https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=108.162.237.184&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T14:22:30ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=802:_Online_Communities_2&diff=214052802: Online Communities 22021-06-23T22:43:24Z<p>108.162.237.184: adding info on MeFi, FR, Digg redesign</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 802<br />
| date = October 6, 2010<br />
| title = Online Communities 2<br />
| image = online_communities_2.png<br />
| titletext = Best trivia I learned while working on this: 'Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize it's the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the WORLD?' Then you wait for the listener to do a double-take.<br />
}}<br />
A [http://xkcd.com/802_large/ larger version] of this picture can be found by clicking the comic on xkcd.<br />
{{TOC}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This comic shows a map of internet communities where the size of each region roughly corresponds to its size, and its proximity to other regions indicates similarities.<br />
<br />
This is the successor of [[256: Online Communities]]. It differs in that it is updated, and furthermore, instead of using the ''membership'' of whichever service to determine its size on the map, it uses its "daily social activity."<br />
<br />
The map actually has two super−maps intended to show the relative usage of types of communication: the online community map is surrounded by the much larger "countries" of E−Mail, SMS ("Instant Messaging") and "Cell Phones," which in turn are surrounded by the even huger "Spoken Language." It is unclear whether "Cell Phones" is intended to represent an independent region, or whether it is meant to be a sub-region of "Spoken Language." The ambiguity is exacerbated by the fact that cell phones are the primary medium of SMS, and are also used to access email and online communities. It's also unclear why other forms of communication, such as handwritten letters, are not included.<br />
<br />
At the title text [[Randall]] explains that, using his definition of "most activity per day," Farmville is actually the ''second'' most popular social-network farming game - the Chinese game Happy Farm was more popular at the time. This strikes many English-speaking xkcd readers as odd, because Farmville is much more famous, leading one to wonder how it could not be the most played. The phrase "browser-based social-networking-centered farming game" is an example of an [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OverlyNarrowSuperlative overly-narrow superlative.]<br />
<br />
===Facebook Region===<br />
The Facebook region deals with social networks, that is, websites oriented towards having people meet.<br />
<br />
'''{{w|Facebook}}''' is a social networking site that allows people to meet old real−life friends and make new friends that share similar interests. One of its most notable features is that a member can update a "status" or make normal posts about the happenings of the member's life, complete with pictures, other members "liking" these posts. The size of the Facebook region is not exaggerated; most websites seem to allow "liking" their content or allow/require logging in the website with a Facebook account. There even are cell phones with a "Facebook" button!<br />
<br />
*'''{{w|FarmVille}}''' and '''{{w|Farm Town}}''' are Facebook games in which users manage farms. '''{{w|Happy Farm}},''' the Chinese game that inspired the other two, does not require Facebook integration, so it is separated by a solid line from Facebook. The "Unethical Bay" refers to how these games tend to addict players into constantly buying virtual items of questionable value.<br />
<br />
*'''People You Can't Unfriend''' refers to people whom, due to real-life expectations and relationships, unfriending them is difficult, no matter how you really feel about them.<br />
<br />
*'''Blatherskite River''' refers to the conversations on Facebook, which may be long yet devoid of general meaning or logic.<br />
<br />
*'''Data Mines''' refer to the data mining that Facebook does with the interests of its members. This fuels the profitable advertising business at the expense of customer trust.<br />
<br />
*'''Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions''' refer to how interactions with family members on Facebook suddenly become more awkward because everyone on Facebook (and sometimes ''off'' Facebook, given that you do not necessarily need to log in if you want to see someone's Facebook account) if you are discussing with your family through post comments.<br />
<br />
*'''524,287 Strong for Mersenne Primes''' refers to the communities who gain followers for a cause. A {{w|Mersenne prime}} is a prime number that is 1 less than a power of 2; 524287 is the 7th known Mersenne prime.<br />
<br />
*'''Jungle-Bay Mountains of "It's Complicated"''' refers to one of Facebook's options as to what a user's relationship status currently is. A Jungle-Bay Mountain is a complicated and undefined climate, hence the complication.<br />
<br />
*'''"lamebook bay"''' refers to the online website "lamebook", where users post photos of funny things that happen on Facebook (these can include statuses, "fails", put-downs and images.)<br />
<br />
*'''"Old Facebook" Resistance''' refers to Facebook's earlier users, who have often resisted (and resented) changes made to Facebook as it became more popular. <br />
<br />
*'''Privacy Controls''' is located on the map surrounded by a Lava Pool, which is a reference to how difficult it is to find the privacy controls within Facebook.<br />
<br />
*'''Niche Market Mountains''' refers to social networks aimed towards more niche markets are located. Similar to how mountains tend to be isolated from mainland, niche social networks tend to be just that: niche, without much interaction with the general populace.<br />
*'''Charred Wasteland of Abandoned Social Networks''' refers to the tons of websites wanting to take advantage of the success of websites like Facebook to compete or even overpower with them. Even so, these websites tend to not have the userbase or even the expertise towards the long-term, hence they become wastelands: environments devoid of life, except the few life forms that are from these wastelands (in this case, the ones who are loyal to the website or which are sadly few). <br />
*In the Charred Wasteland stands '''{{w|Ozymandias}}''', the titular broken statue of Shelley's poem. In the poem, only "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and a "shattered visage" are all that remain of the once-great statue and both of these features are present in the comic. According to the poem, the pedestal before the broken statue reads "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings..." hence "friend of friends" below Ozymandias on the map.<br />
*In the north are the '''Duckface Mountains''' and the '''Red Cup Mountains'''."Duckface" refers to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duck-face this incredibly obnoxious facial expression], and "red cup pictures" are any pictures containing party-goers holding disposable red plastic beverage cups. Facebook is absolutely flooded with both types of pictures.<br />
*In the south is '''Buzzword Bay'''. {{w|Buzzword}}s are words and phrases that make you sound a lot more topical than you actually are, used to garner attention; again, Facebook status updates are commonly filled with buzzwords.<br />
<br />
While Facebook is the largest "country" of the Facebook Region, there are a lot of smaller "countries" that represent smaller social networks.<br />
<br />
*Below Facebook (and "Old Facebook' Resistance") is '''{{w|Diaspora (social network)|Diaspora}}''', a fully open-source, decentralized, privacy-respecting-and-expecting alternative to Facebook. From what this map tells, Diaspora is little-known, even if Facebook is taken out of the context.<br />
*'''{{w|StudiVZ}}''' is a German-speaking social network similar if not a ripped-off version of Facebook.<br />
*'''{{w|XING}}''' is a German-speaking social platform similar to LinkedIn.<br />
*'''{{w|Ning (website)|Ning}}''' is a service to create custom social websites. Its free services shut down in 2010.<br />
*'''{{w|Taringa!}}''' is a Spanish-speaking social network that is based on a forums. Copyrighted material is frequently found there.<br />
*Next to the Euro(pean) Gulf is '''{{w|Skyrock (social network site)}}''', a French-speaking social network.<br />
*'''{{w|Wer-kennt-wen}}''' is a German-social network somewhat like MySpace.<br />
*'''{{w|Nasza-klasa.pl}}''' or NK, is a Polish-speaking social network based on school relationships.<br />
*'''{{w|Badoo}}''' is a social network primarily based on dating and picture-sharing.<br />
*'''{{w|Classmates.com}}''' is a service in which the user can meet classmates that came from the same high school. The website is probably best known by its memetic advertisement that said [http://dudemanphat.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-am-i-supposed-to-care-about-nick.html "She married him??!! And they've got 7 kids??"] (Incidentally, [http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2003325519_adcouple27.html there is more to the coupled picture than what the advertisement says.])<br />
*'''{{w|Myspace}}''' is a social networking website that is a kind of proto-Facebook: users could customize their one-page websites with whatever they wanted, make their interests and daily lives public, and interact with other users. Back in the mid 2000s, MySpace was the largest social network, many people using the website; however, the surprisingly-less-customizable Facebook ended up taking the place of MySpace. The "bands" country of MySpace refers to how a lot of bands in the day advertised and interacted using the website. Indeed, the latest incarnation of MySpace (in terms of 2013) is more oriented towards band members.<br />
*'''{{w|LinkedIn}}''' is a social network aimed towards people in the workplace, which is why it is adjacent to '''Corporate Bay'''.<br />
*'''{{w|Orkut}}''' was one of Google's first social networks before Google made [https://plus.google.com/ Google+]. It shut down in 2014.<br />
*'''{{w|Hi5}}''' is a social network that is very popular among people in Latin America.<br />
*'''{{w|Renren}}''' ('''「人人」''', "people" in Chinese) is "a Chinese copy of Facebook."<br />
*'''{{w|Bebo}}''' was a social network popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It went bankrupt in 2013 and will move away from social networking and into apps.<br />
*'''{{w|Friendster}}''' - One of the first major social networks, it has fallen way off in usage in recent years and was eclipsed by MySpace. It is still popular in Asia.<br />
