explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2428: Mars Landing Video

2021-02-23T12:13:36Z

108.162.219.56:

When I saw "full speed landing" I thought it meant failed landing, as in a 2000-mph rover landing. --[[User:Char Latte49|Char Latte49]] ([[User talk:Char Latte49|talk]]) 19:53, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
: I thought that too. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:55, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Why the specification that the video is full-speed? Did we already have slow motion video of a Mars landing? [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 09:35, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
:full-speed in the context of video usually means 24 to 30 frames per second(FPS) (or 60 fields if interlaced) and slow motion is anything 60fps or faster, but it is the ratio of recording speed to playback speed that matters. Record at 120fps and play back at 30 and you get smooth 1/4 speed slow motion; record at 24fps and play back at 6 and you get a jerky almost stroboscopic effect. The NASA press briefing included a “1/3 speed” video, which implies 75 to 90fps, but for all I could tell they might have simply slowed down the playback of the “full speed” feed. I suspect that prior landings had at best a handful of images that would constitute a playback frame rate of less than 1 per second, and thus would best be described as time lapse.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 12:13, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Talk:2419: Hug Count

2021-02-02T01:35:18Z

108.162.219.56:

I don't know how this makes me feel. I just don't hug. Maybe a couple of female relatives as I leave the traditional Christmas gathering (that didn't happen in 2020) because ''they'' expect it of me. But some societies (I'll namecheck the Italians, but there are many others) would possibly break those totals in a day (pre-Covid) just by going to the market-place and sealing deals with the local tradespeople. So my chart dipped drastically ast year, but not so much by absolute count. (No, not looking for sympathy, or virtual hugs, just saying...) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.126|141.101.77.126]] 23:33, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

What happened in 2007? Seems like a sizeable spike. Being in a reception line at a wedding, for instance? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.211|173.245.54.211]] 23:43, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

No citation. Is this Randall's personal chart, do you figure? [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 00:18, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

2007 was the year of the xkcd meetup, which involved a lot of hugs, some of which may have involved Randall. Randall also moved from Virginia to Massachusetts that year, which may have resulted in separate small groups of people hugged in the same year. (Both of these facts are mentioned in his blog post from that October 1st.) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 01:35, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

2397: I Just Don't Trust Them

2020-12-17T18:55:27Z

108.162.219.56:

{{comic
| number = 2397
| date = December 11, 2020
| title = I Just Don't Trust Them
| image = i_just_dont_trust_them.png
| titletext = I believe in getting immunity the old-fashioned way: By letting a bat virus take control of my lungs and turn my face into a disgusting plague fountain while my immune system desperately Googles 'how to make spike protein antibodies'.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is another comic in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

[[Cueball]] partially echoes a statement made by {{w|Vaccine hesitancy|anti-vaccination}} activists about "{{w|Big_Pharma_conspiracy theory|Big Pharma}}" (the powerful and profit-driven companies which develop pharmaceutical drugs such as {{w|vaccines}}). Anti-vaccine protesters falsely believe that vaccines contain harmful toxins (such as HIV proteins, {{rw|Anti-vaccination_movement#Aluminum|aluminum salts}}, formaldehyde, {{rw|Thiomersal|mercury}}, and nanoparticles) that cause ill effects on the human body, that just because there has never been a licensed mRNA vaccine before that these new vaccines are not safe in the long term, and that the corporations that make them are not to be trusted because they are exploiting a captive public for profit while disregarding public health. The joke is that Cueball is revealed to be not talking about Big Pharma but, instead, bats.

According to the WHO, COVID-19 has an ecological origin in bat populations. Hence, Cueball sees the virus as something developed by bats, and the ambiguity by which he expresses his desire to not be infected adds to the joke.

The comic could simply be seen to serve as a compelling argument against the anti-vaccine movement, which is often criticized for spreading misinformation and increasing rates of disease, especially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This comic comes shortly after the news of the development of several COVID-19 vaccines with high rates of success; there are concerns that herd immunity may be delayed if people refuse to take the vaccine.

The title text refers to getting immunity the old fashioned way, i.e. catching the disease and waiting for your immune system to build up a response. This is usually considered healthful when immunity to minor diseases is common, and can avoid the sudden forced evolution of new diseases among extensively hypercareful communities, but developing natural immunity is certainly incredibly dangerous during a pandemic of a serious illness. One joke here is that many anti-vaxxers claim that it is more natural to not take a vaccine. Because many people conflate "natural" with "healthful", the assumption underlying the claim "it is more natural to not take a vaccine" is that it is therefore more healthful. Such arguments are an example of the {{rw|fallacy|logical fallacy}} known as {{rw|Appeal_to_nature|Appeal to nature}}.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands with his arms to his sides, facing Megan.]
:Cueball: I just don't trust them, and I don't want to put something they developed into my body.

:[Caption below the panel]:
:How I feel about bats

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]

2381: The True Name of the Bear

2020-11-04T22:48:55Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2381
| date = November 4, 2020
| title = The True Name of the Bear
| image = the_true_name_of_the_bear.png
| titletext = Thank you to Gretchen McCulloch for fielding this question, and sorry that as a result the world's foremost internet linguist has been devoured by the brown one. She will be missed.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by THE BEAR WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED. Sir, madam, or variation thereupon under the username Gbisaga, your linguistic speculations are honestly interesting. However, they’re original research. Please find a citation. Another Reader says: Now, I thought the point here was to explain the comic, not be encyclopedic, no? Randall discusses a lot of obscurely known things that don't have good citations available (mostly regarding STEM culture). Not true for etymology I suppose. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The Canadian Internet linguist {{w|Gretchen McCulloch}} [https://twitter.com/gretchenamcc/status/1113195661275611137 tweeted] about [https://www.charlierussellbears.com/LinguisticArchaeology.html the theory] that the word for bear became taboo in some branches of Indoeuropean languages - notably the Germanic one - and it was replaced by euphemisms. In the Germanic branch, the euphemism may have been like "the brown one" and words for bear derive from words for "brown".

The Indoeuropean root for bear is *rkto-, which has been inferred from languages that use words derived from it. In the comic, Gretchen McCulloch applies {{w|Sound change|sound shifting}} laws to it to guess how it would have evolved into English, but pronouncing it seems to actually summon a bear, showing that abandoning that word was a fairly wise move for the Germanic language family. Interestingly enough, the hypothesized word “arth” is the same as the Welsh and Cornish for the word “bear.” Welsh belongs to the Celtic language family, which is one of the Indoeuropean branches that still uses a word derived from *rkto-, as the Italic (Romance), Greek and Indoarian (Sanscrit) branches do, while Germanic, Slavic and Baltic branches abandoned it for different euphemisms.

Depending on how one takes the concept of " saying a true name", there may be a consistency problem with the comic. If saying the "true" name (or any name derived from that name) summons the bear, how is it that the Welsh and most Romance language speakers (e.g. Italians saying Orso, Spaniards saying Oso, etc) get away without being constantly mauled? One explanation might be if the bears only respond to certain languages, but that seems unlikely since the languages that the bears would be prompted by would have developed thousands of years apart in time. An arcane form of {{w|geofencing}}, and/or a {{w|geas}} firmly tied to some prior mystically-established meta-contextualising, might limit such otherworldly 'magic' and explain why more mundane science and logic is usually unworried by these kinds of phenomena being inadvertently triggered.

A view on speaking of bears that is much more likely, is that the cultures were such that when other human beings heard the clear word for bear, they would behave in ways that people did not desire. For example, maybe when someone had a good harvest bears had a tendency to come into town to investigate or raid their food store, and so if people overheard discussion of bears, they might have all locked down their food stores, and the bears could have learned to key in on the behavior of everyone locking their food stores to actually come into the city and raid them more in response. There are a lot of rational reasons that avoiding speaking of bears to keep them away could have been a real thing.

Use of true names appears to be [[1013: Wake Up Sheeple|highly effective in the xkcd universe, rather like a fairy tale.]].

