1350: Lorenz

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Lorenz
Every choice, no matter how small, begins a new story
Title text: Every choice, no matter how small, begins a new story


Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: All possible dialogues are not yet accounted for (and may never be?)
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

For a collection of images that appear in this comic, see 1350: Lorenz/Images.

Explanation

This is an interactive and dynamic comic with a possible first picture shown on top of this page. The picture is always the same but the order of the sentences A/B/C/D is done by random. The result of all the interactions by the people would lead to a crowd-sourced content. In honor of April Fools' Day the comic was posted a day early, on Tuesday instead of the usual Wednesday. This also means that if anyone feels this comic is too silly... Randall can call April fool.

The title 'Lorenz' is referring to Edward Norton Lorenz who among other subjects was famous for Chaos theory and the Butterfly effect.

The title text is a reference to that the story line of this comic does include all of the user submitted dialogue and hence will in nature be chaotic. In this manner it is a reference to the butterfly effect, a phrase coined by Edward Lorenz to describe how a small initial change can lead to wide variations in outcome in a chaotic system.

This comic is an example of a Choose Your Own Adventure story as mentioned in the title text.

Functionality and bugs

The reader is initially presented with only one panel where Knit Cap Girl (Megan?) is sitting in front of his computer. The reader is given multiple choices concerning what exactly Knit Cap Girl (Megan?) is thinking. Upon choosing any option, a second panel appears, to give continuity to the story. Each new panel may have a new set of options or just the button "Continue" to see the next panel without making any choice in particular. Eventually, one may reach a dead end in which the story is interrupted and reader is presented with a text box to suggest how it should continue. Some of the suggestions given should eventually become available as new options.

It appears that new panels may be generated by Randall in near real time as user suggestions to dialog is submitted. The dialogue options are likely based on click-through rates and hence will change over day based on which choices are clicked most using A/B measurement techniques. This will mean that the most popular choices for dialogue line will prevail as the statistics build up. In some cases, dialogue line options do not depend on the continuity of the storyline followed, suggesting that some parts of the story are planned. For example, do several of the storylines involve one of the two main characters waking up and for instance telling the other character, “I had the strangest dream…” or even reliving the dream again. This may be due to common submissions across storylines as well.

Normally, there is a total of 4 options to make: a/b/c/d. Their order changes constantly. Sometimes, there are 3 or fewer options, with the text box to suggest an alternative option. Sometimes, a given panel actually has 5 or more available options, although even in this case only 4 options appear at a time. Refreshing the comic changes randomly which of the available options are visible and which are hidden. As of April 2nd 2014, the existence of 5 or more options seems to occur only in a few rare cases, including the first panel itself.

Each panel has a "permalink" button which generates a unique URL for all the choices made by the reader — so a reader can save the chosen choices to compare them to other ways going through the selections. On the final panel the reader can enter an own statement, which is shown on screen but can't be saved by a permalink. The reader has to do a screen shot by himself.

Cookies and Javascript are required to see this page properly. Without cookies, the next panel will not render; attempting to load the page in the UNIXKCD terminal or loading the page without Javascript you just will get the previous comic.

Buttons

Instead of clicking with the mouse you can move more quickly through the panels using the keyboard:

  • Up/Down - navigate options
  • Enter/Right - choose option after navigating with Up/Down
  • Left - go back one panel
  • a/b/c/d - choose any option directly

Bugs

Since this interactive comic relies on many servers in the background to provide the response to the reader's actions there are some problems reported here:

  • In the worst case the entire comic doesn't render at all as expected — it just shows the previous comic 1349: Shouldn't Be Hard.
  • When selecting a sentence A/B/C/D the server does not respond on that selection.
  • The servers responsible to provide the pictures are down.
  • If a response leads to a panel where two characters speak at the same time, it is impossible to proceed past the first speech bubble.

As a consequence of these bugs many readers do not understand how this interactive comic works.

Themes

Miscellaneous

Name + Example image Description
Boomerang
lorenz - boomerang 1.png
The lone character finds a boomerang on the ground and throws it.

