688: Self-Description - Revision history

Lettherebedarklight: /* Trivia */ add Category:Comics with a Spanish translation

2025-12-15T08:57:56Z

‎Trivia: add Category:Comics with a Spanish translation

172.69.195.62: Undo revision 374023 by 172.68.225.70 (talk)

2025-04-21T11:11:08Z

Undo revision 374023 by 172.68.225.70 (talk)

172.68.225.70 at 11:10, 21 April 2025

2025-04-21T11:10:26Z

Pokemonpasta: Replace dead link with web archived version

2024-09-08T10:58:51Z

Replace dead link with web archived version

SliceThePi: Fixed grammatical errors and added additional detail where needed.

2024-04-20T00:47:42Z

Fixed grammatical errors and added additional detail where needed.

172.68.35.82: /* Previous link went to disambiguation page */

2024-02-05T18:48:35Z

‎Previous link went to disambiguation page

FaviFake: /* Trivia */ Updated xkcd store link with Web archive link

2023-09-01T10:44:41Z

‎Trivia: Updated xkcd store link with Web archive link

172.70.85.62: Undo revision 320085 by 172.71.150.37 (talk) If you make this change, you'd have to make it for everything. And it's not useful to change a template call without changing the template!

2023-08-02T00:47:08Z

Undo revision 320085 by 172.71.150.37 (talk) If you make this change, you'd have to make it for everything. And it's not useful to change a template call without changing the template!

172.71.150.37: Randall literally calls it mouseover text, so I'm correcting it to that.

2023-08-01T20:38:25Z

Randall literally calls it mouseover text, so I'm correcting it to that.

FaviFake: Updating link

2023-07-26T09:48:46Z

Updating link

← Older revision		Revision as of 08:57, 15 December 2025
Line 54:		Line 54:
	[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]		[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]
	[[Category:Recursion]]		[[Category:Recursion]]
		+	[[Category:Comics with a Spanish translation]]

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 | number    = 688
 | date      = January 13, 2010
-| title     = {{w|Untitled Goose Game}}
+| title     = Self-Description
 | image     = self_description.png
-| titletext = {{w|Untitled Goose Game}}
+| titletext = The contents of any one panel are dependent on the contents of every panel including itself. The graph of panel dependencies is complete and bidirectional, and each node has a loop. The mouseover text has two hundred and forty-two characters.
 }}
-== {{w|Untitled Goose Game}} ==
+==Explanation==
 This comic is {{w|Self-reference|self-referential}} because every graph is dependent on the whole comic. If you were to change anything in the comic, you would change the ink distribution, and would therefore have to update all three graphs. This would result in further changes that would have to be considered. This comic might be inspired by [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2007-07-05 SMBC].
@@ Line 24: / Line 24: @@
 Self-reference was used very early for instance in [[33: Self-reference]], but never so famously as here. See [[:Category:Self-reference|other self-references here]].
-== {{w|Untitled Goose Game}} ==
+==Transcript==
 :[A pie chart which is mainly white with a black slice of about 30 degrees towards the bottom left. The two sections are labeled, with a line going from each label into the middle of the corresponding section. The portion of the line within the black section is white to maintain visual contrast.]
 :Fraction of this image which is white
@@ Line 38: / Line 38: @@
 :0
-== {{w|Untitled Goose Game}} ==
+==Trivia==
 * This comic has seen interest from several computer programmers who have [https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/121160/reproducing-the-xkcd-self-description-comic  taken up on the challenge] to recreate this comic. Jon McLoone of the Wolfram blog [https://blog.wolfram.com/2010/09/07/self-description/ seems to have done it] quite well.
 * The {{w|Mathematical Association of America}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20240530142837/https://maa.org/press/periodicals/math-horizons/the-mathematics-behind-xkcd-a-conversation-with-randall-munroe-0 interviewed] [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] about this topic.

