explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

591: Troll Slayer

2014-03-29T23:11:01Z

108.162.214.41: /* Explanation */ removed redundancy

{{comic
| number = 591
| date = June 1, 2009
| title = Troll Slayer
| image = troll slayer.png
| titletext = We have met the enemy and he is us.
}}

== Explanation ==
{{w|Stephenie Meyer}} is the author of the {{w|Twilight series}}, a series of novels popular with young teens. It is a love it or hate it type of novel, with a large following and a large portion of haters as well.

In the comic, {{w|4chan}}, an {{w|imageboard}}, is featured. Imageboards have the feature to post anonymously, a most commonly associated with 4chan. The users of 4chan launch an attack on a Twilight board and Stephenie Meyer asks them to stop. When they refuse, Meyer writes 4chan into her next novel, thereby drawing in a large number of fans of her novel as a counter-attack to what 4chan ran on the Twilight forum. This results in what the original 4chan users consider a ruined imageboard.

The title of the topic is drawn from the internet slang term {{w|troll (internet)|troll}}, which refers to actively attempting to get a rise out of a forum. In this instance, 4chan attempted to troll a Twilight board and Meyer acted against the troll, making her a "slayer" of them. (Granted, releasing ''Twilight'' fans into 4chan is akin to releasing freshwater fish into a saltwater shark feeding frenzy, but that's beside the point).

The title text refers to {{w|Walt Kelly}}'s famous saying. Kelly used it to refer to all of mankind, whereas here it refers to the users of 4chan, by bringing on the enemy of their forum themselves.

==Transcript==
:[A website where people can post comments alongside pictures.]
:[Next to a picture of a website.] Hey, let's troll the fuck out of the Twilight boards.
:[Next to a picture of some people.] I'm in. Should be fun.
:[Next to a picture of a man with sword and trumpet.] Me too. Signing on now.
:[Next to a picture of "LOL".] Lol angsty teens.

:Hours Later:
:[Stephenie Meyer, at a computer.]
:Stephenie Meyer: Hi, it's Stephenie Meyer. Fine, you don't like my books. But please leave us alone.
:[[Hairy]]: Show us your tits.
:Stephenie Meyer: I asked politely. Don't make me get tough.

:[Hairy at computer.]
:Hairy: And what, call the internet police? You don't get it, do you? We've been trolling for years. We're all anonymous. There's nothing you can do to hurt us. We're the net's hate machine.
:Stephenie Meyer: Okay. Just remember, I gave you a chance. *Disconnected*

:Six Months Later:
:[A page from a book.]
:Vampires! Book VI
:Edward ran a pale hand through his perfect golden-bronze hair, then signed on to 4chan.org, the darkest place on the internet, where all his vampire compatriots spent their time.
:Suddenly, there was a loud knock at the door [...] swept in [...] ing
:[The rest of the page is cut off.]

:Shortly Thereafter:
:[On the same website as the first panel.]
:[Next to a picture of two people hugging.] OMG I love this place it's so edgy being anonymous.
:[Next to a picture of "DAWNE".] Whos your favorite vampire
:[Next to a picture of someone with black hair and shirt.] Check out my pic Im so dark just like this site
:[Next to a picture of a chess piece.] Any Twilight fans in Dallas want to meet a lonely

:[Hairy at his computer.]
:Hairy: Oh... Oh God.

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Internet]]

625: Collections

2014-01-18T06:19:15Z

108.162.214.41: /* Explanation */ changed per explanation below

{{comic
| number = 625
| date = August 19, 2009
| title = Collections
| image = collections.png
| titletext = You know what really helps an existential crisis? Wondering how much shelf space to leave for a Terry Pratchett collection.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] enters, excited that he's managed to buy every one of author {{w|Terry Pratchett}}'s {{w|Discworld}} books for his {{w|Amazon Kindle|Kindle e-reader}}. [[Megan]] says that it seems pointless to her to build a Kindle collection.

Cueball interprets this to mean she thinks it's pointless to build a collection on an electronic device, perhaps due to the {{w|digital rights management}} software common on these devices which can (for instance) make it difficult to transfer the files if the device breaks.

However, Megan is ''actually'' commenting on the futility of building up any kind of collection at all, since nothing we do can change the fact that we're inevitably going to die. This view is in line with those advanced by the philosophical movement known as {{w|existentialism}} which theorizes that life has no deep, hidden meaning and hence even things that we personally feel are meaningful (like building up collections) will not change the outcome of life in the end. (A {{w|magpie}} is a bird traditionally thought to be drawn to collect shiny objects and bring them back to its nest.)

This doesn't bother Cueball, though, and in the title text he wistfully ponders how much shelf space he'd need to accommodate physical copies of all of Terry Pratchett's books.

==Transcript==
:Cueball: I now have every Discworld book!
:Megan: Eh. Building a Kindle collection seems pointless.

:Cueball: Yeah, I know the DRM means I'll probably lose them someday.
:Megan: No, pointless in general.

:Megan: Sure, you satisfy deep magpie-like urges by building neat collections, but you still die alone.

:Cueball: Sorry, sometimes I mistake your existential crises for technical insights.
:Megan: Sometimes I mistake this for a universe that cares.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

Talk:1296: Git Commit

2013-11-27T14:51:50Z

108.162.214.41:

Note that in most (all?) graphical history viewers for Git time flows from bottom up, i.e. newest commits are on top, not on bottom as in this comics --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 07:21, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I can relate. While I start with reasonable commit messages every day, working on one feature often results in
:(good description of feature)
:bugfixes for (description of feature)
:another bugfix
:damn
:should work now
:grrr
:typo
:I hate (some used library)
when I either need commit to deploy or I'm so sure it will work I don't test it deeply enough. If I would be using git, these could be merged, but I'm not. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:51, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

What does the line graphic in the left-most column represent? [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 13:03, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Nice explanation folks. Makes the comic understandable/humorous to a non-coder. (unless you count VBScript) --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 13:16, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

[http://lightswitch05.github.io/commit-cloud/ Commit Cloud] is a relevant tool to read commit messages from Github and build a word cloud from the most-used words.