Such methods are often referred to as "IP over X" (or "IPoX" for short). Examples include [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_DVB IP over DVB], [http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/ATM-Linux-HOWTO/ip-over-atm.html IP over ATM], and the humorous [http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2549.html IP over Avian Carriers].

[[Black Hat]] (and other statisticians) is using demographics as IP packets to send data. In order to adjust the death rate to encode the header, Black Hat plans to travel to New Jersey and go on a killing spree with a crossbow, instead of merely hacking the census bureau's computers. Such antics could only be used to ''increase'' the death rate; decreasing it would require saving lives instead, as mentioned in the title text. Also as mentioned, birth rates would be trickier to manipulate, as doing so would require encouraging or discouraging women to have children and would require an approximately nine-month delay, which is a great deal more difficult than taking a crossbow to a heavily populated area.

Crossbows were also mentioned in [[564: Crossbows]]. Black Hat is also seen using his crossbow in [[929: Speculation]]

The title of the comic and the IPoD protocol are a probable reference to the {{w|iPod}}, a portable electronic device created by {{w|Apple Inc}}.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat sits at a computer. Cueball stands behind him.]
:Black Hat: You see, statisticians communicate using IPoD -- IP over Demographics. For example, the header of the next packet I send will be encoded into the New Jersey death rate.
:Cueball: So you're going to hack the census bureau and change the number of reported deaths?
:Black Hat: Guess again.
:Black Hat: Hey, have you seen my crossbow?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Crossbows]]

724: Hell

2019-06-28T23:12:51Z

YMS: Typo

{{comic
| number = 724
| date = April 7, 2010
| title = Hell
| image = hell.png
| titletext = There's also a Katamari level where everything is just slightly bigger than you, and a Mario level with a star just out of reach.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Tetris}} is a game where the player has to manipulate falling blocks into forming complete rows, which will then be deleted and give points to the player. This comic is a play on this, presenting the player with a version of the game with a curved bottom that renders forming flat rows nearly impossible. {{w|Hell}} is a {{w|Religion#Mythology|mythological and/or religious concept}} of a posthumous punishment for wrongdoers, depicted in many religions as eternal torment. Here the Tetris player feels he is in Hell when he tries to play this game.

The title text presents similar situations where frustration is likely to occur. ''{{w|Katamari_(series)|Katamari Damacy}}'' is a video game in which the player controls a sticky sphere which grows by assimilating objects smaller than itself, so gameplay would be extremely frustrating if none of the objects available is smaller than your sphere. ''{{w|Super_Mario_(series)|Super Mario}}'' is a long-running franchise of platforming games; in some of the games (beginning with ''{{w|Super Mario 64}}''), levels are completed by collecting large, golden [https://www.mariowiki.com/Power_Star Power Stars] – so it would be very frustrating if one is impossible to reach.

This last part may also be a reference to the {{w|Ancient Greek myth}} of {{w|Tantalus}}; as punishment for cannibalism, he suffers in {{w|Hades}}, confined to a pool with a fruit tree above it. As his punishment, the fruit branches on the tree recoil every time he tries to eat, and the water recedes every time he tries to drink.

Also see comic [[888: Heaven]], which presents an inverse situation in which the Tetris game provides unfairly perfect pieces to help the player win.

There is a playable version of this comic at [http://www.kongregate.com/games/banthar/hell-tetris Kongregate] which, unsurprisingly, is frustratingly difficult ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reFPscApObs but not impossible]) to play.

==Transcript==
:[The panel shows the display of a Tetris game where the bottom of the pit is curved into a semicircle making the two blocks at the bottom, a square and a reverse L piece lean crookedly towards each other at the bottom of the pit; an S piece is falling and the next piece is an L piece.]
:Next
:Top
:000000
:Score
:000000
:Level
:01
:[Below the panel:]
:'''HELL'''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Katamari Damacy]]
[[Category:Video games]]

1513: Code Quality

2019-06-25T09:56:07Z

YMS: .

{{comic
| number = 1513
| date = April 17, 2015
| title = Code Quality
| image = code quality.png
| titletext = I honestly didn't think you could even USE emoji in variable names. Or that there were so many different crying ones.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is the first in the [[:Category:Code Quality|Code Quality]] series and was followed good year later in [[1695: Code Quality 2]].

It is about the apprehension of asking for help from an expert who is a friend. Often we fear that we will be judged and they will think less of us, which is what occurs in this comic.

[[Ponytail]] is about to look at some {{w|source code}} [[Cueball]] has written, and he is warning her that he is self-taught so his code probably won't be written the way she is used to.

In spite of Ponytail's initial (polite) optimism, she comments in three increasingly harsh similes (and a fourth in the title text). The comic was later followed in [[1695: Code Quality 2]] and [[1833: Code Quality 3]], where Cueball is never shown on screen but only replies off-screen to four more even harsher comments (plus the title text ones), taking the total of her abusive comments up to 14! And so far it finishes in [[1926: Bad Code]] where Cueball is once again shown.

First, she suggests that reading his code is like being in a house built by a child, using a hatchet (a small ax) to put together what he thought was a house based on a picture. She is saying that the code shows a lack of command of the language being programmed. This is like the common expression "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." New programmers make use of the same techniques repeatedly, using them for situations that they are not intended for.

Second, she suggests that it looks like a salad recipe, written by a corporate lawyer on a phone with auto-correct that only corrected things to formulas from Microsoft Excel. She is saying that the code is verbose and the corrections that were done are illogical. This presumably relates to the developer not being an expert in their craft, and fixing the problems as they come up instead of reexamining the problem and solving it in a better way.

Third, she describes it as a transcript of a couple arguing at a branch of the Swedish retail chain {{w|IKEA}}, which was then randomly edited until the computer compiled it with no errors. She is saying that the intent of the code is unclear due to the seemingly random use of the language. This is very similar to an infinite amount of monkeys bashing away on typewriters for an infinite amount of time eventually producing the complete works of Shakespeare. (A couple's argument may be even less coherent at IKEA than at the average store, since IKEA products always have idiosyncratic names and many of them are difficult to pronounce or transcribe for anyone who doesn't speak Swedish.) This might happen if the code was written so bad that it does not compile, and people edited the code until it compiles so they can see what the code accomplishes. That Cueball's code is in this bad a shape indicates he really hasn't learned the programming language; he just happens to have a program that works in some shape or fashion.

Finally, Cueball makes the rather weak assurance that he will read "a style guide", which articulates the intended use of the language. It seems clear from Ponytail's commentary that his {{w|Software quality|code quality}} would benefit from far more training in computer programming.

The title text refers to {{w|emoji}}. Ponytail's comment implies that some of Cueball's variables contained emoji, perhaps in an effort to capture the emotional content of the arguments which show through the requirements document. Emoji has become a [[:Category:Emoji|recurrent theme]] on xkcd, but this may have been the first comic to use them for a pun.

===Emoji===
Many crying-face emoji are possible if variables can include full Unicode (e.g., 😢,😭,😂,😿,😹), as well as faces with sweat drops that are often mistaken for tears (😪,😥,😰). In some programming languages it would be impossible to use them in variable names, as the symbols would break the language's syntax rules. Exceptions to this include {{w|Swift (programming language)|Swift}} and {{w|Perl|Perl}} ([http://perldoc.perl.org/5.24.0/perlunicode.html]), but most languages with compilers that support Unicode characters can include this kind of emoji, even for languages that predate Unicode like {{w|C++}} and {{w|Lisp_(programming_language)|Lisp}}.

In any event, Cueball's code may best be represented by a bunch of people crying, as that is the only proper response to it.

===Programming Style===
Although few programming languages require a perfectly rigid style, so long as the code is syntactically accurate, most programmers follow some sort of {{w|Programming style|style}} to make the code easier to read. This includes indenting lines to show levels and using descriptive variable identifiers with special capitalization, (e.g., {{w|camelCase}}, capitalizing each word except for the first in a sentence, or {{w|snake_case}}, separating lowercase words with underscores).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball showing Ponytail his laptop.]
:Cueball: Keep in mind that I'm self-taught, so my code may be a little messy.
:Ponytail: Lemme see - I'm sure it's fine.

:[Ponytail sits at desk, Cueball stand behind her.]
:Ponytail: ...Wow. This is like being in a house built by a child using nothing but a hatchet and a picture of a house.

:[Ponytail sits at desk, Cueball stand behind her.]
:Ponytail: It's like a salad recipe written by a corporate lawyer using a phone autocorrect that only knew Excel formulas.

:[Ponytail sits at desk, Cueball stand behind her.]
:Ponytail: It's like someone took a transcript of a couple arguing at IKEA and made random edits until it compiled without errors.
:Cueball: '''''Okay,''''' I'll read a style guide.

==Trivia==
*Emoji can be simulated using {{w|ASCII}} characters, but their roots are mostly separate from ASCII {{w|emoticon}}s. Most languages will allow variable names to include underscores, so some sad face ASCII emoticon will be legal variable names, such as <code>T_T</code>, <code>p_q</code>, <code>ioi</code> etc., but such things rarely show up in software variables. Many more can be made possible using [http://hexascii.com/sad-emoticons/ UTF-8 characters].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Code Quality]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Code Quality 01]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Emoji]]
[[Category:Cueball Computer Problems]]

1946: Hawaii

2019-01-16T19:26:41Z

YMS: It's not a "fact that it took half an hour for the correction to be sent": The alert was sent at 8:07, the EMA published their correction at 8:20 (13 mins later), and Gov Ige re-tweeted it at 8:24 (17 mins after the incident)

{{comic
| number = 1946
| date = January 24, 2018
| title = Hawaii
| image = hawaii.png
| titletext = Ok, I've got it, just need to plug in my security key. Hmm, which way does the USB go? Nope, not that way. I'll just flip it and-- OH JEEZ IT FELL INTO THE VENT.
}}

==Explanation==

On January 13, 2018, the state of Hawaii {{w|2018_Hawaii_false_missile_alert|sent out an emergency alert}} warning of an incoming {{w|ballistic missile}} attack. The message was specifically noted to NOT be a drill. This caused widespread panic and fear amongst the island residents, and there were follow-up confirmations from local entities who thought the original warning was real. It was eventually determined that the alert was sent in error -- the explanation being that a technician accidentally sent out the "real" version when they were supposed to be testing the system during an end-of-shift changeover -- but the fact that it took around 15 minutes for the correction to be sent drew widespread criticism. On January 23, [http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/23/us/hawaii-governor-password-trnd/index.html it was revealed] that the governor of Hawaii knew the alert was a false alarm only two minutes after it was sent, but couldn't notify the public because he had forgotten the login information for his Twitter account.

The proliferation of online services requiring authentication, together with variations in security requirements, various flavours of {{w|Multi-factor authentication}}, a variety of password retrieval methods, and security advice not to re-use passwords across services, has resulted in the management and memorisation of passwords becoming a major headache for many people. This comic shows Cueball, representing the governor, frantically trying to retrieve his log in to Twitter and encountering a number of common frustrations:
* He has a number of passwords that he uses, likely for multiple services, but none of them seem to be working. Often people will use subtly different variations of one or more password(s) for different logins since logins may require different password requirements. In a situation where they've forgotten the relevant password, this can lead to them cycling through all the possible variations, and struggling to keep track of which they have and haven't tried.
* He's requested a password reset, but doesn't know where to go to activate it. Many services allow users to reset a password using a link or information sent to them in an email. However, as many people have multiple email accounts, this can be unhelpful and frustrating if it simply indicates that 'you have been sent an email'.
* He expects the password to have been saved somewhere, but can't work out where. Many devices and browsers now have the facility to save and/or sync passwords entered through them, in an attempt to simplify their management by providing centralised storage. However, the very number of these available leads to a re-fragmentation.
Off-panel, another person is adding to the stress of his situation by screaming at him that people are beginning to panic and warning sirens are going off, underscoring the need to get the correction out as fast as possible. As the caption under the comic indicates, Randall has had a nightmare along these (very specific) lines, and is amused to find someone experiencing that nightmare in the real world.

The alt-text refers to USB security keys, physical USB devices that act as tangible 'passwords' for various accounts or devices. (A traditional key of shaped metal is literally a tangible password, with each digit of the password releasing one tumbler of a physical lock; Electronic keys replace the key-and-tumbler password system with a digital password signal.) In the context of this comic, the governor attempts to sign into his Twitter account using one such key, but can't insert it into his computer correctly (as USB devices are infamous for needing to be inserted in a particular orientation despite having a symmetrical outer appearance; also known as [https://www.google.com/search?q=usb+superposition USB superposition].) Trying to flip the key around, Cueball drops it into a vent - similar to what happens in [[1518: Typical Morning Routine]].

== Trivia ==
The Hawaii emergency agency also might have password problems. In a news article from June 2017 there was a photo showing an agency employee standing beside his own computer, which sports a password on a sticky note. [http://uk.businessinsider.com/hawaii-emergency-agency-password-discovered-in-photo-sparks-security-criticism-2018-1?utm_content=buffer1f883&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer-ti&r=US&IR=T This caused further criticism of the agency security practices].

==Transcript==

:[Cueball is standing, slightly crouched, at a desk with one hand on a laptop and the other holding his phone.]
:Off-screen voice: '''''Hurry!'''''
:Cueball: It keeps saying "Wrong Password!" I've tried everything it might be!
:Off-screen voice: '''''The clock is ticking!'''''
:Cueball: I requested a reset but haven't gotten it! Which email did I use?!
:Off-screen voice: '''''Sirens are going off!!'''''
:Cueball: It's not in my password manager! Is it in a browser? Which browser? Is Autofill synced to my phone??
:Off-screen voice: '''''OH MY GOD THE SCREAMING!!'''''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I feel bad for everyone in Hawaii, but when the governor couldn't get into his Twitter account, he lived out one of my very specific nightmares in real life.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

Talk:569: Borders

2019-01-12T21:12:17Z

YMS: Multiple flags

Unfortunately, yarbis is not a Turkish word. Its only relation with Turkish is as an acronym for "'''Y'''ıldız '''AR'''astirmaci '''BI'''lgi '''S'''istemi" which means "Yildiz Researcher Information System" in English. Yildiz is the name of a university in Turkey.{{unsigned|88.247.98.10}}

I don't think the last paragraph is correct. I think they're just random fantasy sounding names like one might find in many modern games. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.28|108.162.221.28]] 07:33, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
:While I don't think it's a reference to something Turkish, I doubt it's just a random fantasy name. --[[User:Alex|Alex]] ([[User talk:Alex|talk]]) 20:49, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Are there actually any computer games that allow carrying multiple flags at once, enabling a player to get "a kajillion points" in one run? Usually CTF is played with only two teams anyway, but some games do offer multi-team setups. I'm not aware of any game that allows a player to carry more than one flag at once, though. --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 21:12, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2030: Voting Software

2018-08-08T21:05:36Z

YMS:

I think this comic is referencing [https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1026603800365330432 this twitter thread] and the controversy behind it.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.190.4|172.69.190.4]] 17:59, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
: The [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/experts-criticize-west-virginias-plan-for-smartphone-voting/ Experts criticize West Virginia’s plan for smartphone voting] article on ArsTechnica has more information (as much as possible when the company in question does not provide any details (note that it is about overseas voting). --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 19:44, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Is he saying it's weird that we're so sophisticated in other areas of computer science but so far behind in voting technology, or is he making fun of the idea that electronic voting is somehow inherently unsafe?--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.106|108.162.216.106]] 18:10, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
: No he is saying computer science is a mess and we should not trust it with voting(he is not making fun of the idea of it being unsafe, he is pressing on the point of it being unsafe[saying that all experts agree on that])18:18, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

: I think he's commenting on how in most fields, the experts are very sure that they do their job well, and all the angles have been tried and tested, but in computer science the experts are more certain than anyone that there is ''absolutely no way'' for a person to actually build a complex software system with no flaws or vulnerabilities, even if they controlled every aspect of the system. in practice of course they control very little of the system and understand even less of it. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.88|172.68.34.88]] 18:22, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

: He's saying that software development is a terribly buggy process, most likely because the majority of software out there can have bugs without very dire real-world consequences (unlike aircraft or elevators).

::Not to mention the fact that there are incredibly smart people with great interest in undoing the work that software developers do, whereas that isn't at all the case with airplanes or elevators. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.214|108.162.219.214]] 18:29, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

:: Plus there's the general issue that the public as a whole takes the view that "Computers are majykal" (misspelling deliberate) and therefore somehow automatically safe & infallible, despite experts trying very hard to disillusion people about...pretty much all of that. Compare that to the common assumptions about aircraft and elevators--people need the safety verified, instead of assuming it like they do with computers. [[User:Werhdnt|Werhdnt]] ([[User talk:Werhdnt|talk]]) 19:08, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

:::There's a logical fallacy here. To compare airplaneS and elevatorS to a voting system program is comparing plural to singular. There would be significant opportunity to break/modify a single instance of those objects, although without the relative anonymity of electronic access involved. Once a computer system is infiltrated, the break-in can be replicated to all instances of that program relatively instantaneously, assuming communication pathways are available.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.130|162.158.75.130]] 19:12, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

::::No logical fallacy; there have been ''multiple'' attempts to get people to accept a voting system program, and the 'done by a computer=infallible' problem is '''''not''''' unique to voting programs. Mr. Babbage was being confused by people who were thinking it was possible to get the correct answers from a computer despite putting the wrong data in back in the 1860s (at least!), and the computer at the time was not much more than a fancy calculator. [[User:Werhdnt|Werhdnt]] ([[User talk:Werhdnt|talk]]) 20:23, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

A blockchain node doesn't technically need to be connected to the internet in order to function. It needs to have some method for receiving messages from other nodes on the blockchain network, and most blockchain nodes do indeed get these messages via the internet, but some bitcoin nodes (for example) get updates about new blocks and new transactions from the Blockstream satellite. An internet connection is therefore not intrinsically necessary for a blockchain to work, it's just the most convenient way to do it.