Internet Linguist Gretchen McCulloch (or her ghost) certainly found it effective, but https://twitter.com/GretchenAMcC/status/1324044826145378304 may reflect her extreme susceptibility to internet leakage.

Some say a true name contains clear meaning of who someone or something really is. In a competitive culture like ours, this could give others power over you, "profiling" you to be able to predict you and what you do.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Megan walks in front the left, looking down at her phone. Cueball and Ponytail are standing next to each other.]
:Megan: Wow - according to the internet, we don't know the true name of the bear.
:Cueball: What?

:[Gretchen comes on-panel from the right.]
:Megan: Apparently there was a superstition that saying its name would summon it. "Bear" and "bruin" mean "the brown one." Its actual name has been lost.
:Cueball: Wow.
:Ponytail: Gretchen, is this for real?

:[Zoom-in on Gretchen.]
:Gretchen: Well, sort of
:Gretchen: The Proto-Indo-European root was *rkto-
:Gretchen: It was lost in the Germanic languages like English, but survived elsewhere, e.g. Greek "arktos" and Latin "ursus"

:[Back to the second panel, with Megan holding her phone down, Ponytail with her hands in the air, and Gretchen with his hand on his chin.]
:Megan: So could we figure out what the word would have been in English?
:Gretchen: Hmm. I mean, we'll never know, but given Germanic sound shifts, a reasonable guess might be "arth"?
:Ponytail: ''No!!''

:[The panel zooms in again to Gretchen.]
:Ponytail (off-panel): ''Stop! AAAAA!''
:Gretchen: What??
:Ponytail (off-panel): Don't ''say'' it!

:[Ponytail is holding her palms out. Megan is no longer in the panel.]
:Ponytail: What have you ''done''?
:Off-panel noise: <big>'''''ROAR'''''</big>
:Gretchen: Oh
:Gretchen: Oh no

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Animals]]

2381: The True Name of the Bear

2020-11-04T22:45:44Z

108.162.219.56:

{{comic
| number = 2381
| date = November 4, 2020
| title = The True Name of the Bear
| image = the_true_name_of_the_bear.png
| titletext = Thank you to Gretchen McCulloch for fielding this question, and sorry that as a result the world's foremost internet linguist has been devoured by the brown one. She will be missed.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by THE BEAR WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED. Sir, madam, or variation thereupon under the username Gbisaga, your linguistic speculations are honestly interesting. However, they’re original research. Please find a citation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The Canadian Internet linguist {{w|Gretchen McCulloch}} [https://twitter.com/gretchenamcc/status/1113195661275611137 tweeted] about [https://www.charlierussellbears.com/LinguisticArchaeology.html the theory] that the word for bear became taboo in some branches of Indoeuropean languages - notably the Germanic one - and it was replaced by euphemisms. In the Germanic branch, the euphemism may have been like "the brown one" and words for bear derive from words for "brown".

The Indoeuropean root for bear is *rkto-, which has been inferred from languages that use words derived from it. In the comic, Gretchen McCulloch applies {{w|Sound change|sound shifting}} laws to it to guess how it would have evolved into English, but pronouncing it seems to actually summon a bear, showing that abandoning that word was a fairly wise move for the Germanic language family. Interestingly enough, the hypothesized word “arth” is the same as the Welsh and Cornish for the word “bear.” Welsh belongs to the Celtic language family, which is one of the Indoeuropean branches that still uses a word derived from *rkto-, as the Italic (Romance), Greek and Indoarian (Sanscrit) branches do, while Germanic, Slavic and Baltic branches abandoned it for different euphemisms.

Depending on how one takes the concept of " saying a true name", there may be a consistency problem with the comic. If saying the "true" name (or any name derived from that name) summons the bear, how is it that the Welsh and most Romance language speakers (e.g. Italians saying Orso, Spaniards saying Oso, etc) get away without being constantly mauled? One explanation might be if the bears only respond to certain languages, but that seems unlikely since the languages that the bears would be prompted by would have developed thousands of years apart in time. An arcane form of {{w|geofencing}}, and/or a {{w|geas}} firmly tied to some prior mystically-established meta-contextualising, might limit such otherworldly 'magic' and explain why more mundane science and logic is usually unworried by these kinds of phenomena being inadvertently triggered.

A view on speaking of bears that is much more likely, is that the cultures were such that when other human beings heard the clear word for bear, they would behave in ways that people did not desire. For example, maybe when someone had a good harvest bears had a tendency to come into town to investigate or raid their food store, and so if people overheard discussion of bears, they might have all locked down their food stores, and the bears could have learned to key in on the behavior of everyone locking their food stores to actually come into the city and raid them more in response. There are a lot of rational reasons that avoiding speaking of bears to keep them away could have been a real thing.

Use of true names appears to be [[1013: Wake Up Sheeple|highly effective in the xkcd universe, rather like a fairy tale.]].

Internet Linguist Gretchen McCulloch (or her ghost) certainly found it effective, but https://twitter.com/GretchenAMcC/status/1324044826145378304 may reflect her extreme susceptibility to internet leakage.

Some say a true name contains clear meaning of who someone or something really is. In a competitive culture like ours, this could give others power over you, "profiling" you to be able to predict you and what you do.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Megan walks in front the left, looking down at her phone. Cueball and Ponytail are standing next to each other.]
:Megan: Wow - according to the internet, we don't know the true name of the bear.
:Cueball: What?

:[Gretchen comes on-panel from the right.]
:Megan: Apparently there was a superstition that saying its name would summon it. "Bear" and "bruin" mean "the brown one." Its actual name has been lost.
:Cueball: Wow.
:Ponytail: Gretchen, is this for real?

:[Zoom-in on Gretchen.]
:Gretchen: Well, sort of
:Gretchen: The Proto-Indo-European root was *rkto-
:Gretchen: It was lost in the Germanic languages like English, but survived elsewhere, e.g. Greek "arktos" and Latin "ursus"

:[Back to the second panel, with Megan holding her phone down, Ponytail with her hands in the air, and Gretchen with his hand on his chin.]
:Megan: So could we figure out what the word would have been in English?
:Gretchen: Hmm. I mean, we'll never know, but given Germanic sound shifts, a reasonable guess might be "arth"?
:Ponytail: ''No!!''

:[The panel zooms in again to Gretchen.]
:Ponytail (off-panel): ''Stop! AAAAA!''
:Gretchen: What??
:Ponytail (off-panel): Don't ''say'' it!

:[Ponytail is holding her palms out. Megan is no longer in the panel.]
:Ponytail: What have you ''done''?
:Off-panel noise: <big>'''''ROAR'''''</big>
:Gretchen: Oh
:Gretchen: Oh no

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Animals]]

Talk:2305: Coronavirus Polling

2020-05-18T04:07:34Z

108.162.219.56:

Wow am I first? If you want to get the public disunited, wait till you start to try to lift lockdown. Everyone has a different opinion of what to do first and when to do it! From Wales (Dis-UK) [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 20:14, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Worth mentioning is the the last COVID poll referenced [http://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/poll-dont-stop-social-distancing-coronavirus-spread-187290] is actually a month old as of the publication of this comic ("The poll was conducted April 10-12" - whereas the comic is dated May 11.) I suspect the 81% number has shifted in the time since that poll data was current.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.157|172.69.68.157]] 20:28, 11 May 2020 (UTC)MeZimm

Ummm... "...is remarkably unanimous...", etc, in the description. Isn't that like "very unique" when there it isn't the only example? ("A large proportion are unanimous, with very few others who demur" or something?) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.142|162.158.159.142]] 22:13, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

2011? Why would so many people felt positive about Betty White in 2011? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:38, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
:Beats me, I had to come to explainxkcd to find out who Betty White was.

