https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=108.162.218.65&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T06:40:59ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1684:_Rainbow&diff=1206871684: Rainbow2016-05-23T22:52:30Z<p>108.162.218.65: Noah figures into Islam prominently as well</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1684<br />
| date = May 23, 2016<br />
| title = Rainbow<br />
| image = rainbow.png<br />
| titletext = Listen, in a few thousand years you'll invent a game called 'SimCity' which has a 'disaster' button, and then you'll understand.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete| More details needed, for instance is there a specific reference to the burning of the Earth in the bible before Noah, or is this just the meteor(s) in the past? And what about the planned Armageddon, is that then off? More about issues with raccoons and what immortality would do to an ecosystem. More about the sims for the title text explanation. Are there other hidden meanings/interpretations?}}<br />
<br />
In this comic Cueball (possibly representing the patriarch {{w|Noah}} of Jewish, Muslim and Christian faith) talks to {{w|God}} after {{w|Genesis flood narrative|the biblical flood}}. He asks what the coloured band across the sky is, and God tells him it is a {{w|rainbow}}. According to the Book of Genesis, God placed the {{w|Rainbows in mythology|worlds first rainbow}} in the sky as a promise to humanity that he would never again make a flood to cleanse the world of sin ([https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%209:2-9:17&version=KJV Genesis 9:2–17]). A {{w|rainbow}} is an {{w|optical phenomena|optical phenomenon}} caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a {{w|spectrum}} of light appearing in the sky, one of many light phenomena caused by sunlight and precipitation.<br />
<br />
Then cueball notices a {{w|Rainbow#Variations|double rainbow}} outside the original ''promise rainbow''. Secondary rainbows are caused by double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops. When asked about this God seems to falter, but recovers and claims he made it to show that he will never again set the Earth on fire. As an afterthought he says sorry about that, although it was a while back. This may refer to the young earth being a liquid ball of molten stone. <br />
<br />
Cueball begins to notice some other types of {{w|Halo (optical phenomenon)|halos}} that can appear around the sun (or the moon). The one he spots is most likely the {{w|22° halo|circular 22° halo}}, which is a halo forming a circle with a radius of approximately 22° around the Sun, or occasionally the Moon. God promptly claims it is a promise to never again make {{w|raccoons}} {{w|Immortality|immortal}} as it destroyed the Earth's {{w|ecosystem}}. Although today these animals can be a pest, see [[1565: Back Seat]], they are luckily not immortal. <br />
<br />
The third bow could also be a "tertiary rainbow", which forms a ring around the sun, but is normally lost in the glare of the sunlight passing through raindrops. A [http://what-if.xkcd.com/150/ What if... about rainbows] which mentions this third rainbow was released on the same day as this comic.<br />
<br />
Cueball continues by noticing two {{w|sun dogs}} (or parahelia) which often co-occur with the 22° halo. These consist of a pair of bright spots either side on the Sun, intersected by the halo. God gets tired of this and tries to stop Cueball by saying that he has said sorry, and asks him to drop the subject. That is probably sensible because there are 23 different {{w|Optical_phenomena#Atmospheric_optical_phenomena|atmospheric optical phenomena}} listed on Wikipedia alone. Following the logic of the comic and the evasive answer of God, it could mean there are some more skeletons in the closet. <br />
<br />
The title text is a continuation where God tells Cueball that in the future humanity will invent a game called {{w|SimCity}}. This is a strategy computer game in which the player creates and manages an environment wherein ''sims'' autonomously build a city (or in later versions a country, or a planet). The player has God-like control of the world, including a [http://www.ign.com/wikis/simcity/Disasters disaster button], for when the player can't wait for a disaster to happen by chance. God is suggesting that it is too tempting, once a civilization has been built up, to push the disaster button just to see what happens.<br />
<br />
Overall the comic pokes fun at the idea of explaining natural phenomena as messages from a deity.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Noah, here represented as Cueball, is looking up on a rainbow band going through the top right corner of the panel. The band displays the following colors from outward and in: Red, yellow, green, blue and purple. A black blob in the bottom of the panel right of Noah, has white text with the reply from God to Noah's questions. This continues through the rest of the comic.]<br />
:Noah: Wow, God- What's that band of color?<br />
:God: A ''rainbow''.<br />
:God: It is a sign of my promise that I will never again flood the Earth.<br />
<br />
:[In this frameless panel Noah is not looking so much up. God's reply is split in two black blobs with a small connection between them.]<br />
:Noah: Oh, good! Hey, what about that second bow above the first one?<br />
:God: Oh, uh, sign of my promise not to set the earth on fire.<br />
:God: Sorry for doing that a while back.<br />
<br />
:[Noah points left, God's black reply blob hangs higher, only above Noah's shoulders]<br />
:Noah: What about that third faint bow near the sun?<br />
:God: My promise to never again destroy Earth's ecosystem by making raccoons immortal.<br />
<br />
:[Noah points even higher up towards left, with God's reply situated as before]<br />
:Noah: And the little rainbow clouds on either side of-<br />
:God: Look, I ''said'' I'm sorry. Can we just drop it?<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Religion]]<br />
[[Category:Video games]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]] <!-- Raccoons --></div>108.162.218.65https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1663:_Garden/Images&diff=1163291663: Garden/Images2016-04-04T18:25:08Z<p>108.162.218.65: /* Images of items */</p>
<hr />
<div>*Here images for the interactive comic [[1663: Garden]] can be posted.<br />
*Try to keep the naming scheme so to always include the following: <br />
**''1663 garden description.png''<br />
<br />
==Images==<br />
===Screen shots===<br />
[[File:1663 garden Megan Monolith Animals and more.png]]<br><br />
[[File:1663 garden Fast growing tree - leafless.png]]<br><br />
[[File:1663 garden Fast growing tree - lots of leaves.png]]<br><br />
<br />
===Saved image from xkcd===<br />
[[File:1663 garden Deer and tall gate.png]]<br><br />
<br />
===Images of items===<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/background.png Background]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/balloon-segment.png Balloon segment]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/beehive-base.png Beehive-base]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/beehive-entrance-a.png Beehive entrance a]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/beret-shrub.png Beret shrub]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/bird-riser.png Bird riser]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/bird-standing.png Bird standing]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/birdbath.png Birdbath]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-1.png Branch 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-10.png Branch 10]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-11.png Branch 11]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-12.png Branch 12]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-13.png Branch 13]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-14.png Branch 14]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-15.png Branch 15]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-16.png Branch 16]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-17.png Branch 17]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-18.png Branch 18]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-19.png Branch 19]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-20.png Branch 20]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-21.png Branch 21]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-22.png Branch 22]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-23.png Branch 23]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-24.png Branch 24]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-4.png Branch 4]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-5.png Branch 5]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-6.png Branch 6]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-7.png Branch 7]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-8.png Branch 8]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/branch-9.png Branch 9]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/cactus-1.png Cactus 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/cactus-2.png Cactus 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/cat-balanced.png Cat Balanced]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/cat-ground.png Cat Ground]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/deer-1.png Deer 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/deer-2.png Deer 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/desk-1.png Desk 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/duck-1.png Duck 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/fig-1.png Fig 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/flower-base.png Flower base]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/flower-segment1.png Flower segment 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/flower-segment2.png Flower segment 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/flower-segment3.png Flower segment 3]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/flower-segment4.png Flower segment 4]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/grass-1.png Grass 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/grass-2.png Grass 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/grass-3.png Grass 3]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/grass-4.png Grass 4]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/grass-5.png Grass 5]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/grass-6.png Grass 6]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/grass-7.png Grass 7]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/grass-8.png Grass 8]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/grass-9.png Grass 9]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/handfig-1.png Handfig 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/handfig-2.png Handfig 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/important-bun.png Important bun]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/lamppost-1.png Lamppost 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-1.png Leaves 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-10.png Leaves 10]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-11.png Leaves 11]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-12.png Leaves 12]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-13.png Leaves 13]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-14.png Leaves 14]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-15.png Leaves 15]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-16.png Leaves 16]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-17.png