Do you think that this comic had anything to do with the debacle in Johnson County, KS last night? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.231|162.158.62.231]] 19:30, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

The comic ignores the fact that modern airplanes are heavily utilizing software of all kinds. A software failure in an aircraft could easily be fatal (and have been so various times in history already, while the consequences of a voting software working incorrect are ''relatively'' harmless), and still airplanes remain safe, as the comic recognizes. --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 21:05, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Talk:2005: Attention Span

2018-06-11T09:17:04Z

YMS: re

Do you think the book being referenced is a Dragon Lance book?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.24|162.158.106.24]] 04:33, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

The comic contains a hyperlink to what appears to be exactly the kind of article Cueball apparently "''just'' finished reading", or at least my mobile reader is picking up a hyperlink. I've added a small note about this; I'm not linking the article directly for personal reasons. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.227|108.162.221.227]] 05:51, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
: I linked it. If it's linked in the original then it should be here, too. Maybe it belongs more to the trivia section, I don't know, but it definitely has to be shown here somewhere. On a side node: did Randall ever do something like that before? [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:53, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
:: Linking other content behind the image? Yes, I think he did it several times before. The only actual comic I remember, however, is [[351: Trolling]]. --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 09:17, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

1396: Actors

2018-05-10T08:24:46Z

YMS: /* Explanation */ Corrected name and fixed link

{{comic
| number = 1396
| date = July 18, 2014
| title = Actors
| image = actors.png
| titletext = Once again topping the list of tonight's hottest rising stars in Hollywood is ξ Persei!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic plays on different meanings of the word "hottest". In the opening question, "Who are today's 10 hottest actors?" the word "hottest" would typically refer to an actor's popularity, success, demand, or attractiveness. Cueball and Megan interpret the word "hottest" as asking them to list the 10 actors who have the highest surface temperature, and we see them measuring "Justin's" (possibly referring to {{w|Justin Long|Long}}, {{w|Justin Theroux|Theroux}}, {{w|Justin Bieber|Bieber}} or {{w|Justin Timberlake|Timberlake}} or any of the several other ''Justin''s in show business[http://www.imdb.com/search/name?count=100&gender=male&name=justin&sort=starmeter,asc]) surface temperature using an {{w|infrared thermometer}} (the thermometer typically has a laser pointer to know the approximate location where the radiometric temperature comes from). The measured temperature of 81.5 is presumably reported in degrees {{w|Fahrenheit}}, corresponding to 27.5 {{w|°C}}. This temperature is below the {{w|Human_body_temperature|average human internal body temperature}} of 98.6 {{w|°F}}/37 {{w|°C}} as skin is cooler; Megan also believes that another object (Justin's shirt) was also measured within the infrared thermometer field of view, lowering the reported measurement. With such a measurement of ''hotness'', the hottest actor on any given day would probably be whoever is exercising, sick with a fever, or whoever has been outside in the sun the longest and/or has been sunburned, since this typically causes skin to be hot. Or, an animal actor, of a species with a higher body temperature than humans. ({{w|Category:Films about birds}})

Randall here excludes the fact that accurately deriving surface temperature from bright (radiance) temperature requires knowing the emissivity of the object. Since not all objects radiate with the same efficiency, two objects with the same surface temperature will emit different thermal radiance, but if emissivity is not taken into account they will report different surface temperatures.

The title-text references the temperatures of Hollywood's rising stars, this time interpreting ''stars'' as actual stars, not famous people. In this case, the star {{w|Xi Persei|ξ Persei}} in the Perseus constellation (which is located in, and responsible for the fluorescence of, an object called the {{w|California Nebula}}), one of the hottest stars (35,000 {{w|kelvin}}s, {{w|Sun}}: 5,800 K) visible to the naked eye. The star also has similar declination (+35° 47′) as the latitude of Hollywood (34° N) so it is literally rising there every night. They are shooting stars with a laser beam and mid-July is the start of the shooting stars known as the {{w|Perseids}} that appear in the Perseus constellation.

Comic [[1111: Premiere]] is another comic based on "star" puns.

==Transcript==
:Who are today's 10 hottest actors?
:[Cueball is holding a clipboard, taking notes, while Megan aims an infrared thermometer off screen.]
:Megan: 81.5, but I think it got part of his shirt. ''HEY JUSTIN — HOLD STILL!''
:''We grab an infrared thermometer and find out!''

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

950: Mystery Solved

2018-05-04T20:02:28Z

YMS: /* Explanation */ Earhart's cruise speed: 306 km/h

{{comic
| number = 950
| date = September 12, 2011
| title = Mystery Solved
| image = mystery_solved.png
| titletext = The Roanoke Lost Colonists founded Roanoke, the Franklin Expedition reached the Pacific in 2009 when the Northwest Passage opened, and Jimmy Hoffa currently heads the Teamsters Union--he just started going by 'James'.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, aviation pioneer {{w|Amelia Earhart|Amelia Earhart's}} plane comes back to land after it went missing in 1937. It was presumed that Earhart was dead and that her plane went down into the ocean at some point during her journey, although various alternate theories have arisen since then, with no clear answer to the mystery. However, this comic proposes a much simpler explanation: there was no disappearance, it just took her 74 years to fly around the Earth. This explanation is simple, but impossible.

Earhart seems to think Cueball is stupid for not comprehending such a simple answer, but in fact her explanation raises a multitude of other questions. Among them:
* How did it take so long for her to land? (She answers that the world is big, but it isn't so big that it takes 74 years to fly around it, even with 1937 technology. With the Lockheed Model 10 Electra's cruise speed of around 300 km/h or 200 mph it would take around five and a half days to fly around earth completely one time.)
* How did she survive that long, apparently without aging?
* Why didn't anyone else see her on her journey?
* Why doesn't she know that a flight shouldn't take 74 years?

Another possibility is that she did not just fly around the earth, but flew very fast (near {{w|light speed}}) for 74 years to return {{w|Twin paradox|without having aged much}}. However, this would not explain why she thinks it is a long trip around the earth, or how she would accomplish this feat in a {{w|Lockheed Model 10 Electra|twin-engine monoplane}}.

Earhart's disappearence gave birth to many conspiracy theories. One of these, which was explored in the TV series [http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_Voyager Star Trek: Voyager], involves [http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_37%27s_(episode) her being abducted] to another [http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Delta_Quadrant part of the galaxy], where she was left in cryogenic stasis until found by the Voyager crew. Something similar could be the case here, having Earhart frozen by aliens until 2011.

The title text lists a few more deceptively mundane answers to long-unsolved mysteries that at first seem to dispel the questions with boring logic, but in fact raise more questions than they answer. The first is the lost colonists of {{w|Roanoke Colony|Roanoke}}, who were one of the first groups to come to North America, but then suddenly disappeared, leaving their colony untouched. The comic suggests that they simply left to found {{w|Roanoke, Virginia}}. Like all the other explanations in this comic, this doesn't explain how this simple solution became lost to public knowledge. It also doesn't explain why they abandoned their original colony, or how they made it to Roanoke, Virginia, which is more than 300 miles away.

The second mystery in the title text, the {{w|Franklin's lost expedition|Franklin Expedition}}, was a British voyage in 1845 to study the {{w|Northwest Passage}} that also disappeared, somewhere in northern Canada. The text suggests that the expedition wasn't lost; it was still exploring and eventually found its way to the Pacific Ocean in 2009. This is impossible, because the men on the expedition would be long dead.

The final mystery is {{w|Jimmy Hoffa}}, the famous {{w|International Brotherhood of Teamsters|Teamsters Union}} leader who went missing in 1975 and declared dead in 1982 (possibly murdered). The comic says Jimmy simply opted to switch to the more formal version of his name; again, this raises the question of how such a thing would be possible without anyone noticing. The current head of the Teamsters is in fact named {{w|James P. Hoffa|James Hoffa}} (he is Jimmy Hoffa's son and goes by "James P. Hoffa" professionally); the comic could be implying that the senior Hoffa is not only alive but actually impersonating his own son.

==Transcript==
:[A twin prop airplane flies high overhead.]
:Off-screen person: What's that airplane?

:[The plane has landed, and the pilot is walking towards the crowd waving.]
:Off-screen person: Holy crap— Is that Amelia Earhart?

:[A close up of Amelia Earhart waving.]
:Amelia: Hey everyone! My flight was a success!
:Off-screen person: But... Where were you!?

:[A wide view of Amelia, she stops waving.]
:Amelia: I flew around the world!
:Off-screen person: But you disappeared in 1937!

:[A close up of Amelia Earhart.]
:Amelia: Right, to fly around the world.
:Off-screen person: It's 2011!
:Amelia: The world is big. It's a long flight.

:[A wide view of Amelia]
:Off-screen person:
::But you...
::It's not...
::I -
:Amelia: Can I talk to someone smarter?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

423: Finish Line

2018-04-29T10:56:27Z

YMS: /* Trivia */ knowyourmeme link

{{comic
| number =423
| date =May 14, 2008
| title =Finish Line
| image =finish_line.png
| titletext =The question with Lucy and the football was always whether, on some level, she believed the things she said.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are playing {{w|Mario Kart}}, with Cueball's {{w|Luigi}} character ahead of Megan's {{w|Mario}} towards the end of the race. Megan begins waxing philosophically on how she sometimes stops right before the '''Finish line''' (hence the title), because she knows that she has already won and then she do not need the machine to tell her so. She says it proves she doesn't act like a rat going through a laboratory maze in pursuit of cheese.

This talk makes Cueball realize that winning a video game isn't really important, and how by speeding through a racing level like the game asks you to do, you sometimes miss the fun of simply exploring the level and enjoying the extraordinary level of detail and work that went into it. He thus exclaims it was a good call and slows down - expecting Megan to join him exploring.

In the end, it was just a ruse by Megan who speeds past him and wins, much to her glee. "It's more fun than a blue shell", she says, referring to the Mario Kart item that, when fired, will inevitably hit the race leader and cause him to crash. [[Randall]] has rather adamantly expressed his opinion about blue shells before in [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]].

Cueball's response suggests that he has been fooled before by Megan's ''Be a rebel'' speech. Something she can pull off against him again and again. This leads to the subject of the title text.

Note: In MKWii, people sometimes troll others by stopping right at the finish line. When the person behind them gets close they just cross the line and cause 2nd place to lose.

The title text refers to the comic strip ''{{w|Peanuts}},'' and the running gag where fussbudget {{w|Lucy van Pelt|Lucy}} would hold an {{w|american football}} for lovable loser {{w|Charlie Brown}} and he'd come running at it full speed, only to have Lucy pull the football away at the last moment and send Charlie Brown crashing to the ground. What made it funny was that each time, Lucy would find some way to convince Charlie Brown that ''this'' time, she wouldn't pull the football away, and he'd try again — but lo and behold, of course she did. (See example of this, in the collection of moments shown in the very {{w|Peanuts#2000:_The_End_of_Peanuts|last Peanuts comic}}).

The title text ask the important question if Lucy believed the things she said - even if she would eventually pull the ball away. If so it would be easier to fool Charlie. Maybe Cueball suggests that Megan believes what she says up to the point where she wins...

==Transcript==
:[Luigi with green clothes in a green go-cart is clearly in the lead of a game of Mario Kart with Mario in red clothes in a red go-cart is so far behind that he seems much smaller. Two speech bubbles with arrows pointing at the two shows what Megan and Cueball, shown later, says to each other]
:Megan (playing Mario): Sometimes I stop right before the finish line.
:Cueball (playing Luigi): Why?

:[A small square panel is inserted at the bottom of the first, crossing over the frame to the next panel and below the bottom of these panel. It shows Megan sitting on the floor leaning up against a coach while holding the game control in both hand looking at the large TV in front of her only partly inside the frame. Her speech bubble is like the previous panel, pointing at her with an arrow, but most of the bubble is inside the first panel and also breaking into the next panel.]
:Megan: 'Cause I know I've won.

:[Scene moved to look in from the direction of the TV at the coach. Cueball is sitting on the other end of the coach to the left holding his hands out to either side while looking down at Megan on the floor, who is still holding her remote in both hands playing the video game.]
:Megan: It proves I'm playing for fun, on my own terms. That I don't need validation from the machine.
:Megan: That I'm not a rat pulling a lever.

:[Scene moved to the side, showing both the coach with Cueball in it holding his hands up, Megan in front on the floor working the remote and the entire TV. Speech from the TV is shown in a broken bubble.]
:Cueball: ...Man. Good Call. Let's stop and explore the course for a-
:Game: ''Player Two wins''
:Cueball: Hey!
:Megan: Ha ha!

:[Zoom in on the coach still from the side, Cueball leaning forward with the game control in his hand on the arm rest and Megan on the floor sitting more relaxed with the remote in one hand.]
:Cueball: Dammit, I'm a sucker for your "Be a Rebel" speech.
:Megan: It's more fun than a blue shell.

==Trivia==
*Luigi's appearance is a reference to his appearance in the DOS game Mario is Missing. His odd visuals in this game are the source of a meme known as [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/weegee Weegee].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Mario Kart]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:American football]]

1960: Code Golf

2018-02-27T15:14:27Z

YMS: Using "as many characters as possible" is hardly possible (ignoring possible things like compiler file size limits, etc.)

{{comic
| number = 1960
| date = February 26, 2018
| title = Code Golf
| image = code_golf.png
| titletext = I also enjoy Reverse Regular Golf. I've been playing for years all across the country and I'm still on the first hole.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CODE GOLFER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic refers to {{w|code golf}}, the idea of using as few characters as possible to write a computer program with a certain function, similar to how in {{w|golf|regular golf}}, the goal is to get to the end with as few strokes as possible. Reverse code golf would be to write a given program using as many characters as possible. Randall does this in the code example using overly long function names that are [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moby-Dick/Chapter_1 the beginning lines] of {{w|Herman Melville}}'s notoriously long-winded whaling novel ''{{w|Moby-Dick}}''.

Note that it's not actually possible to produce code using "as many characters as possible". It would be a trivial task to make the given program longer, e.g. by using longer names, or by inserting useless code or simply comments.

The code example is written in a programming language that looks similar to {{w|Python (programming language)|Python}}, but with the keyword “define” instead of “def” to define functions. Python was previously featured in comic [[353: Python]].

Additionally, the first two functions defined implement “zero” and “successor”, the two basic operations of {{w|Peano axioms|Peano arithmetic}}. Presumably, the programmer will next implement natural number addition, then integers, then whichever branches of mathematics the original problem needs, all from scratch.

The title text refers to the concept of "Reverse Golf", a variation on golf where the aim is to take as many strokes as possible to get the ball in the hole. As it states that he has been playing for years, across the country, the distance traveled with the ball would have been quite large. However, most golf courses have protective fencing (or a hedge at the least) to stop the ball moving out of the intended play area. Launching the ball over the fence would require a ramp, rebounded ball or a hook shot to clear the fence. After this, the player would be able to freely golf the ball, but authorities would be alerted to somebody playing golf in the streets, detaining the player. In another scenario, where the player is not detained, the round could possibly go on for years, as stated in the title text.

Interestingly, the comic ends with an unmatched left parenthesis, something which might be intended to [[859|create unresolved tension]].

==Transcript==
:[There is code written as text in a black box:]
:define callMeIshmaelSomeYearsAgoNeverMindHowLongPrecisely():
::return 0
:define havingLittleOrNoMoneyInMyPurseAndNothingParticular(toInterestMeOnShoreIThoughtIWouldSail):
::return 1+toInterestMeOnShoreIThoughtIWouldSail
:define aLittleAndSeeTheWateryPartOfTheWorld(

:[Caption under the black box:]
:My hobby: Reverse Code Golf

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Programming]]

1167: Star Trek into Darkness

2017-12-26T00:52:39Z

YMS: /* Trivia */ Redirect deleted in 2016

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

==Explanation==

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

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

[[Cueball]] changes the title so that every other letter is capitalized, and adds framing tildes and asterisks (a common, but childish and ugly way of emphasizing titles online). This will probably not go over well.

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

The title text indicates Randall's belief that such arguments are perpetual and will always arise. He suggests that the edit to the Wikipedia page will result in a dispute over variants of Cueballs "compromise". Because the lowercase "L" and the capital "I" appear similar in many fonts, he also puts forth the potential argument that the character in the movie's title is a lowercase "L".