I'd just like to point out that this means 24% of people do not feel positively toward kittens, 11% of people think fair elections are unimportant for democracy, and 14% of people think Kim Jong-Un can be trusted to do the right thing. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.216|108.162.215.216]] 22:52, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
:That isn't quite right: all those polls included a neutral option. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.135.210|172.69.135.210]] 05:00, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
::And there could also have been and a I don't know option. Many people are allergic to cats, so I'm sure some of those would not like kittens even if they seem adorable in Facebook posts. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:01, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
:One can also believe in fair elections being important for democracy, but think certain issues are too important to risk 'the people' deciding them, so there's no need for a fair election (and maybe you ought to actively avoid the risk). But only 'the other side' does that, of course. If your side does something that ''looks'' like it, it's just a righteous measure to make it fair again and stop Them cheating. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.62|162.158.155.62]] 07:14, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I removed the connection between Tom Hanks and COVID-19. While it is true that he was tested positive this had no influence on the poll cited which was in 2018. Therefore it's not relevant. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:11, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
:I disagree about removing it. You are correct that the poll has nothing to do with COVID but that Randall include a poll on Tom Hanks one of the first famous people who came forth telling he had the disease may have been the reason he was included. I will reinsert it, and change to make it clear that this is why it is mentioned. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:16, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
::It might as well be a coincidence. And with these additions it's imho not only not needed for the explanation but needlessy convulted, too. Randall did randomly choose Tom Hanks before (see 2003 or 1948). [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 09:56, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, but **whatabout** vi vs. emacs? Sunny Side Up vs. Over Easy? Laurel&Hardy vs. Abbott&Costello? [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 11:40, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

This is now the 25th comic about COVID-19 since the first comic in March. Wonder if he will continue to come back to this as long as there is a lock down in some parts of the US? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:34, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Hmmm. I agree with all the ones on the left, but:

I almost never have Apple pie and don't care for it.

I hold no strong opinions about Tom Hanks.

I have mixed feelings about whether elections, fair or not, are the best or most important tool for democracy. Obviously they have a roll, but mass meetings for candidate selection, ability for citizens to recall bad/disloyal leaders, democratic control of the media, democratic control of the economy, public participation in legislation, and the fundamentally democratic interests of those who get elected or empowered. If those who's interests fundamentally are opposed to the people, meaning mostly the working class, seize power by ballot or bullet, your democracy is likely over in all but name. The exploiters have taken control and will strip your country of powerful democratic institutions. Not letting this happen is the most important aspect of democracy, as it is the only way to stop democracy from falling to oligarchs. Of course, that assumes you had a democracy to start with. A rather big assumption for a country built on colonial slavery and conquest and genocide of the indigenous population. Overall, it's the wrong question to ask. But I guess I agree a functioning democracy which America is not, would function significantly better with fair elections.

I DO trust Kim Jong Un to do the right thing... mostly. More than any American or European leader anyway.

The name "murder hornet" is cringy. Call them Giant Hornets if you want to avoid blaming them on the continent in which they're endemic. But yes, they're a potentially concerning development especially for apiarists, but maybe for hikers and joggers too. That being said, they're not a significant threat the way COVID-19 is.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.251|108.162.246.251]] 11:09, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
: 1. Kim Jong Un is objectively worse than almost every other western leader. He’s an autocrat, come on. 2. Fair elections are extremely important, even if they’re not the most important. 3. Everything else is fair. Are you pro-kitten? [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 21:54, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Really sad to see this. We Americans of all the world's people should remember more about the importance of freedom and limited government. "They'll tell us when the danger is over and lift the restrictions"... said no student of history ever. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 04:07, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

1725: Linear Regression

2016-09-03T00:30:17Z

108.162.219.56: R^2 in the graph is really 0.02

{{comic
| number = 1725
| date = August 26, 2016
| title = Linear Regression
| image = linear_regression.png
| titletext = The 95% confidence interval suggests Rexthor's dog could also be a cat, or possibly a teapot.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Linear regression}} is a method for modeling the relationship between multiple variables. In the simplest case, it can be used for two variables wherein the model determines a "{{w|least squares|best-fit}}" line through a {{w|scatter plot}} of the datasets, together with a {{w|coefficient of determination}}, usually denoted ''r''2 or ''R''2. When only two variables are included in the regression, ''R''2 is merely the square of the correlation between the two variables. ''R''2 is a number between 0 and 1 that indicates how well one variable can be used to predict the value of another. A value of 1 means perfect correlation, while a value close to 0 indicates a weak relationship between the variables.

{{w|Asterism_(astronomy)|Asterism}}s are patterns created by linking the apparent positions of stars as seen in the sky from Earth. Strictly, "Rexthor" is an asterism, as a {{w|constellation}} is the region of sky containing the asterism, although "constellation" is used informally in place of "asterism" by even seasoned astronomers. Different civilizations have recognized different constellations (the modern IAU, for example, lists 88 "official" constellations), and one could create their own constellations by connecting assorted points.

In this comic, a set of data has had linear regression and some form of statistical analysis applied to it, indicating that there is low correlation between the two. The data points are so widely scattered that (as noted in the comic) it is easier to connect the data points in a constellation-like pattern than it is to determine whether the correlation is negative or positive (without looking at the trendline, of course). Because of this, [[Randall]] suggests we should be suspicious of any conclusions drawn from this data.

The comic is somewhat misleading, since the data in the graph actually has an ''R''2 of 0.02, only a third of what Randall claims. An example of published research with an ''R''2 of 0.06 where the association in the graph is noticeable (if not strong) can be found [http://www.i-jmr.org/2012/1/e1/ here] (figure 2 has ''r'' = 0.25 which corresponds to ''R''2 = 0.06). In addition, it is hard to see the association in the comic's graph because relatively few points are plotted. In a data set with 1000 observations and ''R''2 = 0.06, any association between the two variables would be quite clear.

"Rexthor the Dog bearer" could be a spoof on {{w|Thor}}, a Norse god who wields a hammer.
By replacing his hammer with a dog and adding "Rex" (an archetypal dog name, but also meaning {{w|Rex (title)|king}} as in king of the dinosaurs T-rex), Randall may have created a comical, dog-bearing version of Thor. But it could just as well be an image of the dog-king Rexthor.

The 95% {{w|confidence interval}} in statistics is such a range of an estimate, that the probability of the real value (the estimated population parameter) to lie inside the range is at least 95%. The confidence interval is a standard method to provide evaluation of the estimation error in statistics. On the right panel the resulting estimate seems to be a drawing, so the 95% confidence interval would be a set of all drawings derived from the sample such that the probability of the right drawing to be among them is at least 95%. According to the title text among these drawings you can find a cat and a teapot as well, so we can't be 95% confident that a dog exists in the data.

The teapot may be a reference to {{w|Russell's_teapot|Russell's teapot}}, or possibly to the {{w|Sagittarius_(constellation)#Visualizations|"teapot" asterism in the constellation Sagittarius.}} Alternatively is is just because the "dog" actually looks more like a teapot than a dog, and Randall noticed this and added it in the title text. In the latter case the two first suggestion is just another example on how humans see patterns also where there are none to find, like those of {{w|pareidolia}} mentioned in [[1551: Pluto]].

==Transcript==
:[Two square panels show identical sets of scattered black dots, with only the red additions being different.]