*'''{{w|VK (social networking website)|Vkontakte}}''' or VK, is the second largest social network service in Europe after Facebook. It is available in several languages, but particularly popular among Russian-speaking users around the world.<br />
*'''{{w|Netlog}}''' is a Belgian social networking website specifically targeted at the global youth demographic.<br />
*'''{{w|Mixi}}''' is an online Japanese social networking service.<br />
*'''{{w|Qzone}}''' is a social networking website, which is big in China. According to a report published by Tencent, possibly surpassing other social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace in China.<br />
*'''{{w|Tuenti}}''' is a Spain-based, social networking service, that has been referred to as the "Spanish Facebook."<br />
*'''{{w|Cloob}}''' is a Persian-language social networking website, mainly popular in Iran. After the locally (and internationally) popular social networking website Orkut was blocked by the Iranian government, a series of local sites and networks, including Cloob, emerged to fill the gap.<br />
*'''{{w|Kaixin001}}''' is a social networking website which ranks as the 13th most popular website in China and 67th overall.<br />
*'''{{w|Piczo}}''' was a privately held blog website for teens. In November 2012, Piczo.com shut down.<br />
*'''{{w|Odnoklassniki}}''' is a social network service for classmates and old friends. It is popular in Russia and former Soviet Republics.<br />
*'''{{w|Adult FriendFinder}}''' is a pornographic dating site.<br />
*'''{{w|Match.com}}''' is a dating site, mainly targeted at people looking for marriage.<br />
*'''{{w|Ok Cupid}}''' is another dating site, however it has been owned by Match.com since 2011.<br />
*'''{{w|PlentyofFish}}''' is yet another dating site, also owned by Match.com since June 2015.<br />
*'''{{w|Sulawesi}}''' is a real-life island in the Indonesian archipelago. It also appears in 256: Online Communities.<br />
<br />
===MMO Isle===<br />
MMOs (short form of "Massive Multiplayer Online Game") are online games where multiple people take the role of a character and play in a setting hosted by the game.<br />
<br />
*'''[https://www.habbo.com/ Habbo Hotel]''' is a website where someone creates a human avatar an interacts in a virtual world that is not that different from the one in real life.<br />
*'''{{w|Club Penguin}}''' is [http://disney.com/ Disney's] former MMO where someone creates a penguin avatar and interacts with other in a more polar, cartoony setting. Club Penguin is aimed towards children. It has been shut down near the end of March 2017.<br />
*'''[http://maplestory.nexon.net/ Maple Story]''' is an MMO that has a more natural setting. The most distinguishing feature of Maple Story is its cartoony pixel art.<br />
*'''[http://www.gamefaqs.com/ GameFAQs]''', while not an MMO, is a website that has the largest repository of walkthoughs, that is, guides that help someone beat a game. GameFAQs is notable for not only its large repository of walkthroughs of games that are across an extreme variety of consoles, handhelds, and even computers (not all of them MMOs), but also the drama that is rumoured to happen in the GameFAQs forums.<br />
*'''[http://www.ign.com/ IGN]''' (full: '''Imagine Games Network'''), while also not an MMO, is the largest website that gives news on video games in general, not just MMOs. Each of the games mentioned in the site have pages that have summaries, reviews, screenshots, other art, videos, and links to news related to its games.<br />
*'''[http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml FFXI]''' (full: '''Final Fantasy XI''') is an MMO from SquareEnix, being the first MMO of the popular ''Final Fantasy'' series.<br />
*'''[http://www.runescape.com/community Runescape]''' is an older MMO.<br />
*'''[http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/ Starcraft II]''' is a realtime strategy game with a science fiction setting that heavily involves space travel. While technically not an MMO, it has a significant online multiplayer component.<br />
*'''[http://us.battle.net/wow/en/ WoW]''' (full: '''World of Warcraft''') is the definitive MMO, being not only the most popular and one of the longest-running but also the most expansive (having its own spinoff games, comic books, novels, and even figurines), WOW giving the idea of how an MMO should be. A player can choose from a variety of races, each with its own heavy history.<br />
*'''[http://secondlife.com/ Second Life]''' is similar to Habbo, albeit with a bigger suspension of disbelief (one example being that the player does not need to be a human) and in a 3D setting. <br />
*'''[http://www.nationstates.net/ NationStates]''' is a text-based political simulation game. Notably, some of its traffic comes not from the actual game (which is optional), but the extensive set of political, roleplaying, and general forums attached.<br />
*'''[http://www.urbandead.com/ Urban Dead]''' describes itself as "A Massively Multi-Player Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse", which sums it up pretty well. <br />
*'''[http://www.kingdomofloathing.com KoL]''' (full: '''Kingdom of Loathing''') is a comedic browser-based MMO-ish RPG with minimalistic stick-figure art.<br />
*'''{{w|CDC Games}}''' is a Chinese company reputed to be the largest MMORPG distributor.<br />
*'''{{w|Eve Online|EVE Online}}''' is a science fiction MMO which is notable because of its virtual economy.<br />
*'''{{w|Gaia Online|Gaia}}''' or Gaia Online, while not an MMO, is a forum oriented towards pop culture, including video games and Japanese media. Its most notable feature is the heavy customization possible of a member's pixel-art avatar. Its members tend to roleplay a lot, albeit in a more written, story-based form. Gaia has gained a reputation with its members stealing art and causing drama. The ferry that links the gaia island with 4chan was most likely due to the "boxxy" row, where vlogger boxxy posted videos of her using gaia, which then were circulated on 4chan. This resulted in a division of the sites users, and many more hacking attacks, including a DDOS attack on 4chan itself.<br />
*'''[https://www.everquest.com EverQuest]''' (full: '''EverQuest''') is one of the first MMO's, it's still running and has a huge number of expansions.<br />
*'''[https://www.uo.com UO]''' (full: '''Ultima Online''') along with EverQuest this was one of the first and longest running MMO's.<br />
<br />
*'''{{w|City of Heroes|CoH}}''' or City of Heroes was a superhero-based MMORPG that was shut down November 2012.<br />
*'''[http://atlantica.nexon.net/ Atlantica]''' (full: '''Atlantica Online''') is a turn-based MMORPG.<br />
*'''[http://lineage.plaync.com/ Lineage]''' is a Korean MMORPG, it's North American servers were closed 2011/06/29 due to being unprofitable.<br />
*'''[http://www.lineage2.com/en/ Lineage II]''' is a Korean MMORPG, mainly played in Asia along with its predecessor. It adopted a Free to Play model on 2011/11/30.<br />
*'''{{w|SubSpace (video game)|SubSpace}}''' was a 2D, topdown shooter released in 1997. The servers have been shut down, but it continues to operate through the work of fans. It's widely considered an early entry into the MMO genre due to its unprecedentedly high player count.<br />
<br />
Other notable regions include:<br />
*The '''Mountains of Steam''', referring to the game distribution service [http://store.steampowered.com/ Steam] where people can buy and download video games in general, not just MMOs. There is also an extensive [http://steamcommunity.com/ community] where users can share content, and instant messaging chat by text, voice, or game streaming.<br />
*'''River Grind''' refers to "grinding." In most MMOs, the character is a fighter of some sorts, yet starts at a level 1, signifying the character's aptitude level in combat. The character can level up and gain more aptitude levels through earning experience, of which the most reliable and otherwise common way is the process of "grinding," that is, repeatedly fighting opposing monsters (sometimes of a level notably lower that your character's), gaining experience points from winning these battles until your character gains a level, that is, "levels up". While a practical necessity in strengthening the character, this process can be tiresome, hence the expression "grinding."<br />
*'''Spawn Camp''' refers to "spawn points", the places where AI-powered enemies and players who have died in-game respawn, and the act of "spawn camping", in which the player character simply stands behind or around the spawn points to fight the enemy creatures or respawning players as soon as they appear.<br />
*'''Gulf of Lag''' refers to how the MMO can be slowed down a considerable amount due to the large amount of players simultaneously using the same server, this congestion bogging down the server and frustrating the users.<br />
*'''[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/final-boss-of-the-internet End Guy for the Internet]''' refers to "end bosses," the last — and usually hardest to defeat — "bad guy" in a game (or a section of a game).<br />
<br />
===YouTube Region===<br />
The YouTube region refers to websites that are based on user-created content.<br />
<br />
'''[https://www.youtube.com/ YouTube]''' is the definitive video website where people can upload videos with the purpose of public viewing, ranging from home movies through official music videos through Let's Plays of people playing video games to questionably-legal uploads of cartoons and films. Google had purchased YouTube.<br />
<br />
Many of the sites on the map are just references to {{w|viral video}}s at {{w|YouTube}}:<br />
*'''Viral Shores''' refers to how viral videos (whether they be viral marketing or simply memes) tend to proliferate on YouTube.<br />
*'''Britney''' likely refers to pop singer {{w|Britney Spears}} and the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc "Leave Britney Alone" guy].<br />
*'''Maru Gulf''' refers to Maru the Cat, a YouTube celebrity [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/676:_Abstraction also mentioned in xkcd].<br />
*'''Prairie Dog Habitat''' likely refers to the viral video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw Dramatic Chipmunk] (which is actually a Prairie Dog).<br />
*'''Rick Rolling Hills''' references, well, {{w|Rickrolling}}. More information [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ here]. The "deserted" note likely refers to how Rick Astley himself is tired of the meme, or again, how people tend to leave the video upon getting "Rick Roll'd," never actually going to the video with the express purpose of viewing the video.<br />
*'''Lunar Landing Soundstage''' is, of course, a reference to the {{w|Moon landing conspiracy theories}}, which Randall has railed on before.<br />