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

{{comic discussion 1167}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Star Trek]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]
[[Category:Compromise]]

1536: The Martian

2017-12-25T18:10:06Z

YMS: Box office results

{{comic
| number = 1536
| date = June 10, 2015
| title = The Martian
| image = the_martian.png
| titletext = I have never seen a work of fiction so perfectly capture the out-of-nowhere shock of discovering that you've just bricked something important because you didn't pay enough attention to a loose wire.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is very excited about seeing that the trailer for ''{{w|The Martian (film)|The Martian}}'' is finally released, because he really liked the book. Cueball most likely represents [[Randall]] himself in this comic.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue4PCI0NamI This trailer] for ''The Martian'' was released on Monday the 8th June 2015, two days before this comic, although a teaser [https://youtu.be/CumZP6_9sHU "viral" trailer] had been released the previous day. The film, starring {{w|Matt Damon}} (''{{w|The Bourne Identity (film)|The Bourne Identity}}''), is directed by {{w|Ridley Scott}} (''{{w|Alien (film)|Alien}}''). It was released in the United States on October 2, 2015.

''The Martian'' is based on {{w|The Martian (Weir novel)| a book of the same name}} by {{w|Andy Weir (writer)|Andy Weir}}. The book is very popular for its funny writing, great cast of characters, and skilled use of realistic science to create drama. The plot is a cross between the film ''{{w|Apollo 13 (film)|Apollo 13}}'' and the plot of the novel ''{{w|Robinson Crusoe}}'' — but just on {{w|Mars}}.

Cueball is telling [[White Hat]] about this trailer and the book, thus White Hat asks if he should read it. Cueball then describes a scene from Apollo 13: ''You know the scene in Apollo 13 where the guy says "we have to figure out how to connect this thing to this thing using this table full of parts or the astronauts will all die?"'' And he then tells White Hat that ''The Martian'' is like that the whole way through. What is actually said in the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2YZnTL596Q mentioned scene] is: ''We gotta find a way to make this fit into the hole for this using nothing but that.'' The first part being a large square box and the other a smaller cylinder.

The film ''Apollo 13'' is based on the true historical event of the {{w|Apollo 13| Apollo 13 incident}} where the astronauts find themselves in a damaged spacecraft. They evacuated from the {{w|Apollo Command Module}}, losing all its life support systems, to the {{w|Lunar Module}} which was designed only for two people for two days instead of three people for four days. One issue the crew faced was a buildup of carbon dioxide. In order to resolve the issue, the crew needed to find a way to attach a square-shaped air-cleaning cartridge from the command module to the circular receptacle of the lunar module: literally fitting a square peg into a round hole. In one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2YZnTL596Q brief scene], the {{w|Mission Control}} staff gather together a box of items equivalent to what the crew would also have on-board and sit down with the mandate to figure out how the astronauts can connect the two with the items available to them. In that case, the ground crew took on the task of trial and error given the availability of backup supplies in case they damaged or destroyed some of the supplies. Once a working solution was devised, specific instructions were relayed to the astronauts. Cueball suggests that ''The Martian'' essentially consists primarily of the type of problem-solving shown in that scene (as was suggested by the author, Andy Weir, in [https://youtu.be/5SemyzKgaUU?t=45m56s this] interview).

In the final panel, White Hat, who probably would not be so interested in this kind of story, wonders how a novel based on that kind of seemingly cerebral and procedural problem-solving became a big-budget film starring Damon. Big-budget films are generally films with a great deal of special effects and often also action sequences likely to draw big audiences — and to gain big returns. Matt Damon has become a high-profile big-budget star known for action films like the {{w|Bourne (film series)|''Bourne'' film series}}.

'''Spoiler alert:''' 
The title text is a reference to a particular part of ''The Martian'''s story: The astronaut stranded on Mars has previously established communications with Earth by {{w|repurposing}} the {{w|Mars Pathfinder|Pathfinder}} space probe that NASA landed on Mars in 1997. While working on another piece of equipment, he accidentally subjects the probe to an electrical short-circuit, destroying its electronics and "bricking" it. "{{w|Bricking}}" is a term in consumer electronics which essentially means to cause an electronic device to become non-functional and essentially no more useful than a "brick". The term is commonly used in respect of an unrecoverable failure of {{w|software}} and often a corruption of {{w|firmware}}. An unexpected "bricking" can be very surprising, and in a case where the item is critical, could be devastating.

On the day the movie was released in the US Randall went to see it and released this comic about it: [[1585: Similarities]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting at a desk using a computer and White Hat walks in.]
:Cueball: Ooh, trailer for ''The Martian!''
:White Hat: What's that?
:Cueball: Movie of a book I liked.
:White Hat: Should I read it?

:[Cueball pivots on chair and turns away from computer to face White Hat.]
:Cueball: Depends. You know the scene in Apollo 13 where the guy says "we have to figure out how to connect ''this'' thing to ''this'' thing using ''this'' table full of parts or the astronauts will all die?
:White Hat: Yeah?

:[Cueball pivots on chair again and resumes using computer while talking. White Hat looks at his smart phone.]
:Cueball: ''The Martian'' is for people who wish the whole movie had just been more of that scene.
:White Hat: How on earth did ''that'' become a big-budget thing with Matt Damon?
:Cueball: No idea, but I'm ''so'' excited.

==Trivia==
In [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SemyzKgaUU&feature=youtu.be&t=2760 a video interview] by Adam Savage with Andy Weir the author of ''The Martian'' says that his goal was to make the whole book like the mentioned scene from ''Apollo 13'' - exactly what the comic is saying. The video was posted on YouTube the day after the xkcd comic.

In the end, ''The Martian'' likely didn't disappoint the big-budget movie makers, grossing more than $630 million against a budget of $108 million.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Space probes]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

Talk:94: Profile Creation Flowchart

2017-12-18T14:27:45Z

YMS: Natalie Dee

The [http://www.nataliedee.com/index.php?date=010806 Natalie Dee comic 956] is titled (or labelled) "this one goes out to xxcrazypixie1987xx", i.e. (apart from case) exactly the title text of this comic. Dee was published some months after xkcd (August 2006 instead of April 2006), but if the date stamp in the URL is correct still a few days before xkcd's [[143: Parody Week: TFD and Natalie Dee]] was published. Not sure if this is common Natalie Dee folklore or if it's worth mentioning in the explanation here (and maybe also at #143, then). --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 14:27, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

1756: I'm With Her

2017-12-10T20:14:49Z

YMS: /* Sad comics */ spelling

{{comic
| number = 1756
| date = November 7, 2016
| title = I'm With Her
| image = im_with_her.png
| titletext = We can do this.
}}
{{TOC}}
==Explanation==
In this serious, ''no joke'', comic released the day before the {{w|2016 United States presidential election}} (which was more contentious than most, due in part to many people finding both candidates unusually distasteful), [[Randall]] urged his American viewership to vote, and showed his {{w|Political endorsement|endorsement}} for {{w|Hillary Clinton}}, the {{w|US Democratic Party|Democratic}} nominee in the election. She was up against the {{w|US Republican Party|Republican}} nominee {{w|Donald Trump}}, who ended up winning. For the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned that there were also nominees from other parties, including {{w|Green Party of the United States|Green Party}} nominee {{w|Jill Stein}}, and {{w|Libertarian Party (United States)|Libertarian}} nominee {{w|Gary Johnson}}. Neither hoped to garner enough votes to become president, but there was a chance {{w|spoiler candidate|they could affect the result}} in some states (no third-party candidate has ''won'' a state since {{w|United_States_presidential_election,_1968|1968}} - and it did not occur this time either - the closest any came in 2016 was independent candidate {{w|Evan McMullin}} in Utah.)

It was the second time Randall referred to this election, the first being [[1748: Future Archaeology]] three weeks before the election, but here it was just a wish to know the result using time travel (of course he did not learn the result back then…).

The "H" with an arrow was {{w|Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016|Clinton's campaign}} logo, and '''I'm with her''' an official slogan that was widely used by her supporters, hence the title. Randall then lists tips to help you cast your vote ([[#How to help|see table below]]) suggesting a personal investment in the election. Clinton herself may be represented by [[Blondie]] sitting on top of the H looking out at the reader as the only of the 11 characters. The only type of joke in the comic is the chosen characters. Two with weapons flank the left and right side looking out ready to defend against Trump. Both are from earlier comic. Especially [[Ponytail]] with a ray gun (the one she also wielded in [[322: Pix Plz]]). The gun is for melting computers of persons that make snide remarks at women, clearly a reference to {{w|Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations|Donald Trump's sexual harassment of women}} in general and especially to his ''grab them by the pussy'' {{w|Donald Trump and Billy Bush recording|comment}}. [[Cueball]] with his weapon is from [[303: Compiling]]. See more details in the [[#Character gallery|character gallery]] below.

This is the first time Randall has used a comic to directly support a presidential campaign, although he did [https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/01/28/obama/ endorse] {{w|Barack Obama}} in 2008 on his [[Blag]]. He wrote himself later that it was very controversial when he endorsed Obama, but that it was not the most [[388:_Fuck_Grapefruit#Controversy|controversial comic he had published]] at that time. This comic might take that prize now, given that this was one of the most discussed elections up to its time. This is particularly noteworthy outside the US - for example, some European leaders openly opposed Trump, while others supported him. There were also reports of Russian hackers attempting to influence the election.

Randall's support for Hillary Clinton may have been due in part to Donald Trump {{w|Donald_Trump#Healthcare.2C_education_and_environment|being a prominent}} {{w|climate change denier}}. Randall has published comics opposing climate change denial such as this: [[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]], published less than two month before the election, as well as several other [[:Category:Climate change|comics on climate change]]. Also Trump beating Clinton made Randall's [[1313: Regex Golf|regex that matches the last names of elected US presidents but not their opponents]] impossible to update.

All the information on the bottom half of the comic includes sites, numbers, info, etc., current as of 2016, that are intended to help US voters to vote, regardless of whom they vote for. Including this information can assist voters who don't understand the process, don't feel that it's worth it, or feel intimidated or threatened. In general, these sites and numbers were likely included to help boost voter turnout.

The title text, which states that "We can do this" refers to Randall's desire to unite Democratic voters and elect Hillary Clinton to the White House instead of Trump. It is possible to [https://www.lookhuman.com/design/86542-hillary-clinton-we-can-do-it/tshirt buy t-shirts] with the famed {{w|We Can Do It!}} logo from the "Rosie the Riveter" wartime poster, but with Hillary Clinton in the famed position. However this is not quite the same "We can do this" sentence that Randall uses. "We can do this" (or in German, "[https://www.dict.cc/?s=Wir+schaffen+das+%5BAngela+Merkel%5D Wir schaffen das]") was also the catchphrase of the German Chancellor {{w|Angela Merkel}} during the recent influx of refugees from the Syrian War — like Clinton, Merkel was fighting against {{w|Pegida|a populist nativist movement}} that wanted to close the country's borders.

Unfortunately for Randall, these efforts were in vain, as {{w|Donald Trump}} (another populist nativist who wants to close the country's borders) was elected on Tuesday, November 8, falsifying the title-text. This result became a fact less than two week before the first ([[1761: Blame]]) of [[#Sad comics|several sad comics]] that all seemed related to the election of Donal Trump.

===How to help===
The list of things that can help is all about getting people to vote. While Randall is likely to have wanted to boost voter turnout regardless of political leanings, it's clear from his endorsement of Clinton that he believed increased turnout would have helped her win the race. There is general evidence that certain more heavily Democratic-leaning demographics are less likely to vote, and in this election in particular, the various political issues that had been raised against Hillary (such as the {{w|Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI's}} public disclosures of its investigation into her use of a private email server) were shown to have reduced enthusiasm among Democrats. But all these issues aside, both Republicans and Democrats alike agree on encouraging everyone to vote, and Randall is likely to have agreed with that sentiment as well.

Here is Randall's list of suggestions for how to help Hillary Clinton win the election:
{|class="wikitable"
!What to do
!How to do it
!Explanation
|-
|Vote
|[https://iwillvote.com/ iwillvote.com]
|A site to look up polling locations, ID requirements, etc.
|-
|Get a ride to the polls:
|[http://www.drive2vote.org/ drive2vote.org]
|For voters in Douglas and Sarpy County, Nebraska, who needed a ride to the polls from {{w|Warren Buffett}} or his friends.
|-
|If you're having problems voting
|[http://www.866ourvote.org/ 866-OUR-VOTE]
|Racism or other biases on the part of people running polling places is a real issue for minorities. Though it is illegal, people may lie or deny rights to would-be-voters who they believe will not vote for the candidate they agree with. In some instances, voters may require backup from someone with legal understanding to get to vote, which is a service this phone number provides. Since Donald Trump has suggested that unofficial {{w|poll watchers}} should patrol voting stations - which has been described as potential [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/05/election-day-violence-donald-trump-poll-watchers voter intimidation] - this has been an especially widely discussed topic in this election. The phone number written out as numbers is (866) 687-8683
|-
|Experimental social turnout project
|[http://www.civicinnovation.com/ civicinnovation.com] App Store: VoteWithMe
|An app which "gives you a list of the top 10 highest-impact potential voters in your address book to get in touch with -- based on the likelihood that they support progressive candidates, and that they live in states with the most competitive races". This app is for Android and iOS, with the App Store ID as "VoteWithMe". The "VoteWithMe" app is created by Civic Innovation Works and "uses publicly available voter records to predict which of your contacts are likely to support Democratic candidates, but might not have a plan to vote", as it says on its [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/votewithme/id1170104517/ App Store Page].
|-
|Reminder:
|If you're in line when the polls close, they have to let you vote.
|This is correct, as is printed on most election pamphlets as part of the ''Voters' Bill of Rights'', as well as being cited on numerous sources online (eg [http://votersedge.kqed.org/en/ca/ballot/election/area/42/section/voting-info?id=statewide-42-ca#section-my-rights-as-a-voter here].) Being turned down for trying to vote after the polling place is officially closed (if you were already in line ''when'' the polls closed) might be an instance where you want to use the phone number mentioned above.
|}

===Character gallery===
The comic shows a gallery of 11 xkcd characters including all the main characters from xkcd (except [[Hairy]]), which stand united behind Randall and Clinton despite their lack of agreement in many other comics.

*From left to right on the left side of the H are: 
**[[Ponytail]] with a ray gun (the one she also wielded in [[322: Pix Plz]], a comic where she was named Joanna). The gun it for melting computers of persons that make snide remarks at women, clearly a reference to {{w|Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations|Donald Trump's sexual harassment of women}} in general and especially to his Grab Pussy comment.
**[[Black Hat]] (who was the one introducing Joanna/Ponytail in the mentioned comic)
**[[Danish]] (Black Hat's girlfriend setting up a kite for him, although it could be Megan, but she is also shown later with her regular shorter hair). However it has mainly been Megan in comics with kites, like [[235: Kite]] and [[1614: Kites]]. Kites are a [[:Category:Kites|recurring theme]] on xkcd.
**[[White Hat]] looking at the kite.
*On top of the H are:
**[[Blondie]] (looking out at us, maybe representing Clinton herself)
**[[Megan]] (next to Cueball)
**[[Cueball]] (forming the standard couple in xkcd with Megan)
**[[Hairbun]] with glasses (so specifically not the one from the previous comic [[1755: Old Days]], but rather like in [[1637: Salt Mine]]).
*On the right side of the H are:
**[[Science Girl]] (The adult version of her, is holding her hand out towards a cute squirrel. Of course she could also be the girl from [[635: Locke and Demosthenes]] where the squirrel is poisoned...)
**[[Beret Guy]] is holding a squirrel out towards Science Girl. (The first time squirrels was mentioned was actually when Beret Guy found them in a tree in [[167: Nihilism]] and since then they have become a [[:Category:Squirrels|recurring theme]] on xkcd and a similar squirrel can for instance be seen in [[1503: Squirrel Plan]]. Beret Guy has not been seen together with a squirrel before, but has been shown to care for animals, for instance in [[614: Woodpecker]]).
**[[:Category:Multiple Cueballs|Another Cueball]] is standing on an office chair wielding a sword as he was shown in [[303: Compiling]]. (Interestingly enough the previous comic [[1755: Old Days]] was about Cueball asking Hairbun about {{w|compiling}} in the old days. Seems realistic that Randall has this comic ready for this Monday before the election for some time, and when finding this 9 year old version of Cueball in the old comics, he may have gotten inspired to make a comic about compiling in the old days).

Note that the two characters at either side of the comic wields weapons pointing out defending the other nine. Those next to the characters with weapons are doing recreational things like kiting and admiring adorable squirrels, both are recurring subjects in xkcd.

==Transcript==
:[Eleven characters are drawn left, right and on top of a huge H with an arrow as the horizontal bar connecting the two vertical towers. The arrow breaks the right part of the H. It represents the logo from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign for 2016. From left to right on the left side of the H are Ponytail with an exotic looking futuristic ray gun like weapon looking to the left away from the H and the others. Behind her is Black Hat who looks at a girl that might be Danish or Megan (but with longer hair than Megan typically has). She is setting up a kite that flies above the first two characters. Behind her and looking up at the kite is White Hat. The H is right behind him, and on top of the left tower of the H sits Blondie looking straight out at the reader with her legs dangling over the edge and her arms resting on her knees. On the arrow between the two H towers sits Megan leaning against the left H tower, also dangling her legs over the edge and arms resting on her knees. Cueball is standing to her right, just left of the right H tower. On top of the right H towers sits Hairbun with glasses looking straight right with her legs dangling over the edge one arm resting on a knee and leaning back on the other arm. On the right side of the H is an adult version of Science Girl holding a hand out towards the squirrel which Beret Guy is holding out in both arms towards her. Behind them is another Cueball standing on an office chair holding a sword high up in front of him to the right away from the others. He keeps his balance by holding his other arm out behind him. Below the H there is a large caption.]
:<big><big><big>H</big></big></big>
: <big><big>I'm with her.</big></big>

:[Below the panel there are several lines of text. The first header line refers to the next four lines with solutions to problems, title/problem on one side then a long dash and the web-link or other information on the right side of that. Below those there is a reminder.]
:<big>How to help</big>
:Vote - iwillvote.com
:Get a ride to the polls - drive2vote.org
:If you're having problems voting - 866-OUR-VOTE
:Experimental social turnout project - civicinnovation.com App Store: VoteWithMe

:<big>Reminder:</big>
:If you're in line when the polls close, they have to let you vote.