:[The left panel shows a slightly rising red line drawn through the middle of the panel, passing near a few dots but not obviously related to most of them. A red text is below the dots:]
:R2=0.06

:[The right panel shows many of the dots connected by red lines to form a stick figure of a man resembling the constellation Orion, with the hand on the reader's right raised and holding an object. A red text is below the dots:]
:Rexthor, the Dog-Bearer

:[A caption is below and spanning both panels:]
:I don't trust linear regressions when it's harder to guess the direction of the correlation from the scatter plot than to find new constellations on it.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Animals]]

Talk:1725: Linear Regression

2016-09-03T00:07:16Z

108.162.219.56:

It also seems likely that the teapot refers to the Utah Teapot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_teapot). It was one of the first complex 3D objects defined for CGI rendering, and has seen countless uses since. Notably in the Pipes screensaver, and early SIGGRAPH papers where it was rendered along side the 5 platonic solids as if it belonged with them.
[[User:Dkfenger|Dkfenger]] ([[User talk:Dkfenger|talk]]) 17:10, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
: I'm not sure I follow. How do you reach that conclusion? Given that the concept of constellations (and thus stars) is clearly shown in the comic, it seems much more likely to me that he was referring to Russell's Teapot and not to a computer rendering (if there was any reference at all). The fact that that shape could abstractly resemble a teapot may be all that there is to it. :) [[User:KieferSkunk|KieferSkunk]] ([[User talk:KieferSkunk|talk]]) 18:06, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I think that the teapot is a reference to the constellation Sagittarius. This seems most likely to me as the reference is to a constellation that looks like a teapot despite ostensibly being something else. Sagittarius is a constellation that is supposed to be an archer, but many people see it as a teapot instead. (http://www.space.com/30274-constellation-sagittarius-archer-dipper-teapot.html) [[User:Harperska|Harperska]] ([[User talk:Harperska|talk]]) 19:27, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I think it looks like a alcohol drink with the little umbrella sticking out. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 06:25, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Based on what is an R^2 value of 0.06 significant??? I'm removing that. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 20:59, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
: Oops, misread it! I read "insignificant" as "significant". [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 21:00, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The teapot mention may just be a joke, not a reference. {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.114}}

did someone check if it really was a Rsquared of 0,06?[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.67|141.101.104.67]] 20:56, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

:Asuming the top left of the image as 0/0 and measuring in pixels I get f(x)=-0,135x + 124,8 with R²=0,0197, calcuated with LibreOffice. The line in the image has f(x)=-0,094x+125. If I change a single point by one or two the R² value varies from 0,0195 to 0,0199. If I substract 10% of the x value from the y value R² increases to 0,0574. So I think R²=0,06 is a little bit inaccurate, but not completely wrong. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.83.228|162.158.83.228]] 19:01, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

::I think R^2 = 6% is very inaccurate if the true R^2 = 2%. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 00:07, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Does anybody know of any real-world examples of a similarly low R^2 given in genuine research? It would be worth mentioning their existence if we can find one. [[User:Cosmogoblin|Cosmogoblin]] ([[User talk:Cosmogoblin|talk]]) 18:03, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
: In published research? I don't recall any. In submissions for review? At least twice. And of course one case where this comic could and should be used as an educational drawing - student reports, master's theses, etc. I've seen "conclusions" drawn from weaker data in those, far too many times for my mental health...--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.119|162.158.86.119]] 09:32, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Rex is also Latin for king, which may be related in the context of constellations. {{unsigned ip|172.68.11.81}}

1723: Meteorite Identification

2016-08-22T12:07:04Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1723
| date = August 22, 2016
| title = Meteorite Identification
| image = meteorite_identification.png
| titletext = Click for an actual flowchart for identifying a meteorite. My favorite part is how 'Did someone see it fall? -> Yes' points to 'NOT A METEORITE.' This is not a mistake.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs an explanation of the Title text}}
Meteorites are rare rocks that come from asteroids, the moon, and sometimes (very rarely) from Mars. The flowchart, though facetious, would actually work the vast majority of the time since, given any single rock one finds on the surface of the earth, it is almost definitely not a meteorite. Flowcharts are often used to give the inexperienced a step-by-step process to follow, but meteorite identification is very difficult, so the brevity of this flowchart in a way pokes fun at the need for a flowchart to identify meteorites, since laypeople are not experienced enough to confirm that a rock is indeed a meteorite. The image links to a [http://meteorites.wustl.edu/check-list.htm more detailed flowchart] which, among other things, links to a [http://meteorites.wustl.edu/realities.htm long list] detailing the many things that must be taken into consideration in order to confirm that a rock is a meteorite. The author of those resources has likely received many rock samples and photos from people claiming to have discovered meteorites even though there have only been 690 confirmed cases since 1900, and thus he would likely benefit from just providing people the shortcut flowchart from Randall, as a way of saying, "leave meteorite identification to the professionals."

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

1717: Pyramid Honey

2016-08-09T12:44:59Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1717
| date = August 8, 2016
| title = Pyramid Honey
| image = pyramid_honey.png
| titletext = They CLAIM honey was found in the chambers under the pyramids, but this conspiracy goes all the way to the TOP, where the GIANT EYE is!
}}

==Explanation==
Bee {{w|honey}} is a food item with natural antimicrobial properties. It can remain unspoiled for a person's entire lifetime, making it practically nonperishable for ordinary consumers. It is frequently claimed that archaeologists have found jars of honey that have been well-preserved for thousands of years in ancient tombs. The claims are generally assertions which may point to other similar assertions as supporting evidence but do not provide specific details, such as the identity of the actual tombs where such jars have been found, nor the names of the archaeologists who have affirmed finding such jars. The commonality of the assertion, however, leads some people to claim that honey's shelf life is "infinite", which is a much stronger claim which would not be supported by the assertion even if it is shown to be factual.

In the comic, [[Cueball]] tells [[Megan]] about an article in ''{{w|Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian Magazine}}'' (presumably [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-behind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/ this one]) that claims honey has an infinite shelf life. The article links to a book which makes the assertion of such findings but does not provide factual support of the findings. Megan thinks the sources of the article are wrong and wants to refute it. [[Black Hat]] upon hearing Megan's claim that the ''Smithsonian'''s source is wrong, immediately decides to spread it on the Internet without giving Megan a chance explain any further.

Black Hat's actions are clearly premature, since he has not heard any evidence to back up the claim and does not understand the nuances of Megan's position. Presumably, the best he can do would be to parrot what he has heard from Megan, without any understanding or critical thinking on his part. Due to his lack of understanding, he may even interject his own ideas (ones Megan never believed nor stated) into his posts. These are all consistent with him calling himself "pyramid honey truther". The word ''truther'' refers to people who reject established facts and instead choose to believe in conspiracies, like {{w|Moon landing conspiracy theories|people who claim the moon landings never happened}}, or {{w|9/11 Truth movement|people who believe the US government is behind the 9/11 attacks}}. While some conspiracy theories turn out to be true, most, like the two mentioned here, are fake. This turns Megan, who likely has a reasonable and well-justified position, unwillingly into the source of conspiracy theories.

The alt-text refers to the {{w|Eye of Providence}} and the {{w|Illuminati}}, a symbol of an eye at the top of a pyramid, found on US currency and often associated with conspiracy theories of secret societies.

This comic is likely a satire of the stereotypical internet mindset, and plays up the frequent confusion between legitimate scientific scepticism, where unsupported claims are rejected, and conspiracy-theory faux-scepticism, where legitimate evidence is rejected because it does not support a specific viewpoint.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are talking]
:Cueball: Apparently honey has an infinite shelf life. They just found jars of it in the pyramids, still good.
:Megan: You know, I've heard that, and I don't think its true.

:[Black hat enters]
:Cueball: Really? Smithsonian magazine confirmed it.
:Megan: Believe it or not, I think their source is wrong.
:Black Hat: '''''I believe you.'''''

:Megan: See I read about the archeologists who-
:Black Hat: I'm convinced. Gonna go to tell the internet.

:Megan: Wait, are you sure? Let me explain why-
:Black Hat: Don't need it. I've heard enough.

:Black Hat: I've been looking for a weird hill to die on, and all the real ones are too far from my house. So this is mine. I'm now a pyramid honey truther.

:Black hat: Time to start a Facebook group and post a bunch of all-caps comments everywhere.
:Cueball: This could have gone better.
:Megan: Oh well.

:Alt-text: They CLAIM honey was found in the chambers under the pyramids, but this conspiracy goes all the way to the TOP, where the GIANT EYE is!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1717: Pyramid Honey

2016-08-09T12:44:35Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1717
| date = August 8, 2016
| title = Pyramid Honey
| image = pyramid_honey.png
| titletext = They CLAIM honey was found in the chambers under the pyramids, but this conspiracy goes all the way to the TOP, where the GIANT EYE is!
}}

==Explanation==
Bee {{w|honey}} is a food item with natural antimicrobial properties. It can remain unspoiled for a person's entire lifetime, making it practically nonperishable for ordinary consumers. It is frequently claimed that archaeologists have found jars of honey that have been well-preserved for thousands of years in ancient tombs. The claims are generally assertions which may point to other similar assertions as supporting evidence but do not provide specific details, such as the identity of the actual tombs where such jars have been found, nor the names of the archaeologists who have affirmed finding such jars. The commonality of the assertion, however, leads some people to claim that honey's shelf life is "infinite", which is a much stronger claim which would not be supported by the assertion even if it is shown to be factual.