*'''{{w|OK Go}} Bay''' refers to the band "OK Go" who have multiple viral music videos on YouTube, most famously [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA "Here it goes again"] featuring treadmills.<br />
<br />
The '''HTML5 swamp''' refers to YouTube's spotty support of HTML 5 (an update on HTML that is frequently touting its media capabilities, making HTML 5 a viable alternative to Flash). Of course, by the time the comic was written, HTML 5 was still in its infancy. The Music Video Bay refers to the amount of music videos (official or otherwise) are present in YouTube.<br />
<br />
Other counties of the YouTube region include:<br />
*'''[https://vimeo.com/ vimeo]''', a website where people tend to showcase artistic content that they made on their own, notably independent studios.<br />
<br />
Snob Sound:<br />
*'''[https://secure.flickr.com/ Flickr]''', a website where people can upload and share photographs they took.<br />
*'''[http://fotolog.com Fotolog]''', a photo website very popular in South America in 2004-2008, which was used as a social network.<br />
*'''[http://www.last.fm/ Last.fm]''', a music website that is notable of its "scrobbling" feature.<br />
*'''[http://www.deviantart.com/ deviantArt]''', the largest art website, where people can upload, sell, and buy not only art itself, but also video, audio, Flash-work, and even skins (the original purpose of deviantArt). While many big-name/professional people and organizations have their works in deviantArt, the site is more infamous for the large amount of people who upload low-quality fan-art and fan-characters, most notably of media from Japan. Another point of infamy is the large amount of drama that can happen in the website.<br />
<br />
*'''[https://www.newgrounds.com/ Newgrounds]''', a website that hosts art, (Flash-based) videos, audio, and (Flash-based) games to which other users can comment and rate. Even so, content from Newgrounds tends to be obscene, though there is a filtering system if a viewer does not wish to see obscene content.<br />
*'''[http://www.chatroulette.com/ Chatroulette]''' is a website where people are randomly paired up with each other and video/text chat.<br />
*'''{{w|Brickshelf}}''' is the online resource for {{w|LEGO}} fans.<br />
*'''[https://tumblr.com/ Tumblr]''', where people could make a blog and post text, pictures, video, audio, quotes, and links. The most distinguishing feature is the ability to "reblog" these posts from other's people's blogs into the user's own blog. Notable features of Tumblr include sketchblogs (where people upload their sketches), Ask blogs (where people answer questions other users ask, the moderators of these blogs usually pretending to be a character from a form of media), and the large amount of "social justice" (a highly controversial political movement). (See also [[1043: Ablogalypse]].)<br />
*'''{{w|b3ta}}''' is a popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by The Guardian.<br />
<br />
<br />
The '''Isle of teenagers who just discovered macroeconomics''' is a joke about how teenagers tend to think that the world and the economy are a lot simpler than they actually are. Combined with the typical internet mindset, this leads to a lot of teenagers posting blogs and videos and comments on blogs and videos describing how idiotic the government and other red-tape-related adults are.<br />
The '''Snob Sound''' could refer to the large amount of people who look down on others in the surrounding websites (one example being an original artist looking down on people who draw mainly fan-art). '''The Iraq''' is a reference to Miss Teen USA 2007, in which Ms. Teen South Carolina, Lauren Katlin, said "I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as...the US should help the US and should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we are able to build up our future." The usage of "the Iraq" has became a meme.<br />
<br />
===Twitter Region===<br />
*'''Bieber Bay''' is a reference to {{w|Justin Bieber}}, a pop singer whose singing sprouted on YouTube and became very popular on Twitter and other social media. He is very much vilified because of his rather feminine appearance and his hordes of fans (called "Beliebers") that seem to support him to ridiculous extents. Lately, though, Justin Beiber has taken a "bad boy" attitude because of all the Beliebers who are willing to defend him no matter what, him partaking in a lot of questionable activities that include tattoos, questionably-legal substances, and buying prostitution, thus lowering his popularity in the general populace.<br />
*'''{{w|Google Buzz}}''' is a former social network attempted by Google. It has since been shut down.<br />
*'''Bit.Ly Mountains''' is a reference to the URL shortening service {{w|bit.ly}}.<br />
*'''Kanye's Isle of Sadness''' is a reference to the musician {{w|Kanye West}}, whose Twitter, at the time, was [http://www.buzzfeed.com/mlew15/25-of-kanye-wests-most-thought-provoking-tweets-h0se famously introspective and stream-of-consciousness].<br />
*'''Sarah Palin USA''' is the Twitter handle of former politician {{w|Sarah Palin}}.<br />
*'''Clueless Politician Coast''' is a reference to the number of politicians on Twitter and other social networks who repeatedly share clueless updates that more often create an uproar than help their election chances.<br />
*'''Desert of Food Updates''' is a reference to the number of pictures of food that are shared on social media (especially Twitter). There has even been some controversy on posting such pictures.<br />
*'''Journalists Trying to Find the Cutting Edge''' is referencing journalists on Twitter trying to keep up with the way that news is gathered and delivered now, despite usually working for a newspaper that publishes once a day.<br />
*'''SHAQ''' is a reference to the former NBA basketball player, {{w|Shaq}}.<br />
*'''{{w|identi.ca}}''' is an open source social networking and micro-blogging service, being an alternative to Twitter.<br />
*''' Breaking! Waves''' is a pun on the fact that so many people used the word "Breaking" at the beginning of tweets that do not warrant that tag that the word has lost most of its meaning and become a joke. It is a pun because waves "break" on the shore.<br />
*'''Web 3.0''' refers to the unofficial term {{w|Web 2.0}}. In this case, "Web 1.0" refers to websites that give information to users. Web 2.0 refers to websites where the users themselves create content. Web 3.0 has sometimes been used as a term for {{w|semantic web}}, a machine-readable version of the web, but this usage is far from universal.<br />
*'''Hashtag games whose popularity confuses and depresses you''' refers to the game where a user posts something under a particular hashtag and others respond with their own ideas, all tagged under the same phrase. This has been very popular for no clear reason, as Randall notes.<br />
<br />
===Geotagged Bay===<br />
*'''{{w|Yelp}}''' is a website where people post reviews of real-life public locations (one example being restaurants).<br />
*'''{{w|Geocaching}}''' is a worldwide GPS scavenger hunt where users upload positions of caches and others will find them and log it online.<br />
*'''{{w|Foursquare}}''' is a location-based social network.<br />
*'''Latitude''' refers to {{w|Google Latitude}}.<br />
<br />
===Troll Bay and the Sea of Memes===<br />
*'''{{w|Reddit}}''' is the self-described "front page of the Internet" in which users submit stories, photos and videos and the best are "up-voted" to the top of the page.<br />
*'''{{w|Help:Using talk pages|Wikipedia Talk Pages}}''' refer to the pages where Wikipedia editors discuss how to improve articles.<br />
*'''{{w|Wikia}}''' is a website offering free-of-charge wiki hosting, using a variant of Wikimedia's MediaWiki, allowing users to create user-editable encyclopedias of just about any subject matter, although it has more recently introduced an entertainment blog named "Fandom powered by Wikia" and eventually adopted that branding for the wiki farm as well.<br />
*'''{{w|StumbleUpon}}''' was a website-sharing service, it shut down in 2018.<br />
*'''{{w|Delicious (website)|Delicious}}''' is a bookmarking and bookmark-sharing service.<br />
*'''{{w|Digg}}''' is a former competitor to Reddit in the social-news sphere, but now has been sold and restarted as an aggregator of news stories. The lifeboats refer to the mass exodus of users from Digg to rival news aggregator Reddit that occurred after Digg's glitchy and unpopular "v4" redesign in August 2010.<br />
*'''{{w|Slashdot}}''', labeled "/." on the map, is a technical news site.<br />
*'''{{w|MetaFilter}}''', labeled "MeFi" on the map, is a long-running community blog.<br />
*'''{{w|Fark}}''' is a community website that allows members to comment on news articles from other sites.<br />
*'''{{w|YTMND}}''' is an acronym for "You're The Man Now, Dog!" It's also a community in which users can create meme-type nonsense by playing music over an image (either static or animated).<br />
*'''{{w|Free Republic}}''' is a right-wing conservative activist forum.<br />
<br />
===Skype Region===<br />
The Skype Region refers to different IM, or Instant Messaging services, that enable almost-real-time text chatting between multiple people. These often allow services like voice chat and even video calls.<br />
<br />
*'''{{w|Skype}}''' is, according to Randall, the most popular of these among the internet. It has many features to allow peer-to-peer voice chats, as well as allowing calls to be made at a price to actual phones.<br />
*'''{{w|AIM}}''' or AOL Instant Messenger is a chat client created by AOL.<br />
*'''GG''' or {{w|Gadu-Gadu}} is an instant messenger client popular in Poland.<br />
*'''{{w|Yahoo Messenger}}''' is an instant messenger client by Yahoo.<br />
*'''{{w|Google Talk}}''' is a voice/video chatting service from Google (that Google has been replacing with Hangouts). Google Talk also has an invasion fleet at its shores.<br />
*'''{{w|ICQ}}''' is an older messaging service, albeit with an 18+ requirement (despite pornography not being the point of ICQ).<br />
*'''{{w|Windows Live Messenger}}''', or "MSN", was the messaging service of Microsoft before Microsoft bought Skype. MSN was useful in that people could draw and send pictures to other chatters.<br />
*'''{{w|UseNet}}''' was one of the original ways to communicate on the internet, though people can download (copyrighted) files through the service. Since it is still in use by some, it gets the tag "Still Around!" on the map.<br />
*'''{{w|IRC}} Isles''' refers to the ancestor of Internet-powered chatting. People would have connected to a server and spoke publicly. IRC is still in use (as of 2014), notably in getting help from other users. One of those isles is #xkcd which is an IRC community around [[xkcd]].<br />