==Trivia==
*Despite securing more votes, Hillary Clinton lost the election in the {{w|Electoral college (United States)|electoral college}}.
**She did win in {{w|Massachusetts}} (Randall's home state), but that was never really in any doubt.
*The fact that Trump was elected instead is likely the reason for several comics with a bad mood released after this and until at least just past the day Trump was inaugurated. See [[#Sad comics|below]].

===Sad comics===
{{incomplete|It is debated whether this section is irrelevant to this comic! Should it have its own page, since it is clearly a trend that Randall posts sad/negative or even "scared" comics. And there should be a place for this list.}}



*After this comic there have been a clear trend that '''[[Randall]] has had sad thoughts''' after the {{w|United States presidential election, 2016|election}} of Trump.
**Over the next few months after the election (at least up till just after Donald Trump’s {{w|Inauguration of Donald Trump|inauguration}}) Randall has posted (at least) five comics that could be interpreted as him being sad/angry or that people around him are acting in such a way.
*Not since Randall's wife's [[:Category:Cancer|cancer diagnosis]] has there been so many sad/negative or depressing comics.
**During a two year span there were only five decidedly sad cancer comics.
**There has now been more "sad" comics in a little more than three months (November 18th 2016 to February 24th 2017), and they continued longer.
***As a comparison the year before the first sad comic there where no really sad, and only one (for real) scary comic: [[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]].
***That comic has just been made more scary as it now seems the doing nothing is no longer the worst case scenario given That Randall did not expect Trump to win. And his policy of denying climate change, will probably make it even worse than if we did nothing.
***So this is another good reason why Randall would begin to post sad comics after the election. He is likely really scared the climate will be beyond saving once Trump leaves office. And it may be for a good reason. See about the comic [[#Sad|Sad]] below from after Trump became president.
**Hopefully Randall is not so depressed for real as the comics below could suggest.
*Note that none of these sad comics, also including this one, directly mentions Trump at all.
**But this comic indirectly references him as the opponent of the one Randall is with, and all the other comics could be interpreted as being about something that could have come about because of this election result.
**But the connection is not only inferred from the mood. Three comics where released close to some important day on Donald Trump's way to becoming president and another was the New Year comic, thus representing going into the year where Trump actually becomes president. And the fifth was during the days when the first executive order of Trump was overruled (see more below under [[#Focus Knob|Focus Knob]])).
*If more related comics appears they can be listed here below. Then update the above section regarding dates and number of comics.
**They are collected here since these comics are not easily collected under a specific category.
**Also since the connection to Trump and the election is circumstantial in the sad comics, this trivia has been put on this comics page. Though this is not in it self one of the really sad comics, this comic definitely relates to Trump and Randall's stance regarding him becoming president.
**After April there seem to be now more sad comics related to the election. But in August a week before the solar Eclipse the election was mentioned in [[1876: Eclipse Searches]]. This comic has been included here to mark the what seems to be the ending of references to the election and Trumps actions.
*Here below follows a list of the comics related to these sad comics.
**Relations (if any) between the release day and the comics will also be listed.
**The links points here below to an explanation why each comic is listed here:
*[[#I'm With Her|I'm With Her]] (not one of the sad, thus not numbered)
#[[#Blame|Blame]]
#[[#Negativity|Negativity]]
#[[#2017|2017]]
#[[#Sad|Sad]]
#[[#Focus Knob|Focus Knob]]
#[[#Phone|Phone]]
#[[#Location Reviews|Location Reviews]]
#[[#Vomiting Emoji|Vomiting Emoji]]
#[[#Flag|Flag]]
#[[#Security Advice|Security Advice]]
#[[#Identification Chart|Identification Chart]]
#[[#Eclipse Searches|Eclipse Searches]]
#[[#October 2017|October 2017]]

====I'm With Her====
*[[1756: I'm With Her]] (This comic)
**2016-11-07: The day before the election:
***It all began when Randall urged his American viewership to vote in the election the day after this comic was released.
***Here he clearly showed his {{w|Political endorsement|endorsement}} for {{w|Hillary Clinton}}, the {{w|US Democratic Party|Democratic}} nominee in the election.
***Although this is not directly sad, he included two weapon carrying defenders on either side of the comic.
***One of these was [[Ponytail]] with a ray gun (the one she also wielded in [[322: Pix Plz]]). The gun is for melting computers of persons that make snide remarks at women, clearly a reference to {{w|Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations|Donald Trump's sexual harassment of women}} in general and especially to his ''grab them by the pussy'' {{w|Donald Trump and Billy Bush recording|comment}}.
***Randall has often made comics against women harassment before (see for a great example in [[1027: Pickup Artist]]).

====Blame====
*[[1761: Blame]]
**2016-11-18: Ten days after the election.
***This is the first really sad comic in which [[Cueball]] actually begins by stating that: ''I feel sad!'' a clear relation to [[1790: Sad]] (the fourth sad comic after I'm With Her, see below).
***This is likely due to all the angry and scared comments of Cueball’s Facebook friends, and he thus decides to blame them rather than what they are angry about.
***It took some days before Randall posted anything that could be said to have relation to the election, but the defeat of Hillary may have taken some time to digest.
***Also the reactions to Trump’s victory on Facebook needed to build up over time before this comic.
***Furthermore there was also some uncertainty to begin with if some states would call for a re-vote etc.
***Still it was only the fifth comic after his campaign for Hillary failed.

====Negativity====
*[[1773: Negativity]]
**2016-12-16: Three days before the {{w|U.S. Electoral College}} voted for {{w|Donald Trump}} to become the 45th president of the United States.
***The first comic with a really negative title. (Like ''Sad'' (see below), although ''Blame'' is of course a negatively loaded word, the comic did not need to be so sad as it was).
***This comic and ''Blame'' could be seen as a small series as Cueball blames his friends on Facebook in the first comic, and then goes outside to avoid all the negativity online in the second, probably worsened for him after he blamed his Facebook friends because: ''Bad thing are happening''.
***Only it does not work because even the grass is after him.
***At the time of the comics release there was still some rumors/hopes that the {{w|Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016|some of the electors would not vote for Trump}}. (But only two changed away from Trump!)

====2017====
*[[1779: 2017]]
**2016-12-30: The [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]] – a transition to the year when Donald Trump would become president.
***Even the comic "celebrating" New Year was depressive and it was the first time that a New Year comic had such a depressive mood.
***Cueball and [[Megan]] discuss if 2016 could end up as having been better than 2017 since all the bad thing happening in 2016 would first really take effect in 2017.
***The biggest of these would be Trump becoming president, but also {{w|Brexit}} and a lot of {{w|2016#Deaths|dead famous people}} would be troublesome. None of these events (or any other specifically bad event of 2016 are cited in the comic).
***Randall tries to make a happy twist by saying that maybe some unexpected good would come in 2017 as most of the sad events (just mentioned) was not expected to happen.
***But hopping for this in the face of what awaits is difficult so he retorts to just hoping ''they'' won’t cancel the {{w|Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017|2017 solar eclipse}}.
***Fearing (for real) that astronomical events like this being canceled would call for you to be very depressed. Of course Randall doesn’t fear for this in real life, but it puts a perspective on the other parts of the comic.
***Although the eclipse will certainly happen on August 21st 2017 Randall may still miss it, even if he is in the right place, as the weather could always be overcast and then ruin the experience.
***So the worry that he will miss it is real and had also been mentioned three years earlier in [[1302: Year in Review]].

====Sad====
*[[1790: Sad]]
**2017-01-25: Five days after Donald Trump’s {{w|Inauguration of Donald Trump|inauguration}}.
***This was the comic that sparked this section, with the title really being ''[[#Sad comics|Sad]]''.
***The title "Sad" is a common interjection in Trump's tweets. The time-frame of "the past few months" from the first panel is consistent with this, as the election was on November 8, 2016, and the comic was posted on January 25, 2017 four days after Donald Trump's inauguration as 45th president of the United States on January 20, 2017.
***This was only the second comic released after the inauguration the Friday before this comics Wednesday release.
***Although it could be said that Trump first took office Monday (before this Wednesday comic) he already began signing {{w|Decree|decrees}} (or {{w|Executive order|executive orders}}) on Friday January 20th {{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Immediate_regulatory_freeze_pending_review|within a few hours}} after becoming president.
****{{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Policy|Most of these}} would make it even worse for those already sad about him becoming president, because they could now see that he really meant all the things he promised (which is not always the case in politics!)
****Up to the day this comic was released (January 25th) it would already be drastic things like the {{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Mexican_border_wall|Mexican border wall}} (on the day of the comics release), the {{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Withdrawal_of_Affordable_Care_Act|withdrawal of Affordable Care Act}}, the approval of the {{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Dakota_Access_and_the_Keystone_XL_pipelines|Dakota Access and the Keystone XL pipelines}} (which would be troublesome for an [[:Category:Climate change|environmentalist]] as Randall as {{w|Dakota_Access_Pipeline#Environmental_concerns|both}} {{w|Pipeline_transport#Oil_and_natural_gas|oil pipes}} {{w|Keystone_Pipeline#Environmental_issues|have}} environmental issues) and the {{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Mexico_City_Policy|Mexico City Policy}} regarding stopping any help to poor women abroad with regards to information or any other way helping with {{w|abortion}}.
***The actual reasons for Ponytail's frustrations and depression aren't dwelt on and the focus is on her retreat into video games and the damage it's doing to her work projects.
****The video game she plays is referenced again only seven comics later in [[1797: Stardew Valley]], thus showing this game is on Randall's mind, and that he might be using this to avoid thinking of the things that makes him sad.
****This fits with the [[#Focus Knob|next sad comic]] mentioned below, coming out just before ''Stardew Valley'', where Randall focuses on his e-mail settings rather than the big picture.
***It might appear to be non-political, the reference to {{w|PolitiFact.com|PolitiFact}}, however, makes it clear that she is thinking on politics, and the fact checking of most of Trump's claims
****This is another indication that one of her troubles is Trump's leniency with the truth in both election campaign and after, to the point where lies are now on a daily basis just called {{w|alternative facts}} or {{w|Post-truth_politics#United_States|post-truth}}.
****His statements would often turns out to be ''Pants on Fire!'' on the PolitiFact scale.
****See more on Politifact.com the earlier comic [[1712: Politifact]] from during the election campaign
*****By the way apart from the ''Politifact'' comic and ''I’m with Her'' then the only other direct reference to the election during the {{w|United_States_presidential_election,_2016#General_election_campaign|election campaign}} was in [[1748: Future Archaeology]], where Randall expressed interest in knowing the result of the election in advance.
***Seeing that this comic is about Ponytail being sad, the woman who in the first comic on this list was standing with a weapon to defend herself against condescending men (like Trump) and that one of the first decrees Trump signed, was regarding removal of support for abortion abroad, she can see that she still have good reason (especially as a woman) to being sad as she has been these past few months.

====Focus Knob====
*[[1796: Focus Knob]]
**2017-02-08: Less than three weeks after Donald Trump’s inauguration, only six comics after the previous Sad comic.
***Although this comic may look like an easy joke, there is ''panic and existential paralysis'' if you turn your focus more than two thirds towards the big picture (of the world).
****For instance during the days just before this comics release an {{w|Legal_challenges_to_Executive_Order_13769#State_of_Washington_v._Trump|American judge}} (February 3rd) and two days later {{w|Legal_challenges_to_Executive_Order_13769#Proceedings in the Ninth Circuit|several big companies}} went against {{w|Executive Order 13769|Trump's decision}} of banning people from seven countries from entering USA.
****There have thus been many reasons to panic since his inauguration if one follows the news in any way.
***In the comic the detail oriented side is indicated to be a focus on his e-mail settings. But as it was shown already in the next comic [[1797: Stardew Valley]], there are also video games that can help you take your mind off the real world.
****This also relates back to [[#Sad|Sad]] where the same game was mentioned a week before.

====Phone====
*[[1802: Phone]]
**2017-02-22: During the days before this comic, Trump has promised to make a {{w|Executive_Order_13769#Proposed_related_Executive_Order|related Executive Order}} regarding the banning of people from the same seven countries from entering USA, as was ruled illegal around the time of the [[#Focus Knob|last]] of these comics.
***The sadness is not so clear in this comic, but the conclusion in the title text that it is both bad to hear all the scary news and to disconnect in order avoid them seems rather sad. It is a lose/lose situation.
****This also seems related to the problem of finding the right balance mentioned in [[#Focus Knob|Focus Knob]].
***The idea of going for a walk with the phone, thus not avoiding the news feed, is the exact opposite idea of [[#Negativity|Negativity]], where going outside was to avoid the negativity on the internet. Neither of the idea seems to work.

====Location Reviews====
*[[1803: Location Reviews]]
**2017-02-24: Second comic in a row, this one could be a reaction to the cold relationship between Russia and the United States, that became worse a few weeks before this comic.
***Two weeks prior to this comics release [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/world/europe/russia-cruise-missile-arms-control-treaty.html?_r=0 Russia Deploys Missile, Violating Treaty and Challenging Trump].
***In this comic a Nuclear Launch Facility is reviewed on a Google Map and the last of the reviewers pleads ''Please don't launch these''. Another notices the lack of security as there is a hole in the fence. (See more in the [[1803:_Location_Reviews#Reviews|reviews explanation]] and [[1803:_Location_Reviews#Politics|here]]).

====Vomiting Emoji====
*[[1813: Vomiting Emoji]]
**2017-03-20: The day of this comics release [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/public-editor/trump-russia-fbi-liz-spayd-public-editor.html?_r=0 stories] about Trump's connection with Russia and the word treason was mentioned, and the stories got [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/opinion/theres-a-smell-of-treason-in-the-air.html worse] during the week that followed.
***In this comic six vomiting emoji has been created. Most of them can be connected to the situation in USA.
***A vomiting cowboy, could represents the Americans that votes for Trump but now has regretted it.
***Vomiting Statue of Liberty speaks for it self...
***Vomiting peace dove a clear reference to the fear of Nuclear War, as is the rocket below
***Vomiting Moon, the only one that is not clearly connected in any way with this situation. Although Randall has expressed fear that the moon will be gone before the Eclipse this summer, see [[#2017|above]].
***Vomiting rocket ship, see peace dove above.
***Vomiting Hand, could be a reference to the way Trump always holds up his hand in a special way, which is likely to cause nausea in those that really detest what he stands for.

====Flag====
*[[1815: Flag]]
**2017-03-24: On this day {{w|Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act#2017|Trump failed}} to get a vote through for removing/changing {{w|Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act|Obamacare}} which was expected. But had it succeeded Randall might have wished for a departure from Trumps states (see below).
***The comic depicts a flag similar in style to the {{w|Flag of the United States|Stars and Stripes}}, and explains he was asked to create it for a new country.
***This seems like a reference to the fact that some have talked about states leaving the USA due to the election of Trump ({{w|California}} for [http://www.yescalifornia.org/ instance]).
***This flag with three stars could thus be Randall's thoughts on this, maybe the three small states in New England; {{w|Massachusetts}}, where he lives, {{w|Connecticut}} and {{w|Rhode Island}} could break free and form their own small state union.

====Security Advice====
*[[1820: Security Advice]]
**2017-04-05: No special event seems related.
***There are two references to what to do when crossing a border, and especially that last tip could be related to the increasing border control caused by Donald Trump's election:
***''If a border guard asks to examine your laptop, you have a legal right to challenge them to a chess game for your soul.''

====Identification Chart====
*[[1824: Identification Chart]]
**2017-04-17: No special event seems related.
***Once again reference to the military like in [[#Location Reviews|Location Reviews]].
***In the title text hostility between fighter-plane like birds that are territorial are mentioned.

====Eclipse Searches====
*[[1876: Eclipse Searches]]
**2017-08-14: A week before the total {{w|solar eclipse}} occurring on Monday, {{w|Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017|August 21, 2017}}.
***This is not a sad comic, but it refers directly to the election day regarding media interest and searches on Google, which makes it the first in almost four month referring back to the election or the result of said election.
***For that reason alone it is included here. It seems that Randall has stopped focusing on Trump and his actions.