In the comic, [[Cueball]] tells [[Megan]] about an article in ''{{w|Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian Magazine}}'' (presumably [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-behind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/ this one]) that claims honey has an infinite shelf life. The article links to a book which makes the assertion of such findings but does not provide factual support of the findings. Megan thinks the sources of the article are wrong and wants to refute it. [[Black Hat]] upon hearing Megan's claim that the ''Smithsonian'''s source is wrong, immediately decides to spread it on the Internet without giving Megan a chance explain any further.

Black Hat's actions are clearly premature, since he has not heard any evidence to back up the claim and does not understand the nuances of Megan's position. Presumably, the best he can do would be to parrot what he has heard from Megan, without any understanding or critical thinking on his part. Due to his lack of understanding, he may even interject his own ideas (ones Megan never believed nor stated) into his posts. These are all consistent with him calling himself "pyramid honey truther". The word ''truther'' refers to people who reject established facts and instead choose to believe in conspiracies, like {{w|Moon landing conspiracy theories|people who claim the moon landings never happened}}, or {{w|9/11 Truth movement|people who believe the US government is behind the 9/11 attacks}} While some conspiracy theories turn out to be true, most, like the two mentioned here, are fake. This turns Megan, who likely has a reasonable and well-justified position, unwillingly into the source of conspiracy theories.

The alt-text refers to the {{w|Eye of Providence}} and the {{w|Illuminati}}, a symbol of an eye at the top of a pyramid, found on US currency and often associated with conspiracy theories of secret societies.

This comic is likely a satire of the stereotypical internet mindset, and plays up the frequent confusion between legitimate scientific scepticism, where unsupported claims are rejected, and conspiracy-theory faux-scepticism, where legitimate evidence is rejected because it does not support a specific viewpoint.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are talking]
:Cueball: Apparently honey has an infinite shelf life. They just found jars of it in the pyramids, still good.
:Megan: You know, I've heard that, and I don't think its true.

:[Black hat enters]
:Cueball: Really? Smithsonian magazine confirmed it.
:Megan: Believe it or not, I think their source is wrong.
:Black Hat: '''''I believe you.'''''

:Megan: See I read about the archeologists who-
:Black Hat: I'm convinced. Gonna go to tell the internet.

:Megan: Wait, are you sure? Let me explain why-
:Black Hat: Don't need it. I've heard enough.

:Black Hat: I've been looking for a weird hill to die on, and all the real ones are too far from my house. So this is mine. I'm now a pyramid honey truther.

:Black hat: Time to start a Facebook group and post a bunch of all-caps comments everywhere.
:Cueball: This could have gone better.
:Megan: Oh well.

:Alt-text: They CLAIM honey was found in the chambers under the pyramids, but this conspiracy goes all the way to the TOP, where the GIANT EYE is!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1717: Pyramid Honey

2016-08-09T12:43:13Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1717
| date = August 8, 2016
| title = Pyramid Honey
| image = pyramid_honey.png
| titletext = They CLAIM honey was found in the chambers under the pyramids, but this conspiracy goes all the way to the TOP, where the GIANT EYE is!
}}

==Explanation==
Bee {{w|honey}} is a food item with natural antimicrobial properties. It can remain unspoiled for a person's entire lifetime, making it practically nonperishable for ordinary consumers. It is frequently claimed that archaeologists have found jars of honey that have been well-preserved for thousands of years in ancient tombs. The claims are generally assertions which may point to other similar assertions as supporting evidence but do not provide specific details, such as the identity of the actual tombs where such jars have been found, nor the names of the archaeologists who have affirmed finding such jars. The commonality of the assertion, however, leads some people to claim that honey's shelf life is "infinite", which is a much stronger claim which would not be supported by the assertion even if it is shown to be factual.

In the comic, [[Cueball]] tells [[Megan]] about an article in ''{{w|Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian Magazine}}'' (presumably [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-behind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/ this one]) that claims honey has an infinite shelf life. The article links to a book which makes the assertion of such findings but does not provide factual support of the findings. Megan thinks the sources of the article are wrong and wants to refute it. [[Black Hat]] upon hearing Megan's claim that the ''Smithsonian'''s source is wrong, immediately decides to spread it on the Internet without giving Megan a chance explain any further.

Black Hat's actions are clearly premature, since he has not heard any evidence to back up the claim and does not understand the nuances of Megan's position. Presumably, the best he can do would be to parrot what he has heard from Megan, without any understanding or critical thinking on his part. Due to his lack of understanding, he may even interject his own ideas (ones Megan never believed nor stated) into his posts. These are all consistent with him calling himself "pyramid honey truther". The word ''truther'' refers to people who reject established facts and instead choose to believe in conspiracies, like {{w|Moon landing conspiracy theories|people who claim the moon landings never happened}}, or {{w|9/11 Truth movement|people who believe the US government is behind the 9/11 attacks}}. This turns Megan, who likely has a reasonable and well-justified position, unwillingly into the source of conspiracy theories.

The alt-text refers to the {{w|Eye of Providence}} and the {{w|Illuminati}}, a symbol of an eye at the top of a pyramid, found on US currency and often associated with conspiracy theories of secret societies.

This comic is likely a satire of the stereotypical internet mindset, and plays up the frequent confusion between legitimate scientific scepticism, where unsupported claims are rejected, and conspiracy-theory faux-scepticism, where legitimate evidence is rejected because it does not support a specific viewpoint.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are talking]
:Cueball: Apparently honey has an infinite shelf life. They just found jars of it in the pyramids, still good.
:Megan: You know, I've heard that, and I don't think its true.

:[Black hat enters]
:Cueball: Really? Smithsonian magazine confirmed it.
:Megan: Believe it or not, I think their source is wrong.
:Black Hat: '''''I believe you.'''''

:Megan: See I read about the archeologists who-
:Black Hat: I'm convinced. Gonna go to tell the internet.

:Megan: Wait, are you sure? Let me explain why-
:Black Hat: Don't need it. I've heard enough.

:Black Hat: I've been looking for a weird hill to die on, and all the real ones are too far from my house. So this is mine. I'm now a pyramid honey truther.

:Black hat: Time to start a Facebook group and post a bunch of all-caps comments everywhere.
:Cueball: This could have gone better.
:Megan: Oh well.

:Alt-text: They CLAIM honey was found in the chambers under the pyramids, but this conspiracy goes all the way to the TOP, where the GIANT EYE is!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1707: xkcd Phone 4

2016-07-15T20:27:48Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1707
| date = July 15, 2016
| title = xkcd Phone 4
| image = xkcd_phone_4.png
| titletext = The SpaceX system carefully guides falling phones down to the surface, a process which the phones increasingly often survive without exploding.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Not everything explained}}

This is another entry in the xkcd Phone series (see [[1363: xkcd Phone]], [[1465: xkcd Phone 2]] and [[1549: XKCD Phone 3]]), and once again, the comic plays with many standard tech buzzwords to create a phone that sounds impressive but would actually be very impractical.