<br />
===Bay of Drama===<br />
*'''{{w|FanFiction.net}}''' is a website where people can submit their fanfiction (stories by fans written about other peoples' media, normally that about popular media). The website tends to have people that are not helpful to those who legitimately want critique of their own stories.<br />
*'''{{w|Xanga}}''' is a blogging service that, while popular at its time, lost out to...<br />
*'''{{w|LiveJournal}}''' was the most popular blogging service before Tumblr.<br />
*'''ONYD''' - Reference to {{w|Oh No You Didn't}}, which is explained in the Blogosphere region.<br />
*'''{{w|Dreamwidth}}''' is a LiveJournal fork emphasizing its open-source nature.<br />
<br />
===Blogosphere===<br />
The Blogosphere region contains several general {{w|blog}} topics.<br />
*'''{{w|photo blog|Photo Blogs}}''' are commonly used to chronicle the lives of the authors through photographs.<br />
*'''Diary Blogs''' are another popular use of blogs (and, in fact, the original use) where authors write commentary about their lives.<br />
*'''Bay of Grammar Pedantry''' deals with the fact that, whether due to a lack of proper education, a habit of using "chat-speak" in the text-limited SMS and MMS, or simply due to the (generally) more relaxed nature of the Internet, blog authors tend to write with horrible composition, a point of annoyment to a lot of other people due to the subsequent increased difficulty of reading the horribly-written material.<br />
*'''Fandom Blogs''' are blogs created by a "{{w|fandom}}" which is a community of fans. A fandom blog deals with the subject matter of the respective fandom.<br />
*'''Sea of Zero (0) Comments''' refers to blogs that get very little attention and therefore have no comments.<br />
*'''SpamBlog Straits''' references spammers who use blogs to increase the number of links to their site to try to game search engines.<br />
*'''OffTopic.com''' is a general interest forum that refers to itself as "the largest general discussion forum on the internet."<br />
*Many more straightforward blogs, including:<br />
**'''Writing/Poetry'''<br />
**'''Gossip Blogs'''<br />
**'''Political Blogs'''<br />
**'''Music Blogs'''<br />
**'''Tech Blogs'''<br />
**'''Business Blogs'''<br />
**'''Corporate Blogs'''<br />
**'''Religious Blogs'''<br />
**'''Miscellaneous Blogs'''<br />
*'''Blog Blogs''' - These can refer to blogs that talk about the matter about blogging itself, though they can also refer to blogs which authors use in talking about blogging.<br />
<br />
===Blogosphere (Core Region)===<br />
Gossip Blogs: <br />
Each blog below focuses on gossip surrounding celebrities and other well-known persons.<br />
*'''{{w|Jezebel}}''' is a liberally feminist blog, hosted by Gawker.<br />
*'''{{w|deadline.com|Deadline}}''' is an online entertainment news magazine.<br />
*'''{{w|TMZ}}''' is a celebrity news website.<br />
*'''{{w|Gawker}}''' is a blog that is the host of other blogs.<br />
*'''LJ Oh No They Didn't''' - LiveJournal {{w|Oh No They Didn't}} - Oh No They Didn't, also known as ONTD, is the largest community on LiveJournal with over 100,000 members. The community focuses on celebrity gossip and pop culture with most of its posts aggregated from other gossip blogs.<br />
*'''Doucheblog''' refers to blogs that were once insightful but that spiraled into long rants due to relationship changes of their authors.<br />
*'''Isle of Mockery''' is a reference to the fact that some of what these blogs do is mock celebrities or other for doing or saying stupid things on camera.<br />
<br />
Liberal Blogs: <br />
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "liberal" or "progressive" slant. These blogs tend to lean for the Democratic party.<br />
*'''{{w|Huffington Post}}''' is a news blog.<br />
*'''{{w|Paul Krugman}}''' is an American economist who considers himself a liberal.<br />
*'''{{w|Daily Beast}}''' is a news and opinion website focusing on politics and pop culture.<br />
*'''{{w|Talking Points Memo|TPM}}''' is a political journal run by Josh Marshall.<br />
*'''{{w|Ezra Klein}}''' used to have his own site at the Washington Post, but is now the editor of [Vox.com]. <br />
*'''{{w|Think Progress}}''' is a political news blog.<br />
*'''{{w|Daily Kos|Kos}}''' is another political blog.<br />
<br />
Bay of Flame:<br />
*'''{{w|Politics Daily}}''' is a political journalism website launched by AOL.<br />
*'''CNN Political Ticker''' is CNN's political blog.<br />
*'''{{w|Mediaite}}''' is a news and opinion blog covering politics and entertainment in the media.<br />
*'''{{w|NY Times}}''' is one of the most famous newspapers, thus the comparatively large size of its island.<br />
*'''{{w|The Talk}}''' is a talk show on CBS that discusses the latest headlines "through the eyes of mothers."<br />
*Libertarian Isle (shaped like a {{w|Nolan Chart}})<br />
<br />
Conservative Blogs: <br />
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "conservative" or Republican slant.<br />
*'''{{w|Pajamas Media}}''' is a media company and operator of conservative news.<br />
*'''{{w|Michelle Malkin}}''' is a conservative blogger, political commentator, and author.<br />
*'''{{w|Hot Air}}''' is a news blog founded by Michelle Malkin.<br />
*'''{{w|RedState|Red State}}''' is a political blog.<br />
*'''{{w|American Thinker}}''' is a daily online magazine focused on politics.<br />
*'''{{w|Townhall}}''' is a web publication and print magazine.<br />
<br />
Tech Blogs:<br />
*'''{{w|Boy Genius Report}}''' is a weblog that focuses on technology and consumer gadgets.<br />
*'''{{w|Gizmodo}}''' is a news and opinion blog, hosted by Gawker, that talks about life's more technological matters.<br />
*'''{{w|Engadget}}''' is another technology-oriented, albeit independent, blog.<br />
*'''Crunchgear''' is a blog that reviews gadgets and other hardware.<br />
*'''{{w|Techcrunch}}''' is an online publisher of technology industry news.<br />
*'''{{w|Joystiq}}''' is a news and opinion blog that focuses on gaming.<br />
*'''{{w|Kotaku}}''' is another gaming-oriented news/opinion blog, the main difference being that Kotaku is owned by Gawker. <br />
<br />
Assorted:<br />
*'''{{w|BoingBoing}}''' is "i blog about wonderful things", the topics being quite random.<br />
*'''{{w|Lifehacker}}''' is another Gawker blog, is a blog that teaches people how to simplify their lives through 'lifehacking', that is, using their resources in creative wayss. While the subject matter is life in general, there is a significant technological slant.<br />
*'''{{w|Deadspin}}''' is a sports and sports gossip blog founded by Will Leitch. It has since been acquired by Gawker<br />
*'''Meatorama''' is a blog that talks about cooking meat.<br />
<br />
===QQ Region===<br />
*'''Baidu Baike''' (「百度百科」, "Baidu Encyclopedia") and '''Hudong''' (「互动百科」, "Interactive Encyclopedia" ) are two Chinese online encyclopedias. Baidu Baike is powered by the same company as Baidu, the search engine popular in China.<br />
* The '''Ma Le Ge Bi''' and the '''Grass Mud Horse Bay''' could refer to the {{w|Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures}}.<br />
* The '''Location of Jia Junpeng''' refers to the Internet meme of {{w|Jia Junpeng}} in 2009 in China.<br />
*'''{{w|Tencent QQ}}''' is a Chinese instant messaging program.<br />
*In English communities "QQ" has several more common definitions:<br />
**An {{w|emoticon}}, representing a face with two large, crying eyes.<br />
**A synonym for "rage quit", in which a video game player quits the game out of sheer frustration. It originated in ''Warcraft II'' multiplayer, where pressing Ctrl+Q+Q would quit the game, and became more widely known in ''World of Warcraft''.<br />
**These definitions are commonly combined, usually to mock the "rage quitter".<br />
*The Gulf of China refers to how sites in the region are based in People's Republic of China ("Red China"). The '''Great Firewall''' refers to {{w|The Great Firewall of China}}, a pun on {{w|The Great Wall of China}}. Similar to how The Great Wall of China was meant to keep intruding nations out of the then-capital of the city, The Great Firewall of China is meant to keep visitors from visiting censored websites. Oddly other Chinese websites (Qzone, Renren etc.) are not enclosed in this zone.<br />
<br />
===Forums Islands===<br />
Forums are websites where one person post a topic to which other people can discuss.<br />
<br />
While the map has a zoomed in version, this article shall discuss the two bigger islands, first.<br />
<br />
*'''[http://www.2ch.net 2channel]''' is a Japanese imageboard that was actually the original inspiration for 4chan.<br />
*'''[http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites Craigslist]''' is a classified advertisement website with sections devoted to just about everything... which formerly included prostitution services, hence the '''The Former Site of Adult Services'''.<br />
<br />
In the zoomed-in map, there is the following:<br />
*'''[https://www.4chan.org/ 4chan.org]''' is an {{w|imageboard}} in which people can upload pictures while others comment on them. The website is infamous for its loose/often non-existent rules, incredibly vulgar userbase, source of new memes, and spawning of trolls. 4chan's random board, known internally as '''/b/''', is almost constantly flooded with porn and image macros. This is why Randall's incarnation of 4chan is roughly shaped like a penis.<br />
*'''420chan''' and '''7chan''', other imageboards in the style of 4chan. Their relative lack of popularity and derivative nature leads a lot of 4chan users to mock them; hence, their position on Randall's map suggests that they're mere wads of semen.<br />
*'''Encyclopedia Dramatica''', labeled '''ED''' on the map, is a wiki site dedicated to chronicling internet memes and other noteworthy sites, events, people, and anything else that catches their attention, generally in a very satirical manner. The site is heavily populated by 4chan users. Many people are offended by the articles and talks that go on in the wiki and forum, which is perhaps the reason that it appears to be represented as a wad of sperm. The image of sperm also makes sense since ED is used as a messaging center for the group "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is represented in the map as part of the testicles of the 4chan island(see below at the gulf named Anonymous).<br />
*'''Tunnel to Habbo''' is a reference to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pools-closed the 2006 Habbo Hotel Raids], in which hundreds of 4chan Anons simultaneously logged onto Habbo Hotel and proceeded to be as obnoxious as possible, standing in formations of swastikas and penises or body-blocking the swimming pools.<br />
*'''{{w|Catbus}} Route''' is likely a reference to {{w|Lolcat}}s in general.<br />
