Talk:2833: Lying

Why the heck is the image so biiiiig? 172.69.135.23 (talk) 03:54, 26 September 2023 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

well, looks like he accidentally published the source file for the comic... 141.101.100.205 04:06, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Good. People should be using HD monitors by now. (EDIT: I didn't realize it was 8k, but still, don't most browsers let you resize images anyway?) 172.70.126.188 08:41, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Why do I have to lug around an HD monitor as well as my smart-tablet?

Why doesn't your smart-tablet have an HD screen? My phone is 2960 x 1440 and it still fits in my pocket. 172.70.127.168 00:29, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Nobody said HD screen. It is the suggested additional monitor that is impractical. Including a suitable power supply and of course the appropriate dongles/etc. 172.71.242.63 01:53, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

(Actually, it's not width that's the problem, for me, but height. As using in portrait orientation makes text too small for browsing, and I hate sites that 'mobile optimise' assuming I'll turn my device that way.)

Most mobile browsers have a button for "show desktop version". I just hate when people assume vertical videos are okay. Even when I'm using my phone, landscape is better. 172.70.100.65 00:30, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Do you know how well the "show desktop version" doesn't work. It frequently doesn't switch away from the mobile-URL (e.g. "en.m.wikipedia.org" to "en.wikipedia.org", or "/FOO-mobile.htm" to "/FOO.htm") and you still have to make that sort of change manually to the address-bar to fuly jailbreak out of the hard-coded "useful" mobile functionality (which may come back once it forgets your preference and gets redirected to use them all again), and I'm pretty sure that the places that do this detection invisibly (fingerprinting the browser used) to make the changes behind the scenes don't all fully honour the browser setting, perhaps just get over-riden by some more insistent indicator that the site-author has encoded later in the decesion-stack (e.g., at least for me, I cannot get the non-mobile layout of https://cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/find-events to display on this device, for whatever reason). 141.101.98.174 01:11, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Note that especially wide images play merry-hell with the rest of the page (when it breaks out of the pixel-limits assumed), and an image that's twice as large (in both dimensions) could be quadruple the data (depending upon image compression ratios), which has data/bandwidth/etc issues that not everyone can easily suck up and laugh off, even in this post dial-up era. It ought to be best not to assume that the best quality image is the 'best' or desired, although that ship has long sailed. 172.71.242.83 09:08, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Unless I'm misunderstanding, the image is now in the usual size range (590x887 in this case). -- Dtgriscom (talk) 20:32, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Something changed, yes. I haven't yet investigated if it was softcoded ("imagewidth=" in the template, or whatever it is, but perhaps still serving the full image to scale-down) or the uploaded image reuploaded in the 'friendlier' pixel-sizes. And for me it doesn't matter, but obviously the exact solution may be just as important for others, so I hope it isn't just the fudged one. (I may go and check, though I currently have no power to do anything about it.) 141.101.98.174 01:11, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Addendum: Just checked, and it was softcoded too large, originally, with "imagesize = 4422x6653px" for some unknown reason. I don't know why the uploadbot set it like this (incorrect metadata/sidedata at source?) but that definitely 'broke' the original page.

So the imagesize was lying about the true image size? That reminds me of the title...

Until just now I had only seen the slightly later version or the page where the image now merely strained the page-size (from a revised imagesize=, obviously to deal with the page-rescaling issue), then the latest where it's given the more usual one (but is still the exact same source _2x image behind the scenes).

From all the talk about this, I had assumed that the image (like it sometimes has been) was the 'compositing' version not yet cleaned up by Randall to remove onion-skin 'planning' layers, etc. Instead, we were just given an upscaled correct version, but of course people were still able to dwell upon the details exposed by zooming in. 172.71.178.219 01:29, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

It was reuploaded to be normal sized later. http://web.archive.org/web/20230926034049/https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/lying.png 141.101.100.194 05:20, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

The initially uploaded explainxkcd version as seen dynamically mis-scaled here has not been changed, though. Which is different from my original assumption taken from the chatter about it.