From the top, going clockwise:
* '''18,000 μAh (micro-Ampere hours) nickel-lithium-iron battery (non-rechargeable)''' Phone battery capacity is measured in {{w|ampere-hour}}s (which thanks to the magic of {{w|dimensional analysis}}, is just an unusual way of denoting electric charge, which equals 3600 Coulombs). Usually, the capacity is quoted in milliampere-hours (one-thousandth, or 10-3, of an ampere hour); however, this one is quoted in ''micro''ampere-hours (one-millionth, or 10-6, of an ampere-hour), presumably as a marketing ploy to give a more impressive-looking number. Quoted in more standard terms, this phone's battery capacity is 18 mAh. In comparison, an iPhone 6+ has a battery capacity of 2,750 mAh. This phone's battery is dreadful (under a typical current draw of 0.1A, it would power the phone for about 11 minutes). There is nothing normally called a "nickel-lithium-iron battery" - rather, this seems to be a [[739|malamanteau]] of the experimental {{w|nickel–lithium battery}} and the common {{w|lithium ion battery}} (which does not contain any iron) or the lithium-iron-phosphate battery, often called lithium-iron, but more often called the LiFePO battery. The {{w|nickel–iron battery}} may contain {{w|lithium hydroxide}}, but it's ''terrible'' for most applications. Worse, this battery is non-rechargeable, meaning that it would have to be replaced to use the phone again after it is exhausted (every 11 minutes, at that!).
* '''Subwoofer''' - A {{w|subwoofer}} is a large bass speaker, which this is not. Some phones do have high-quality speakers for playing music, but these are not placed right next to the earpiece - this would be a surefire way to deafen your users. When put next to Dog Whistle, this is probably a pun, since both relate to dogs; the sound a dog makes, at least in English is "Woof".
* '''"Dog whistle"''' - A {{w|dog whistle}} is a high-pitched whistle that humans cannot hear, but dogs can. In speaker terminology, a bass speaker is called a {{w|woofer}} because it could reproduce the low pitch of a dog bark. A treble speaker is a {{w|tweeter}}; if this "whistle" is actually a speaker, it might be termed a ''supertweeter''. The scare quotes around the term add to the idea that whatever it is called is not what it really is. [[xkcd Phone 2]] contained a "dog noticer".
* '''Non-porous, washable''' - On the one hand, it's rare for a phone to be made of porous materials. On the other, there are legitimately waterproof phones that seal the speakers and ports with rubber. [[xkcd Phone 2]] was also washable (though only once).
* '''''WebMD'' partnership: cough-activated feature reads aloud a random diagnosis for "coughing"''' - {{w|WebMD}} is a website to help people diagnose themselves. For the vast majority of people, a cough just means an irritated throat or maybe a cold, but selecting randomly from all WebMD diagnoses gives some much more ominous - if very unlikely - ones, including {{w|ricin}} poisoning, {{w|plague}}, {{w|lung cancer}} and {{w|radiation poisoning}}.
* '''Wings''' - These wings resemble the ones found on {{w|sanitary towel}}s (sometimes called "pads", making this a possible iPad pun(Or even a FlyPad pun!)) which attach the pad to the {{w|gusset}} and keep it in place between the woman's legs during her period.
* '''Beveled bezel''' - The ''bezel'' is the ring around the edge of watches and screens. This one's {{w|bevel}}ed, which means it's cut at an angle.
* '''Bezeled bevel''' - Punning on the above. Doesn't make much sense, but could mean that it features a beveled edge which is surrounded by a bezel.
* '''Seedless''' - Fruit such as grapes can be "seedless", which means that they're grown from a special {{w|cultivar}} that doesn't grow seeds in the normal way. Making a phone seedless probably won't do anything, but {{w|Random seed|it might hurt}} its {{w|random number generator}}.
* '''Water resistant down to 30 meters and below 50''' - {{w|Water resistance}} is often measured in terms of how deep an object can be submerged, since pressure increases with depth. In this case, the phone can be submerged to almost any depth, but there's an odd lacuna between 30 meters and 50 meters. It also plays with the confusion in describing depths greater than 50m as "below 50". Alternatively, this might indicate the phone must remain dry above 50 meters altitude.
* '''Turing-complete''' - A computer is {{w|Turing completeness|Turing complete}} if it can perform all the operations needed to simulate a {{w|Turing machine}}. All modern computers are usually described as Turing complete, which would make this not very impressive, but no computer can ever be Turing complete in the truest sense (since they can only ever have a finite amount of memory) - if the xkcd Phone 4 is truly a universal computer, it's ''very'' impressive indeed.
* '''Gregorian/Julian calendar date switch''' - The {{w|Julian calendar}} is the predecessor to the modern {{w|Gregorian calendar}} - the difference is that the two calendars calculate leap years differently. The Julian calendar is still used occasionally - mainly by Eastern Orthodox Christians - but it's not something so vital that it needs a hardwired switch on the front of the phone.
* '''''SpaceX'' impact protection: when dropped, phone lands on barge''' - The rocket company {{w|SpaceX}} recently trialed a {{w|SpaceX reusable launch system development program|reusable rocket stage}} which after separating from the launch vehicle, lands on a {{w|Autonomous spaceport drone ship|drone barge}} to be reused. The alt-text pokes fun at the number of SpaceX rockets that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3wZRdg-Tmo crashed and exploded] before they got the landing gear right.
* '''Parallel port''' - A {{w|parallel port}} is a type of interface which transfers high-volume simultaneous data. It was often used to connect printers and other devices to computers, but was generally considered obsolete by the time smartphones began to appear on the market, and would be very bulky and slow compared to the USB ports generally used in phones. It was commonly found together with {{w|serial port}}s, which are used for low-volume sequential data such as [[485: Depth|mouse]] [[1110: Click and Drag|movements]]. Here it is paired with a serial interface for analog data with parallel outputs for several people.
* '''12 headphone jacks''' - Phones often include a single headphone jack to allow the user to privately listen to a call, play music, etc. Twelve of them would be pointless overkill, especially given the difficulty of getting twelve people close enough to all use their headphones. Presumably joking about the [http://www.businessinsider.com.au/apple-headphone-jack-iphone-side-effects-2016-7#/#smaller-headphone-makers-would-be-at-a-disadvantage-4 constant rumours] that Apple's next iPhone will not have any headphone jacks, and the weird vents on the bottom of the phone.
* '''Onboard cloud''' - The "cloud" is a catch-all term for the use of remote computers to store data, providing a backup if all local copies are lost and allowing the data to be accessed from a broad network. An "onboard cloud" would thus be a contradiction in terms, and appears to be a marketing ploy to use the "cloud" buzzword to describe the device's onboard storage capacity.
* '''New BrightGloTM display incorporates genetically spliced jellyfish protein (should have used the glowing genes, not the stinging ones)''' - {{w|Aequorea victoria}} jellyfish contain a protein called {{w|green fluorescent protein}}, the gene for which has been isolated and can be used in many ways. Unfortunately, they took the wrong gene, and ended up getting [http://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12864-015-1568-3 one of the hundreds of proteins from jellyfish venom], which will presumably mean that touching the screen becomes a painful experience.
* '''✓ Certified''' - Not certified for anything in particular.
* '''Software-defined''' {{w|Software-defined radio}}s are quite popular in some areas, meaning the radio hardware is quite universal and can be adapted to different radio protocols just by changing software. SDR would actually be quite a nice feature for a cellphone. Of course it doesn't specify if it's the radio that is software defined.
* '''Exposed ductwork''' - A phone shouldn't even have ductwork, unless it has a very sophisticated cooling system, but this could supply air to the dog whistle. Exposed ductwork is a trademark of {{w|Bowellism|Bowellist}} architecture such as the {{w|Lloyd's Building}} in London and the {{w|Pompidou Centre}} in Paris. Exposed ductwork is also considered a crucial flaw in a death star. May also refer to a transparent window in the side of the phone allowing the user to see the circuitry inside, similar to computer cases with transparent side panels popular among DIY computing enthusiasts.
* '''Voice interaction: {{w|Siri (software)|Siri}}, {{w|Cortana (software)|Cortana}}, {{w|Google Now}} and {{w|Amazon Echo|Alexa}} respond simultaneously''' - These are all {{w|intelligent personal assistant software}} (from Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon respectively) and all do the same thing: control your phone and answer questions using speech recognition. Having all four talk at once would mean you'd have a total cacophony while gaining nothing.