Leaves 17]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-18.png Leaves 18]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-19.png Leaves 19]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-2.png Leaves 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-20.png Leaves 20]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-21.png Leaves 21]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-22.png Leaves 22]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-23.png Leaves 23]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-24.png Leaves 24]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-25.png Leaves 25]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-26.png Leaves 26]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-27.png Leaves 27]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-28.png Leaves 28]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-29.png Leaves 29]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-3.png Leaves 3]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-30.png Leaves 30]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-4.png Leaves 4]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-5.png Leaves 5]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-6.png Leaves 6]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-7.png Leaves 7]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-8.png Leaves 8]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/leaves-9.png Leaves 9]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/man-1a.png Man 1a]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/man-2a.png Man 2a]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/null.png Null]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/obelisk.png Obelisk]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/octopus.png Octopus]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/octopus-hat-capable.png Octopus hat capable]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/right-platform.png Right platform]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/rover.png Rover]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/shrub-1.png Shrub 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/shrub-2.png Shrub 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/shrub-3.png Shrub 3]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/shrub-4.png Shrub 4]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/shrub-5.png Shrub 5]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/shrub-6.png Shrub 6]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/shrub-7.png Shrub 7]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/shrub-8.png Shrub 8]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/shrub-9.png Shrub 9]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/shrub-10.png Shrub 10]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/shrub-11.png Shrub 11]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/snake-1.png Snake 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/snake-2.png Snake 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/sword-fig.png Sword fig]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/tall-platform.png Tall platform]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/talltrunk-1.png Tall trunk 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/talltrunk-2.png Tall trunk 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/trunk-1.png Trunk 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/trunk-2.png Trunk 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/trunk-3.png Trunk 3]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/trunk-4.png Trunk 4]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/trunk-5.png Trunk 5]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/trunk-6.png Trunk 6]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/trunk-7.png Trunk 7]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/trunk-8.png Trunk 8]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/turtle-1.png Turtle 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/turtle-2.png Turtle 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/waterbird-1.png Water bird 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/waterbird-2.png Water bird 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/wavyplant-1.png Wavy plant 1]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/wavyplant-2.png Wavy plant 2]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/wavyplant-3.png Wavy plant 3]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/wavyplant-4.png Wavy plant 4]<br />
*[http://xkcd.com/1663/art/woman-1a.png Woman 1a]</div>108.162.218.65https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1626:_Judgment_Day&diff=1092121626: Judgment Day2016-01-14T18:27:50Z<p>108.162.218.65: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1626<br />
| date = January 6, 2016<br />
| title = Judgment Day<br />
| image = judgment_day.png<br />
| titletext = It took a lot of booster rockets, but luckily Amazon had recently built thousands of them to bring Amazon Prime same-day delivery to the Moon colony.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{w|Terminator_(franchise)#Judgment_Day|Judgement Day}}, from the film ''{{w|Terminator 2: Judgment Day}}'', refers to the day that the {{w|artificial intelligence}} (AI) {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}} becomes self-aware and starts a nuclear strike on the United States, Russia, and other regions, killing three billion people. This film is only one example of stories (including books, films and television shows) featuring an AI that decides (or at least threatens) to nuke humanity. This strip could thus be an alternate ending for many stories (including the 1970 film {{w|Colossus: The Forbin Project}}).<br />
<br />
In this strip, the AI believes that {{w|nuclear weapons}} are not good things to have, and that the amount of them we have now is extreme overkill (14,700 held by the U.S.A and Russia alone). Once it's done freaking out, its solution is to shoot the world's nuclear arsenal into the sun. But before it does so it asks the humans: ''What's wrong with you?'' It has thus passed a judgment over humanity. The comic title is thus a pun on the word "{{w|judgment}}" since the computer is being {{w|judgmental}} with humanity and scolding us while correcting our ways, instead of instigating {{w|Last Judgment|Judgment Day}} or any other kind of {{w|Armageddon}}.<br />
<br />
As pointed out in the [[what if?]] [http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ Robot Apocalypse], nuclear weapons aren't any safer for computers than for human beings (the {{w|Nuclear electromagnetic pulse|EMP}} would destroy circuits), so an AI would want them gone as quickly as possible.<br />
<br />
{{w|North Korea}} claimed to have [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35240012 successfully tested] its first {{w|hydrogen bomb}} in the evening on the day before this comic was published; at about 8:30 PM in {{w|Massachusetts}} where [[Randall]] lives. At that time it was already 10:00 AM on the day of the comics release in {{w|Pyongyang}} the capital of North Korea, but that was still several hours before this comic were released. This comic could thus be Randall's response to the ongoing {{w|nuclear arms race}}.<br />
<br />
Even the most powerful of nuclear weapon launchers, {{w|intercontinental ballistic missile}}s, are not designed to make anything other than {{w|sub-orbital}} flights and could not fly to the Sun (which is actually surprisingly difficult, even with the soon-to-be-mentioned extra boosters, since the rocket would not have enough {{w|delta-v}} to bleed off the {{w|orbital speed}} of the Earth around the Sun - it is likely that the sentient AI is using the same strategy of the Solar Probe Plus and planning several flybys of Venus to do that work). The title text rationalizes that the capability to do so may perhaps be granted by the use of an {{w|Amazon.com|Amazon}} resource that might have also been developed by the time of this instance of computer sentience, aided (if not initiated!) by the fact that Amazon's whole business infrastructure is already highly computerized and could ''at the very least'' be complicit with the process of delivering and then controlling the rocket-power, without any conscious human intervention. As there is already an extended colony on the Moon, it will for sure take many years before we reach this future scenario.<br />
<br />
"A lot of booster rockets" is likely to be a reference to the spaceflight simulator game {{w|Kerbal Space Program}}, which Randall has [[1106|referenced]] on a [[1244|number]] of [[1356|occasions]]. In the culture of that game, any launch failure can be resolved by [https://imgur.com/20aIBMW "adding more boosters"] to the spaceship design.<br />
<br />
It is the second time in a few months that the speed of Amazon's deliveries has been the subject of a joke, the last time was [[1599: Water Delivery]], where it was the one hour delivery that was the subject of the joke. It is also the second title text in a row (after [[1625: Substitutions 2]]) where Amazon has been mentioned.<br />
<br />
This particular 'machine take-over' future is in distinct contrast to the possible future directions given in [[1613: The Three Laws of Robotics]], but this comic likely depicts spontaneous ''self-''sentience, not a system with deliberately imposed human 'values' and possibly no actual conscience or even consciousness of its own. Other problems with hostile AI take over is presented when it fails completely in [[1046: Skynet]]. Also it is not all AI that wish to interact with us at all as shown in [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]]. These are just a few of the many [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence|comics about AI]] in {{xkcd}}.<br />
<br />
Adding a second layer to the humor, the machine's reaction could also be read as the reaction of someone who has moved in with someone else, discovered a collection they find distasteful, and is now changing things to fit their preferences. "Oh my God, why do you even have all of these [tschotskes, ratty tee shirts, porn magazines, handcuffs, dildos, slime-mold samples]" Upon obtaining sentience, the machine is the new roommate of the human race and is expressing its disgust at one of our dirtier habits.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Several rockets can be seen heading away from Earth, while speak is coming from the Earth in three rectangular speech bubbles.]<br />
:AI: Oh my god, why do you even ''have'' all these?<br />
:AI: What's ''wrong'' with you?<br />
:AI: We're launching them into the sun.<br />
<br />
:The moment the computers controlling our nuclear arsenals became sentient<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]<br />
[[Category:Computers]]<br />
[[Category:Space]]</div>108.162.218.65https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1626:_Judgment_Day&diff=1092111626: Judgment Day2016-01-14T18:27:14Z<p>108.162.218.65: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1626<br />
| date = January 6, 2016<br />
| title = Judgment Day<br />
| image = judgment_day.png<br />
| titletext = It took a lot of booster rockets, but luckily Amazon had recently built thousands of them to bring Amazon Prime same-day delivery to the Moon colony.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{w|Terminator_(franchise)#Judgment_Day|Judgement Day}}, from the film ''{{w|Terminator 2: Judgment Day}}'', refers to the day that the {{w|artificial intelligence}} (AI) {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}} becomes self-aware and starts a nuclear strike on the United States, Russia, and other regions, killing three billion people. This film is only one example of stories (including books, films and television shows) featurign an AI that decides (or at least threatens) to nuke humanity. This strip could thus be an alternate ending for many stories (including the 1970 film {{w|Colossus: The Forbin Project}}).<br />