====October 2017====
*[[1898: October 2017]]
**2017-10-04: A month before the similar titles comic [[1757: November 2016]], released the day after the election, both of which had the subject [[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|to make one feel old]].
***The comic mentions a movie that is already 7 years old, to make one feel old.
***But in the title text it refers directly to the election stating that so much has happened (because of this) that it is hard to believe that not even a year has passed since the election itself. However Election 2016 includes the active campaigning which led up to it, starting well before the first state primary election in February 2016.
***It thus still seems that Randall can be sad about the election results, although it was only the second reference to it in almost half a year.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]] 
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Kites]]
[[Category:Squirrels]]

1214: Geoguessr

2017-12-09T18:40:14Z

YMS: Links to the Parthenons

{{comic
| number = 1214
| date = May 20, 2013
| title = Geoguessr
| image = geoguessr.png
| titletext = I'm not sure if you can get Epcot, but my friend just got LegoLand. He guessed California but it was the one in Denmark. Meanwhile, I'm rapidly becoming a connoisseur of unmarked dirt roads over flat, barren landscapes.
}}

==Explanation==
[//Geoguessr.com Geoguessr] is a game in which the player is given a location in {{w|Google Street View}} and asked to guess precisely where in the world they are, by clicking on a map of the world, based only on the 360 degree view in the Street View display.

Cueball is upset because he keeps making his guesses based on landmarks and his guesses end up being wrong because the landmark he based his guess off of was actually a replica of the real one (the {{Wikipedia|Parthenon (Nashville)|Parthenon in Nashville}}, which is more than 9000 kilometers or 5600 miles away from the {{Wikipedia|Parthenon|Greek original}}).

Of course, from a statistical perspective, this makes sense: For every famous object, there are countless replicas; however, most people will be familiar with the specific location of the original object; and the vast majority of famous objects (except a few notable works of art) exist in only one place in the world. Take the {{w|Statue of Liberty}}, for instance- though the original is based in New York City, it has {{w|Replicas of the Statue of Liberty|hundreds of replicas all over the planet}}.

However, as the title text alludes to, you're far more likely to find a dirt road than to find anything recognizable, since Google Street View maps roads more than anything else (hence its name). Becoming a connoisseur of such a mundane thing is a reference to [[915: Connoisseur]].

Anyone who's ever played with Geoguessr knows, also, that seemingly helpful clues can sometimes be useless. For instance, if you recognize {{w|Cyrillic script}} on a sign, the countries using Cyrillic script such as Bulgaria, Mongolia, Belorussia, Ukraine and Russia actually encompasses an enormous area, so unless you can recognize a specific region, there's no obvious place to guess where you can hope to get high points. Unlike somewhere like England, where guessing London is guaranteed to put you within reasonable distance from a global perspective. {{w|Legoland}} is a good example of this: If you can't tell if you're in Denmark or California, it's not like you can just guess halfway between and do well.

==Transcript==
:Cueball: This one's easy; There's {{w|Parthenon|the Parthenon}}. {{w|Athens}}.
: *''CLICK''*
:Cueball: What!? Why the hell is there a Parthenon in ''{{w|Nashville}}''?
: *''CLICK''*
:Cueball: OK, I'm ''clearly'' in {{w|Germany}}.
: *''CLICK''*
:Cueball: Dammit, Germany Pavilion at {{w|Epcot}}.
:My scores in Geoguessr would be higher if people quit building replicas of everything.

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

880: Headache

2017-12-09T11:50:15Z

YMS: /* Explanation */ linked 848: 3D

{{comic
| number = 880
| date = April 1, 2011
| title = Headache
| image = headache.png
| titletext = I'm only willing to visit placid lakes, salt flats, and painting exhibits until the world's 3D technology improves.
}}

==Explanation==
Some people suffer from headaches, eyestrain, motion sickness and other problems when watching {{w|3D film|3D movies}}, playing 3D games, watching {{w|3D television}}, playing hand-held {{w|Nintendo 3DS}}, etc.

In this comic, Cueball is using the excuse that 3D gives him a headache to get out of going outside into the real world, where ''everything'' is in {{w|Three-dimensional space|3D}}. Instead he stays inside and looks at his 2D computer monitor. In the title text, he says he will only go to flat places (i.e. places where everything he could see would be 2D-like).

This comic was released on {{w|April Fools' Day}}. The April fools joke for 2011 made every comic on the site 3D, thus forcing people like Cueball to endure 3D even at their computer screens. An exception to this is [[848: 3D]], for which the third dimension is not visible. The 3D view is still available at [http://xk3d.xkcd.com/ xk3d.xkcd.com] for all comics prior to this one.

In his [https://vimeo.com/78912850 Øredev 2013 talk] [[Randall]] mentions that a few of his friends created this 3D view and told him just 1.5 hours before the scheduled comic for that day would go live. [[Randall]] quickly drew a 3D themed comic to match.

==Transcript==
:[Megan has a bike, and is wearing a helmet. Cueball is at a computer.]
:Megan: Wanna go for a bike ride?
:Cueball: Nah, I hate 3D stuff. It gives me a headache.
:When you think about it, this excuse can get you out of almost anything.

==Trivia==
*When clicking the 'next' or 'latest' buttons on the xk3d site, a blue [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_teapot Utah-teapot] appears, in random locations and sizes, instead of proceeding. Attempting to proceed beyond via manually pointing the URL elsewhere is not supported.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]

848: 3D

2017-12-09T11:48:21Z

YMS: /* Explanation */ links

{{comic
| number = 848
| date = January 17, 2011
| title = 3D
| image = 3d.png
| titletext = The LINACs in the glasses frames can barely manage one MeV. You should've gone to the screening at CERN.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|String theory}} hypothesizes that there are many more than 3 dimensions, it's just that we can't see the rest because they're "rolled up." A common metaphor is an ant on a tightrope — it has two degrees of freedom, one along the rope and one around it, but from far away we can only see one.

So [[Black Hat]] released his 2D movie about string theory in "3D", and claimed that the third dimension was there — just too small to see.

The title text refers to {{w|linear particle accelerators}}, or "LINACs," which are used to create high-energy particles. Incidentally, the glasses give their particles one mega-electronvolt (symbol {{w|MeV}}) of energy, which is not particularly high for a particle accelerator. The title text suggests that such moviegoers should try the accelerators at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, {{w|CERN}}, since they are widely known for producing the highest energies in the millions of MeV, and thus have the best chance of unraveling the small dimensions of string theory.

On the [http://xk3d.xkcd.com/848/ xk3d prank site] created along with [[880: Headache]], the 3D on this comic is not visible.

==Transcript==
:[People are lined up to see a movie.]
:Premiering Tonight:
:String Theory:
:An Exposé
:Presented In 3D!

:[The people are in a dark theater, fiddling with their glasses.]
:''???''

:[The people approach black hat guy, who's sitting at a desk.]
:Megan: Your movie was a ripoff.
:Cueball: It wasn't 3D at all!
:Black Hat: Was too.
:Black Hat: It's just that the third dimension is tightly rolled up and too small to observe at normal energies.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:1071: Exoplanets

2017-12-09T09:25:33Z

YMS: Number of exoplanets

Hmm... this comic and 786 have the same title. Is that a mistake? [[User:Castriff|Jimmy C]] ([[User talk:Castriff|talk]]) 01:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
:It may very well have been on {{xkcd}} itself; there was a bit of a snafu when Randall posted the image. That's part of the reason why we decided on number+name here, to ensure that that sort of naming collision couldn't be repeated. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 04:39, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
:It's also worth mentioning that 786 is both the number of the other strip, and the number of planets in this one. [[Special:Contributions/93.144.215.90|93.144.215.90]] 22:38, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The image isn't appearing for me. I think it's a problem with the thumbnail system. [[User:Bugefun|Bugefun]] ([[User talk:Bugefun|talk]]) 18:15, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
:Same here. Using Chrome. -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 19:20, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Same on ipad. [[User:DruidDriver|DruidDriver]] ([[User talk:DruidDriver|talk]]) 07:12, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

And on Firefox. --[[Special:Contributions/68.200.188.141|68.200.188.141]] 01:01, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Not showing up in Chrome. [[User:Alpha|Alpha]] ([[User talk:Alpha|talk]]) 23:14, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

As a side note, the pace at which we're discovering exoplanets is accelerating. The first confirmed planet-sized mass outside our solar system was discovered in 1992, and it was ten years until we could celebrate the discovery of the 100th exoplanet. In the fifteen months since this comic was posted, another 156 exoplanets have been discovered (source: Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia, which lists 942 exoplanets as of 2 Sep 2013). [[User:Frijole|Frijole]] ([[User talk:Frijole|talk]]) 22:41, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

There are 786 exoplanets listed in the comic, And the previous comic about exoplanets is comic 786..... Coincidence? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.222.44|108.162.222.44]] 08:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
:I think it's possible that he was waiting for the count to increase to that number to create some sort of meta-pun. With Randall, you never know, but the odds of that happening independently seems unfathomable to me. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.117|108.162.238.117]] 16:12, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
:Additional comment: I believe the original filename for 768 was just "exoplanets.png" before being changed to "exoplanets_2010.png" when this comic was released. Any website that hotlinked the first comic would have their image replaced with the newest one. {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.117}}

Does anybody else see this and think colorblindness test? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.86|173.245.55.86]] 22:43, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Three levels deep.. Remind anyone of Inception?[[User:A2658742|A2658742]] ([[User talk:A2658742|talk]]) 08:36, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

This comic is referenced on exoplanet.eu, a professional site for exoplanet scientists, as the first link on a page titled "General professional Web sites relevant to extrasolar planets". The actual link goes to an interactive version of the page, but the link is at http://exoplanet.eu/sites/ labeled "Exoplanets: an interactive version of XKCD 1071".
The actual interactive page is http://codementum.org/exoplanets/ .
N. Kalanaga 13:58 (UTC-4) 10 April 2016

Was it actually 786 exoplanets known back then, or 786 planets including both the exoplanets and our own solar system? I would read the caption the latter way. This would make the number of exoplanets 778, like they also count it [https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jun/21/space-exoplanets-graphic-visualisation here] and [https://futurism.com/xkcd-planet-graphic-and-the-number-of-exoplanets/ here], while this explanation here mentions 786 exoplanets several times. --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 09:25, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

132: Music Knowledge

2017-12-02T00:25:51Z

YMS: /* Trivia */ GH III (already mentioned here) had Metallica first

{{comic
| number = 132
| date = July 24, 2006
| title = Music Knowledge
| image = music_knowledge.png
| titletext = When Guitar Hero 2 comes out I'll have fresh conversational material for MONTHS.
}}

==Explanation==
The punchline of this comic is that just by naming bands from the game {{w|Guitar Hero}}, you can sound pretty knowledgeable about music without actually knowing anything about the bands you are naming. This is further emphasized when [[Megan]] mentions {{w|Metallica}}, a very famous band that mostly everyone can be assumed to have heard of, and [[Cueball]] has no clue who they are, because Metallica is not featured in Guitar Hero (at the time of this comic writing).

In the title text, Cueball (or possibly Randall) is just hoping for a sequel to ''Guitar Hero'' to get more, and newer, conversational material.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball converse.]
:Megan: What kind of music do you listen to?
:Cueball: Oh, a mix of things. Some classic rock like Boston, but then of course Queen and Bowie, Joan Jett...
:Megan: Definitely, we need more of those sounds.
:Cueball: But there's some great newer stuff too, like Franz Ferdinand, The Donnas, and Audioslave.
:Megan: Sometimes they're a little much for me. I go more for things like The Arcade Fire, sometimes mixing some electronic sounds like Postal Service.
:Cueball: Oh yeah—have you ever checked out Freezepop?
:Megan: Mhm! Synth pop can be fun, but at the same time, I agree that sometimes you just need to blast some Metallica.
:Cueball: Who?
:Megan: ...Metallica.
:Cueball: Are they new?
:I sound pretty knowledgeable about music until people figure out that I'm just naming bands from Guitar Hero.

==Trivia==
*In his [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24#t=42m20s Google-speech] in late 2007, [[Randall]] expressed some form of dissatisfaction with ''Guitar Hero III'' (coincidentally the first edition in the series to include a Metallica song).
*In 2009, three years after this comic was released, ''Metallica'' eventually got a game {{w|Guitar Hero: Metallica}}.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Guitar Hero]]

132: Music Knowledge

2017-12-02T00:20:30Z

YMS: Undo revision 148562 by YMS (talk); already there in trivia section

{{comic
| number = 132
| date = July 24, 2006
| title = Music Knowledge
| image = music_knowledge.png
| titletext = When Guitar Hero 2 comes out I'll have fresh conversational material for MONTHS.
}}

==Explanation==
The punchline of this comic is that just by naming bands from the game {{w|Guitar Hero}}, you can sound pretty knowledgeable about music without actually knowing anything about the bands you are naming. This is further emphasized when [[Megan]] mentions {{w|Metallica}}, a very famous band that mostly everyone can be assumed to have heard of, and [[Cueball]] has no clue who they are, because Metallica is not featured in Guitar Hero (at the time of this comic writing).

In the title text, Cueball (or possibly Randall) is just hoping for a sequel to ''Guitar Hero'' to get more, and newer, conversational material.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball converse.]
:Megan: What kind of music do you listen to?
:Cueball: Oh, a mix of things. Some classic rock like Boston, but then of course Queen and Bowie, Joan Jett...
:Megan: Definitely, we need more of those sounds.
:Cueball: But there's some great newer stuff too, like Franz Ferdinand, The Donnas, and Audioslave.
:Megan: Sometimes they're a little much for me. I go more for things like The Arcade Fire, sometimes mixing some electronic sounds like Postal Service.
:Cueball: Oh yeah—have you ever checked out Freezepop?
:Megan: Mhm! Synth pop can be fun, but at the same time, I agree that sometimes you just need to blast some Metallica.
:Cueball: Who?
:Megan: ...Metallica.
:Cueball: Are they new?
:I sound pretty knowledgeable about music until people figure out that I'm just naming bands from Guitar Hero.

==Trivia==
*In his [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24#t=42m20s Google-speech] in late 2007, [[Randall]] expressed some form of dissatisfaction with ''Guitar Hero III''.
*In 2009, three years after this comic was released, ''Metallica'' eventually got a game {{w|Guitar Hero: Metallica}}.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Guitar Hero]]

132: Music Knowledge

2017-12-01T15:22:35Z

YMS: /* Explanation */ some infos about Metallica in Guitar Hero

{{comic
| number = 132
| date = July 24, 2006
| title = Music Knowledge
| image = music_knowledge.png
| titletext = When Guitar Hero 2 comes out I'll have fresh conversational material for MONTHS.
}}

==Explanation==
The punchline of this comic is that just by naming bands from the game {{w|Guitar Hero}}, you can sound pretty knowledgeable about music without actually knowing anything about the bands you are naming. This is further emphasized when [[Megan]] mentions {{w|Metallica}}, a very famous band that mostly everyone can be assumed to have heard of, and [[Cueball]] has no clue who they are, because Metallica is not featured in Guitar Hero (at the time of this comic writing; Metallica songs have been included in several sequels later, and in 2009 even a complete game ''Guitar Hero: Metallica'' was released).

In the title text, Cueball (or possibly Randall) is just hoping for a sequel to ''Guitar Hero'' to get more, and newer, conversational material.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball converse.]
:Megan: What kind of music do you listen to?
:Cueball: Oh, a mix of things. Some classic rock like Boston, but then of course Queen and Bowie, Joan Jett...
:Megan: Definitely, we need more of those sounds.
:Cueball: But there's some great newer stuff too, like Franz Ferdinand, The Donnas, and Audioslave.
:Megan: Sometimes they're a little much for me. I go more for things like The Arcade Fire, sometimes mixing some electronic sounds like Postal Service.
:Cueball: Oh yeah—have you ever checked out Freezepop?
:Megan: Mhm! Synth pop can be fun, but at the same time, I agree that sometimes you just need to blast some Metallica.
:Cueball: Who?
:Megan: ...Metallica.
:Cueball: Are they new?
:I sound pretty knowledgeable about music until people figure out that I'm just naming bands from Guitar Hero.

==Trivia==
*In his [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24#t=42m20s Google-speech] in late 2007, [[Randall]] expressed some form of dissatisfaction with ''Guitar Hero III''.
*In 2009, three years after this comic was released, ''Metallica'' eventually got a game {{w|Guitar Hero: Metallica}}.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Guitar Hero]]

1200: Authorization

2017-11-13T16:13:01Z

YMS: /* Explanation */ security advice

{{comic
| number = 1200
| date = April 17, 2013
| title = Authorization
| image = authorization.png
| titletext = Before you say anything, no, I know not to leave my computer sitting out logged in to all my accounts. I have it set up so after a few minutes of inactivity it automatically switches to my brother's.
}}

==Explanation==
Computer {{w|Operating system|operating systems}} were initially written for the business environment. Thus they were made to be accessible to multiple employees, or {{w|User (computing)|users}}, but only fully accessible to {{w|System administrator|administrators}} (or admins). Regular users can access and use {{w|Application software|programs}} on the computer, but only the admin is allowed to make changes to how the computer runs. This same split level of security continues to this day, even in privately owned, or "home", computers.

The joke here is that the most important things on a computer are no longer the programs that it runs, but the private personal data it accesses (usually online). Anyone who wished to do real mischief on an active computer could do {{w|Identity theft|considerable damage}} without ever caring what the admin password was. The admin password, in effect, now guards a vault no one cares about.

This comic pokes fun at the {{w|authorization}} mechanisms surrounding most operating systems' administrator accounts. It makes the argument that the user's data is more valuable than the integrity of the system. This is arguably true for most personal systems, although it is probably not true in a shared-server setup, where a system compromise could lead to the exposure of many users' data.

Essentially, once a user is {{w|Login|logged in}}, he or she can typically access all of his or her data without any further restriction. Modifying the operating system (for example, to install {{w|Device driver|drivers}}) requires a separate password.