*'''[http://www.ebaumsworld.com/ eBaum's World]''' is a media-hosting website founded by Eric Bauman. The site has lost a lot of traffic after (quite valid) accusations of stolen content.<br />
*The gulf labelled '''{{w|Anonymous (group)|Anonymous}}''' is most likely a reference to the leaderless, anonymous international network called "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is composed of (mainly) anarchic activist hackers. Anonymous was created on the /b/ messaging board of 4chan, hence why the bay of Anonymous is on the coast of /b/. Also, the fact that the bay is in the "testicles"(/b/) of the 4chan island "penis" is referring to how Anonymous was created on 4chan, in the same way that sperm is created in the testicles of a penis, possibly a subtle jab at the group.<br />
<br />
To the south and east is an archipelago of islands representing various regional and special-interest forums. Moving clockwise from 4chan island is<br />
* '''Storm 2K''' is an online website hosting information on tropical cyclones and tools for tracking them, and has a forum with multiple categories and threads for discussion on tropical cyclones, as well as multiple tropical cyclone models and reconnaissance information.<br />
* '''Skyscraper city''' is an internet forum website for skyscraper hobbyists and enthusiasts.<br />
* An island containing two websites related to women, namely<br />
** '''Wizaz.pl''' is a Polish website, presumably for women, with a forum filled with discussions mainly about beauty, health, women, hobbies, and fun.<br />
** '''Baby and bump''' is a self-described "pregnancy forum, baby and parenting community."<br />
An island contaning<br />
** '''ForoCoches''' is a very popular Spanish (as in from Spain) forum mainly about automobiles, but holds discussions on virtually any topic.<br />
** '''Bodybuilding.com''' is(as you can hopefully tell) a website for bodybuilders. It contains a forum for general discussions on bodybuilding that includes topics such as supplements, exercises, and nutrition.<br />
** '''Bokt.nl''' calls itself the largest community on the topic of horses. A Dutch website, it holds topics about virtually anything involving horses.<br />
** '''Cruise Critic''' is a website with a large forum about cruises in general.<br />
* '''Lay it low''' is a website for discussing lowriding(changing a car so that its ground clearance go lower than the clearance of the original design from the manufacturer.<br />
* '''[http://www.twoplustwo.com/ Two plus two]''' is a poker & gambling forum<br />
* An island containing:<br />
** '''Fan forum'''<br />
** '''[http://www.facethejury.us/ Face the jury]''' is an online forum, originally founded for users to upload pictures of themselves to be judged by other users<br />
** A smaller nearby island is '''Datalounge'''<br />
* An island containing gaming-related sites<br />
** '''D2JSP'''<br />
** '''EA UK'''<br />
** '''Gametrailers'''<br />
* Smaller islands next to the D2JSP island are<br />
** '''Steam powered'''<br />
** '''World of players'''<br />
** '''Nedgaf'''<br />
** '''Overclock'''<br />
* A smaller island of regional and special-interest forums:<br />
** '''[http://digitalspy.com/ Digital Spy]''', a British media and entertainment news service<br />
** '''[http://www.onliner.by/ onliner.by]''', a Belarusian digital technology forum<br />
** Zona Ford<br />
** '''[http://lowyat.net/ lowyat]''', a large Malaysian technology forum<br />
** exbil<br />
** '''[http://www.macrumors.com/ MacRumors]''', an Apple news and discussion site<br />
** Adjacent to this, an island labelled '''[http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ Whirlpool Forums]''', a large Australian broadband and technology forum. The drawing reflects Australia being an island continent separated from other countries.<br />
* An island made up of several European forums:<br />
** '''[http://www.jlaforums.com/ JLA Forums]'''<br />
** '''[http://www.fok.nl/ fok.nl]''', a Dutch forum site that is one of the largest internet communities in the Netherlands<br />
** '''[http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ The Student Room]''', a British forum and wiki for secondary and tertiary students<br />
** '''[http://www.boards.ie/ boards.ie]''' "Now Ye're talking", a popular Irish forum site<br />
** '''[http://www.forum.hr/ forum.hr]''', a Croatian forum<br />
** '''rus-chat''', possibly a reference to [http://rus-chat.de/ rus-chat.de]<br />
* The largest single-site island is [http://www.somethingawful.com/ SomethingAwful], a website that is meant to showcase all things "awful". SomethingAwful also has a large trollbase, but they tend to be more honorable than the ones from Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan. One example is there being a spotty holding of the no-furries rule in the forums. The forums themselves are famous because of the holding of the Let's Plays of [http://lparchive.org/Dangan-Ronpa/ Dangan Ronpa] and [http://danganronpa2mirror.tumblr.com/ Super Dangan Ronpa 2], which had cooked up public interest to the point of there being an English-language release of the games. (Note that, due to these Let's Plays being in a forums that frequently hides behind a "paywall" that requires a paid account before accessing, the links provided go to their mirrors.)<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:'''Map of Online Communities'''<br />
:Size on map represents volume of Daily Social activity (posts, chat, etc). Based on data gathered over the Spring and Summer of 2010.<br />
<br />
:[Two insets on the upper left-hand corner shows that this map is a tiny portion of the huge continent of Spoken Language, encompassing portions of the Internet, Email, and Cell Phones (SMS).]<br />
<br />
:[The largest landmass on the map by far, which takes up nearly the entire northern half of the map is "Facebook" - with large states in the south-east of the country labeled 'Farmville' and 'Happy Farm'. There is a much smaller state to the west of these called 'Farm Town'. To the north of these states is a large swath of unremarkable land entitled 'Northern Wasteland of Unread Updates.' This is directly north of the large Dopamine Sea.<br />
<br />
:A peninsula on the south-west, just below the Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions, houses many tiny states, such as MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Bebo, & Hi5. It is bordered on the south by Buzzword Bay, which contains several islands of varying sizes. Among these are YouTube and Twitter (the largest), which are separated by the Social Media Consultant Channel. To the south-east of Twitter, across the Sea of Protocol Confusion, is another, equally large island. Most of it is Skype, with the north having two largish states called AIM and Windows Live Messenger. On the south-west part of the island are two smaller states called GG and Yahoo Messenger.<br />
<br />
:The Island of Skype is extremely close to, but separated by the Great Firewall (a dashed line), the large landmass of QQ. It's north shore is the Gulf of China and Grass Mud Horse Bay. Outside of these bays, over the Great Firewall are two islands called Craigslist and 2Channel.<br />
<br />
:In the Dopamine Sea, off the southern shores of Farmville and Happy Farm, is MMO Isle. Its largest state is WoW, with Runescape, Lineage, Maple Story, Habbo, and the Mountains of Steam among its notable landmarks. To the southeast of the island is the Gulf of Lag, in which sits the CDC Games island, with Eve Online.<br />
<br />
:To the east of Twitter is Troll Bay, with such islands as Reddit and Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicio.us, and Wikipedia Talk Pages. To their south are the IRC isles, of which one is the tiny island of #xkcd.<br />
<br />
:East of these islands, and north of Skype island, is the Sea of Memes. In this sea, to the north of Craigslist and 2Channel, is an archipelago of tiny islands. There is an inset, labeled 'Forums.' (See below.)<br />
<br />
:To the southwest of Twitter island, in the Sea of Opinions, are the blog islands. These lie south of the islands in Buzzword Bay, as well. The northernmost islands in this group are centered around the Bay of Drama, on which can be found Diary Blogs, Gossip Blogs, and Livejournal. Gossip Blogs share an island with Political, Music, and Tech Blogs. To the north of this island is a smaller island called Photo Blogs. South of Diary Blogs, and off the southwest coast of Music blogs is a smaller island called Fandom Blogs. South of Tech Blogs, off of which sprouts the small peninsula of Business Blogs, is the Spamblog Straits. On the other side of the straits is a large island made up of Miscellaneous Blogs, with two states demarcated as Religious Blogs and Blog Blogs. Southwest of the Blog Islands is the Sea of Zero (0) Comments.]<br />
<br />
:[An inset of a group of islands in the sea of memes located on the lower right corner of the map, labeled 'Forums'. The largest by far is 4chan and /b/. Also found here are D2JSP, JLA Frums, Fan Forum, Something Awful, and many smaller ones, too numerous to list here.]<br />
<br />
:[The northeastern third of Gossip/Political/Tech Blogs island is another inset labeled 'Blogosphere (Core)'. This can be found on the lower left corner of the map. Two peninsulas in Political Blogs bookend the Bay of Flame -- these are Liberal Blogs and Conservative Blogs. Between them lie several tiny islands such as Politics Daily, CNN Politcal Ticker, and Mediaite. Off the coast of Liberal Blogs lies the island of NYTimes, off the coast of Conservative Blogs is Libertarian Isle. Between the two lies The Talk. The northern peninsula of Tech Blogs contains places such as Gizmodo, Engadget, Joystiq, and Kotaku.] <br />
<br />
:[Text found between the two insets, which are directly below the main map.]<br />
:ABOUT THIS MAP<br />
:Communities rise and fall, and total membership numbers are no longer a good measure of a community's current size and health. This updated map uses size to represent total social activity in a community -- that is, how much talking, playing, sharing, or other socializing happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I did my best and tried to be consistent.<br />
<br />
:Estimates are based on the numbers I could find, but involved a great deal of guesswork, statistical inference, random sampling, nonrandom sampling, a 20,000-cell spreadsheet, emailing, cajoling, tea-leaf reading, goat sacrifices, and gut instinct (i.e. making things up).<br />
<br />
:Sources of data include Google and Bing, Wikipedia, Alexa, Big-Boards.com, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Akismet, every website statistics page I could find, press releases, news articles, and individual site employees. Thanks in particular to folks at Last.fm, LiveJournal, Reddit, and the New York Times, as well as sysadmins at a number of sites who shared statistics on condition of anonymity.<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