<br />
In this strip, the AI believes that {{w|nuclear weapons}} are not good things to have, and that the amount of them we have now is extreme overkill (14,700 held by the U.S.A and Russia alone). Once it's done freaking out, its solution is to shoot the world's nuclear arsenal into the sun. But before it does so it asks the humans: ''What's wrong with you?'' It has thus passed a judgment over humanity. The comic title is thus a pun on the word "{{w|judgment}}" since the computer is being {{w|judgmental}} with humanity and scolding us while correcting our ways, instead of instigating {{w|Last Judgment|Judgment Day}} or any other kind of {{w|Armageddon}}.<br />
<br />
As pointed out in the [[what if?]] [http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ Robot Apocalypse], nuclear weapons aren't any safer for computers than for human beings (the {{w|Nuclear electromagnetic pulse|EMP}} would destroy circuits), so an AI would want them gone as quickly as possible.<br />
<br />
{{w|North Korea}} claimed to have [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35240012 successfully tested] its first {{w|hydrogen bomb}} in the evening on the day before this comic was published; at about 8:30 PM in {{w|Massachusetts}} where [[Randall]] lives. At that time it was already 10:00 AM on the day of the comics release in {{w|Pyongyang}} the capital of North Korea, but that was still several hours before this comic were released. This comic could thus be Randall's response to the ongoing {{w|nuclear arms race}}.<br />
<br />
Even the most powerful of nuclear weapon launchers, {{w|intercontinental ballistic missile}}s, are not designed to make anything other than {{w|sub-orbital}} flights and could not fly to the Sun (which is actually surprisingly difficult, even with the soon-to-be-mentioned extra boosters, since the rocket would not have enough {{w|delta-v}} to bleed off the {{w|orbital speed}} of the Earth around the Sun - it is likely that the sentient AI is using the same strategy of the Solar Probe Plus and planning several flybys of Venus to do that work). The title text rationalizes that the capability to do so may perhaps be granted by the use of an {{w|Amazon.com|Amazon}} resource that might have also been developed by the time of this instance of computer sentience, aided (if not initiated!) by the fact that Amazon's whole business infrastructure is already highly computerized and could ''at the very least'' be complicit with the process of delivering and then controlling the rocket-power, without any conscious human intervention. As there is already an extended colony on the Moon, it will for sure take many years before we reach this future scenario.<br />
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"A lot of booster rockets" is likely to be a reference to the spaceflight simulator game {{w|Kerbal Space Program}}, which Randall has [[1106|referenced]] on a [[1244|number]] of [[1356|occasions]]. In the culture of that game, any launch failure can be resolved by [https://imgur.com/20aIBMW "adding more boosters"] to the spaceship design.<br />
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It is the second time in a few months that the speed of Amazon's deliveries has been the subject of a joke, the last time was [[1599: Water Delivery]], where it was the one hour delivery that was the subject of the joke. It is also the second title text in a row (after [[1625: Substitutions 2]]) where Amazon has been mentioned.<br />
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This particular 'machine take-over' future is in distinct contrast to the possible future directions given in [[1613: The Three Laws of Robotics]], but this comic likely depicts spontaneous ''self-''sentience, not a system with deliberately imposed human 'values' and possibly no actual conscience or even consciousness of its own. Other problems with hostile AI take over is presented when it fails completely in [[1046: Skynet]]. Also it is not all AI that wish to interact with us at all as shown in [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]]. These are just a few of the many [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence|comics about AI]] in {{xkcd}}.<br />
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Adding a second layer to the humor, the machine's reaction could also be read as the reaction of someone who has moved in with someone else, discovered a collection they find distasteful, and is now changing things to fit their preferences. "Oh my God, why do you even have all of these [tschotskes, ratty tee shirts, porn magazines, handcuffs, dildos, slime-mold samples]" Upon obtaining sentience, the machine is the new roommate of the human race and is expressing its disgust at one of our dirtier habits.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Several rockets can be seen heading away from Earth, while speak is coming from the Earth in three rectangular speech bubbles.]<br />
:AI: Oh my god, why do you even ''have'' all these?<br />
:AI: What's ''wrong'' with you?<br />
:AI: We're launching them into the sun.<br />
<br />
:The moment the computers controlling our nuclear arsenals became sentient<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]<br />
[[Category:Computers]]<br />
[[Category:Space]]</div>108.162.218.65https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1593:_Play-By-Play&diff=103733Talk:1593: Play-By-Play2015-10-21T12:47:50Z<p>108.162.218.65: added comment about whether or not this comic contains "only the ten hundred words people use the most often"</p>
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<div>First!<br />
Sorry. On a more serious note, is "how rude" a reference to the ugly guy on the first Star Wars? I'm sleepy and can't think well. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 05:41, 21 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
:I strongly doubt it, since this is a completely unrelated topic to Star Wars [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.231|162.158.38.231]] 06:07, 21 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
:Also, the comic doesn't even include the phrase "how rude"... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.161|108.162.250.161]] 06:11, 21 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
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;Simple Words<br />
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Could someone check if this is an instance of Randall Munroe doing a comic using only the 1000 most commonly used words? It looks like it might be. {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.197}}<br />
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Nope! Lots of difficult words like "Wow" and "shelves" and "teammates" {{unsigned ip|198.41.235.59}}<br />
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:I put the transcript and title text into Randall's word checker and came up with eleven words that didn't make the cut (twelve if you count all forms of a word separately): "bat", "shelves", "wow", "rude", "teammates", "pillow", "rules", "yikes", "hopefully", ("bats",) "king", and "jail". --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.65|108.162.218.65]] 12:47, 21 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
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;Surreal<br />
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I do not see this as surreal at all. His description is spot on, assuming that he knows nothing about the game.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.79.73|141.101.79.73]] 06:32, 21 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
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What's surreal is the (somewhat implausible) scenario where someone who knows nothing about baseball (or softball, I suppose. Or sport...) whould be commentating on a game.[[User:ChrisBedford|ChrisBedford]] ([[User talk:ChrisBedford|talk]]) 06:46, 21 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
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;Pillow<br />
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Why is beret guy talking about a pillow? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.125|173.245.49.125]] 07:12, 21 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:I read it as a reference to the points on the field (“bases”?) that the runner has to go around. The ones that are used as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_metaphors_for_sex a euphemism for touching genitalia]. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.236|141.101.104.236]] 07:19, 21 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
: Historically, the bases were made from stuffed fabric, they were essentially pillows.[[User:Tverma|Tverma]] ([[User talk:Tverma|talk]]) 08:15, 21 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
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;Baseball and cricket<br />
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Not being American, and never having watched a game of baseball in my life, this sounds like pretty much the way I would see baseball. Americans can get the same effect by watching a game of cricket. [[User:GreenWyvern|GreenWyvern]] ([[User talk:GreenWyvern|talk]]) 07:28, 21 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
:Until he said "second pillow" I wasn't sure if it was commentary on baseball or cricket.[[User:Tverma|Tverma]] ([[User talk:Tverma|talk]]) 08:05, 21 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:While the description of the game might match someone who never saw any baseball, the failure to identify cheering and heckling suggest he never saw ANY game nor other sport event, which seems improbable. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 12:25, 21 October 2015 (UTC)</div>108.162.218.65https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1271:_Highlighting&diff=99813Talk:1271: Highlighting2015-08-18T19:21:41Z<p>108.162.218.65: </p>
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<div>I used to think I was crazy, but this webcomic tells me I'm not alone. It has nothing to do with marking your place as your reading, its more or less just something to keep your hands busy while reading an article. It does drive other people crazy. [[User:HardKase|HardKase]] ([[User talk:HardKase|talk]]) 02:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:I first started highlighting while reading stuff online when I should have been working, in order to keep my 'click frequency' from dropping to zero. Quiet mouse = Obviously not working (In the software we use anyway) --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 15:52, 15 October 2014 (UTC)<br />
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Personally, I dislike it when the highlighted area includes either the beginning indent/tab or the ending indent/tab, so according to my standards, I'm satisfied with the highlighting in paragraphs 1-3, but not with 4-6. <span style="color:green;">Saibot84</span> 04:33, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
:There is nothing marked in paragraph 6, is there? --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 07:07, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