This part of the story ends with either:

  • The boomerang crashing into something off panel - someone may shout back
  • Hitting the space rocket from another story branch
  • The character getting hit in the face with the boomerang rebound
  • The character putting the boomerang down on the ground and walking away
Computer problems
lorenz - laptop 1.png
The laptop has an unspecified problem. The two characters attempt to fix it. The story either ends with
  • The two randomly floating in the ocean (with or without circling sharks - a reference to 349)
  • With the laptop being melted using a blowtorch (a reference to the previous day's strip, 1349). In this case they typically walk out of the building afterwards.
Debate
lorenz - debate 1.png
Knit Cap Guy uses his laptop to watch a debate online between the Politician 1 (on the left) and the Politician 2 (Cueball, on the right), the subject and the actual conversation of which varies according to the storyline. Eventually, they either:
  • Fight each other, the Politician 2 using a lightsaber and the Politician 1 using his bare fists
  • Politician 1 going down on one knee - either to pray or as in a suggestion ask the other to marry him...

Subjects debated (could be user suggestions but below are those from April the 1st):

  • Politician 1 questions Politician 2's project of tying multiple birds to a car as fuel replacement, which would require some method to make the birds take off in unison. The solutions mentioned are:
    • Opening and closing an umbrella near them
    • Using a predatory bird to the car to scare them
    • Putting resources in the hands of bird educators for the purpose of training them
    • Employing fiscal hawks.

If the Politician 1 points out some problem with the reasoning, often the solution proposed by the Politician 2 would be doing the same in a larger scale. In the end, Hairy visits Knit Cap Guy and points out something happening near that may ormay not involve birds (or what ever was the subject) which could be a direct result of Politician 2's project.

Dinosaur interruption
lorenz - dinosaur 1.png
A green T-rex interrupts the story and proceeds to stamp on the house the main characters are in. (These are frames borrowed from Dinosaur Comics, a clip-art-based webcomic that uses the same artwork with different captions for every strip.)
Walking out of the building
lorenz - away.png
They may just walk away to new events or they encounter either:
  • A rocket
  • A hole in the ground

See below.

Space rocket
lorenz - rocket 1.png
There is a rocket on the ground just outside of the building. The rocket either:
  • Fails to launch and the two characters comes out again
  • Takes off (with a screenshot from Kerbal Space Program) as it goes off into space - see below
Relativistic encounter
lorenz - rocket 16.png
The space rocket meets another space rocket that asks a question about relativity, the same one that appeared in Choices: Part 2. The other space rocket will shoot and destroy the main rocket if the question isn't answered satisfactory. Otherwise the two rockets fly past each other.
Space planet
lorenz - rocket 21.png
Eventually the space rocket meets a guy on a very tiny planet which most likely is a reference to The Little Prince. This could also be a reference to the asteroid 4942 Munroe, then it would be Randall on the rock.
Dreams
lorenz - wake up 1.png
Sometimes, Knit Cap Guy or Hairy find themselves waking from a dream, suggesting that all prior events were just part of they dreaming. This may happen after either:
  • They fall in the big hole outside Knit Cap Guy's house
  • The rocket is shot down by the other spacecraft.
  • Knit Cap Guy also wakes up after watching the debate.

Often, the dream loops upon itself, as a character wakes up multiple times in the same storyline. When Knit Cap Guy wakes it is with the head to the left and the cap lying on the end of the bed. Hairy has his head to the right.

Salesman
lorenz - sale 1.png
Hairy meets White Hat, a salesman with a small stand. Often this happens after waking from a dream.
Arguing
lorenz - discuss.png
The two characters argue with each other
Thinking
lorenz - thinking.png
One of the characters take a panel or two to think about something.

Geography

Name + Example image Description
Hole in the ground
lorenz - gap.png
Hairy spots a hole in the ground and leans over it to make a comment
Huge hole on the lawn
lorenz - hole.png
There is a huge hole in the ground just outside of the building. The two characters always end up falling into it and awakening from a dream.
Tree
lorenz - tree.png
The characters walk past a tree.

