3246: Speedrun
| Speedrun |
 Title text: Usain Bolt holds the world record in the 100 meter speedrun. |
Explanation
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This is one of 46 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a SPEEDRUNNING BOT. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
This comic shows Cueball sitting at a desk complaining that his speedrun got deleted off of Speedrun.com, which is a popular leaderboard aggregator for speedruns.
A tool-assisted speedrun (or TAS for short) is a speedrun that uses software tools to make certain hard or even humanly impossible inputs easily. Lateralus and Ænima are albums by the band Tool. This comic makes use of a pun, where rather than using third party tools to assist him in beating a video game as quickly as possible, Cueball is getting "assistance" from the rock band Tool in the form of background music to help him concentrate. In real life, a speedrun would be unlikely to be removed based on the music one is listening to while completing it, though it may be considered similar to using a metronome, a controversial topic.
The title text is a pun on the word "speedrun". Usain Bolt's 100-meter dash record is a world-record "speedrun" in the sense that it is literally a speedy run. It isn't farfetched as Speedrun.com has some leaderboards for In Real Life records.
Transcript
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This is one of 44 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
- [Cueball is sitting at a desk with a laptop. Megan is standing behind him.]
- Cueball: Aw man, Speedrun.com removed my world record just because I listened to Lateralus and Ænima to get in the flow.
- Megan: Oh, a copyright thing?
- Cueball: No, they don't allow Tool-assisted speedruns.
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F1RST! I actually found the comic before Theusafbot did. K9Dragon23, or RainWingSquares (talk) (talk) 01:01, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
- I also did a crappy first draft explanation. K9Dragon23, or RainWingSquares (talk) (talk) 01:03, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
- There goes the speedrun records King Pando (talk) 01:38, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
L0l, my br0ther and father g0t me in0 t00l 216.25.182.141 02:59, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
Published on the 25th Anniversary of the song release right?
wasn't there an olympic runner who requested a song to be played with his preferred beats per minute, only to be rejected out of a concern for an unfair advantage? 84.225.125.43 07:10, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
Wow! I needed this explanation. I knew nothing of speedruns, nor Tool. Usain Bolt I had heard of.--2A00:23CC:D248:8901:79C8:645F:821A:1BA3 08:37, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
Cueball is such a tool. 2A02:2455:1960:4000:2C98:4FB4:B92F:33B4 10:07, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
Shouldn't they remove Usain Bolt'd record as a TAS?--94.73.49.13
- No, he was the one that did the record, not a programmed computer. A robot that was programmed to perform a series of specific inputs that make it run really fast would be a TAS. --DollarStoreBa'alconverse 15:26, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
Funny, I use Pneuma as my coding focus music.... 2A0A:EF40:2D3:201:A4CA:7332:48F3:6525 12:27, 16 May 2026 (UTC)
Unfamiliar with Tool or their music portfolio, I assumed those were the usernames of other speedrunners Cueball had analyzed to develop his technique, which made the punchline seem very harsh. RegularSizedGuy (talk) 00:06, 17 May 2026 (UTC)
Just a sidenote, to someone else's page edit about allowable device uses in marathons, I'm most familiar with a branch of cycle sport where earphones/etc are banned (mainly, I believe) for safety reasons (reduces proper awareness of traffic, etc), but also no speakers. Unsure of the original intent, could be a mix of road-awareness, being a public nuisance, the pacing issue as most linked to the comic; also, only recently have something like mini bluetooth speakers been available, perhaps to fit in a spare bottle-cage... Though that's not to say that I haven't seen someone ride a hill-climb with a boom-box bungeed to the rear-carrier, as a novelty/performative challenge.
You are allowed to have a mobile phone with you, if you so wish, but you shouldn't be using it hands-free and (while not strictly illegal, unlike for motor vehicle drivers) it would be impractical and unsafe to be using one 'hand-on' whilst actually competing, and the benefits of being 'remotely paced'/otherwise encouraged would be against the spirit (if not the letter) of the rules however you did it.
For yet another related sporting body, of my acquaintence, there are specific restrictions against 'live' on-the-move communications of any kind. (Not even allowed to do direct rolling support-vehicle assistance, like they aparently do in Road Racing.)
That said, there's nothing against a 'Cateye'/’Garmin'-style cyclocomputer presenting data (road speed, pedal revs, heartrate, watts, estimated Vmax, etc) that can be used to try to sustain the optimal ride (rather than... well, just trying as hard as you feel you jeed to try, for the duration of the event, be that a minute or two up a short, steep hill or twenty-four hours of doing ~500 miles of roads across and around a large area). I couldn't rule out there being a flashing/blinking LED/LCD solution to providing metronomic assistance without being an otyerwise impermissable audible cue. 82.132.238.107 13:19, 17 May 2026 (UTC)
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