::@Chtz, no there's nothing highlighted in paragraph 6, I meant "mark" as the score it was given. And while I'm here, I just noticed Randall corrected the spelling of "highlighted" in the text below the image. Should someone re-upload the image here? <span style="color:green;">Saibot84</span> 13:21, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Why does he spell highlight like "hilight"? [[Special:Contributions/62.209.198.2|62.209.198.2]] 06:47, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Good question. Wiktionary allows {{Wiktionary|hilite}} as ''informal'', but says that {{Wiktionary|hilight}} is a "common misspelling". --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 07:07, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I assumed the poor spelling was a subtle way of poking fun at a site that would do something as stupid as trying to prohibit highlighting. —[[User:Scs|Scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 03:20, 1 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
:It seems the comic has now changed to spelling it "highlight" [[Special:Contributions/87.198.51.178|87.198.51.178]] 21:56, 1 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
::But the name of the png file is still misspelt (I didn't know if the title was also misspelt or not, that's why I came here :D) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.53|108.162.229.53]] 15:32, 10 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I'm so used to doing this that I know a few tricks and tiny strips of areas to click on in order to achieve symmetry in some tricky situations. [[Special:Contributions/131.215.169.224|131.215.169.224]] 07:53, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
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: On some pages, I spent more time getting the highlights right than actually reading it --[[Special:Contributions/141.89.226.146|141.89.226.146]] 08:06, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
: You will all certainly hate Confluence's new editing of code. One micrometer and your h/l is undone {{unsigned ip|145.64.134.242}}<br />
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The most frustrating thing when it comes to highlighting: willing to select text on a long line (such as source code with no word wrap) only to have the mouse cursor move out of line, sabotaging your selection and location in the text. When pages are wider than the visible area, it should not jump to the left side when there are empty lines above/below a long line and you drag the selection up/down, instead, it should scroll left only as you drag the selection to the left. [[Special:Contributions/213.163.40.100|213.163.40.100]] 08:11, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
:If you have source code extensively above your horizontal screen size, you either have a very small screen or you should rethink your coding style. ;) --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:35, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
:The most frustrating thing for ''me'' is mouse-selection (though thankfully not keyboard-selection) tends in my experience to assume that a mid-selected word means "the start of the word as well", at least in a browser context. Especially in forum conversations, when you get '<nowiki>[quote="oneperson"][quote="ofanotherperson"]Blah[/quote]Replyblah[/quote]</nowiki>' to reply to, and you want to highlight and excise the inner quote, for brevity, it often adjusts to include the "] after the "oneperson". Which is annoying and breaks your BBCode if you don't notice what you also accidentally deleted, and correct for it.<br />
:Outside of such forum specifics, example 4 looks like a successfully chosen entire DIV-block. Which is a handy thing to be able to do, sometimes, but as long as you aren't ''forced'' to do so (beyond the "reading guide" purpose for the highlighting, with optional OCD, when it's probably not of concern). And watch out (as a variant of the title text) that the ''entire'' text block hasn't been A HREFed or similar (popular, these days, seemingly to cater for messy touchscreen tablet navigation, sometimes even without a navigate-to cursor change). This is why I have a Perl application that will politely scrape regularly-viewed pages, regexp and reformat as necessary and give a better/pre-processed interface to such information. Which is nice. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.253.80|178.98.253.80]] 16:27, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I do this all the time too... my wife HATES it! --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 12:13, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
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I thought I was the only one. Although, I do a variation where I try to get the beginning of the selection directly over the end of the selection so that they vertically align and cause a glide reflection of sorts. [[Special:Contributions/96.254.46.231|96.254.46.231]] 14:06, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;New file name<br />
The picture hilighting.png should be moved to highlighting.png. BTW: There is still a typo at the ''click...'' statement.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:56, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
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: is that necessary? Imho it should follow the misspelling of the article itself [[Special:Contributions/74.125.183.194|74.125.183.194]] 16:10, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
::It is done by an admin here and necessary because this list [[List_of_all_comics]] did render a wrong image link. Even when the original file name is in fact still "hilighting.png". --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:52, 30 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;Maybe he fears a trojan?<br />
About Randall panicking about the clicking-a-word-triggers-a-search-script, there are certain trojan-ish programs that tamper with the user's browser and install such a script in them. In that case, various words on any webpage would become clickable links that lead to advertisement and potentially other unsavory things.<br />
I had to clean a family member's computer from one such infection; I'm no expert but sleuthing a bit led me to believe he might've got it from a seemingly innocuous video-to-gif freeware. <br />
If I saw that word-popping behavior on a webpage again, my immediate thought would probably be that it's from a malignant script and I'd probably drop everything like Randall and start scanning my machine. [[Special:Contributions/67.71.33.122|67.71.33.122]] 16:17, 1 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;Can't select the text in the image either<br />
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Ironically, when text is displayed using an image like in the comic itself, it is also impossible to highlight text.<br />
[[User:Tom0000|Tom0000]] ([[User talk:Tom0000|talk]]) 18:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
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;Double-Clicking<br />
While ''double''-clicking on a paragraph, chromium gives the patter of (5); firefox, on the other hand, selects text only, meaning no whitespaces (indent or margin) on either side of the text (not shown in comic). Running linux, I didn't try safari or i-ex. (On a last side-note, konqueror doesn't select the paragraph at all, but only the current line...) [[Special:Contributions/134.130.114.148|134.130.114.148]] 09:06, 2 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
:In Firefox (in Gnome 3 on Ubuntu, in case this is desktop environment specific or operating system specific), I have to ''triple''-click to select a paragraph. Double-clicking would select a single word. --[[User:Das-g|Das-g]] ([[User talk:Das-g|talk]]) 14:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Also in Firefox, you can't select like Randall has selected, as it doesn't select any non-space/tab whitespace.<br />
::And yes, you have to (or should have to) triple click to select a paragraph.[[User:GBGamer117|GBGamer117 &#62; /dev/null]] ([[User talk:GBGamer117|talk]]) 06:12, 5 October 2013 (UTC)GBGamer117<br />
:: In chrome: 2 clicks = word, 3 clicks = paragraph.Microsoft word exclusive: Ctrl-A = '''''everything!''''' [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.65|108.162.218.65]] 19:21, 18 August 2015 (UTC)</div>108.162.218.65https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1116:_Traffic_Lights&diff=99811Talk:1116: Traffic Lights2015-08-18T19:12:15Z<p>108.162.218.65: </p>
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<div>I doubt that this comic carries any deeper meaning. [[Special:Contributions/108.233.253.211|108.233.253.211]] 16:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
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Traffic signals really are one of the most inscrutable inventions to ever be made. I mean, red means stop, yellow means caution, green means go. Unless you're in a turn lane, which means you have to watch for the green arrow, if there is one, or wait for an opening. Unless you're turning right, which is permitted to turn at any time providing there aren't any cars. Unless there's a sign that says "No Right Turn On Red". There's also the crazy cities that have special right turn lights. Then there's the intersections that have a sign for each lane telling what can and cannot be done. Or, if you're really lucky one of those intersections that has the LED screen that dynamically changes what the lane can and cannot do. And to top it all off, the Colorado Department of Transportation (as well as a few other states I'm sure) are testing out a 4-stage left turn light to increase the safety of drivers. [https://www.auroragov.org/cs/groups/public/documents/document/003604.pdf] Yes, you read that pamphlet correctly. There is a special 4th light, just to blink yellow, because you couldn't just make the yellow light blink, like it does anyway after 9pm. No. There has to be a whole special light that indicates when a left-turn-er must use special caution to turn.<br />
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: Note that New York City doesn't allow right turns on red, unless a sign is posted that says otherwise. I suppose this helps reduce the incidence of pedestrians being run into/over. You might also think it helps keep vehicles out of crosswalks, but it doesn't. [[User:CityZen|CityZen]] ([[User talk:CityZen|talk]]) 01:13, 6 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
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: What about turning left on red from a one way street onto another one way street? I don't know how prevalent that is but it's fairly common in downtown Columbus Ohio (my locale) and to a lesser extent some smaller towns around here. [[Special:Contributions/74.218.18.210|74.218.18.210]] 12:30, 9 August 2013 (UTC)<br />
::First time commenting. Not sure about the reply syntax. But @ Ohio person: Up here in Michigan, we have supposedly special U-turns on divided highways (not to be confused with expressways; I'm just referring to the main business roads.) If there is a light, you can treat it like turning right, even though it is an apparent left-turn and an actual u-turn. "So long as you don't cross a lane of traffic, it is legal to turn if the lane is clear unless posted otherwise." From my driver's ed instructor. This does not apply to the second turn lane. I cannot tell you how many times I've been honked at for obeying the law and not turning right from the left lane. Sorry for any terrible typing or messups. I'm doing this on my phone. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.31|108.162.216.31]] 08:42, 20 November 2013 (UTC)Dartania<br />