In fact, this password protection also hinders installation of {{w|malware}}, which is otherwise possible even remotely, with the malware then being able to e.g. steal passwords, enabling a hacker anywhere in the world to access your accounts without ever needing to touch your computer. So having your computer set up to not to ask you for an administrator's password arguably implies a bigger risk of identity theft than allowing others to access your system physically while being logged in does.

The title text alludes to the security practice where computers automatically lock the user out after a few minutes, requiring a password from the user in order to continue using it. Instead, Randall's computer automatically switches to his brother's account, presumably compromising his data instead of Randall's.

==Transcript==
:[Diagram showing several connected rooms. One in the center says "User account on my laptop," surrounded by "Dropbox," "Photos & files," "Facebook," "Gmail," "PayPal," and "Bank," which are connected to the middle room and to each other. Below the middle room is one labeled "Admin account," which is covered in spikes, and has a door to the room above it.]
:If someone steals my laptop while I'm logged in, they can read my email, take my money, and impersonate me to my friends, but at least they can't install drivers without my permission.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Identity Theft]]

Talk:1913: A ?

2017-11-09T16:18:23Z

YMS: re

"no update can never" is logically equivalent to "any update can". Not sure if this is intentional. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.60|162.158.106.60]] 16:49, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
: Isn't it logically equivalent to "any update can ''sometimes''"? Linguistically, of course, it can be equivalent either to this, or to "no update can".[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.198|141.101.105.198]] 16:59, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
:: I think it's actually equivalent to "ALL updates can" (because if even a single update could not, the statement would be false). [[User:Jedi.jesse|Jedi.jesse]] ([[User talk:Jedi.jesse|talk]]) 05:28, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
::: But "all updates can" could imply that only applying all updates would take it away. It also doesn't deal with the temporality - "no update can never" only implies that for each update there is a point in time when it could take it away, not necessarily that any update can always take it away, nor that there is any time at which all updates could take it away. Or to summarise, trying to reduce language to terms of logic is a fool's errand. ;o)[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.198|141.101.105.198]] 09:53, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
: Or did Randall mean to type "no update can ever take this away" which makes more sense to me? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.76|172.68.54.76]] 19:08, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
: Due to the linked Wikipedia article "some dialects of English are examples of negative-concord languages", i.e. double negatives intensifies eauch other. From my experience, it isn't only some dialects but most (of American English). Same Wikipedia article also states that negative-concord are more common. (we need more mathematicians in the world.) Imho, the relevant sentence on the comic page should be deleted or strongly modified, since it's common usage. [[User:Derda17|Derda17]] ([[User talk:Derda17|talk]]) 07:05, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Is this a comment on all those moral panics about 'the youth of today can't read or write because they're only learning to speak in emojis'? And/or about developers using 'undocumented features' in their applications, so that when they're fixed it breaks those applications?[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.198|141.101.105.198]] 16:55, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

More like on how Randall appears to have strange habits. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.52|172.68.141.52]] 16:59, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Hopefully somebody will make a full tutorial on how to accomplish the title text thing.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.241|162.158.89.241]] 19:03, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
:I could do this easily on the computer with AutoHotKey (which might be overkill), but I'm not sure about iPhones, which are likely the target for the idea. iPhones have built-in text replacement, but I think you have to follow the word to be replaced with a space for it to work, rather than it working instantly (as "mapping a key on your keyboard" implies). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.26.41|172.68.26.41]] 19:15, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

The correct url for this comic would be something like [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1913:_A_%EF%BF%BD 1913:_A_%EF%BF%BD], but that is an invalid title. It would still probably be better to change it to "A ?" with a note instead of "A_%C3%AF%C2%BF%C2%BD". —[[User:Artyer|Artyer]] <big>([[User Talk:Artyer|talk]]<big>'''|'''</big>[[Special:Contributions/Artyer|ctb]])</big> 21:03, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
: I suggest using ⍰ (U+2370) instead, as it better approximates the original iOS display. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.52|172.68.54.52]] 21:25, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Interesting to note that the name of the posted image is i.png, which I guess DOES match the name of the comic? [[User:Alanbbent|Alanbbent]] ([[User talk:Alanbbent|talk]]) 22:35, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps, change the strange symbol to its HTML entity, � [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.154|108.162.249.154]] 23:00, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

A lowercase i represents the square root of negative one, so let's just say that this comic is imaginary and resolve the problem that way :-)[[Special:Contributions/162.158.59.238|162.158.59.238]] 05:46, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

It is not possible to make a wiki page with � in the name so I have changed to title to "A ?" and moved both the explanation and the comment here. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:20, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Strange that I was the first to comment on the fact that it was I not i that was changed in the comic, which acording to the current explanation is what happens with the Apple bug... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:28, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
: The expected autocorrection on typing "i" would be replacing it by "I". So usually there's no need to type "I", it should be enough to type "i" (saves you one click). --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 16:18, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

1913: A ï¿½

2017-11-08T16:18:47Z

YMS: Corrected my statement

{{comic
| number = 1913
| date = November 8, 2017
| title = A �
| image = i.png
| titletext = If you want in on the fun, map a key on your keyboard to the sequence U+0041 U+0020 U+FFFD (or U+0021 U+0020 U+FFFD for the exclamation point version), and then no update can never take this away from you.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

After the update to Apple {{w|IOS_11#11.1|iOS 11.1}}, many (though not all) iPhone users suffered from a strange bug, where the autocorrection changed any input of the single lowercase letter "i" to either "A" or "!" followed by a space and a Unicode replacement symbol (on iOS displayed as a question mark in a square). So the result of typing "i took" might be "A � took" or "! � took".

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

1913: A ï¿½

2017-11-08T16:10:40Z

YMS: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1913
| date = November 8, 2017
| title = A ï¿½
| image = i.png
| titletext = If you want in on the fun, map a key on your keyboard to the sequence U+0041 U+0020 U+FFFD (or U+0021 U+0020 U+FFFD for the exclamation point version), and then no update can never take this away from you.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

After the update to Apple iOS 11.1, many (though not all) users suffered from a strange bug, where the autocorrection changed any input of the single lowercase letter "i" to "A" followed by one of several Unicode symbols (either an exclamation point or a question mark in a circle).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1823: Hottest Editors

2017-04-19T15:07:01Z

YMS: "Vim will make a comeback in DNA editing, thus having 'won' the battle with Emacs"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR, a procaryotic immune defense system that, coupled with Cas9, has been used by molecular biologists as a technology for precise edition of a the genome of virtually any organism.
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.216|141.101.105.216]] 14:59, 12 April 2017 (UTC) LinVl

So.. the M-x crispr command? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.172|172.68.51.172]] 15:54, 12 April 2017 (UTC)ZZ
You mean `ESC:crispr` ? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.183|162.158.62.183]] 13:54, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
The first editors are not for machine-readable Text. But for sourcecode which is human-readable.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.192|162.158.90.192]] 16:49, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
:Well, the compiler or interpreter can hopefully read your source code, so in some sense it's machine-readable :P. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.112|172.68.54.112]] 18:13, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

i noticed the article fails to mention the comic declaring vim as the winner in 2005... kind of a huge oversight. mayhaps there is bias in the author of this wiki? mayhaps the author is a huge emacs fan?
:Maybe he's alluding to this with CRISPR-VIM in 2025.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.51|162.158.74.51]] 22:12, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm surprised no female name is included. I mean, there must be lot of newspapers with female editors and some of them are likely hot. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 02:06, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Could CRISPR being the hottest editor refer to DNA computing? https://www.britannica.com/technology/DNA-computing

"Sublime Text is the current "most popular" text editor according to Randall[citation needed]". Citation needed? Someone should link that phrase to this comic then, LOL!

And I want to mention, this site has been looking all wrong and messed up on my iPad 1 for the last week or two. The entire left side is missing, being relegated to looking wrong below, the logo is gone, the buttons are in some different Times-looking font, and this comment text box is only using the centre half of the screen, horizontally. It's like a style sheet got corrupted. Or it's been made prejudiced against older devices and OSes. :) - NiceGuy1 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.88|108.162.219.88]] 03:18, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

:Have you tried turning it off and on again? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.46|162.158.114.46]] 21:06, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

A modal editor with a modal modem : In the days of Hayes modems, using "+" in vi to move down a line (similar to "j") would not always work because "+++" sent in a short time period changes the modem from data mode to command mode. One could imagine a future Tesla having a debug mode entered through a similar key sequence.

: "Vim will make a comeback in DNA editing, thus having 'won' the battle with Emacs" - Why would Vim only win the battle with Emacs in 2025, when, according to the chart, Vim already was the hottest editor in 2005 (which Emacs never was)? --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 15:07, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Talk:707: Joshing

2014-09-18T20:10:49Z

YMS: 49 and 31

And what is "Joshing"? {{unsigned ip|‎77.254.185.80}}

"Joshing" is the present participle of the verb "to josh" -- which in colloquial American English means to joke or to tease. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.209|108.162.219.209]] 05:26, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Is there any special meaning in the numbers 49 and 31 here? --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 20:10, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

1400: D.B. Cooper

2014-09-11T23:27:57Z

YMS: typo

{{comic
| number = 1400
| date = July 28, 2014
| title = D.B. Cooper
| image = d_b_cooper.png
| titletext = 'Why on Earth would someone commit air piracy just to finance a terrible movie decades later?' 'People are very strange these days.'
}}

==Explanation==

[[File:DBCooper.jpg|thumb|Cooper]]
In 1971, a man referred to by the media as {{w|D. B. Cooper}} hijacked a Boeing 727 and escaped with $200,000 in ransom money (equivalent to $1,160,000 in 2014). While the FBI maintains that Cooper was most likely killed when he parachuted from the plane, they have never determined his identity, and their agents still actively investigate the case, the United States' only unsolved plane hijacking.

[[File:Tommy Wiseau.jpg|thumb|Wiseau]]
In 2003, {{w|Tommy Wiseau}} released {{w|The Room (film)|''The Room''}}, considered by many the worst film ever made. In the decade since he has become something of an icon alongside his infamous movie, of which he was the producer, writer, director, and star. Surprisingly little, however, is known about him.

This comic points to similarities between several details of Cooper and Wiseau's stories:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Cooper
! Wiseau
|-
| "Vanished mysteriously with a large amount of money":Cooper escaped with $200,000 in 1971 dollars, equivalent to around $1.2M today. $5,800 of that money was recovered in 1980 in the vicinity of where Cooper jumped from the plane, but the rest was never found. Assuming Cooper survived, he would have had decades to turn the $200k into an even larger fortune.
| "Appeared mysteriously with a large amount of money":''The Room'' cost $6 million to make, and initially grossed a mere $1,900—a loss of 99.97% of the investment. It is generally assumed that all or most of that money was Wiseau's own, which raises the question of how he obtained such wealth.
|-
| "Real age/name unknown":Cooper's real name remains unknown. While he was estimated to be in his mid-40s, his precise age is also unknown.
| "Colleague says he's much older than he claims":In 2010, Wiseau stated that he was 41. His friend and ''Room'' co-star {{w|Greg Sestero}}, however, says he was born in the 1950s.
|-
| "Ambiguous, possibly affected speaking style ('negotiable American currency')":Cooper's use of this unusual phrase has led to speculation about his origins, including as to whether he was perhaps not an American.
| "Ambiguous, possibly affected speaking style ('You are tearing me apart, Lisa!')":The most famously melodramatic line from ''The Room'', [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plz-bhcHryc "You are tearing me apart, Lisa!"] is one of several which highlights Wiseau's unusual accent and less-than-complete command of the English language. As with Cooper's "negotiable American currency," it is phrased in a way not typical of American English.
|-
| "Fate unknown":Cooper has not been seen since he jumped from the plane, though the FBI has investigated over a thousand "serious suspects." He either died trying to jump from the plane, or disappeared completely after touching down.
| "Background unknown":Despite Wiseau being a public figure for over a decade since the release of ''The Room'', little is definitively known about his background. Sestero says Wiseau was born somewhere in Eastern Europe. Wiseau has said he has moved back and forth between Europe and the U.S. throughout his life, spending significant time in France and Louisiana. His accent is clearly European, but is otherwise hard to place.His legal name, place of birth, date of birth, and nationality are all unknown, as are most of the details of how he's spent his life.
|-
|}

However, these are only a few cherry-picked aspects of their lives, and do not seriously suggest that they are the same person. For example, even if we assume that Wiseau was born in 1950, and that Cooper was only 35 (probably the youngest age which can be mistaken for mid-40s) in 1971, that leaves a 14-year gap between their ages. Likewise, Cooper was said to have either an American or Canadian accent, while Wiseau's bizarre accent is certainly not North American. While [[Cueball]]'s theory in this comic is clearly a joke on [[Randall]]'s part, given Randall's [[258: Conspiracy Theories|known]] [[690: Semicontrolled Demolition|distaste]] [[966: Jet Fuel|for]] conspiracy theories, this may also be making fun of people who base theories off of minor details while ignoring contradictory ones and bigger-picture questions. The question in the title text, for instance, notes that Cooper would have gone through a huge amount of effort just to produce a movie; a similar rhetorical device is often used against convoluted conspiracy theories, where one points out a vastly simpler way for the supposed conspirators to have accomplished their goals.

The title text goes on to attribute such a weird motive for hijacking to the impression that "people are very strange these days," which is another quote from ''The Room''.

<references/>

==Transcript==
:'''Panel 1'''
:D.B. Cooper
:("Dan Cooper")

:Hijacked a plane in the 1970s.
:On landing, demanded money and
:parachutes. Jumped from plane
:mid-flight and was never found.

:* Vanished mysteriously with large amount of money
:* Real age/name unknown
:* Ambiguous, possibly affected speaking style ("negotiable American currency")
:* Fate unknown

:'''Panel 2'''
:Tommy Wiseau
:("Johnny")

:Wrote, directed, and starred in
:''The Room'', a film widely hailed as
:"The ''Citizen Kane'' of bad movies."

:* Appeared mysteriously with large amount of money
:* Colleague says he's much older than he claims.
:* Ambiguous, possibly affected speaking style ("You are tearing me apart, Lisa!")
:* Background unknown

:'''Panel 3'''
:[Images captioned Cooper (FBI sketch) and Wiseau (Flickr photo by Al Pavangkanan)]

:Offscreen: This is the dumbest theory I've ever heard.
:Cueball: But it explains ''everything!!''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]

1035: Cadbury Eggs

2014-03-22T17:11:55Z

YMS: /* Explanation */ linkfix

{{comic
| number = 1035
| date = March 28, 2012
| title = Cadbury Eggs
| image = cadbury_eggs.png
| titletext = When they moved production from New Zealand to the UK and switched from the runny white centers to the thick, frosting-like filling, it got way harder to cook them scrambled.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Cadbury Creme Egg|Cadbury Eggs}} are a chocolate egg-shaped candy with a filling. They are supposed to replicate a regular egg with a hard exterior and soft interior. However, with Cadbury Eggs, you can eat the outside.

In this comic, [[Cueball]] is trying to say that sodas have way too much sugar to even be appealing as a beverage because they contain as much sugar as 2 or 3 Cadbury Eggs and one Cadbury Egg alone makes him feel sick.

However, [[Megan]], of course, takes it the wrong way and indicates that this means that she can eat Cadbury Eggs year round and as many as she wants. Cadbury Eggs are usually consumed around {{w|Easter}} - which is usually anywhere from late March to late April.

==Transcript==
:[Two Cadbury eggs, one in the foil, the other out of the foil and broken open to reveal the gooey center.]
:A Cadbury egg has about 20g of sugar. (25, Outside the US) "One Cadbury Egg" is a nice unit of sugar content.

:[A can of soda with an equals sign and two eggs; a bottle of soda with an equals sign and three eggs.]
:One 12oz. can of soda has about two Cadbury eggs worth of sugar. One 20oz. bottle has three.

:[Two unwrapped Cadbury eggs, with an arrow indicating they should be placed in a glass of water.]
:One Cadbury egg is enough to make me feel kinda gross. Now when I see Coke or Snapple or Nestea or whatever, I imagine drinking a couple of dissolved Cadbury eggs.

:[Megan puts her hand to her chin in thought, Cueball has his arms out in exclamation.]
:Megan: Wow. Huh. So the takeaway is... I can eat Cadbury eggs by the handful all season and feel no worse about it than I do about soda?
:Cueball: That's not really—
:Megan: This is ''awesome!''
:Cueball: *sigh*

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

1037: Umwelt

2014-03-17T06:55:14Z

YMS: /* Giant Box Trap */ typo

{{comic
| number = 1037
| date = April 1, 2012
| title = Umwelt
| image = umwelt_the_void.jpg
| titletext = Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit--from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your web browser.
}}
==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|Many of the strips are not explained}}
An {{w|Umwelt}}, as the title text explains, is the idea that ones entire way of thinking is dependent on their surroundings. Thus, this {{w|April Fools}} comic changes based on the browser, location, or referrer. Thus, what the viewer is viewing the comic on, where they live, or where they came from determines which comic they actually see. As a result, there are actually multiple comics that went up on April Fools' Day, although only one is seen.

Information about how the wide variety of data was collected and credit for the viewers who contributed can be found [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/rnst4/april_fools_xkcd_changing_comic/ here].

