Difference between revisions of "1350: Lorenz"
m (→Trivia: Deleteing af 32 panel 3rd place, as it was just a shorter version of the 77 panel record - and reaching the little prince is a different story) |
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*# [http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:ea25460c-baf3-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd 39 panels] - Politics, dream and boomerang. | *# [http://www.xkcd.com/1350/#p:ea25460c-baf3-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd 39 panels] - Politics, dream and boomerang. | ||
*# [http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:6490cc4a-b9f0-11e3-8009-002590d77bdd 30 panels] - Space travel to Little Prince. | *# [http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:6490cc4a-b9f0-11e3-8009-002590d77bdd 30 panels] - Space travel to Little Prince. | ||
− | **There may be | + | **There may be no upper boundary! |
**But this is then the list of the longest comics with most panels as found so far. | **But this is then the list of the longest comics with most panels as found so far. | ||
**If you beat a record please post the '''permalink''' here. | **If you beat a record please post the '''permalink''' here. |
Revision as of 14:51, 10 April 2014
Lorenz |
Title text: Every choice, no matter how small, begins a new story |
NOTE: The above is the first panel of an interactive comic.
This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: All images has not been described under themes (and may never be if Randall creates new) 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. These will also be described below under themes.
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 updates over time based on statistics of users clicks 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 her 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 will just get you 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.
- In the first week after the comic was released, if a response lead to a panel where two characters speak at the same time, it was impossible to proceed past the first speech bubble. This was subsequently fixed.
As a consequence of these bugs many readers do not understand how this interactive comic works.
Themes
Computer
To see/hide images click here: | Description of images |
---|---|
The beginning |
Knit Cap Girl sits at her laptop saying/thinking something. You choose what from four options and thus starts the interactive and dynamic comic. Originally on April the 1st there where only four choices, but this has increased since. But you always have four to choose from when you begin. |
Computer problems |
Knit Cap Girl's laptop has an unspecified problem. Hairy walks in and they attempt to fix it by connecting his laptop with hers. There are two outcomes possible:
|
Blowtorch |
Knit Cap Girl becomes so upset with her laptop that she decides to melt it using a blowtorch - a clear reference to the comic from the day before this one: 1349: Shouldn't Be Hard. After this they walk out of the building. |
Political debate
To see/hide images click here: | Description of images |
---|---|
Debate |
Knit Cap Girl uses har 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 one of two things can happen:
Subjects debated could be user suggestions but below are one of those from April the 1st:
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 or saying he completely agrees with everything the other says... In the end, Hairy walks in to Knit Cap Girl and points out something happening near which may or may not involve birds (or what ever was the subject) which could be a direct result of Politician 2's project. Again all this could be user input! The last image where Hairy walks in have been used also in other story lines |
Miscellaneous
To see/hide images click here: | Description of images |
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Walking out of the building |
They may just walk away to new events or they encounter either:
See below. |
Space rocket |
There is a rocket on the ground just outside of the building. The rocket either:
|
Relativistic encounter |
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 |
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 |
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:
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 |
Hairy meets White Hat, a salesman with a small stand. Often this happens after waking from a dream. |
Arguing |
The two characters argue with each other |
Thinking |
One of the characters take a panel or two to think about something. |
Dinosaur Comics |
The green T-rex from Dinosaur Comics (a clip-art-based webcomic that uses the same artwork with different captions for every strip.) interrupts the story and proceeds to talk about his tiny arms or other subjects. In the end, he stamps on the house the main characters are in. Often, the characters wake up from a dream. |
Geography
To see/hide images click here: | Description of images |
---|---|
Ocean |
Knit Cap Girl and Hairy are floating in the ocean, with or without sharks. A clear reference to 349: Success. Sharks have been the subject of several other comics.
Three giant squids appear and a lone shark seems disturbed. Maybe the squids killed the sharks leaving the blood in the last of these images? |
Beach |
Knit Cap Girl and Hairy starts to swim out of the shark free ocean and finally reaches a beach - see 349: Success. |
Hole in the ground |
Hairy spots a hole in the ground and leans over it to make a comment |
Huge hole on the lawn |
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 |
The characters walk past a tree. |
Boomerang
To see/hide images click here: | Description of images |
---|---|
Boomerang |
Knit Cap Girl finds a boomerang on the ground and throws it.
This part of the story ends with either:
|
Pokémon
To see/hide images click here: | Description of images |
---|---|
Pokémon |
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 Girl 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:
Other remarks from Pikachu or about Pikachu:
Pokémon mentioned other than Pikachu:
|
Transcript
- [The comic starts with a single panel presenting four options by random order among these below.]
- 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.
- Hurry! We're in talks with Facebook.
- Gravity. Lots of it.
- [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
- Although impossible to finish it has been tried to make a complete interactive transcript.
- The all time longest comics by panel - top three.
- Please only include clearly different storylines:
- 77 panels - Space/dinosaur double dream, boomerang, and exploding rocket.
- 39 panels - Politics, dream and boomerang.
- 30 panels - Space travel to Little Prince.
- There may be no upper boundary!
- But this is then the list of the longest comics with most panels as found so far.
- If you beat a record please post the permalink here.
- Please note themes included in comic.
- Please move beaten records down and delete the fourth.
- Longest by themes - click to expand:
- Longest by starting point - click to expand:
- Only the longest:
- These stupid tiles... I'll just play one more game: 77 panels
- Oh. Hey. There's some kind of political thing going on: 39 panels
- Let's see if BSD is any easier to install nowadays: 28 panels
- Refresh... No new email... Refresh... No new tweets... Refresh...: 24 panels
- Hurry! We're in talks with Facebook: 13 panels
- Gravity. Lots of it: ? (This option do not seem to be featured anymore?)
- In one panel Hairry is drawn in bed without his hair.
Where's the discussion block?
It was getting large, so the discussion block has been moved. You can still discuss this comic here: Talk:1350: Lorenz