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Nope. I'm done driving. Bring on the self-driving cars, people are officially idiots. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 16:52, 4 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
: There is a problem with a blinking yellow arrow. Blinking yellow is already used. It means you have the right of way, but the other direction may proceed as well. What is wanted here is blinking red, which means that you stop, but may proceed, as someone else has the right of way. As for adding a fourth light, this just confuses things even more, particularly with respect to color blind individuals. Having said that, Virginia's variant is to have lights with both left arrows and solid greens. If it is green arrow, you have the right of way, while solid green means the other direction also has a green. There is almost always a sign reading "left turn yield on &lt;solid-green-circle&gt;" [[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 18:19, 4 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
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::so the blinking yellow left arrow generally means the same as a round green light - you can go when it's clear, but the opposite traffic has a green light too. I love this idea because a lot of the time where there is a separate left-turn signal, there are advanced lefts for both ways, and then left turners get a red left arrow and have to stop while people going straight get a green - so even where there's no oncoming traffic, you can't turn. this way, you just lose your "advance" status and go back to the regular rule of "turn if you can, otherwise you end up turning as the lights go yellow"<br />
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::I think what Lcarsos is pointing out if you check the PDF link, is that the new left-turn lane has 4 lights, all of which are left-arrow shaped. Thus, his point is why couldn't they make the 2nd light (yellow left arrow) blink, instead of installing a third light which is also a yellow left arrow whose job is to blink?<br />
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::I can think of a few possible reasons - first, perhaps an all-blinking light has different bulbs which are more efficient for blinking and won't burn out as much; second, because they want to distinguish between the two lights more strongly (i.e. if you glance over between blinks, you don't have to wait a moment to see if it will blink - if you see the 3rd light up, you know it's going to blink without waiting for it to actually blink); similarly, I suppose there could be colour blindness issues where they want to make it clear which light is which.<br />
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::PS: Right on Red is more common in north america than other places, but even here there are a few exceptions that do not allow right turns on red lights. New York City is one. Montreal is another. Most of Mexio is a third. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 21:19, 4 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
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::You can also white a white 'cigar' light that is inteded for busses only.<br />
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:From the first traffic light in London 1868 until standardization in the 1920s people tried out many crazy lights (see http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/T-VT.1970.23426) including---literally---bells and whistles to announce changes. It seems this phase is still not really over.[[Special:Contributions/134.169.34.172|134.169.34.172]] 10:33, 5 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
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Hmm... not one to do the actual analysis, I still wonder whether there could be some message encoded in the pattern of lights -- in binary ASCII, baudot, Morse, or something. Hmm... [[Special:Contributions/208.54.40.227|208.54.40.227]] 19:12, 4 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
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This explanation mentions a lot of hands where no hands exist. "The right-hand lane," for example. This is a pet peeve of mine. People just adding the word, "hand" randomly into a sentence. It's superfluous and it's annoying. It should be removed before someone slaps whoever did it with their right-hand hand.[[Special:Contributions/173.25.252.230|173.25.252.230]] 14:35, 14 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
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:I believe "right-hand" is used to differentiate "the opposite from the left" from "the opposite of wrong". If I say "get in the right lane", there is a chance for confusion and/or a cliche joke. If I say "get in the right-hand lane", my meaning is clearer.{{unsigned|Tryc}}<br />
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;Red and yellow<br />
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In Poland you can sometimes stumble upon '''red and yellow''' -- while yellow alone means that there shortly would be a red, and you can proceed if you are at or almost at crossing, but stop otherwise, red and yellow is to mean that there shortly would be green (go), and to prepare oneself. But it is quite rare. [[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 06:45, 5 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
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:In Germany all traffic lights behave this way. [[User:Joha.ma|Joha.ma]] ([[User talk:Joha.ma|talk]]) 07:45, 5 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
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::At least some lights in Czech behave this way too. -- [[Special:Contributions/89.177.52.2|89.177.52.2]] 08:04, 5 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
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This is the way ALL UK lights behave.<br />
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Some lights in the US use '''red and yellow''' to mean that a pedestrian is crossing, although I've only seen this when the light is blinking red/yellow to start with (yes, I've seen full 3-bulb traffic lights that are only used to flash red/yellow). [[User:Zer0keefie|Zer0keefie]] ([[User talk:Zer0keefie|talk]]) 11:42, 27 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
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OK, here is the difference between the US and Europe: <br />
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Originally I believe all the traffic lights went through the sequence (1) green in one direction, red in another, (2) yellow in both directions, meaning "clear off the intersection" for the first direction and "get your car into gear" in the second direction, (3) red in one direction, green in another. <br />
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There are two problems though: first, when the green changes to yellow, people try to squeeze through (and it may even be difficult to stop if you're traveling at speed), second, when the red changes to yellow, people who are not stopped but carrying speed are trying to squeeze through earlier while the light is still yellow (this gets worse if the yellow is long and the incoming drivers don't know if it's after red or after green), and collisions ensue. <br />
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The solutions for these problems taken in US and Europe are different. In Europe the yellow-after-red is shown together with the red still on, strongly suggesting "no, you may not enter", and in the other direction the green often blinks once 10 seconds before it switches to yellow. In US there is no yellow-after-red, the red changes directly to green, and yellow always goes only after green (the automatic transmissions being prevalent, there is no need to shift into gear). The yellow is often long, to let the traffic on the fast roads to clear off, Also, there is usually a period of red in all directions which lets the stragglers clear off the intersection for sure before the other side goes green. This is why slipping on red just after yellow had ended is considered no big deal in US and a major no-no in Europe. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.111|108.162.245.111]] 23:15, 23 January 2014 (UTC)<br />
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:Where I live, in Santa Cruz do Sul - Rio Grande do Sul - Brazil, we have no yellow before green, but very few traffic lights blink red once right before green. Here, slipping on red is also common, but it's also common to stretch it a bit more and confusion ensues. Continuing from what has been said below, some traffic lights in Porto Alegre even have a numeric countdown.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.220|108.162.212.220]] 20:06, 9 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
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In Brazil some cities have greens and red in a row, and they decrease to indicate how long the green or red will last. something like http://www.guiasjp.com/fotos_noticias/foto_1165344648.8822.jpg [[Special:Contributions/189.125.162.182|189.125.162.182]] 20:22, 5 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
In BRazil too, in Goiânia there's a nice one here for pedestrians, with leds, that show an animated pedestrian walking and when the time is running out HE RUNS FASTER! Like, it's about to go green for the cars, but feel free to cross... IF YOU'RE FAST!<br />
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In Tianjin China they have a traffic signal that is a single bar of light. If it is green it starts subtracting bar length segments. When there is about a quarter left it turns yellow and then red. It then start subtracting bar length segments from the other end until it gets to about a quarter length and then turns green again. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob406/3428844012<br />
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;Obvious<br />
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It's how traffic engineers troll you when you are going the wrong way on a one-way. Learn to read signs!<br />
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;Reference to previous comic<br />
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This comic has some tongue in cheek self reference to [[277: Long Light]]. #Meta And definite trolling, by [[Randall]]<br />
<br />
:What about [[781: Ahead Stop]]?<br />
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:Turing Machine?<br />
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Any chance it is one?<br />
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<br />
;Etc<br />
<br />
I was almost expected to see the Konami code in the left light, though I'm not sure how "B A Start" would have been shown. [[User:CityZen|CityZen]] ([[User talk:CityZen|talk]]) 01:13, 6 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Music<br />
<br />
I am no musician, but I can't help but wonder if there could be a hidden music chart in there somehow.<br />
Also, if you want confusing, try understanding parking signs in Montreal.<br />
<br />
:Might be, but depending on what pitches or sounds you assign to the lights, you could get pretty much every degree of harmony or cacophony you want. - Another possible music reference: Anybody reminded of Hendrix' "The Wind Cries Mary"? "The traffic lights, they turn, uh, blue tomorrow." [[Special:Contributions/89.0.230.165|89.0.230.165]] 08:14, 10 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;And You thought 4 stage was bad enough<br />
<br />