===The Void===
[[File:umwelt_the_void.jpg]]

If the device or browser you are using does not support Javascript, you will simply see a static image of a white swirl on a dark background.

Possible reference to The Ring (imgur.com/wlGmm), as though to suggest that using an alternative browser is dismal and horrific.

Davean (xkcd's sysadmin): "[This] comic isn't available everywhere and it can come up i[n] some situation[s] only for recognized browsers."

Browser: Alternative Browser

===Aurora===
[[File:umwelt_aurora.png]]

The joke here is either that Canadians, where the comic was shown, would regard the {{w|Aurora (astronomy)|Aurora Borealis}} as normal and thus, would not've seen the sight as particularly amazing, or that XKCD characters see in black and white and would not notice the colors.
Alternately, one could interpret that since Megan didn't go out and therefore missed seeing the Aurora, the main character lied. That way, she wouldn't have felt sad that she missed out.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Locations: Canada, Boston, Maine, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Minnesota, Norway

===Snake===
[[File:umwelt_snake_composite_1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt_snake_composite.png|Full size]]

The joke here is the extreme length of snakes. The world's longest snake is the python, the longest ever being 33 feet or approx. 10 meters. The red and blue circles refer to the hit game {{w|Portal}}.
There is also a reference to the book "The Little Prince" in the second panel.

Also, the number and content of the panels changes depending on the size of your browser window.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Specific AltText for this image: Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit -from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your browser window size.

Location: unknown

===Black Hat===
[[File:umwelt_tortoise_1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt_tortoise.png|Full size]]

An analyst attempts to psychoanalyze [[Black Hat|Black Hat's]] [[72: Classhole|classhole]] tendencies. The joke here is that the turtle has actually been turned over and neither sees helping it as a priority. It's a reference to the Voight-Kampff test used in the movie Blade Runner (1982) to identify replicants.

Location: Seems to appear mostly in "other countries" - those without location-specific comics.

===Too Quiet===
[[File:umwelt_too_quiet_1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt_too_quiet.png|Full size]]

A reference to {{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}} which has been [[87: Velociraptors|constantly]] [[135: Substitute|referred]] [[1110: Click and Drag|to]] [[155: Search History|before]] [[758: Raptor Fences|in]] this comic.

Also referencing the film {{w|2 Fast 2 Furious|2 Fast 2 Furious}}, an entertaining, yet intellectually unprovoking sequel in a popular film franchise, which is aimed at teenagers and young adults, prompting the blunt response from the stickman. The fact that Steve would use such a cliché {{w|2000s (decade)|noughties}} movie term in such an intense moment, and the subsequent curse, is the joke in this comic.

Location: unknown

===Pond===
[[File:umwelt_pond_mobile.png]][[File:umwelt_pond_wide.png]]

Two different versions showed, the narrower version for mobile devices.

Location: unknown

===Galaxies===
[[File:umwelt_galaxies_1024.jpg]]
[[:File:umwelt_galaxies.jpg|Full size]]

Megan is distracted from her conversation with [[Cueball]] by realizing that the space behind his head, from her vantage point, contains millions of galaxies. This is similar to an [http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/astro/hst_deep_field.jpg incredible photograph] taken by the Hubble Telescope, in which a tiny dark area of space in fact contained numerous galaxies.

The title text is a imaginative leap from this scenario: that the galaxies would be up to no good once Cueball is turned away from them.

This comic was only reported once... the intended environmental context is a mystery.

Location: unknown

===xkcd Gold===
[[File:umwelt_xkcd_gold.png]]

This is probably a reference to the 4chan Gold Account, an implementation on 4chan that does not actually exist, and is usually used to trick newcomers into revealing their credit card numbers. The joke is that "Gold Account" users can supposedly block other users from viewing images they have posted. The fifth panel is probably a reference to Beecock, a notorious set of shocker images. 4chan's moderators have been known to give out "beecock bans" to particularly annoying users, which redirect the user to a page containing beecock and the text "OH NO THE BOARD IS GONE".

Referrer: 4chan

===Yo Mama===
[[File:umwelt_dog_ballast.png]]

Possible reference to Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "{{w|Harrison Bergeron}}."

Possibly a veiled criticism of Facebook. This could be slightly rewritten as: "This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid of dissent, so it tracks everyone at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop submitting information to Facebook. But that dystopian future is now."

Referrer: Facebook

===Reddit===
[[File:umwelt_reddit.png]]

Reference to referencing, because Reddit, as a referring site, likes references to its referencing in its references.

This comic also features recursive imagery similar to [[Self Description]] where the second panel embeds the entire comic within itself.

Referrer: Reddit

===Buns and Hot dogs===
[[File:umwelt_somethingawful.jpg]]

This is a reference to the question "Why do hot dogs come in packages of 6 while buns come in packages of 8?"

Referrer: SomethingAwful, Questionable Content, & MetaFilter

===Twitter===
[[File:umwelt_twitter.jpg]]

Referrer: Twitter

===Wikipedia===
[[File:umwelt_wikipedia_wide.jpg]]
[[File:umwelt_wikipedia_mobile.png]]

The term {{w|Mile High Club}} (or MHC) is a slang term applied collectively to individuals who have sexual intercourse while on board an aircraft. Randall says that reading the news articles on it has distracted him from making that comic.

Two different versions showed, the narrower version for mobile devices.

Referrer: Wikipedia

===Google Chrome===
[[File:umwelt_chrome1.jpg]]

{{w|Sergey Brin}} (born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the most profitable Internet companies. As of 2013, his personal wealth was estimated to be $24.4 billion. Randall makes the joke that as the founder of Google, Brin's permission would be needed to use Google Chrome. Because there are millions of people who use Google, it is likely that at least some of the time Brin would be asleep, thus he would need to be woken.

Browser: Chrome

===Chrome/Firefox===
[[File:umwelt_chrome2.png]]

Mozilla {{w|Firefox}} is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Cueball is complaining about {{w|Google Chrome}}, to which [[Ponytail]] replies that there is an {{w|add-on}} the fixes what he is complaining about. When questioned, she replies that the add-on is Firefox, which isn't an add-on at all and is instead a different browser.

Browser: Chrome

===Google Chrome-2===
[[File:umwelt_chrome3.png]]

This panel references Google Chrome's error screen, which shows a puzzle piece. The comic humorously implies that Chrome is looking for that piece. However, the piece in question cannot possibly line up with any corner.

Browser: Chrome

===Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing===
[[File:umwelt_firefox_incognito.png]]

Another reference to crashing web browsers.

Browser: Firefox (Incognito only?)

===Internet Explorer===
[[File:umwelt_ie.png]]

Yet another reference to crashing web browsers

Browser: Internet Explorer

===Maxthon===
[[File:umwelt_maxthon.png]]

Browser: Maxthon

===Netscape Navigator===
[[File:umwelt_netscape_womanoctopus.png]]

[[File:umwelt_netscape_man.png]]

Browser: Netscape

===Rockmelt===
[[File:umwelt_rockmelt.png]]

{{w|Rockmelt}} is a social-media-based browser.

Reference to the gospel song {{w|Longing for Old Virginia: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1934)|"There's no hiding place down here" by The Carter Family}}, later covered by Stephen Stills.

:I run to the rock just to hide my face
:And the rocks cried out, no hiding place
:There's no hiding place down here

It may additionally be a reference to the ''Babylon 5'' episode "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place," which featured the song.

Browser: Rockmelt

===Plugin Disabled===
[[File:umwelt_plugin_disabled.png]]

Browser: Plugin (?) Disabled

===Corporate Networks===
[[File:umwelt_corporate_general.png]]
[[File:umwelt_corporate_amazon_chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt_corporate_amazon_firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt_corporate_amazon_other.png]]
[[File:umwelt_corporate_google_chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt_corporate_microsoft_chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt_corporate_microsoft_firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt_corporate_microsoft_other.png]]
[[File:umwelt_corporate_nytimes_chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt_corporate_nytimes_other.png]]

ISP: Corporate networks of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NY Times

===Military===
[[File:umwelt_military.png]]

ISP: Military networks

===T-Mobile===
[[File:umwelt_tmobile.png]]

Reference to T-Mobile's distinguishing feature of weaker coverage, in relation to other major providers.

ISP: T-Mobile

===Verizon and AT&T===
[[File:umwelt_verizon.png]]

[[File:umwelt_att.png]]

Reference to Verizon and AT&T's scandals/controversy regarding implementation of bandwidth caps.

ISP: Verizon and AT&T

===France===
[[File:umwelt_france.jpg]]

A Google search of "French Military Victories" + 'I'm feeling lucky' used to direct to "did you mean French Military Failures?" (a Google 'easter egg'), referencing a stereotype of the French:[http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-frenchmilitaryvictories.htm][http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokefrenchmilitaryhistory.htm]

Locations: France & Quebec

===Germany===
[[File:umwelt_germany.png]]

This comic references the {{w|Berlin airlift#The start of the Berlin Airlift|Berlin Airlift}}, a relief measure for citizens in West Berlin (surrounded by East Germany) instituted by the Western Allies after World War II. In reality, the Western Allies flew a grand total of 500,000 tons of food over the Soviet blockade in planes. Randall puts a twist on this event by making it more fun: dropping supplies from a grand chairlift. The play on words is that "chairlift" rhymes with "airlift" and thus makes an easy substitution. The chair force is also a name that other service branches use to make fun of the air force.

Location: Germany

===Israel===
[[File:umwelt_israel.png]]

(Translation from Hebrew)

Person: Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.

A reference to the multiple use of the word Jewish to denote both a religious group and a nationality.

Location: Israel

===Carnot Cycle===
[[File:umwelt_japan.png]]

A pun on "cycle"; a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle "Carnot Cycle"] is a thermodynamic cycle (e.g. refrigeration). Its efficiency depends on the temperature of the hot and cold 'reservoirs' in which it is operating.

Location: Japan

===UK===
[[File:umwelt_uk.jpg]]

He worded this as though to imply that the UK is a state of the U.S., and an unimportant one at that, which pokes fun at the UK, creating a paradox (sort of).

Location: UK

===Blizzard===
[[File:umwelt_disasters_blizzard.png]]

For each location this displayed in, the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Georgia, Halifax, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, the Northeast, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Texas, Toronto, Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin

===Tornado===
[[File:umwelt_disasters_tornado.png]]

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Dallas, Illinois, The Midwest, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Tennessee, Texas

===Hurricane===
[[File:umwelt_disasters_hurricane.png]]

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: D.C, Florida, Houston, Miami, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virgina

===Lake Diver Killer===
[[File:umwelt_lake_diver.png]]

Locations: Bay Areas

Location: Vermont showed an image specifically referencing Lake Champlain

===Lincoln Memorial===
[[File:umwelt_lincoln_memorial.png]]

Locations: Illinois & Washington D.C.

===Helicopter Hunting===
[[File:umwelt_helicoptor.png]]

In Alaska, governments and individuals have {{w|Wolf hunting#North America 2|shot wolves en masse from helicopters}} in an attempt to artificially inflate populations of game, such as moose and caribou, to make hunting them easier. This is opposed by many, as the game populations are not endangered (thus, this threatens ecological balance); wolves are a small threat to livestock in North America; most of the wolf body - including meat and bones - goes wasted as they are sought mainly for their pelts.

Location: Alaska

===Newspaper===
[[File:umwelt_life_scientists.png]][[File:umwelt_life_rit.png]][[File:umwelt_life_umass.png]]

Creating new life has long been a well understood process, in a lab or otherwise.

Location: Various

Specific versions appeared for RIT and UMass Amherst

===Robot Paul Revere===
[[File:umwelt_paul_revere.png]]

Combination of the legend of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere#.22Midnight_Ride.22 Paul Revere] and computer binary.

Location: Boston

===Counting Cards===

All four colleges in this series are in Massachusetts and, being similar, in pairs, rival each other to some extent (Harvard-MIT, and Smith-Wellesley). Possible reference to Orwell's book '1984' and/or {{w|Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|popular homage to it via Star Trek}}: "There are four lights."[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChYIm6MW39k]

Bonus: The thought-gears in panel 3 are spinning against each other.

Location: Harvard

[[File:umwelt_counting_cards_harvard.png]]

Location: MIT

[[File:umwelt_counting_cards_mit.png]]

"Course 15s" at MIT are the business major students, often mocked for taking a less-rigorous program.

Location: Smith

[[File:umwelt_counting_cards_smith.png]]

It looks like he forgot to draw the hair in the last three panels. Smith is an all-girls college.

Location: Wellesley

[[File:umwelt_counting_cards_wellesley.png]]

Wellesley is an all-girls college.

===Giant Box Trap===
[[File:umwelt_box_trap.png]]

Randall got his undergrad in Physics at CNU, and was scheduled to return shortly to give a talk.

Location: Christopher Newport University

===Chemo Support===
[[File:umwelt_chemo.jpg]]

Randall's now-wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and apparently DFCI is where they've been spending much of their time.

Location: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

==Transcript==
:[Note to courageous readers- The transcript has been reordered in the order in which the comics appear in the picture and appropriate names have been given.]

:'''The Void'''
:[An epic void with a bright light shining right on you.]

:'''Aurora'''
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar flare that's causing some Great Aurorae. CBC says they may even be visible here! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: Hockey's on.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

:'''Aurora-US'''
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar storm causing northern lights over Canada. CNN say they might even be visible {Options: "As Far South As Us", "Here in Boston", "Maine", "Ohio", "Oregon", "New York"}! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: It's cold out.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

:'''Snake'''
:[Two people standing next to each other. Megan is holding the head end of a snake. Depending on the width of your browser, the snake is: three frames, the third of which has a little bit of a bump; the first frame has a human-size bump, the second has a third person looking at the snake, and the third has the snake going though two Portals; a squirrel and the human-size bump in the first frame, a ring next to the third person in the second frame, and Beret Guy riding the snake in front of the portal; or The squirrel, a fourth person within the snake being coiled, and the human bump in the first frame, the ring, a fifth person in love, and the third person in the second frame, Beret Guy and the portal in the third frame, and the same two people in the fourth frame.]

:Megan: I found a snake, but then I forgot to stop.

:'''Black hat'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk. One is Black Hat. The other is an analyst. Black Hat has a number of terminals attached to his head.]
:Analyst: You come across a tortoise in the desert. You flip it over. It struggles to right itself. You watch. You're not helping. Why is that?

:Black Hat: It '''knows''' what it did.

:[View of the entire scene, with said turtle off in the distance on its back and trying to right itself.]

:'''Too quiet'''
:[A group of four scale down a wall into a field in the middle of the night. They walk off single-file.]
:Person 1: It's quiet.

:Person 3: Yeah - *Too* quiet.

:[A Velociraptor is off in the distance, following the group.]
:Person 4: Yeah - too *too* quiet.

:Person 2: Yeah - 2quiet2furious.
:Person 1: Fuck off, Steve.

:'''Pond'''
:[A landscape showing a pond, some reeds, and a set of mountains off in the distance.]

:'''Galaxies'''
:[A trio of galaxies.]
:Galaxy 1: He's not looking!
:Galaxy 3: Let's get him!
:[Lines draw in illustrating the eye-line of one of a pair of people.]
:Cueball: So he said he didn't get the text, but c'mon, he *never* misses texts. Right? ..hello?
:Megan: I'm just staring at your head freaked out by the fact that there are millions of galaxies *directly behind it*.

:'''xkcd Gold'''
:[Cueball holding bat.]

:Cueball: Sorry, but this comic

:[Cueball starts to wind up.]

:Cueball: requires

:[Cueball prepares to strike with bat.]

:Cueball: XKCD

:[Cueball swings at a beehive.]
:GOLD

:[Penis Bees fly out of the beehive.]

:'''Yo mamma'''
:[Cueball yells at a friend.]
:Cueball: Oh yeah? Well you mama's so ''cynical'', her only dog ballast is a ''leash''!
:(This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid dogs can hover, so it requires them to wear weights at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop buying dog weights.)

:'''Reddit'''
:Five seconds ago:
:[You sitting in front of a desk, reading a reddit thread.]
:You: Oh, hey, reddit has a link to some XKCD april fools comic.

:Now: [An image of the xkcd comic page.]
:Five seconds from now:

:You: ..hey

:30 seconds from now:
:[DANCE PARTY!]

:'''Buns and Hot dogs'''
:Cueball: What I wanna know is why do hot dogs come in packages of six while buns come in these huge sacks of ash and blood from which "Ave Maria" is faintly audible?
:[Chanting sacks of gore in the background.]

:'''Twitter'''
:[A Twitter account page with the following: Many tweets, fewer following, even fewer followers, A bunch of assholes in the suggested follow box, trending topics partitioned into: Word Games, Misogyny, and Bieber, stuff your eyes automatically ignore, A really pleasant blue. and the timeline: Something about a podcast, Someone confused because the description doesn't match the link, The link you clicked on to get to this comic, Rob Delaney, Passive Aggression, and horse ebooks.]

:'''Wikipedia'''
:[There's no comic here because instead of drawing one, I spent the last hour reading every news story cited in the Wikipedia article on The Mile High Club.]

:'''Google Chrome'''
:[A Chrome plugin error page.]
:Chrome: This plugin requires Sergey Brin's permission to run. Please wait while he is woken.