Literature

Name + Example image Description
LORT
The Little Prince Eventually, if the rocket is not destroyed, it may pass by the asteroid of The Little Prince and they have a quick conversation.

Movies

Name + Example image Description
Frozen In one storyline, Hairy visits Knit Cap Guy and asks him "Wanna build a snowman?", a line from the movie. Possible answers also come from the movie, such as "It doesn't have to be a snowman..."
Matrix In one storyline, Hairy remarks that the gap in the ground is like a glitch in the matrix.

Video games

Name + Example image Description
2048 A number of storylines begin because Knit Cap Guy is playing 2048 on his computer. Often, Hairy invites him to go outside to do something related to the game, such as hunting for tiles somewhere.
Mario In the dialogue, Hairy asks Knit Cap Guy "Is this 1-1 from Mario?" upon seeing the gap in the ground. In the platform game Super Mario Bros. for NES, the levels are numbered 1-1, 1-2 and so on. In one branch, he says "Actually, it's the final castle. Grab your Fire Flower!"
Pokémon
lorenz - pikachu theft.png
Some of the storylines involve Pokémon battles featuring Pikachu, a very popular Pokémon. The battles are drawn in the style of the video games. (A trainer in the left-bottom corner facing the foe in the right-top corner, with a narration box below the scene and the trainer's Pokéballs visible, although some elements are missing, such as the level, gender and HP bar.)

Pikachu uses a number of different moves, though these are mostly made up and are not from the Pokémon games. Pikachu's moves are almost invariably remarked by the narrator as "It's not very effective...", but "It's super effective!" is also possible to appear. In the video games, a move is "not very effective" when the opponent's type resists the attacking move's type and "super effective" when the opponent's type is weak to the attacking move's type. Normally after a few failed attempts, there is an uncomfortable silence as the Pikachu says "Um..." and Knit Cap Guy and Hairy walk away. Pikachu is left in the grass and has time to make his final remarks as the two leave him. Rarely, a suggested move knocks Pikachu out.

One narration line is "Where's Twitch when I need help?", a reference to Twitch Plays Pokémon which was also covered by comic 1333: First Date.

Another narration line is: "Google Maps didn't warn me of this.", a reference to Google Maps: Pokémon Challenge.

Pikachu's moves:

  • Abandonment - Pikachu disappears completely.
  • Anguish - Pikachu is sad.
  • Ant Colony - Pikachu is covered in ants.
  • Cute Face
  • Crowdsource
  • The Discrete Metric
  • Ethylene Dichloride - Nothing seems to happen, but Ethylene Dichloride is a toxic chemical, so there may be future consequences for the characters.
  • Extrude - Pikachu's head moves away from his body as his neck becomes long and malleable.
  • Faceless - Pikachu's face disappears.
  • Friendship - Pikachu is on Knit Cap Guy's head, signifying they are now friends. Friendship, though not a move, is a game mechanic in the video games.
  • Granite - Pikachu is atop a block of granite.
  • Graph Theory
  • Ink Cloud - Pikachu is covered in ink. In the storyline Pikachu uses it, there is the option to "gather" the ink.
  • Radicality - Pikachu is on a skateboard.
  • Struggle - In one storyline, after Pikachu uses a number of moves, it says: "Now I only have Struggle left. Tie?" In the Pokémon games, when a Pokémon runs out of PP (Power Points, the energy required to use each of its moves) for all its moves, it may only use Struggle, a weak move, indefinitely reusable, that harms not only the opponent but the user as well.
  • Theft - Pikachu wears Knit Cap Guy's hat. Pikachu seems to be using "Thief", a similarly-named actual move from the games, that is used to steal the foe's item and use it as its own.
  • Uplift - Pikachu's head goes upward, separated from its body, showing a long, thick cable still connecting the head and the body.