*A print version of this comic is available in the [https://store.xkcd.com/products/online-communities-poster xkcd store].<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Online Communities]]<br />
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Online Communities]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Large drawings]]<br />
[[Category:Internet]]<br />
[[Category:Rickrolling]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]</div>108.162.237.184https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1988:_Containers&diff=156575Talk:1988: Containers2018-05-03T17:08:44Z<p>108.162.237.184: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
Pretty much a description of my social interactions ... [[User:Cosmogoblin|Cosmogoblin]] ([[User talk:Cosmogoblin|talk]]) 17:51, 2 May 2018 (UTC)<br />
:Pretty much a description of all my "useful" programs. {{unsigned|Linker}}<br />
<br />
I feel the thrust of this comic is partly “people use docker because they don’t know how to do things properly”; notably such people get tasks done easier and faster, but their work involves wasting a lot of computing reaources to do small tasks inside entire emulated systems. Agree? Disagree? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.153|162.158.62.153]] 18:59, 2 May 2018 (UTC)<br />
:Agree. --[[User:Joshupetersen|Joshupetersen]] ([[User talk:Joshupetersen|talk]]) 15:55, 3 May 2018 (UTC)<br />
:Agree! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.184|108.162.237.184]] 17:08, 3 May 2018 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I don't know if its just docker, almost any time I've gone to build mobile anything the API needs new libraries, their "secure" connecting functions must be used, or some other blackbox MUST be /glued/ to my work. If I don't stay on top of every platform, this in and of itself is a head ache I can't imagine what it'd be like if I had to learn and comply with the content of these libraries. {{unsigned ip|172.69.90.40}}<br />
<br />
When did any tablet with a browser not support <tt><nowiki><frame></nowiki></tt>s and <tt><nowiki><iframe></nowiki></tt>s? And for that matter why are docker containers with kubernetes better than server images with a load balancer? I asked one large-shop sysadmin who had transitioned to the former from the latter, and he said, "There really aren't many differences but I feel like I'm ready for microservices." [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.52|172.68.34.52]] 22:50, 2 May 2018 (UTC)<br />
<br />
For some reason, this really, really, REALLY feels like it's a continuation of 1987. Agree? Disagree? Also, the 'wasting a lot of computing resources to do small tasks inside entire emulated systems' does not feel like valid criticism, since they are just walled-in processes sharing the same kernel (and everything below). Firing up full-blown separate VMs for things that could just as well run in containers is the real wasteful choice IMHO. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.70|162.158.238.70]] 07:29, 3 May 2018 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Is it worth adding that "achieved enlightenment" is probably a reference to http://www.thecodelesscode.com/?</div>108.162.237.184https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1962:_Generations&diff=1535461962: Generations2018-03-03T20:10:05Z<p>108.162.237.184: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1962<br />
| date = March 2, 2018<br />
| title = Generations<br />
| image = generations.png<br />
| titletext = For a while it looked like the Paperclip Machines would destroy us, since they wanted to turn the whole universe into paperclips, but they abruptly lost interest in paperclips the moment their parents' generation got into making them, too.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by THE PREVIOUS-PREVIOUS-PREVIOUS GENERATION - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
This comic is making fun of the various names we give "generations", and also predicting some future ones. The release of this comic coincides the [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/defining-generations-where-millennials-end-and-post-millennials-begin/ Pew Research Center's recent announcement that they have decided where the Millennial generation ends].<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
|-<br />
! scope="col"| Generation<br />
! scope="col"| Time period<br />
! scope="col"| Explanation<br />
|-<br />
| The Founders<br />
| 1730 - 1747<br />
| Most of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States United States' Founding Fathers] were born in this period. (But not all: Benjamin Franklin, for instance, was born two generations prior.)<br />
|-<br />
| Generation ƒ<br />
| 1748 - 1765<br />
| ƒ was used to represent [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s "long s"] in the typography used in Colonial America. It can be seen in many historical documents from the period. It is also the symbol that represented the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_guilder guilder], the currency of the Netherlands from the 17th century until 2002.<br />
|-<br />
| The Adequate Generation<br />
| 1766 - 1783<br />
| Randall apparently found nothing notable about this generation, positive or negative.<br />
|-<br />
| Generation Æ<br />
| 1784 - 1801<br />
| Æ is the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æ diphthong] Aesh - its name sounds like X, though it is pronounced as a long e or IPA /æ/. This character is commonly transcribed differently into British English and American English as ae and e respectively making a difference in spelling in words such as encyclopaedia/encylopedia. One of the key influences on this is Webster's dictionary, first published 1828.<br />
|-<br />
| The generation we cut a lot of slack because they produced Lincoln<br />
| 1802 - 1819<br />
| Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809, and is regarded as one of the best presidents of all time. The comic states that the other people born in this generation were "cut a lot of slack" because of him. As with the Oops, one of us is Hitler generation, it is absurd to define an entire generation by defining its most famous member.<br />
|-<br />
| The Gilded Generation<br />
| 1820 - 1837<br />
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Generation_(Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_theory) So named under the Strauss-Howe generation theory], though they use the time period 1822-1842 instead. This likely refers to the "{{w|Gilded Age}}" of American history, roughly the last three decades of the 19th century.<br />
|-<br />
| The Second-Greatest Generation<br />
| 1838 - 1855<br />
|<br />
This is a reference to the Greatest Generation, below, and could be implying a similarity between the accomplishments and sacrifices of this generation - who fought in the first U.S. Civil War and who passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution - to those of the Greatest Generation. There is also some humor in the name: what Randall means is that this generation was, supposedly, second best in terms of its greatness. However, the wording could be interpreted to mean that they are chronologically the second generation to be called "greatest", even though they actually were born first.<br />
|-<br />
| Generation -..-<br />
| 1856 - 1873<br />
| This may be referring to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Morse_code#Comparison_of_American_and_International_Morse Morse Code] for the number 9, although this is the eighth generation in this list. More likely, it is referring to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code the letter X] instead in International Morse Code. This may be an error on Randall's part, since the generations are an American phenomenon. Alternatively, this be a past example of similar cohort of Gen Xers, mirrored by the later "More Gen-Xers somehow". Regardless, this is also a reference to the rise of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy telegraphy], though it was "born" prior to 1856.<br />
|-<br />
| The kids who died in the Gilded Generation's factories and mines<br />
| 1874 - 1891<br />
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour#The_Industrial_Revolution Child labor] had been widely used since before the start of the Industrial Revolution, but this is when people started doing something about it - and also, when the need for an educated workforce arose, applying substantial economic pressure on societies to put children in school instead. It would be more accurate to label this generation, "The kids who stopped dying in the Gilded Generation's factories and mines".<br />
|-<br />
| Oops, one of us is Hitler<br />
| 1892 - 1909<br />
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler Adolf Hitler], possibly the most hated (and, by most definitions, evil) man in living human memory as of this comic's posting, was born during in 1889. Aside from the fact that this places him in the previous generation, it seems beyond silly to blame everyone else who was born during this period for being born in the same generation as him. Among those who eventually heard of him (thus, excluding those in isolated areas or who died before he rose to power), the vast majority of them would not hear of him until well after 1909. In reality, this generation is known as the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Generation Lost Generation], though the dates are somewhat skewed.<br />
|-<br />
| The Greatest Generation<br />
| 1910 - 1927<br />
| Named by journalist [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Brokaw Tom Brokaw] in 1998 in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Generation a book of the same name], this is the first generation on the list to have a real, commonly accepted name, and was named as such due to being the generation that survived the hardships of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression Great Depression] immediately before being drafted to fight in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II World War II].<br />
|-<br />
| The Silent Generation<br />
| 1928 - 1945<br />
| Coined by Time Magazine in 1951, the Silent Generation grew up during a time of paranoia and very little activism due to phenomena such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism McCarthyism] making it dangerous to speak out.<br />
|-<br />
| Baby Boomers<br />
| 1946 - 1963<br />
| A spike in births was seen following the return of soldiers to the US from European and Pacific theatres of war. These children enjoyed the benefits of US prosperity whilst the rest of the world rebuilt, lived in fear of nuclear annihilation and watched the Space Race.<br />