:'''Chrome/Firefox'''
:[Two people; Cueball is sitting at a desk in front of a laptop.]
:Cueball: Man, chrome's hardware acceleration really sucks.
:Ponytail: Oh - Theres' a great add-on that fixes it.
:Cueball: Oh? What's it called?
:Ponytail: "Firefox".

:'''Google Chrome-2'''
:[A Chrome plugin error page with the characteristic jigsaw piece.]
:Chrome: Chrome is looking for this piece. Have you seen it? Chrome thinks it links up with a corner.

:'''Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing'''
:[Firefox error page.]
:Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing. You know how I'm not supposed to peek at your browsing in private mode? Firefox.. is sorry. Firefox will not blame you if you
:[Button with text.]
:Click here to report this incident.

:'''Internet Explorer'''
:[IE error page.]
:IE: Error: Internet Explorer has given up.

:'''Maxthon'''
:Cueball: Maxthon? Hey, 2005 called. Didn't say anything. All I could hear was sobbing. This is getting harder. Anyway, yeah, Maxthon's still cool! Didn't know it was still around!

:'''Netscape Navigator'''
:[Two different versions exist: one with Cueball talking and one with Megan with tentacle arms talking.]
:Person: Netscape Navigator? Hey, the nineties called - drunk as usual. I hung up without saying anything. This is getting harder. Anyway - it's cool that you'e got netscape running.

:'''Rockmelt'''
:[Cueball running to laptop.]
:I ran to Rockmelt to hide my face

:[Cueball sitting at laptop.]
:But Rockmelt cried out -

:[Laptop shouting.]
:NO HIDING PLACE

:[zoom out.]
:NO HIDING PLACE DOWN HERE

:'''Google Chrome-3'''
:[A chrome plugin error page.]
:Chrome: There does not exist --nor could there '''ever''' exist-- a plugin capable of displaying this content.

:'''Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google - Chrome'''
:[Chrome error page.]
:Chrome: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Microsoft/Amazon - Firefox'''
:[Firefox error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Microsoft/The Times'''
:[Error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/The Times is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Corporate - Generic '''
:[Error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, we work as a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Military'''
:[Person looking at two browser windows.]
:Cueball: I know y'all know what you're doing. But if you're on a military machine and you're supposed to be watching for missiles or something, I hope you're keeping an eye on that in the background while you're reading comics. Also: Thanks.

:'''T-Mobile'''
:[Error page.]
:Data Error: T-Mobile was unable to establish a connection

:'''Verizon'''
:[Error page]
:Error: You have exceeded your Verizon monthly bandwidth cap. Mobile web browsing has been disabled.

:'''France'''
:[Two people; one of which is browsing using a laptop.]
:Cueball: Hey, you're French, right? Ever see what happens when you type "French Military Victories" into Google?
:French person: Does it take you to an article on Napoleon?

:French person: ..no? Strange, given how he kicked everyone's asses up and down Europe for over a decade.

:[Beat frame.]

:Cueball: Touche.
:French person: You know, that'd sound smarter if you didn't pronounce it like it rhymes with "douche".

:'''Germany'''
:[Cueball dropping food from an unorthodox high perch.]
:June 1948: In response to the Soviet blockade of East Germany, the western allies construct the Berlin Chairlift.
:Cueball on chairlift: Food!

:'''Israel'''
:[Person on phone.]
:Person (Translation from Hebrew): Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.

:'''Carnot Cycle'''
:[Ponytail on a motorcycle with a heat-entropy graph on the side.]
:Ponytail: Check out my new Carnot Cycle!
:Cueball: Neat - how fast does it go?
:Ponytail: Depends how cold it is outside.

:'''Great Britain'''
:[Illustration of the Atlantic ocean.]
:American person: Sorry I don't have a comic poking fun at the UK here. I only had time to get to the most ''important'' US states.
:British person: Hey - At least we have free health care and real ale.

:'''Earthquake-Blizzard'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Boston", "Chicago", "Dallas", "Georgia", "Halifax", "Illinois", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Missouri", "the Northeast", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", 'Pennsylvania", "Philadelphia", "Texas", "Toronto", "Tennessee", "New York", "Wisconsin"}! That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..
:[Both people are trudging through a massive blizzard.]
:Danish: In pictures, snow always looked so nice and sof - ''AAAA! MY NECK! How do people live here?!''
:Cueball: Come on - it's only three more miles.

:'''Earthquake-Tornado'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Dallas", "Illinois", "The Midwest", "Missouri", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", "Tennessee", "Texas"}!
:Cueball: That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..
:[Both people are in a shelter in a prairie with a rapidly-approaching tornado.]
:Danish: AAAA CLOSE THE SHELTER DOOR!
:Cueball: Say the magic words...
:Danish: THIS PLACE IS THE WORST!
:Cueball: Thank you.

:'''Earthquake-Hurricane'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "D.C", "Florida", "Houston", "Miami", "New Jersey", "North Carolina", "South Carolina", "Virgina"}! That was huge!
:Cueball: That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..

:[Both are in the middle of a hurricane. Danish is grabbing onto a signpost to avoid being swept away.]
:Danish: AAAAA WHAT THE SHIIIIT!
:Cueball: Calm down - this is barely a category 2.

:'''Lake Diver Killer'''
:[TV Field Reporter in front of a cordoned-off lake.]
:Reporter: Police divers searching the bay say they have recovered the body of another victim of the "Lake Diver Killer."
:Reporter: During the search, three more divers were reported missing.

:'''Washington'''
:[The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.]
:In this Marble Prison As in the nightmares of the nation they tried to devour
:The nanobots that constituted Abraham Lincoln
:Are entombed forever.

:'''Alaska'''
:[A person with a gun chasing a helicopter on the back of a wolf in a snowy Alaskan field.]
:Some people hunt wolves from helicopters. I hunt helicopters from a wolf.

:'''Life in lab'''
:[Newspaper headline.]
:Scientists/UMass Amherst students/RIT students create life in lab
:[Caption under picture of scientists.]
:"The trick was fuckin'"

:'''American Revolution'''
:Robot Paul Revere: Remember: Zero if by land, One if by sea.

:'''MIT'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: I see their admission standards have been slipping.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''MIT Course 15c'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: I *knew* we shouldn't have picked course 15s.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''Smith/Wellesley'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of Smith/Wellesley students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: We should've gone with Wellesley/Smith.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''CNU'''
:[Person unsuspectingly strolls under a giant box trap controlled by a Trible.]
:I worry that CNU only invited me back as a ruse because they realized I never turned in my final paper and want my diploma back. But if it turns out it's for real, I'll see you Wednesday at the Ferguson!

:'''Dana Farber'''
:[Cueball, pointing towards head.]
:Cueball: Check it out - In support of people going through chemo, I shaved my head.
:Lots of love to everyone reading this at Dana Farber. Cancer sucks. If you are new to DCFI, there's a great little garden on the third floor of the yawkey if you need somewhere quiet to just sit for a little bit and breathe.

==Trivia==
*Reddit user [http://www.reddit.com/user/SomePostMan SomePostMan] created a [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/t6wmh/all_umwelt_1037_comics_in_two_imgur_albums/ post] that collected all of the Umwelt comics and added explanations. Much of his information is now included in this wiki.

*The transcript section for this comic also included a note alluding to its extreme length:
: [ [Two people...] ] ((..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all this))
: [Two people standing next to each other. One is holding the head end of a snake...

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:April fool's comics]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Penis]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]

593: Voynich Manuscript

2014-03-15T09:13:49Z

YMS: /* Explanation */ missing (

{{comic
| number = 593
| date = June 5, 2009
| title = Voynich Manuscript
| image = voynich_manuscript.png
| titletext = Wait, is that the ORIGINAL voynich manuscript? Where did you GET that? Wanna try playing a round of Druids and Dicotyledons?
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|Voynich manuscript}} is a very detailed book written in an unknown script, describing plants and recipes, most of which lack a real-world analogue. Over the past few decades, linguists and cryptographers have unsuccessfully attempted to decode the book.

{{w|Tabletop role-playing game|Tabletop role-playing games}} (such as {{w|Dungeons and Dragons}}) are fantasy games with extremely detailed descriptions of fantastical worlds.

After being shown the manuscript for the first time by [[Megan]], [[Cueball]] argues that it should be obvious that it's just an ancient role-playing-game rulebook, since the human tendency to invent fantastical worlds must have also existed in the past.

After concluding this, a shocked Cueball then asks in the title text how Megan got her hands on the original manuscript (which is in the Yale University's ''{{w|Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library}}''). Megan unexpectedly suggests the prosaic activity of playing {{w|Druid|Druids}} and {{w|Dicotyledon|Dicotyledons}}, assuming such a game could be defined by the manuscript.

Note that the use of the pronoun "your" in the last frame is anachronistic, as in early modern English it was only used as a plural pronoun; the proper pronoun would be "thy": "Thy Druid doth lose two points."

Note also that it's ''{{w|glossolalia}}'' not ''glossolatia'' at the third panel.

==Transcript==
:[Weird root vegetables surround a strange script.]

:[Megan holding up book.]
:Megan: This is the Voynich manuscript—a book, allegedly 500 years old, written in an unrecognized script. It's some kind of visual encyclopedia of imaginary plants and undeciphered "recipes".

:[Cueball opens the book.]
:Megan: It could be a hoax, a lost language, a cipher, an alien text, glossolatia—no one knows.
:Cueball: No one? But it's obvious.

:Megan: ...Obvious? Linguists and cryptographers have been stumped for decades.
:Cueball: They forget. Human nature doesn't change.

:Cueball: Just imagine someone found a book from our time, full of lists, illustrations, tables, and long, dry descriptions of nonexistent worlds written in an invented language. What have they found?
:Megan: ...Dear Lord. It ''is'' obvious.

:500 Years Earlier:
:[Three people are standing around pawns and a die. One is holding a sheet of paper, another is holding a book, the third is holding a scythe.]
:Person #1: Forsooth! I concoct an elixir of courage.
:Person #2: Nae! The source booke sayeth that requires some wolfsbane!
:Person #3: Your druid doth lose two points.

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

468: Fetishes

2014-01-12T21:53:17Z

YMS: /* Explanation */ If there is such a chart by a Katharine Gates, there's no reason to say that Randall made Katharine Gates up, or that there's any reference to Bill Gate's daughter

{{comic
| number = 468
| date = August 27, 2008
| title = Fetishes
| image = fetishes.png
| titletext = They eventually resolved this self-reference, but Cantor's 'everything-in-the-fetish-book-twice' parties finally sunk the idea.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Bertrand Russell}} and {{w|Alfred North Whitehead}} co-wrote the ''{{w|Principia Mathematica}}'', with the intention of cataloging all of mathematics and ridding it of contradiction and self-reference. {{w|Kurt Gödel}} later showed that such a system is impossible, and that {{w|Gödel's incompleteness theorems|any system of axioms (complex enough to represent arithmetic) is incomplete}}.

Here, Russel and Whitehead are perusing a more salacious, but no less comprehensive, task: compiling a list of all sexual fetishes. When Gödel says he likes "anything not on your list," Russel and Whitehead have no way to complete their list. Whatever they leave off should be on the list, as long as it's off the list. This paradox is essentially the same as the one that doomed the ''Principia''.

In the title text, {{w|Georg Cantor}} is the inventor of {{w|set theory}}. If you have a fetish for doing everything in the book twice, then that belongs in the book, which you then have to do once more, which adds another item to the book ''ad infinitum''. Russel and Whitehead finally acknowledge their defeat.

There is a [http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project_details.cfm?id=319&index=319&domain= fetish roadmap] by Katharine Gates, author of Deviant Desires and DeviantDesires.com.

==Transcript==
:Author Katharine Gates recently attempted to make a chart of all sexual fetishes.
:Little did she know that Russel and Whitehead had already failed at this same task.

:[Russel and Whitehead are standing with Gödel, Russel holding a clipboard and smoking a pipe.]

:Russel: Hey, Gödel — we're compiling a comprehensive list of fetishes. What turns you on?

:Gödel: Anything not on your list.

:Russel: Uh…hm.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

Talk:880: Headache

2014-01-12T21:44:33Z

YMS: comment

this is so true... and the frame rate of downhill skiing is a joke...

[[User:Douglasadams472|Douglasadams472]] ([[User talk:Douglasadams472|talk]]) 03:18, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
:I'm waiting for the next universe patch. God says it'll add redemption and eternal bliss, which should make things run smoother. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:09, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

on the xk3d page, if you click forward, what's the deal with the teapot? [http://xk3d.xkcd.com/880/?teapot Teapot] ? [[User:Saibot84|Saibot84]] ([[User talk:Saibot84|talk]]) 05:16, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
:I think it's the {{w|Utah_teapot|common 3d reference teapot}} model. [[Special:Contributions/99.235.241.90|99.235.241.90]] 05:02, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

It may be worth to say that the mentioned headaches etc. usually come from one of two problems (visual artefacts or the discrepancy of an object's perceived position to its real one) that those articial 3D worlds tend to have, while the real world does not. --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 21:44, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Talk:920: YouTube Parties

2014-01-12T20:05:46Z

YMS: re

Oh god, is this what other people do to me when I'm showing a video at a youtube party? Gaaaah. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:26, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Is a YouTube party a real thing? I've never heard of one. [[Special:Contributions/70.24.167.3|70.24.167.3]] 23:26, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
: Hi 70.24.167.3 -- they totally are a real thing !! -- however you need a special invitation from the secret society, I can email you one if you want. [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|10.0.0.1]] 25:12, 32 December 2013 (UTC) {{unsigned|Spongebog}}
:: Don't worry [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 here is a invitation] [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|172.16.10.123]] 23:12, 1 December 2013 (UTC){{unsigned|Spongebog}}
: I'd say most "YouTube parties" are just coincidental gatherings of people in front of a computer, e.g. during any other kind of party, or in an office break. As for the explanation given here, I don't see the comic being "unclear whether they realize it". They ''don't'' realize it, everybody thinks ''his'' video will blow the others' minds. --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 20:05, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

308: Interesting Life

2014-01-12T19:24:40Z

YMS: Undo revision 57481 by YMS (talk)

{{comic
| number = 308
| date = August 27, 2007
| title = Interesting Life
| image = interesting_life.png
| titletext = Quick, fashion a climbing harness out of a cat-6 cable and follow me down.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete}}
'{{w|May you live in interesting times}}' is supposedly a Chinese curse, and depending on which 'interesting' period of Chinese history you were thinking about, one supposes that it could indeed be quite threatening, even if the attribution is apocryphal. The quote also provides the title of the {{w|Terry Pratchett}} novel {{w|Interesting Times}}, which takes place in a fictional counterpart of China.

[[Cueball]] is shown here as an office worker, a job which to most people is the opposite of interesting. This is contrasted with [[Megan]] who is rappelling down the outside of his office building, for no apparent reason other than because she can, and inviting him on an adventure.

The title text refers to {{w|Cat6}} cable, which is more commonly known as Ethernet cable. It would be easily found in an office building, since it is used to connect computers to a network. Its usefulness as climbing rope is indeterminate.

==Transcript==
:[On the left hand side of the panel is a cutaway of several floors of an office, in gray. On the right side a blue sky with clouds, and green hills. Hanging from a cable is Megan, clearly having rappelled down the side of the building.]
:Megan: You know how some people consider "May you have an interesting life" to be a curse?
:Cueball at the office: Yeah...
:Megan: Fuck those people. Wanna have an adventure?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

308: Interesting Life

2014-01-12T19:24:09Z

YMS: /* Explanation */ typo

{{comic
| number = 308
| date = August 27, 2007
| title = Interesting Life
| image = interesting_life.png
| titletext = Quick, fashion a climbing harness out of a cat-6 cable and follow me down.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete}}
'{{w|May you live in interesting times}}' is supposedly a Chinese curse, and depending on which 'interesting' period of Chinese history you were thinking about, one supposes that it could indeed be quite threatening, even if the attribution is apocryphal. The quote also provides the title of the {{w|Terry Pratchett}} novel {{w|Interesting Times}}, which takes place in a fictional counterpart of China.

[[Cueball]] is shown here as an office worker, a job which to most people is the opposite of interesting. This is contrasted with [[Megan]] who is rappelling down the outside of this office building, for no apparent reason other than because she can, and inviting him on an adventure.

The title text refers to {{w|Cat6}} cable, which is more commonly known as Ethernet cable. It would be easily found in an office building, since it is used to connect computers to a network. Its usefulness as climbing rope is indeterminate.

==Transcript==
:[On the left hand side of the panel is a cutaway of several floors of an office, in gray. On the right side a blue sky with clouds, and green hills. Hanging from a cable is Megan, clearly having rappelled down the side of the building.]
:Megan: You know how some people consider "May you have an interesting life" to be a curse?
:Cueball at the office: Yeah...
:Megan: Fuck those people. Wanna have an adventure?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

Talk:177: Alice and Bob

2014-01-12T15:37:14Z

YMS: comment

This part: "but everything from the public-key authenticated signatures on the files to the lipstick heart smeared on the disk screamed "Alice." " reminds me of the song Alice by Tom Waits. May or may not be intentional.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.120|108.162.242.120]] 18:10, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The title text refers to comic 153, the first time Randall claimes to be banned from a conference (others to follow, e.g. comics 463 and 541).
And I don't consider this comic to have a "twist ending" revealing that it's Eve talking. She says that she is commonly being labelled the attacker in the very first panel. --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 15:37, 12 January 2014 (UTC)