If (perhaps, just looking at the URL above) it's that the _2x was normal _2x but the '1x' was mis-sized (we've seen that happen before) and/or the rough/not-yet-finalised working copy, then this might need better explaining. That'd explain why the _2x was given larger default dimensions. (I think the 'bot currently grabs the _2x but 'suggests' the non-2x size... I could then see how this would have happened.) 172.70.86.179 05:53, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Yup. That is what happened. —theusaf (talk) 15:01, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

The rhythm of the title text calls to mind Spock's words to Kirk as he's dying at the end of Wrath of Khan: "I have been, and always shall be, your friend." This can't be a coincidence. 172.70.210.182 (talk) 08:06, 26 September 2023 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I'm the same. Can't stand these games. I have a hard enough time with jokes that people refuse to explain; if I have to _intentionally_ mislead people, who know my tics to start, where's the line? What's real, what's fake, what's important, what's just another joke?

I need to lighten up? No, the world needs to be comprehensible. I can't just choose to know what's real and what isn't. Other people can very easily make it clear to me, if they so desire. 162.158.2.39 06:35, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

i, uh, good for you. youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk 07:04, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Simple answer: Don't play those games.

Non-simple answer: Learn how to play those games with your advanced hyper-analytical abilities being used to your advantage (or as a "non-optional social convention") in which the reality is the game you're in and thus you are fulfilling the role of your existence.

Meta-answer: I think you're a Joker (winning condition is to be lynched). Or maybe one of a number of other player-types which demands that you play differently from either mainstrean Mafia or vanilla Villager. Which, in a four-player game (very short of practical assignments!) makes it a bastard-setup of some sort. (Rather than single mafia/werewolf and all the rest vanilla village, or possibly one cop/special-role of some kind.) 172.71.242.83 09:08, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

How do you even play Mafia with four people? Under standard rules, you have one moderator (Alice), one mafioso (Bob) and two civilians (Charlotte and Dave). Bob kills Dave in the first night, then there are only one mafioso and one civilian left, and the mafia wins, game over. Does anybody know a mod that would make it work with so few players? Comsmomf (talk) 11:16, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

It's a Mafia-style game, apparently. It could be moderatorless (or with a playing-controller who manages the gameplay outwith whatever role they have) and streamlined.

How about four (playing?)cards, one designating the villain. Cards are dealt randomly an all close their eyes for the night phase, only the villain gets to open them and 'tap out' their choice of villager (some subtle way, like a feather on a stick ((not shown in comic!)) that everyone has, that can be used at will to silently reach anyone - reverse the stick to tap the centre of the table to signal completion?).

Because that leaves little logic for the Town to follow, just blindly moving towards "lynch or lose" by luck, you can afford (maybe) a Cop role (from a different card) who then operates after that, at 'night'. They use their stick to ask a given player to thumbs up/down their status, with the and/or you even could do a Blocker that way (tell a victim to ignore being night-killed), etc. Or even mix things up with a role-giving role, whatever you need to balance play in the right way. 'Dead' night-role players could just 'tap completion' without having done anything, if there's no lynch-reveal (beyond town/scum, if even that before the sole scum announces this game is over and they won/lost).

It'd have to be on the honour-system, and I could see mistakes and accidental reveals, but the post-mortem of a few such games might suggest refinements and precautions that haven't occured to me.

...though it'd be easier (even 'player led') with maybe a minimum of six participants (could afford to have two villains, subtly gesturing ideas to each other, and a more complete set of "power townies" than just the one. 172.71.134.192 12:51, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I guess I just assumed every comic out there by anyone was printed with Comic Sans but when I was skimming through the source image I noticed the letters are unique and he hand-writes them. 172.70.179.43 12:09, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes that's always been noticable from the kerning. His habit of tucking the left-hand vertical of an "H" under a preceding "T" - and shortening the left side of a "T" after an "I" (to pick just two examples)...is not something that any automated text rendering system that I'm aware of can produce. --172.71.167.135 12:25, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Also, his O's are quite noticably different from one another. Perfect repetition of loop sizes is a dead giveaway of a "handwritten" font. 172.69.247.44 14:22, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

The published image appears the correct size on xkcd.com now. It seems it would be nice to preserve the larger one (edit: it also didn't look upscaled to me, it looked source dimensioned). I'm not sure how to upload an image. 172.71.254.248 14:28, 27 September 2023 (UTC)