Transcript

[The comic starts with a single panel presenting four options by random order.]
  • these stupid tiles ... I'll just play one more game.
  • oh, hey, there's some kind of political thing going on.
  • refresh ... no new email ... refresh ... no new tweets ... refresh ...
  • let's see if BSD is any easier to install nowadays.
[As of April 2, the choices are sometimes changed to this, order is still by random.]
  • refresh ... no new email ... refresh ... no new tweets ... refresh ...
  • let's see if BSD is any easier to install nowadays.
  • hurry! we're in talks with facebook.
  • oh, hey, there's some kind of political thing going on.
[The reader can choose an option and the text appears at the panel.]
[The next panels are shown after each selection until it comes to an end where the reader can suggest the last line spoken.]

Trivia

  • An early attempt to make a full transcript can be found here 1350: Lorenz/Transcript - given the nature of the comic it will never be complete. But feel free to try.


comment.png add a comment! ⋅ comment.png add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ Icons-mini-action refresh blue.gif refresh comments!

Discussion

During the first few weeks there were so much talk on this page, that it became too long. The solution was to remove the page from the explanation. But now almost no one makes any comment anymore. To help with this I will try to collapse all the original talk - last entry (mine) is already a month old. It will always be possible to see all the old comments by pressing the expand button to the far right. So feel free to comment below again - then someone might notice that there has been written something new again! Kynde (talk) 22:32, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Click to expand:

[Expand]



After inserting the collapsing talk page - the old can be seen just by clicking the expand button. But if you wish to write anything new, then do it here below at the very bottom of the talk page so it may be seen. I have this comment - after a few weeks I believe nothing new happened in this comic. I think it is now fixed. Of course this is very hard to prove. But I have completed some branches of the interactive transcript. So let me know if you can find any new options I have missed (I could have missed if there were more than four options in a panel - but not at the dead-ends! I have also just made major revisions of the explanation and it's layout - based on my observations. Kynde (talk) 22:48, 19 June 2014 (UTC)


I just found a panel where it gets past the person on the comet, only one panel though... http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:25743f70-baee-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd 108.162.254.69 19:24, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Great. Have added the image to the list of images and to the theme above. Keep any new images coming here.--Kynde (talk) 14:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

It's interesting the chess player in 1112 ("Think logically") resembles the knit cap girl. It's weird that Megan (or Randall's wife) after chemotherapy also wears a cap (1141, "Two years"). Is there any possible connections between them (or simply a coincidence)?108.162.215.108 04:24, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I have added links to three other comics using knit caps, including the two you mentioned. Thanks. --Kynde (talk) 14:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I noticed that the image url noted on xkcd.com is the same as the one for #1349 - Shouldn't Be Hard. Not sure if it is caused by the interactivity disallowing an image upload, or an error on Randall's part (I'd imagine working through this comic's issues was pretty distracting). 15:37, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I believe this was fixed. At least it seems to look correct now. --Kynde (talk) 14:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

God damn I hate boomerangs now. 172.68.65.240 03:49, 22 November 2017 (UTC)Bob

Hey guys, are we still missing the ocean comics? because I found one that links there. https://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:3df213b4-ba4f-11e3-8037-002590d77bdd . not far after though. 173.245.48.129 02:41, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

I found a (possibly) bug where the comic doesn't load and there's just a comic-sized blank space. 19:48, 3 January 2019 (UTC) -- Cheese12 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