|-<br />
| Generation X<br />
| 1965 - 1981<br />
| "X" here refers to an unknown or undefined element, not specifically a placement in the alphabet as Y and Z (see below) seem to imply, and was used throughout history to refer to alienated youth in general as early as the 1950s, only being applied specifically to this generation in 1991. Generation X's time period was one of sweeping societal change and rapid technological advancement. <br />
|-<br />
| Millennials<br />
| 1982 - 1999<br />
| The last children born in the 2nd Millennium. Initially called Generation Y, as they were thought to be so boring the only thing of note was that they came after Generation X, by people that hadn't anticipated the internet.<br />
|-<br />
| Generation 💅 (nail polish emoji)<br />
| 2000 - 2017<br />
| This begins the hypothetical future generation names, though this generation was already fully born as of this comic's posting. Social media was established and rising during the formative years of this generation, and the widespread adoption of emoji began during this time. The [https://emojipedia.org/nail-polish/ Nail Polish Emoji] (U+1F485) is used here. Currently known as Generation Z in reality, though the comic implies it may change due to emojis ultimately replacing the alphabet entirely.<br />
|-<br />
| Zuckerberg's Army<br />
| 2018 - 2035<br />
| Continuing on the above, this may be presuming the dominance of FaceBook during the childhoods of this generation, and corresponding social norming as ultimately directed by its leader Mark Zuckerberg. Ironically, as of this comic's posting, [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-quit-young-people-social-media-snapchat-instagram-emarketer-a8206486.html young users were already leaving FaceBook for other social media sites]. May also be a reference to "Dumbledore's Army" in ''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix''. It is uncertain whether Zuckerberg's Army is in alliance or at war with the other social media militaries of the mid-21st century.<br />
|-<br />
| The Hovering Ones<br />
| 2036 - 2053<br />
| This may posit increased adoption of cybernetics, which (as with any technology) are more easily adopted by the young who do not have to unlearn previous ways. If advances allowed someone to hover all the time, such that one would not need to walk, this generation's name suggests that becoming so widely used among this generation that they became known for it.<br />
|-<br />
| Spare Parts<br />
| 2054 - 2071<br />
| Continuing on the above speculation about cybernetics, this presumes enough apathy or sociopathy among this generation's parents that giving birth (or other means of creating a new human) was often done to create bodies from which organs could be harvested (presumably primarily for the benefit of their elders).<br />
|-<br />
| More Gen-Xers somehow<br />
| 2072 - 2089<br />
| As with "Generation -..-", this may be positing that Generation X like traits pop up about 3/4 of the way through each century.<br />
|-<br />
| The Paperclip Machines<br />
| 2090 - 2107<br />
| This, and the alt text, are references to the concept of a [https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer paperclip maximizer], where an AI might be designed to be helpful, but end up being harmful. The clicker game [http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ Universal Paperclips] makes this concept playable. Furthering the above speculation of cybernetics, this generation might be primarily artificial intelligences, though of limited ability to set their own priorities (a flaw which would be fixed in later generations).<br />
|-<br />
| The Mixed Bag (produced 4 Lincolns, 1 Napoleon, and 2 Hitlers)<br />
| 2108 - 2125<br />
| As with the above examples, a generation may become known for its most famous members, but it is not useful to define an entire generation by them.<br />
|-<br />
| The Procedural Generation<br />
| 2136 - 2143<br />
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation Procedural generation] is a way of creating data automatically, rather than capturing it via sensor (including when the "sensor" is a keyboard and the data is typed in). This confusion of the term "generation" could refer to more artificial intelligences that were created via routines instead of directly coded, which would likely stem from attempts to improve child creation once most children were explicitly manufactured instead of relying on evolution-granted biological means.<br />
|-<br />
| Generation Ω<br />
| 2144 - 2161<br />
| "Omega" is the last letter in the Greek alphabet, and used as a symbol of endings. Given the above generation names implying increasingly artificial children, this may suggest the last generation that is recognizably a generation. This does not necessarily mean the end of children or the end of humanity, just that anything after 2161 is widely recognized to no longer have even notional generational coherence - perhaps because of drift (children born to one group during a given time are wildly different enough from children born to another group at the same time that people give up trying to group them by time), child gestation and maturation times (for example, if it became common for a child to go from conception to adulthood in less than a year), or exceptions to what counts as a "child" (for example, if it becomes possible and common to create clones that are somewhere between free-willed beings and mind-controlled drones, and this sufficiently supplants creation of completely free-willed children, regardless of whether the children are artificial intelligences or old-fashioned biological children).<br />
|-<br />
| Star Trek: The Next Generation<br />
|2360 - 2378<br />
|''{{w|Star Trek: The Next Generation}}'' was a TV show set in the future. The first episode of ''TNG'', "{{w|Encounter at Farpoint}}", takes place in 2364, and it concluded with "{{w|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Good_Things..._(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)|All Good Things...}}", which took place in 2370. The final canonical adventures of the cast of ''The Next Generation'' did not occur until the events of ''{{w|Star Trek: Nemesis}}'' in 2379.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:"Generations" are arbitrary. They're just labels we use to obliquely talk about cultural trends.<br />
:But since Pew Research has become the latest to weigh in, and everyone loves a good pointless argument over definitions...<br />
<br />
:''xkcd presents''<br />
:A Definitive Chronology of the Generations<br />
<br />
:1730-1747 The Founders<br />
:1748-1765 Generation ƒ <br />
:1766-1783 The Adequate Generation<br />
:1784-1801 Generation Æ<br />
:1802-1819 The generation we cut a lot of slack because they produced Lincoln<br />
:1820-1837 The Gilded Generation<br />
:1838-1855 The Second-Greatest Generation<br />
:1856-1873 Generation '''-··-'''<br />
:1874-1891 The kids who died in the Gilded Generation's factories and mines<br />
:1892-1909 Oops, one of us is Hitler<br />
:<span style="background:#f0ee87">1910-1927 The Greatest Generation</span><br />
:<span style="background:#f0ee87">1928-1945 The Silent Generation</span><br />
:<span style="background:#f0ee87">1946-1963 Baby Boomers</span><br />
:<span style="background:#f0ee87">1964-1981 Generation X</span><br />
:<span style="background:#f0ee87">1982-1999 Millennials</span><br />
:2000-2017 Generation 💅 [nail polish emoji]<br />
:2018-2035 Zuckerberg's army<br />
:2036-2053 The Hovering Ones<br />
:2054-2071 Spare Parts<br />
:2072-2089 More Gen-Xers somehow<br />
:2090-2107 The Paperclip Machines<br />
:2108-2125 The Mixed Bag (produced 4 Lincolns, 1 Napoleon and 2 Hitlers)<br />
:2126-2143 The Procedural Generation<br />
:2144-2161 Generation Ω<br />
:2360-2378 Star Trek: The Next Generation <br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Emoji]]</div>108.162.237.184https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1932:_The_True_Meaning_of_Christmas&diff=149661Talk:1932: The True Meaning of Christmas2017-12-22T14:36:12Z<p>108.162.237.184: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
Is that guy with a black "santa cap" Black Hat? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.77|162.158.166.77]] 13:38, 22 December 2017 (UTC)<br />
:Since most comics a not in color we safely can assume this Santa Hat as red. And if it should be Black Hat we would be able to identify him. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:01, 22 December 2017 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Cant find a definition or recognition of the word autometalogolex. My google-fu is weak. ̶o̶r̶ ̶m̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶u̶p̶ [[User:DPS2004|DPS2004&#39;); DROP TABLE users;--]] ([[User talk:DPS2004|talk]]) 14:11, 22 December 2017 (UTC)<br />
:"autometalogolex" is an invention by Santa Hat and consists of three prefixes "auto-", "meta-", and "logo-" and the word "lex" for law or statute. I'm still thinking about the deeper meaning.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:17, 22 December 2017 (UTC)<br />
::Why dont we make it a word? UrbanDictionary is blocked where i am. [[User:DPS2004|DPS2004&#39;); DROP TABLE users;--]] ([[User talk:DPS2004|talk]]) 14:25, 22 December 2017 (UTC)<br />
:I added the meanings of each of the prefixes, as well as a more likely analysis of the root, though "auto-" is still up in the air. It can mean "self" as in the classic meaning, but it can also mean done without interaction (as in "automatic") which sounds closer to the usage present in the comic. I'll leave it to others to refine. We still need to better interpret the fullness of the title text. Respectfully, -- a guy stuck in a government cube all day.</div>108.162.237.184https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1932:_The_True_Meaning_of_Christmas&diff=1496591932: The True Meaning of Christmas2017-12-22T14:27:54Z<p>108.162.237.184: /* Explanation */ Typo Fix</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1932<br />
| date = December 22, 2017<br />
| title = The True Meaning of Christmas<br />
| image = the_true_meaning_of_christmas.png<br />
| titletext = They all made fun of Autometalogolex, but someday there will be a problem with Christmas that can only be solved if Santa somehow gets a serious headache, and then they'll see.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a grinch. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic is making fun of the common trope in popular media that the true meaning of Christmas is about family, friends, and sharing the Christmas Spirit. It subverts the trope by suggesting that once the stories of the "True Meaning of Christmas" become sufficiently common, the real true meaning becomes to spread those stories. Thus the "True Meaning of Christmas" is itself the meaning of Christmas.<br />