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 | number    = 688
 | date      = January 13, 2010
-| title     = Self-Description
+| title     = {{w|Untitled Goose Game}}
 | image     = self_description.png
-| titletext = The contents of any one panel are dependent on the contents of every panel including itself. The graph of panel dependencies is complete and bidirectional, and each node has a loop. The mouseover text has two hundred and forty-two characters.
+| titletext = {{w|Untitled Goose Game}}
 }}
-==Explanation==
+== {{w|Untitled Goose Game}} ==
 This comic is {{w|Self-reference|self-referential}} because every graph is dependent on the whole comic. If you were to change anything in the comic, you would change the ink distribution, and would therefore have to update all three graphs. This would result in further changes that would have to be considered. This comic might be inspired by [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2007-07-05 SMBC].
@@ Line 24: / Line 24: @@
 Self-reference was used very early for instance in [[33: Self-reference]], but never so famously as here. See [[:Category:Self-reference|other self-references here]].
-==Transcript==
+== {{w|Untitled Goose Game}} ==
 :[A pie chart which is mainly white with a black slice of about 30 degrees towards the bottom left. The two sections are labeled, with a line going from each label into the middle of the corresponding section. The portion of the line within the black section is white to maintain visual contrast.]
 :Fraction of this image which is white
@@ Line 38: / Line 38: @@
 :0
-==Trivia==
+== {{w|Untitled Goose Game}} ==
 * This comic has seen interest from several computer programmers who have [https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/121160/reproducing-the-xkcd-self-description-comic  taken up on the challenge] to recreate this comic. Jon McLoone of the Wolfram blog [https://blog.wolfram.com/2010/09/07/self-description/ seems to have done it] quite well.
 * The {{w|Mathematical Association of America}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20240530142837/https://maa.org/press/periodicals/math-horizons/the-mathematics-behind-xkcd-a-conversation-with-randall-munroe-0 interviewed] [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] about this topic.

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 ==Trivia==
 * This comic has seen interest from several computer programmers who have [https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/121160/reproducing-the-xkcd-self-description-comic  taken up on the challenge] to recreate this comic. Jon McLoone of the Wolfram blog [https://blog.wolfram.com/2010/09/07/self-description/ seems to have done it] quite well.
-* The {{w|Mathematical Association of America}} [https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/math-horizons/the-mathematics-behind-xkcd-a-conversation-with-randall-munroe-0 interviewed] [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] about this topic.
+* The {{w|Mathematical Association of America}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20240530142837/https://maa.org/press/periodicals/math-horizons/the-mathematics-behind-xkcd-a-conversation-with-randall-munroe-0 interviewed] [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] about this topic.
 * This is one of the six [[Footer comics|footer comics]] featured in the bottom segment of [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com].
 * This comic used to be [https://web.archive.org/web/20211215183603/https://store.xkcd.com/products/self-reference available as a T-shirt] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20220125023401/https://store.xkcd.com/products/signed-prints as a signed print] in the xkcd store before it was [[Store|shut down]].

@@ Line 25: / Line 25: @@
 ==Transcript==
-:[A pie chart which is mainly white with a black slice of about 30 degree towards the bottom left. The two sections are labeled with a line going from the label to the sections. The line going into the black section turns white in this last part.]
+:[A pie chart which is mainly white with a black slice of about 30 degrees towards the bottom left. The two sections are labeled, with a line going from each label into the middle of the corresponding section. The portion of the line within the black section is white to maintain visual contrast.]
 :Fraction of this image which is white
 :Fraction of this image which is black
-:[A bar graph labeled with a label over the Y-axis. There are three black bars with a label below each bar. Bar 1 is of medium height, bar 2 highest and bar 3 the lowest.]
+:[A bar graph with a label over the Y-axis. There are three black bars with a label below each bar. Bar 1 is of medium height, bar 2 highest and bar 3 the lowest.]
 :Amount of black ink by panel:
 :1 2 3
-:[A scatter-plot with a label over the Y-axis. In the bottom left corner of the graph, the two axis has a tick just away from the origo, and these are labeled with zeros. The graph shows the whole comic scaled proportionally to fit the axes. The scale is too small to actually read any of the text in this representation, which would of course be the same as that noted here for the two previous panel and for this panel here below:]
+:[A scatter-plot with a label over the Y-axis. In the bottom left corner of the graph, the two axes have a tick a short distance from the origin, and these ticks are labeled with zeros. The contents of the graph look like a smaller version of the whole comic, scaled proportionally to fit the axes. The scale is too small for any of the text to be legible, though the text would, presumably, be the same as that noted in this image transcript, which (not including newlines) has 1190 characters when viewed in the editor and 1166 characters after being rendered.]
 :Location of black ink in this image:
 :0