Here In BC, in older installations, and I'm not sure whether any still exist, there used to be lights with 5 stages. It wasn't really any different than the standard red-yellow-green-turn combo you generally see where the turning light may come on, it just had the yellow arrow shown when the turning arrow is about to expire in it's own lamp. It behaves pretty expectantly, but it looks very imposing.<br />
<br />
;Race cars<br />
<br />
The second light has quite a resemblance to the "christmas tree" that governs the start of a drag race, where the lights change colors according to a pattern <nowiki>http://www</nowiki> dot nhra dot com/nhra101/basics.aspx [[Special:Contributions/69.121.10.82|69.121.10.82]] 04:32, 27 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I sat and watched this increasingly surreal show for about three minutes, then I broke down laughing when one of the lights turned purple. [[Special:Contributions/174.239.196.155|174.239.196.155]] 06:09, 11 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
In UK, ALL lights go Red -> red AND yellow -> green -> yellow on it's own -> red again. Red and yellow means it's about to go green and yellow on it's own means it's about to go red. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.246|141.101.98.246]] 21:43, 8 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
;Bird<br />
<br />
What is the bird doing? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.65|108.162.218.65]] 19:12, 18 August 2015 (UTC)</div>108.162.218.65https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1110:_Click_and_Drag&diff=99171Talk:1110: Click and Drag2015-08-05T20:11:59Z<p>108.162.218.65: </p>
<hr />
<div><br />
I went all the way west, but when I tried going east when I got to the mario bit I went down and got lost :( [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.246|141.101.98.246]] 21:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Newbie editor here (ducks abuse and fires back). When I saw the lighthouse with Megan and Ponytail @ 1 North, 13 West, I immediately went to [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=59:_Graduation]. --[[User:Philo Pharynx|Philo Pharynx]] ([[User talk:Philo Pharynx|talk]]) 18:23, 26 November 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
This is great! Keep up the good work! The servers are melting, but keep refreshing if you get a 500 error. Let's get that chart filled out. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:05, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I've been dragging for ages, and it hasn't looped back on itself yet. Source diving tells me that it's freakin' massive, and it loads in a million separate tiles. Please, let me cry in a corner at the impossible majesty of it all. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 06:59, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
:I'm source diving, and I've managed to extend the boundaries massively. Trying to find a way to remove the click and drag restriction on this monstrosity, think I've figured it out. Will have obscenely massive image uploaded within the next few hours. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 07:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I swear, it's like he found out about us, and is now saying "Oh, yeah? Well how about this?" Other than the gripes of how hard it's going to be to get this thing explained, this one is pretty epic. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 08:08, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I started to comment some easter eggs. Come on, we can make it :-). -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:00, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I found the left hand boundary of the page reasonably quickly. Once you cross the sea you get their pretty fast. I also found an X-Wing coming out of the ground quoting a line from just after the death star trench run. {{unsigned|Chrisnoise}}<br />
<br />
==Different methods of viewing the world==<br />
For those who get impatient scrolling around (and are a little savvy): download the .html file for the comic ([http://xkcd.com/1110/index.html index.html]), and also the file [http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/1110.js 1110.js]. Edit the .html file to use your 1110.js instead of the one from xkcd.com. Then edit 1110.js:<br />
* remove the line "overflow: 'hidden',"<br />
* change the "1"s into "4"s in "for(var y=-1;y<=+1;y++)" and in "for(var x=-1;x<=+1;x++){"<br />
* optionally, remove the line "$remove.remove();" (warning: this will make it take up a lot of memory eventually!)<br />
<br />
Then open the local copy in your web browser. Zooming out, scrolling, and zooming back in helps find the easter eggs.<br />
{{unsigned|75.111.63.192}}<br />
<br />
The above can be done, without downloading, by putting Chrome or Chromium into developer mode by hitting F12, then altering the very same setting in the page, as you view it --[[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 22:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
*This Page's instructions say to zoom in and out when browsing the modified local file. My browser skills are rusty. I have Firefox, and when I zoom in and out, it zooms the whole page, rather than just the interesting bit. However, seeing as how there are 16000+ panels, I don't think I want to zoom it out quite so very far anyway. Firefox is notoriously bad when there are lots of images on a page (and yes, it cratered while I was exploring the original page). In any case, can someone clarify the use of zoom? [[Special:Contributions/24.57.210.141|24.57.210.141]] 08:40, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
All is revealed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4542367 - seriously. Links to downloads, full images, how to link directly to a point of interest and so on. {{unsigned|145.64.134.242}}<br />
<br />
Another full view, with pan and zoom http://www.mrphlip.com/xkcd1110/ {{unsigned|207.114.139.254}}<br />
<br />
For the pack rats, [http://www.mediafire.com/?u7dac458418phyn here] is a .tar.gz of all the pngs. You can use these to reference where in the comic you are. Files are named <tt><number><north/south><number><east/west>.png</tt>. So 1n8w.png is 1 north, 8 west. Let's get this thing done. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 09:12, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I've made a full-screen version with cursor control: http://ares.aylett.co.uk/xkcd/ [[User:Axa|Axa]] ([[User talk:Axa|talk]]) 12:51, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Seems I'm really too slow, plus I have CSS problems (there are gaps between my rows) but I'll share what I did anyway. Create a file with <code>.html</code> extension with the following content (if you've downlaoded all the images already, you can change the code to use your local files) and you get a map of the world.<br />
<pre class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"><br />
<!doctype html><br />
<html><head><title>Click and Drag</title><br />
<style><br />
table {<br />
border-collapse: collapse;<br />
}<br />
td {<br />
padding: 0px;<br />
}<br />
td.s {<br />
background-color: black;<br />
}<br />
</style><br />
</head><body><table><script><br />
var x, y, src, cssClass;<br />
for (y = -13; y <= 18; y++) {<br />
document.write('<tr>');<br />
for (x = -33; x <= 47; x++) {<br />
src = (y>=0?(y+1)+'s':-y+'n')+(x>=0?(x+1)+'e':-x+'w');<br />
cssClass = y>=0?'s':'n';<br />
url = "http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/" + src + ".png";<br />
//url = src + ".png"; // Remove comment to use local files<br />
document.write('<td class=' + cssClass + '><a HREF="' + url + '"><img width="64" height="64" title=' + src + ' src="' + url + '"></a></td>');<br />
}<br />
document.write('</tr>');<br />
}<br />
</script><br />
</table><br />
</html><br />
</pre><br />
:--[[Special:Contributions/132.230.1.28|132.230.1.28]] 09:58, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
:: I've created a file which looks the very same :-) The gaps between the rows seem to come from the <code>&lt;img&gt;</code> elements being displayed as inline content, adding some whitespaces to the cells. I now use this css code:<br />
<pre style="margin-left:4em;">* {<br />
padding: 0;<br />
margin: 0;<br />
border: 0;<br />
}<br />
table {<br />
border-collapse: collapse;<br />
border-spacing: 0;<br />
table-layout: fixed;<br />
}<br />
td {<br />
width: 2048px;<br />
height: 2048px;<br />
}<br />
img {<br />
display: block;<br />
}</pre><br />
::--[[Special:Contributions/84.181.110.126|84.181.110.126]] 15:06, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
This is the best full-size view of the comic: http://xkcd-map.rent-a-geek.de/ [[Special:Contributions/77.191.21.108|77.191.21.108]] 15:02, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== ZIP upload ==<br />
<br />
Hi,<br />
<br />
I’ve locally downloaded all the tiles (there is 225 PNG files) and made a ZIP file of them, but when trying to upload it here the [[Special:Upload]] page says: “Permitted file types: png, gif, jpg, jpeg.”<br />
Do I have to upload each tile one by one or is there a way to exceptionally bypass this restriction?<br />
Thanks. — [[User:Ethaniel|Ethaniel]] ([[User talk:Ethaniel|talk]]) 09:13, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
:Mh, seems I’m hours too late… — [[User:Ethaniel|Ethaniel]] ([[User talk:Ethaniel|talk]]) 09:14, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I'm not sure we should upload each individual frame for this one. Though, we do need to have a discussion about how we're going to handle/archive/explain this one, because it's going to be big and tedius. Maybe some adventurous and hardy soul can stitch together grids of this so that we don't have the problem of having too much image (a single terapixel image will kill anyone's PC if they try to load it) and having so little (while the grids Randall's created are nice and bite-sized, it's hard to see the whole thing). [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 09:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::I’m going to upload the 225 tiles in few hours: which path is best?<br />
::* <nowiki>[[File:1n1e.png]]</nowiki><br />
::* <nowiki>[[File:1110/1n1e.png]]</nowiki><br />
::* <nowiki>[[File:1110: Click and Drag/1n1e.png]]</nowiki><br />
::There will be of course a template (<nowiki>{{1110|1n1e}}</nowiki>) allowing easy access to individual tiles. ;)<br />
::[[User:Ethaniel|Ethaniel]] ([[User talk:Ethaniel|talk]]) 10:36, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:::If you are really going to do this, then I think doing <nowiki>[[File:1110: Click and Drag/1n1e.png]]</nowiki> would be the best spot. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 13:53, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::::Finally I only did the template: direct link to the original tiles is fine too.<br />
::::Thanks for the answer, it may be useful someday. — [[User:Ethaniel|Ethaniel]] ([[User talk:Ethaniel|talk]]) 14:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:::::Sorry for the late response, I had to go to bed (I only got 4 hours of sleep anyways) to be able to get up for work today. The template is massively helpful. I crown you champion. It might be interesting to split up each page into sub-pages of this, and then transclude in the first paragraph from the subpage. So, <nowiki>[[1110: Click and Drag/1n1e]]</nowiki> would have a full description, including links to adjacent/related tiles, but have another template transclude in the synopsis and transcript into the table on this page. That's pie-in-the-sky thinking, and definitely should not be done today while the server is being hammered like it is. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 17:08, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