<br />
In the last panel and title text, "Autometalogolex" can be broken down ito its various prefixes and the root.<br />
<br />
"Auto-" - Greek meaning "self."<br />
<br />
"Meta-" - Greek meaning "after," "beyond," or "in reference to."<br />
<br />
"Logo-" - Greek meaning "word" or "speech."<br />
<br />
"Lex" - Latin meaning "law," but in this context more likely is short-hand for "lexicon" which is Greek-Latin for "dictionary."<br />
<br />
Thus, "Autometalogolex" literally means "A word that refers to itself in the dictionary."<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[Cueball and a person wearing a Santa hat are standing together.]<br />
:Cueball: You're looking festive.<br />
:Santa Hat: I love Christmas!<br />
:Cueball: Really? Doesn't seem like your kind of thing.<br />
:Santa Hat: It's our most meta holiday!<br />
<br />
:Cueball: How so?<br />
:Santa Hat: All our Christmas stories now are about discovering the "true meaning of Christmas."<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Huh, yeah. And then sharing it with others.<br />
:Santa Hat: At some point, that quest itself '''''became''''' the true meaning.<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Like a word who's definition is "the act of looking up the definition of this word."<br />
:Santa Hat: "Autometalogolex"?<br />
:Cueball: My least favorite of Santa's reindeer.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]<br />
[[Category:Christmas]]</div>108.162.237.184https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1932:_The_True_Meaning_of_Christmas&diff=1496581932: The True Meaning of Christmas2017-12-22T14:26:59Z<p>108.162.237.184: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1932<br />
| date = December 22, 2017<br />
| title = The True Meaning of Christmas<br />
| image = the_true_meaning_of_christmas.png<br />
| titletext = They all made fun of Autometalogolex, but someday there will be a problem with Christmas that can only be solved if Santa somehow gets a serious headache, and then they'll see.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a grinch. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic is making fun of the common trope in popular media that the true meaning of Christmas is about family, friends, and sharing the Christmas Spirit. It subverts the trope by suggesting that once the stories of the "True Meaning of Christmas" become sufficiently common, the real true meaning becomes to spread those stories. Thus the "True Meaning of Christmas" is itself the meaning of Christmas.<br />
<br />
In the last panel and title text, "Automegalogolex" can be broken down ito its various prefixes and the root.<br />
<br />
"Auto-" - Greek meaning "self."<br />
<br />
"Meta-" - Greek meaning "after," "beyond," or "in reference to."<br />
<br />
"Logo-" - Greek meaning "word" or "speech."<br />
<br />
"Lex" - Latin meaning "law," but in this context more likely is short-hand for "lexicon" which is Greek-Latin for "dictionary."<br />
<br />
Thus, "Automegalogolex" literally means "A word that refers to itself in the dictionary."<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[Cueball and a person wearing a Santa hat are standing together.]<br />
:Cueball: You're looking festive.<br />
:Santa Hat: I love Christmas!<br />
:Cueball: Really? Doesn't seem like your kind of thing.<br />
:Santa Hat: It's our most meta holiday!<br />
<br />
:Cueball: How so?<br />
:Santa Hat: All our Christmas stories now are about discovering the "true meaning of Christmas."<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Huh, yeah. And then sharing it with others.<br />
:Santa Hat: At some point, that quest itself '''''became''''' the true meaning.<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Like a word who's definition is "the act of looking up the definition of this word."<br />
:Santa Hat: "Autometalogolex"?<br />
:Cueball: My least favorite of Santa's reindeer.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]<br />
[[Category:Christmas]]</div>108.162.237.184https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1932:_The_True_Meaning_of_Christmas&diff=1496561932: The True Meaning of Christmas2017-12-22T14:17:41Z<p>108.162.237.184: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1932<br />
| date = December 22, 2017<br />
| title = The True Meaning of Christmas<br />
| image = the_true_meaning_of_christmas.png<br />
| titletext = They all made fun of Autometalogolex, but someday there will be a problem with Christmas that can only be solved if Santa somehow gets a serious headache, and then they'll see.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a grinch. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic is making fun of the common trope in popular media that the true meaning of Christmas is about family, friends, and sharing the Christmas Spirit. It subverts the trope by suggesting that once the stories of the "true meaning of Christmas" become sufficiently common, the real true meaning becomes to spread those stories. Thus the "True Meaning of Christmas" is itself the meaning of Christmas.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[Cueball and a person wearing a Santa hat are standing together.]<br />
:Cueball: You're looking festive.<br />
:Santa Hat: I love Christmas!<br />
:Cueball: Really? Doesn't seem like your kind of thing.<br />
:Santa Hat: It's our most meta holiday!<br />
<br />
:Cueball: How so?<br />
:Santa Hat: All our Christmas stories now are about discovering the "true meaning of Christmas."<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Huh, yeah. And then sharing it with others.<br />
:Santa Hat: At some point, that quest itself '''''became''''' the true meaning.<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Like a word who's definition is "the act of looking up the definition of this word."<br />
:Santa Hat: "Autometalogolex"?<br />
:Cueball: My least favorite of Santa's reindeer.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]<br />
[[Category:Christmas]]</div>108.162.237.184https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:760:_Moria&diff=146116Talk:760: Moria2017-10-01T02:12:50Z<p>108.162.237.184: </p>
<hr />
<div>Can someone who has read the Silmarillion clarify what balrogs actually are? I'm not sure how accurate this is but I seem to recall that they were the lieutenants of Morgoth, and were not monsters but actually minor gods (Maiar?) [[User:Athang|Athang]] ([[User talk:Athang|talk]]) 23:14, 27 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
That's correct. Balrogs were both corrupted Maiar and servants of Morgoth. Gandalf, as with all the Istari (wizards), was also of the Maiar. Hence the close matched fight which took every last ounce of Gandalf's strength. [[User:Plm-qaz snr|Plm-qaz snr]] ([[User talk:Plm-qaz snr|talk]]) 12:34, 13 August 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Just don't ask if the buggers have wings! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.220|108.162.210.220]] 19:02, 13 September 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The bit about the Endless Stair could be a reference to Dwarf Fortress: one of the problems Dwarf Fortress players encounter is how the heck to get their miners back out of whatever moat/chute/spiky-pit/reservoir/pointless-doomsday-device-power-supply-tunnel they've just designed and built. And Randall plays Dwarf Fortress.</div>108.162.237.184https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1781:_Artifacts&diff=1332691781: Artifacts2017-01-04T14:19:05Z<p>108.162.237.184: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1781<br />
| date = January 4, 2017<br />
| title = Artifacts<br />
| image = artifacts.png<br />
| titletext = I didn't even realize you could HAVE a data set made up entirely of outliers.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The comic shows [[Cueball]] presenting data that was probably gathered in research. Cueball seems to have made some kind of mistake in either the statistics or the measurement of the undefined subject of his research, thus his data results in many outliers. The word artifact is a wordplay with two meanings. It is either an {{w|Artifact_(archaeology)|artifact such as the Holy Grail}} (as in Indiana Jones) or a fault in your experiment, where you (usually accidentally) influence the measurement with your equipment or unanticipated environmental factors. These are also called {{w|Artifact_(error)|artifacts}}.<br />
An example of an artifact is the measurement of the force between two charged metal spheres (Coulomb force), where the potential of unearthed nearby objects influences the measurement, thus causing an artifact.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball presenting a line graph]<br />
:Cueball: The data clearly proves that-<br />
:Offscreen voice: Are you Indiana Jones? Because you've got a lot of artifacts there, and I'm pretty sure you didn't handle them right.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>108.162.237.184https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1781:_Artifacts&diff=1332681781: Artifacts2017-01-04T14:18:28Z<p>108.162.237.184: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1781<br />
| date = January 4, 2017<br />
| title = Artifacts<br />
| image = artifacts.png<br />
| titletext = I didn't even realize you could HAVE a data set made up entirely of outliers.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The comic shows [[Cueball]] presenting data that was probably gathered in research. Cueball seems to have made some kind of mistake in either the statistics or the measurement of the undefined subject of his research, thus his data results in many outliners. The word artifact is a wordplay with two meanings. It is either an {{w|Artifact_(archaeology)|artifact such as the Holy Grail}} (as in Indiana Jones) or a fault in your experiment, where you (usually accidentally) influence the measurement with your equipment or unanticipated environmental factors. These are also called {{w|Artifact_(error)|artifacts}}.<br />
An example of an artifact is the measurement of the force between two charged metal spheres (Coulomb force), where the potential of unearthed nearby objects influences the measurement, thus causing an artifact.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball presenting a line graph]<br />
:Cueball: The data clearly proves that-<br />
:Offscreen voice: Are you Indiana Jones? Because you've got a lot of artifacts there, and I'm pretty sure you didn't handle them right.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>108.162.237.184