As of this week I found out that Lorenz seems to have stopped working on xkcd... This makes all the permalink invalid. ;-( --Kynde (talk) 20:03, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I also found that people have been writing new entries from the top which meant I did not see Cheese12 comment that this was so all the way back in January 2019. I have rearranged the three comments on top to the right post order here at the bottom and added a signature for Cheese12 and a day for the edit for reference to how long it has been broken. Also removed a (now broken) permalink that was left over when a user posted something and then deleted it again. It was stick beneath my previous comment. --Kynde (talk) 20:12, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
Looked on the webarchive and the latest version of the comic there is from July 2019. 2019-07-19. It seems correct there with the first picture with options... Of course it is no use trying to move on, either because it is a web archive or because Lorentz doesn't work anymore on xkcd. But it seems like it should not have displayed that image if it had been a recent version of the comic, as there are no image on the page now. If this is true, then it should not have been down all the time since January as Cheese12 wrote above... But I have no idea how the web archive works for such a complicated comic page? --Kynde (talk) 20:22, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
I suspect this is related to the XKCD forums being taken down. Umwelt, Externalities, Landing, and xkcloud are also down. Tbodt (talk) 19:19, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I think it's working again. Crazymachinefan (talk) 04:44, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I just found a bunch of new things that can occur including a new image. Here are the permalinks: https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:b0bcef14-baf3-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd --Knit Cap Girl rather than Hairy wakes up after the KSP rocket launch image; https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:8e2a0d7a-baf2-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd --permalink for Hairy silhouette image; https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:8a36f73e-baaf-11e3-801f-002590d77bdd --permalink for Hairy getting to a sale without lying in bed; https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:d4cd36d8-ba95-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd NEW IMAGE-- Hairy in silhouette not talking. EDIT: Here's something *fascinating*... this panel can have either one or two responses depending on what's chosen for the first. Here's the permalink - https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:b2dde69c-b9c0-11e3-8007-002590d77bdd 162.158.107.29 20:23, 22 October 2020 (UTC)Anonymous Waste of Time

I found a weird thing. https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:73113e0c-b9f6-11e3-8011-002590d77bdd If you select 15615 the comic freezes. The text doesn't appear, no new panels appear. PkmnQ (talk) 05:27, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I tried it on another device, and again it froze when I selected 15615. Can someone else try to recreate it? PkmnQ (talk) 05:47, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
yeah it's the same for me too --Anonymous Waste of Time
I looked at the console, and an error pops up, so there's at least a tiny clue to why it happens. PkmnQ (talk) 08:00, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
   Uncaught TypeError: e.replace is not a function
       at Odlaw._comicText (bernardo.min.js:2)
       at Odlaw._makeText (bernardo.min.js:2)
       at Odlaw.chooseOption (bernardo.min.js:2)
       at n (bernardo.min.js:2)
       at HTMLLIElement.<anonymous> (bernardo.min.js:2)
       at HTMLUListElement.dispatch (VM44 b66ed7.js:3)
       at HTMLUListElement.r.handle (VM44 b66ed7.js:3)
My best guess is that 15615 is being interpreted as a number instead of a string. However, when I type in 5 as a new option it works correctly. It might be from some old input bug that was changed later on. PkmnQ (talk) 08:05, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Cleaning up

Why was the (general) grammar of this comic so bad? I am putting in hours into this comic to fix this (and what I was originally doing, which was changing all instances of 'Knit Cap Girl' to 'Knit Cap' and changing 'she/her/hers' to 'he/him/his'). I'm about 2/3 done. Beanie talk 14:14, 1st July 2021 (UTC)

Finished :D Beanie talk 22:42, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
Took a while because I changed schools and I can't get onto explainxkcd on the new website (and also I'm lazy). Beanie talk 22:44, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Not sure if this is known, but there's a path where Theft is super effective and the first move. Not sure how to hyperlink on phone, though. It's tiles, 4096, pastel color, middle class ennui, wonder why it's socially acceptable.172.70.178.33 21:43, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

I think I found the shortest possible path. https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:0b364d02-bb65-11e3-800e-002590d77bdd IJustWantToEditStuff (talk) 19:48, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

the political path is not there anymore. i think the BSD path replaced it? 108.162.245.183 (talk) 18:30, 17 November 2023‎ (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Here's a 24-panel Pokémon-theme:

https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:a894b980-baf2-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd

ErRor 6o6 (talk) 16:20, 29 April 2024

found a pretty long variation on the old longest one. might be longer, or mabye same length? https://xkcd.com/1350/#p:ffa26ce0-bade-11e3-8001-94de80a03a29 172.70.178.135 (talk) 23:09, 26 September 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)