* '''Did you know "4" is "IV" in Roman numerals?®©™''' - the tenth version of Apple's {{w|operating system}} for its {{w|Macintosh computer}} was labeled {{w|OS X}}, which was intended to be read as "oh ess ten". {{w|Steve Jobs}} was irritated that everyone else preferred "oh ess ecks". This phrase is labeled with trademark and copyright symbols, as if someone desires it to be the product's {{w|tagline}} but has poor understanding of relevant laws. In particular, "<big>{{w|™}}</big>" is a symbol for {{w|unregistered trademark}}s while "<big>{{w|®}}</big>" is a symbol for {{w|registered trademark}}s. If the phrase were an unregistered trademark, the owner would be prohibited from using "<big>{{w|®}}</big>".

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Smartphones]]

1704: Gnome Ann

2016-07-08T11:34:37Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1704
| date = July 8, 2016
| title = Gnome Ann
| image = gnome_ann.png
| titletext = In the words of Andrew Johnson, if I am to be shot at, I want Gnome Ann to be in the way of the bullet.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|It would be nice if there was a table here with individual explanations for each quote.}}
This comic presents a series of images depicting a female {{w|gnome}} who is known as "Gnome Ann". The humor derives from the fact that the name "Gnome Ann" and the compound noun "no man" are {{w|homophone}}s, meaning they sound alike but have different meanings and spellings.
(Users of the {{w|GNOME|Gnome desktop system}} may have difficulties understanding this since they pronounce Gnome with a hard "g", reflecting its {{w|GNU}} ties.)

[[Randall]] presents the reader with six images (and a title text) captioned with quotations from a wide range of sources, each featuring an instance of the compound noun "no man" being replaced by "Gnome Ann" (and featuring a drawing that reflects this change). There is one proverb, two Biblical quotations, two literary quotations (the {{w|Miguel de Cervantes|Cervantes}} quote is from ''{{w|Don Quixote}}'', the other one is from {{w|Lord of the Rings}}, the line {{w|Éowyn}} said to the {{w|Witch-king_of_Angmar|Witch-king of Angmar}} before killing him), one quotation from the opening of a televisions show (''{{w|Star Trek: The Original Series}}''), and a quotation from a piece of historical rhetoric in the title text.

The process by which "no man" becomes "nom an" (and hence Gnome Ann) is known as {{w|false splitting}}, and is a familiar process of word formation in English and other languages; examples include {{w|Vipera_berus#Etymologies|"an adder" from "a nadder"}} and "lone" from "(all) one".

==Transcript==
The Legend of Gnome Ann

:[At the beach, between the shoreline and a clock, "Gnome Ann" stands with her arms outstretched.]
:Proverb: Time and tide wait for Gnome Ann.

:[Gnome Ann chases 3 men to the right.]
:Proverb: The wicked flee when Gnome Ann pursueth. - Proverbs 28:1

:[Gnome Ann takes the groom's place in a wedding, shoving him to the side. The bride stands showing no reaction on the left.]
:Proverb: What therefor God hath joined together, let Gnome Ann put asunder. - Mark 10:9

:[Gnome Ann wisely meditates on a rock.]
:Quote: Time ripens all things; Gnome Ann is born wise. - Miguel De Cervantes

:[The Enterprise flies to the right, chasing a smaller craft.]
:Enterprise: Our Mission: to boldly go where Gnome Ann has gone before.

:[The Witch-king of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl, stands to the left of Gnome Ann, who is preparing to stab him with a sword.]
:Lord of the Nazgûl: Fool! No man can kill me.
:Gnome Ann: I AM GNOME ANN!

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1701: Speed and Danger

2016-07-04T04:47:14Z

108.162.219.56:

;Worst Comic
I think this might be a strong contender for worst comic on xkcd. Although [[1384: Krypton]] definitely makes for stiff competition. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.102|108.162.216.102]] 14:28, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
:Perhaps "in worst taste" might be a better term than simply "worst". Certainly the fatality '''rate''' (in fatalities/crash) for rocket crashes is higher, but placing motor sports crashes to the extreme end of the safety-danger axis is a bit suspect in light of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_deaths_in_motorsport . [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.242|108.162.237.242]] 02:25, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
::This is a great comic, but taste differs. It's not like he is making a joke of people who die in NASCAR crashes, but on this scale it is just not dangerous compared to crashing with a rocket heading for space. This is exactly the same as if he had put in the coconut in on of his most controversial comics, and another scatter plot [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]]. In the title text of that comic he mentions that the whole charts would have lost meaning if he included the coconut. But here he did put it in (the rocket) since he likes rockets and will not use the F word on those like he did with grape and coconuts. It may not be one of the best, but I like it :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:55, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

The worst? Have you looked at the first few hundred? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.119|108.162.246.119]] 15:09, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I think this comic is actually enlightening on a certain (albeit narrow level). People frequently lack a proper sense of perspective, and this comic illustrates this fact. While we might say "Wow, that Indy car is really moving fast!", it pales in comparison to other vehicles that some fortunate few travel in. {{unsigned|BobTheMad}}
:And I totally wanted to learn that from a '''comic''' that's supposed to be humorous... --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.7|108.162.219.7]] 16:50, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
::::Yeah well there are countless people who learned everything they know about space travel from 'The Martian' (as well as a ''lot'' of wrong things). So I really don't think that it's that uncommon for information on a subject to come from popular culture, however unfortunate it may be.--[[User:Snewmark|Snewmark]] ([[User talk:Snewmark|talk]]) 03:24, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

[[1699]] and [[1680]] would like to have a word with you. Also [[1675]].
Actually, all of the last 25 or so comics would. I really don't know how the xkcd forums put up with being 500x smarter than all the comics they praise every day. [[User:Youforgotthisthing|Youforgotthisthing]] ([[User talk:Youforgotthisthing|talk]]) 17:18, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

; Referencing Something?
Is there something this is referencing? [[User:Saklad5|Saklad5]] ([[User talk:Saklad5|talk]]) 14:41, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I believe this is in response to the recent crash of a Tesla car while running on autopilot - possibly the first recorded fatality of an autonomous car. {{unsigned ip|108.162.249.156}}
:Seems unlikely, as there is no mention of normal cars or Tesla. And although Elon Musk also do rockets launches (so far without humans as far as I know), there seem to be no relation to Tesla. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:55, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

To me the reference seems to be the Formula 1 "Halo" discussion. The last month I saw a few news articles about prominent F1 people calling this new safety measure "too safe" etc. To me this is a ridiculous argument and the comic is spot-on about it. The title text also seems to refer somewhat from that discussion. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.72|141.101.104.72]] 19:55, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

;Sarcasm
Is sarcasm to be encouraged in explanations? “Here, Randall makes the '''truly astounding''' observation that the danger of a crash is directly proportional to its speed….” [Emphasis mine.] ''— [[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 15:29, 1 July 2016 (UTC)''
:In this case it's definitely warranted...Jesus Randall, this wouldn't exactly have been hard to make funny/interesting. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.7|108.162.219.7]] 15:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
:No it should not be in the explanation. Keep the sarcasm here ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:55, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Well a rocket to achieve orbit hits about 18,000 MPH http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/basics/launch.html
Where as NASCAR is only ~200 MPH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_car_racing
Formula 1 is only ~257 MPH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One_car#Top_speeds
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.68.71|162.158.68.71]] 16:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm kinda shocked Randall didn't reference Star Trek for this comic, considering the number. - Michael C. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.85|141.101.98.85]] 17:00, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

;Why only 4 examples?