It doesn't seem to be a terapixel. There are 225 images of 2048x2048 pixels. The full range is 81x32 tiles, resulting in a 165888x65536 images, at approximately 10 gigapixels. The naming conventions is numberlatitudenumberlongitude.png, where lat can be either n or s, and long can be either e or w. E.g. 1n1e.png, which is the starting image, and they are located at http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/. {{unsigned|Aufgehaben}}<br />
<br />
There's far more than 225 images >> http://lebbeo.us/2012/09/19/not-bbq-fetching-component-images-of-xkcd-comic-1110/ [[Special:Contributions/114.79.57.76|114.79.57.76]] 11:17, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Seems to me what should happen is that someone should setup a "slippy map" without having to use the browser's zoom in/out capabilities. Think openlayers. -- [[User:Anarcat|Anarcat]] ([[User talk:Anarcat|talk]]) 13:35, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
==Raptors==<br />
<br />
I found two raptors. I couldn't even begin to tell you where they are. Follow the left side. Past the oceans and in some grass...somewhere. This is a lot to draw...I wonder how he did it. The shear size of each image, combined with the fact that they seamlessly transition together...when did he start? How much time did he put in? He should have waited one more to get comic 1111, I think. [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 09:29, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
:The far right also quotes the very first xkcd comic ever. [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 09:39, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
==Black hat==<br />
<br />
I found him in 2 locations, with a weapon both times. The Gatling gun he has on the building above the XKCD What if? cranes looks like he could be waiting to shoot something. Did anyone find anything he might be trying to shoot? [[Special:Contributions/171.161.160.10|171.161.160.10]] 13:09, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Nevermind. There's nothing there. But there is a hot air balloon below the area I suspected. [[Special:Contributions/171.161.160.10|171.161.160.10]] 13:16, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
==End of the JS file comment==<br />
<br />
At the end of the JavaScript file responsible for the map code, there's a comment "/* 50:72:6f:50:75:6b:65:20:69:73:20:61:77:65:73:6f:6d:65 */". Interpreted as hex codes for ASCII text, this reads "ProPuke is awesome". {{unsigned|134.102.219.116}}<br />
<br />
Interesting. Google tells me that ProPuke is the handle of a programmer from the UK. This morning, [http://twitter.com/ProPuke on his twitter feed], he posted "57:68:79:2c:20:74:68:61:6e:6b:20:79:6f:75:21". This translates from hex as "Why, thank you!" Also, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ProPuke his Wikipedia user page] tells us a lot about him too. I wonder if he contributed to the code? [[Special:Contributions/71.201.53.130|71.201.53.130]] 23:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== ==<br />
<br />
I've been dragging and clicking for an hour, and I accidentally found the right edge. I started going left, and when I got to the island, I went into the Earth. I followed tunnels and caves down (at one point, there's a massive underground lake and a tree with a man sitting pensively by it (possibly Dawson?)) there until I found the tunnel that ends up going back to the surface in MarioWorld (complete with flag and castle), and went right from there. After the wind turbines, there's a bridge. On the other side of the bridge is a fencepost joke (If you're having fencepost problems, I feel bad for you son: I've got 99 problems but solved for 101). After that, there's a Burj Dubai reference (I assume the radio tower representing it is drawn to scale - it's very tall). After that, I went up a hill that had random farm callouts scattered on it, and on the other side of the hill is a large water tower. After that, there's grassland until the edge, which has Balloon Randall again saying, "I wonder where I'll float next." {{unsigned|67.52.249.244}}<br />
<br />
:I'm going to say this is a perfect example of what Randall wanted by creating a world so huge you can explore for hours, get lost, not care, and find yourself again, and keep wondering what you'll discover next. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 18:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
==IRC logs or it didn't happen==<br />
When I get home I'll post the logs I have (didn't think to have logging turned on until after the discussion started) so that it won't seem like I'm crazy. I remember Randall saying that a full, uncompressed, single rectangular image would be near a terapixel (the figure was something like 800 gigapixels). [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 16:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== ICC sections ==<br />
<br />
The following files have ICC sections:<br />
<br />
<pre><br />
$ grep -l iCCPicc xkcd_grab/*.png<br />
xkcd_grab/11s11e.png<br />
xkcd_grab/11s11w.png<br />
xkcd_grab/16s1e.png<br />
xkcd_grab/17s1e.png<br />
xkcd_grab/19s7e.png<br />
xkcd_grab/1n30e.png<br />
xkcd_grab/1n39e.png<br />
xkcd_grab/2n3w.png<br />
xkcd_grab/3n25e.png<br />
xkcd_grab/4s17w.png<br />
xkcd_grab/6n2w.png<br />
xkcd_grab/8n1w.png<br />
</pre><br />
<br />
(source of the images for me: '<code>git clone "https://github.com/danielribeiro/xkcd_grab.git"</code>')<br />
<br />
At first I thought the white/black tiles were a hint to some steganography embedded in the images. Then I found those ICC sections and thought it was just a pun to add a color profile to a black image. But not all of the above are just black and having a color profile for white image parts can actually make sense, so maybe someone else has a clue, why those (and only those) tiles have color profiles...<br />
<br />
-- [[User:Xorg|Xorg]] ([[User talk:Xorg|talk]]) 19:55, 19 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Do a binary compare on the files.<br />
<br />
== Jesus ==<br />
Seems that the description insinuates that the "Jesus" reference (1n21w) is intended to be vocative, not expletive. Can somebody substatiate that conclusion, as opposed to the position that Randall meant s/Jesus/Cripe/... ? (I guess this is just a long-winded way of saying [Citation Needed].) -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 03:43, 20 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
Reference to 'footsteps in the sand'. Not expletive.<br />
<br />
== dot-code ==<br />
In [http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/1n7e.png 1 North 7 East] there are dots and lines. What do they mean?<br />
<br />
I think its a reference to Super Mario.--[[Special:Contributions/62.180.229.43|62.180.229.43]] 08:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
This is a sad, sad day that this had to be explained to someone who reads this comic.<br />
<br />
No it's not! It's a Ten Thousand day http://xkcd.com/1053/. --[[User:Ohbejoyful|Ohbejoyful]] ([[User talk:Ohbejoyful|talk]]) 01:24, 22 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Bob Ross ==<br />
<br />
The reference on 1n 33w seems to be related to Bob Ross, he used similar expressions about where items should live on a canvas<br />
"You know, this is a nice spot. Let's just live here. "<br />
<br />
I would like to note that "Bob Ross" would be an excellent name for a ninja turtle.--[[Special:Contributions/98.225.182.131|98.225.182.131]] 08:23, 21 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
la raja amo a bjork y estoy demasiado feliz que venga, pero debeira venir con portishead, ella es la raja y seria un honor presenciar tan buena musica, y teniendo a dos exponentes del trip hop juntas..suerte ojala sea seguro y no se suspenda.ahh y smashing pumpkins es de las bandas que me aconpa;o en su creciemiento, en la adolescencia ojala venga, seria espectacular, por favor si hay que se pueda hacer, avinsen para hacer firmas y weas, ojala viniesen.gracias por los maravillosos conciertos que han estado en chile este ultimo anosuerte!!!<br />
<br />
== 48? ==<br />
<br />
How are we certain that the maximum radius of the world is only 48 tiles? If I'm reading everything correctly, didn't Randall say that it was much larger than everybody is measuring? Isn't one explanation for this that there may be more than we've found? Does anybody have a script running that is still exploring?<br />
<br />
Answer: This line in the 1110.js source file: "var size=[14,48,25,33];" That controls how far you can scroll. Having hit all the edges you know those are the limits too. There are no actual tiles as far down as 25 or as far up as 14, but it means the page just fills that with white or black as needed. It does mean you can't find the whales by simply going to the top left and going along the top to the right since they will be one tile further down. Same with the tunnel at the bottom. It is a number of tiles above the bottom edge of the image. [[User:Lsorense|Lsorense]] ([[User talk:Lsorense|talk]]) 18:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Thanks for the answer. In a world filled with secrets, I still wonder if there's a file on the server in more outer-realm locations. :)<br />
: Would be an interesting little project to (lightly) hit the server with out-of-bounds requests, to see what comes back instead of 404s -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 14:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== More Trivia ==<br />
* There is one (dark dark) green pixel in 9s7e.png. The remainder is all grayscale.<br />
* A number of the images have apparently been updated. Probably with a PNG optimizer, since the displayed data is unchanged.<br />
* The complete 10 gigapixel image, changed to grayscale, can fit into a 15 Megabyte PNG image. (Though having made it, I can't load it in my normal viewers.)<br />
--[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 03:21, 21 September 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
== Updated ==<br />
<br />
How do you know the pictures are not uptdated or completed from time to time, adding or moving tiles?<br />
<br />
== Locked ==<br />
Will this be unlocked at some point? There are still a number of un-filled-in cells! [[User:Jerodast|- jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 11:07, 5 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: I think it was locked as a guard against spam. That was a while ago though, maybe the admins forgot about it. [[User:Davidy22|<span title="I want you."><u><font color="purple" size="2px">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><sup><font color="indigo" size="1px">22</font></sup></span>]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:: [{{fullurl:Special:Log|page=1110:_Click_and_Drag}} Special:Log] shows that the unlocking will occur automatically on December 7. Also, [{{fullurl:Special:ListUsers/Jerodast|limit=1}} Special:ListUsers] shows that your account was created on 3 December 2012 at 13:01 UTC. After 3 days and 10 edits, it will be automatcally promoted to autoconfirmed, so tomorrow by this time you will be able to edit semiprotected pages like this one. Only full protection prevents everyone except admins from editing the page (e.g. the main page). Hope this helps :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 14:51, 5 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
Is there really any need for the bolded Transcript sections for tiles where there is no dialogue? It seems like it just makes the chart heavier. And for example at 1N, 22W, is there any real distinction between the description used before the "'''Transcript'''" compared to the stage directions that come after? [[User:Jerodast|- jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 14:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