@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 The title text refers to the comic's own self-reference, but it is also self-referencing because of the character count in it. It would be difficult to write this sentence, as just one more character would not be solved by writing 243, as "three" has two more characters than "two", and "four" has only one more character...
-"The graph of panel dependencies is complete and bidirectional, and every node has a loop." This means that if we draw a dot corresponding to each panel, and then we draw arrows connecting the dots to indicate dependencies, the resulting {{w|graph}} is {{w|complete graph|complete}} (meaning that all the points are connected to one another) and bidirectional (meaning that if point A has an arrow to point B, then point B also has an arrow to point A). "Every node has a loop" means that each point also has an arrow connecting to itself.
+"The graph of panel dependencies is complete and bidirectional, and every node has a loop." This means that if we draw a dot corresponding to each panel, and then we draw arrows connecting the dots to indicate dependencies, the resulting {{w|Graph (discrete mathematics)|graph}} is {{w|complete graph|complete}} (meaning that all the points are connected to one another) and bidirectional (meaning that if point A has an arrow to point B, then point B also has an arrow to point A). "Every node has a loop" means that each point also has an arrow connecting to itself.
 This is an observation of the interdependent relationship between description and creation that pertains to all things perceived by humans, including the concept of "Self".

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-This comic is {{w|Self-reference|self-referential}}, because every graph is dependent on the whole comic. If you were to change anything in the comic, you would change the ink distribution, and would therefore have to update all three graphs. This would result in further changes that would have to be considered.
+This comic is {{w|Self-reference|self-referential}} because every graph is dependent on the whole comic. If you were to change anything in the comic, you would change the ink distribution, and would therefore have to update all three graphs. This would result in further changes that would have to be considered. This comic might be inspired by [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2007-07-05 SMBC].
 In the first panel's {{w|pie chart}}, "this image" refers to the entire comic image, the one that can be downloaded from xkcd (and the entire comic as displayed here above). This is a little confusing as it would be easy to misunderstand this meaning, and believe that the first panel only refers to itself. The title text though makes it clear that it is the entire comic that is called image here. The image size is 740x180 or 133200 pixels. Out of those, 14228 pixels are black (gray pixels are accounted based on their brightness). The ratio of black pixels to the size of the image is 0.1068, so the pie chart segment describing black part should be about 38.5 degrees wide, which is indeed true for the pie chart in the image.
@@ Line 39: / Line 39: @@
 ==Trivia==
-*This comic has seen interest from several computer programmers who have [https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/121160/reproducing-the-xkcd-self-description-comic  taken up on the challenge] to recreate this comic. Jon McLoone of the Wolfram blog [https://blog.wolfram.com/2010/09/07/self-description/ seems to have done it] quite well.
+* This is one of the six [[Footer comics|footer comics]] featured in the bottom segment of [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com].
-*The {{w|Mathematical Association of America}} [https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/math-horizons/the-mathematics-behind-xkcd-a-conversation-with-randall-munroe-0 interviewed] [[Randall Munroe]] about this topic.
+* This comic has seen interest from several computer programmers who have [https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/121160/reproducing-the-xkcd-self-description-comic  taken up on the challenge] to recreate this comic. Jon McLoone of the Wolfram blog [https://blog.wolfram.com/2010/09/07/self-description/ seems to have done it] quite well.
-*This is one of the [[:Category:Footer comics|six footer comics]] linked at the bottom part of the {{xkcd}} website.
+* The {{w|Mathematical Association of America}} [https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/math-horizons/the-mathematics-behind-xkcd-a-conversation-with-randall-munroe-0 interviewed] [[Randall Munroe]] about this topic.
-*This is one of the comics available as signed prints at the xkcd store.
+* This is one of the comics available as signed prints at the xkcd store.
-*A T-shirt based on this comic is available in the [https://store.xkcd.com/products/self-reference xkcd store].
+* A T-shirt based on this comic is available in the [https://store.xkcd.com/products/self-reference xkcd store].
 {{comic discussion}}