http://www.explainxkcd.com Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:07:32 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Image text: Using a ring to bind someone you covet into your dark and twisted world? Wow, just got the subtext there. Also, the apparently eager Beyoncé would've made one badass Nazgȗl. The song playing in this comic is "Single Ladies" by Beyonce.  Which apparently had one of the best videos ... http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/03/10/single-ladies/ Image text: The reverse only works if the subject has a nervous twitch. This is another instance of the "pro tip" meme, which is designed to turn the reader into an expert from a novice in one easy step. This comic is suggesting that if a lie-detector was placed on its ... http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/03/08/seismograph/ Image text: The Strong Collatz Conjecture states that this holds for any set of obsessively-hand-applied rules. The Collatz Conjecture is a undecided or unsolved mathematical conjecture in which you have to do just as the comic says.  However, the comic takes it one step further since this conjecture is unsolved, you ... http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/03/05/collatz-conjecture/ Image text: Great, LO-M. Do you speak Bocce? I'm supposed to find one that speaks Bocce. The text in the first frame is a biblical reference as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are all people from the Bible.  The closest quote would be Exodus 3-5.  The quote is from the burning bush ... http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/03/03/i-am/ Image text: You roll for initiative, and ... [roll] ... wow, do you ever take it. In this comic, there are two different groups playing two different dice games.  However, the dice got mixed up.  Instead of numbers, the first two are supposed to have another die with actions on them, ... http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/03/01/sex-dice/ Image text: You'll be moved up from 49 of ~7 billion to 31 of ~7 billion. Joshing means joking and the approximately 7 billion people is the population of the planet Earth. http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/02/26/joshing/ Image text: Sometimes I'm terrified to realize how many options other people have. The joke is in the image text because it is a repetition of the first line of the comic but replacing "I" with "other people". http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/02/24/freedom/ Image text: The weird sense of duty really good sysadmins have can border on the sociopathic, but it's nice to know that it stands between the forces of darkness and your cat blog's servers. This comic is a reference to the movie, Die Hard, in which Bruce Willis' character climbs through ... http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/02/22/devotion-to-duty/ Image text: You want me to pick up waffle cones? Oh, right, for the wine. One sec, let me just derive your son's credit card number and I'll be on my way. The principle of explosion means that if you assume that something is both true and untrue at the same ... http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/02/19/principle-of-explosion/ Image text: Hey, why do YOU get to be the president of Tautology Clu-- wait, I can guess. Tautology means to repeat the same phrase twice or two parts of a phrase that means the same thing.  This comic is a take on the repetitive nature of "honor" in the Honor ... http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/02/17/honor-societies/