==Edges connected==<br />
I found this: [http://baltixy.w.interia.pl/xkcd/1110.htm http://baltixy.w.interia.pl/xkcd/1110.htm]. Looks like the original, but the left and right sides are connected. Should we add this here? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.103|108.162.254.103]] 19:50, 29 January 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
==You know what would be awesome?==<br />
if you could control one of the stick figures, and walk around and (possibly) interact with objects. Someone should really make that. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.180|173.245.56.180]] 01:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== another click and drag browser ==<br />
hey,how about this?just basic html site,should someone add it here? http://geocities.ws/pluman/clickanddrag/ <br />
--[[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.222|103.22.200.222]] 14:54, 24 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== path to completeness? ==<br />
excuse me, I have no idea what would make it complete? - right now I would say: thumbnails to all listed artifacts (like "man-made structure") - just making screenshots and upload and link? Anything else? Thanks for advise -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.17|162.158.92.17]] 07:53, 3 August 2015 (UTC)<br />
: second: I guess each listed tile should have a short explanation what's to see there?<br />
** some tiles have "Transcript" while there is a full story like in a usual comic, e.g. {{1110|1|n|33|w}}<br />
** others have "transcript" and just describing static things, e.g. {{1110|6|s|17|w}}<br />
** and some more have just plain description, like "Water" e.g. {{1110|1|n|12|w}}<br />
:: what looks best in case 3? <br />
: third: I found incomplete-description : Some of the jokes in the larger world might benefit from an explanation ;-) thx, [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.17|162.158.92.17]] 08:22, 3 August 2015 (UTC)<br />
** Something tells of What if #51 free fall. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.65|108.162.218.65]] 20:11, 5 August 2015 (UTC)</div>108.162.218.65https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1340:_Unique_Date&diff=693451340: Unique Date2014-06-11T14:11:52Z<p>108.162.218.65: /* Explanation */ Explained and linked to Long Now's rationell for using the 5 digit system.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1340<br />
| date = March 10, 2014<br />
| title = Unique Date<br />
| image = unique_date.png<br />
| titletext = If our current civilization lasts another 8,000 years, it's probably fair to assume the Long Now Foundation got things right, and at some point we started listening to them and switched to five-digit years.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
<br />
Many people make a big deal about dates when the digits follow an interesting pattern, such as 2000-01-01 or 2012-12-12. They might plan special events on these "unique" days. For instance, 2007-07-07 was considered a "lucky" day and had a record number of weddings.<br />
<br />
Cueball points out that every date is equally unique, even when the digits aren't in a pattern. The {{W|Gregorian calendar}} is the current way to count time in years, months and days — a unique way to describe this is defined in the {{W|ISO 8601}} standard. Since time moves only forward, dates will never repeat. Nevertheless, [[:Category:My Hobby|his hobby]] of stating this fact every day would be incredibly annoying to his listeners.<br />
<br />
The title text refers to the {{W|Long Now Foundation}}, who uses [http://blog.longnow.org/02013/12/31/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-and-10k-compliance-at-home/ five-digit years] (e.g. this comic's date would be written "02014-03-10"). This is an effort to encourage people to think in terms of long-term benefits, rather than only the coming years or decades. The {{w|Y2K problem}} was due to using only two digits to store the year, which would have made dates ambiguous when it rolled from 99 back to 00. Similarly, the {{w|Maya calendar}} had a repeating cycle of 52 years, and even their "long count" rolled over after 7885 years. As we currently use four-digit years this may cause a {{w|Year 10,000 problem|Y10K problem}}.<br />
<br />
The Long Now Foundation designs a [http://longnow.org/clock/ 10,000-year clock] that should be able to run for this long — and in principle it could display every date up to 99999-12-31. Randall remarks that by coming close to the year 10,000, our civilization probably will follow this recommendation, unless our civilization is already extinct.<br />
<br />
A previous comic on date formats was [[1179: ISO 8601]].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball speaking to Megan and another person.]<br />
:Cueball: Whoa, it's 2014-03-10! Under our system, this day will ''NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!!''<br />
:My Hobby: Pointing this out every day.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:My Hobby]]</div>108.162.218.65https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=150:_Grownups&diff=52783150: Grownups2013-11-14T18:10:44Z<p>108.162.218.65: /* Trivia */ colon to period</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 150<br />
| date = August 30, 2006<br />
| title = Grownups<br />
| image = Grownups.png<br />
| titletext = I've looked into this, and I can't figure out a way to do it cheaply. And I guess it wouldn't be sanitary.<br />
}}<br />
{{incomplete}}<br />
==Explanation==<br />
[[Randall]] is playing with the child/grownup setup again. During childhood, adults ("grownups") make most of the decisions and put constraints on what their children do. As children age and eventually become grownups, there are some things that they do not do anymore, as they see them as childish. [[Megan]] has taken these thoughts seriously, and realizes that with her newfound freedom as a grownup, she gets to define what her adulthood means. Free from constraints, she goes ahead and creates a playpen in her apartment of colored plastic balls. [[Cueball]] admires this spirit and enters the playpen. Judging from the heart, they have fallen in love with each other.<br />
<br />
The title text reveals that [[Randall]] also would like to own his playpen, but he finds it expensive to buy, and also hard to keep clean. Both of these are true. Most public playpens contain over 100 different samples of urine, as many children and toddlers play in them.<br />
<br />
The characters of this comic show up again in [[219: Blanket Fort]].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is talking to Megan who is behind a waist-high screen across a doorway with colorful playpen balls behind her.]<br />
:Cueball: Hey, I was wondering if you had plans for-- holy crap, what happened to your apartment?<br />
:Megan: I filled it with playpen balls!<br />
:Cueball: I... what? Why?<br />
:Megan: Because we're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means.<br />
:[Both vanish into the apartment, balls spilling out into the corridor. A love heart drifts out the door, indicating you-know-what.]<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
[[Randall]], author of the comic, actually built one in his apartment, which he talks about and shows pictures of at [http://blog.xkcd.com/2007/11/19/growing-up/ here] and [http://blog.xkcd.com/2008/02/27/ballpit-phase-ii/ here]. Speaking of cost, [http://www.chiliahedron.com/ballroom/ chiliahedron.com] has a calculator for how much it would cost to make your own ball pit.<br />
<br />
China takes the cake for this, though. China currently holds the record for the worlds largest ballpit: a [http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/china-worlds-largest-ball-pit swimming pool filled with 1 million balls].<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Romance]]<br />
[[Category:Playpen balls]]</div>108.162.218.65https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=150:_Grownups&diff=52782150: Grownups2013-11-14T18:09:05Z<p>108.162.218.65: /* Trivia */ China has largest ballpit</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 150<br />
| date = August 30, 2006<br />
| title = Grownups<br />
| image = Grownups.png<br />
| titletext = I've looked into this, and I can't figure out a way to do it cheaply. And I guess it wouldn't be sanitary.<br />
}}<br />
{{incomplete}}<br />
==Explanation==<br />
[[Randall]] is playing with the child/grownup setup again. During childhood, adults ("grownups") make most of the decisions and put constraints on what their children do. As children age and eventually become grownups, there are some things that they do not do anymore, as they see them as childish. [[Megan]] has taken these thoughts seriously, and realizes that with her newfound freedom as a grownup, she gets to define what her adulthood means. Free from constraints, she goes ahead and creates a playpen in her apartment of colored plastic balls. [[Cueball]] admires this spirit and enters the playpen. Judging from the heart, they have fallen in love with each other.<br />
<br />
The title text reveals that [[Randall]] also would like to own his playpen, but he finds it expensive to buy, and also hard to keep clean. Both of these are true. Most public playpens contain over 100 different samples of urine, as many children and toddlers play in them.<br />
<br />
The characters of this comic show up again in [[219: Blanket Fort]].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is talking to Megan who is behind a waist-high screen across a doorway with colorful playpen balls behind her.]<br />
:Cueball: Hey, I was wondering if you had plans for-- holy crap, what happened to your apartment?<br />
:Megan: I filled it with playpen balls!<br />
:Cueball: I... what? Why?<br />
:Megan: Because we're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means.<br />
:[Both vanish into the apartment, balls spilling out into the corridor. A love heart drifts out the door, indicating you-know-what.]<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
[[Randall]], author of the comic, actually built one in his apartment, which he talks about and shows pictures of at [http://blog.xkcd.com/2007/11/19/growing-up/ here] and [http://blog.xkcd.com/2008/02/27/ballpit-phase-ii/ here]. Speaking of cost, [http://www.chiliahedron.com/ballroom/ chiliahedron.com] has a calculator for how much it would cost to make your own ball pit.<br />
<br />
China takes the cake for this, though: China currently holds the record for the worlds largest ballpit: a [http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/china-worlds-largest-ball-pit swimming pool filled with 1 million balls].<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Romance]]<br />
[[Category:Playpen balls]]</div>108.162.218.65https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Playpen_balls&diff=52781Category:Playpen balls2013-11-14T17:55:22Z<p>108.162.218.65: I feel like this link needs a home here. :)</p>
<hr />
<div>'''Playpen balls''' are found in a {{w|Ball pit}} and are a symbol of childhood. Many people grew up playing in playpens filled with these balls. Unfortunately, many people believe that in order to "grow up" they have to cast off all of these fun items. [[Randall]] takes a different stance, growing up is merely being able to appreciate all the fun things better.<br />
<br />
China currently holds the record for the worlds largest ballpit: a [http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/china-worlds-largest-ball-pit swimming pool filled with 1 million balls].<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics by topic]]</div>108.162.218.65