Why not put things like biking, driving a regular car, WWI planes, WW2 planes, supersonic jets, satellites, Apollo, New Horizons... {{unsigned ip|108.162.244.67}}
:It was not interesting as they would all overlap and there would be not enough place for labels. The whole idea is that any sport bound to Earth is slow compared to a rocket launch. 100 m dash or Formula one is on the same scale when comparing. Reminds me of when he compared the speed of New Horizon to the speed of a bullet, which would also have been in the left side if New Horizon had been entered... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:55, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

;Sports or Sports Cars?
I don't think the comic intended to say "Normal Sports CARS," as the explanation currently says, I think it means what it says, "Normal SPORTS" like foot ball, or hockey. On the linear scale of 0-to-rocket, running or walking is close to race car speed, compared to how fast a rocket is, and the graph illustrates that. Also, crashing a normal sports CAR is far more dangerous than crashing a professional race car because of all the safety equipment, so a sports car would be more toward the dangerous side. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.81}}
:Agreed. I was assuming the reference was to various contact sports such as football, hockey, and quidditch where collisions between players regularly happen. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.132|108.162.237.132]] 20:52, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
::Yes of course. My bad, I just read the three dots like different types of car, and did not think further about it. For sure I see now that it is any sports not using motor powers (maybe also not anything about going fast down-slope like bobsleigh etc.) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:55, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

;What is the point of this comic and where is the fun

I don't know, I feel like people is missing the point of the comic, where is the funny on it.

I think finding Formula one on the slow an secure quadrant of the chart is surprising, so near to regular sports, until you understand that it is only compared to a rocket launch. People sure think of F1 as fast and dangerous, so this comic plays with our expectations.

Not exactly hilarious, but neither the worst XKCD comic.

[[User:Inconexo|Inconexo]] ([[User talk:Inconexo|talk]]) 20:19, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

<hr>
One thing I think it might be interesting to indicate is how this is the first one of these plots where everything is in only two quadrants. There is no slow but dangerous crash nor fast but safe crash. Usually at least one these quadrants would have an entry, and probably a facetious one.
:True but there has only been three (with this) comic with a four quadrant scatter plot, the other being [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]] and [[1501: Mysteries]]. The other scatter plot are either in one square or not really scatter plots that can be compared to this one. So it may be too slim a data set to say this is special for xkcd. But still interesting enough that there are no fast safe or slow dangerous crashes. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:22, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

I also think the part about scale could be expanded to more than just the "relative to the speed of light." Something like "While we tend to speak of race cars as going fast, they are slow compared to rockets." --[[User:Trlkly|Trlkly]] ([[User talk:Trlkly|talk]]) 22:27, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
:Please feel free to improve with better examples. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:55, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure why that line about the speed of light is in the explanation. What's it relevant to in the comic?
Speaking of it, though, if you DID want to chart fast/safe collisions, visible light photons hitting something would probably rate!
(And if you wanted slow/dangerous, maybe the Titanic hitting crashing into an iceberg, or an army tank crashing into...anything.)

Fatality rate is not 100% as shown by [[wikipedia:List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents#Non-fatal_incidents_during_spaceflight|Non-fatal incidents during spaceflight]] [[User:Wyrme|Wyrme]] ([[User talk:Wyrme|talk]]) 03:22, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
:None of those events resulted in a crash. All crashes have been fatal as far as I can see. A crash involves the rocket hitting something. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:04, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
::By that definition, has there ever been a fatal rocket crash (excluding rockets fired as weapons hitting their target)? Thinking of the US space program: Apollo 1 was a fire in the capsule on the ground, not a crash. Challenger was an explosion in mid air, not a crash. Columbia was a break up on re-entry, not a crash. [[User:Jeremyp|Jeremyp]] ([[User talk:Jeremyp|talk]]) 13:05, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

When I saw this comic, I immediately though of Little Bobby Tables (https://xkcd.com/327/) {{unsigned ip|141.101.70.193}}

590: Papyrus

2016-06-25T11:51:54Z

108.162.219.56:

{{comic
| number = 590
| date = May 29, 2009
| title = Papyrus
| image = papyrus.png
| titletext = I secretly, deep in my guilty heart, like Papyrus and don't care if it's overused. [Cue hate mail in beautifully-kerned Helvetica.]
}}

==Explanation==
( One of the comics in the "[[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]]" series, this one touches on the fact that {{w|Papyrus (typeface)|Papyrus}} ([http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=590:_Papyrus&oldid=92915 the font]) is considered to be overused by many typography geeks, including the font's own creator. Pretending that he doesn't know that, [[Cueball]] gives [[Ponytail]] a heartfelt card written in that font just to see her twitch. )

( The title text says that [[Randall]] actually ''likes'' Papyrus, even if it ''is'' overused, and refers to the fact that he will soon be receiving hate-mails from people who dislike Papyrus. Those e-mails will be written in {{w|Helvetica}}, another commonly-used sans-serif font that is highly esteemed by typography geeks, designers, and often hipsters. Those would call that font for '' beautifully-{{w|Kerning|kerned}}''. See also [[1015: Kerning]]. )

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel:]
:<big>My Hobby:</big>
:Getting typography geeks heartfelt cards printed in "Papyrus" and watching them struggle to act grateful.

:[Ponytail is holding a card, with lines of indiscernible text, open and looking down, specifically neither on the card nor on Cueball, who is watching her instead. An angry tic is flicking on her forehead.]
:Ponytail: Thank you for the ''*twitch*'' ... lovely... ''*twitch*'' birthday card!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

590: Papyrus

2016-06-25T11:50:38Z

108.162.219.56:

{{comic
| number = 590
| date = May 29, 2009
| title = Papyrus
| image = papyrus.png
| titletext = I secretly, deep in my guilty heart, like Papyrus and don't care if it's overused. [Cue hate mail in beautifully-kerned Helvetica.]
}}

==Explanation==
( One of the comics in the "[[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]]" series, this one touches on the fact that {{w|Papyrus (typeface)|Papyrus}} ([http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=590:_Papyrus&oldid=92915 the font]) is considered to be overused by many typography geeks, including the font's own creator. Pretending that he doesn't know that, [[Cueball]] gives [[Ponytail]] a heartfelt card written in that font just to see her twitch.

The title text says that [[Randall]] actually ''likes'' Papyrus, even if it ''is'' overused, and refers to the fact that he will soon be receiving hate-mails from people who dislike Papyrus. Those e-mails will be written in {{w|Helvetica}}, another commonly-used sans-serif font that is highly esteemed by typography geeks, designers, and often hipsters. Those would call that font for '' beautifully-{{w|Kerning|kerned}}''. See also [[1015: Kerning]].

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel:]
:<big>My Hobby:</big>
:Getting typography geeks heartfelt cards printed in "Papyrus" and watching them struggle to act grateful.

:[Ponytail is holding a card, with lines of indiscernible text, open and looking down, specifically neither on the card nor on Cueball, who is watching her instead. An angry tic is flicking on her forehead.]
:Ponytail: Thank you for the ''*twitch*'' ... lovely... ''*twitch*'' birthday card!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:My Hobby]] )

590: Papyrus

2016-06-25T11:49:45Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 590
| date = May 29, 2009
| title = Papyrus
| image = papyrus.png
| titletext = I secretly, deep in my guilty heart, like Papyrus and don't care if it's overused. [Cue hate mail in beautifully-kerned Helvetica.]
}}

==Explanation==
( One of the comics in the "[[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]]" series, this one touches on the fact that {{w|Papyrus (typeface)|Papyrus}} ([http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=590:_Papyrus&oldid=92915 the font]) is considered to be overused by many typography geeks, including the font's own creator. Pretending that he doesn't know that, [[Cueball]] gives [[Ponytail]] a heartfelt card written in that font just to see her twitch.

The title text says that [[Randall]] actually ''likes'' Papyrus, even if it ''is'' overused, and refers to the fact that he will soon be receiving hate-mails from people who dislike Papyrus. Those e-mails will be written in {{w|Helvetica}}, another commonly-used sans-serif font that is highly esteemed by typography geeks, designers, and often hipsters. Those would call that font for '' beautifully-{{w|Kerning|kerned}}''. See also [[1015: Kerning]]. )

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel:]
:<big>My Hobby:</big>
:Getting typography geeks heartfelt cards printed in "Papyrus" and watching them struggle to act grateful.

:[Ponytail is holding a card, with lines of indiscernible text, open and looking down, specifically neither on the card nor on Cueball, who is watching her instead. An angry tic is flicking on her forehead.]
:Ponytail: Thank you for the ''*twitch*'' ... lovely... ''*twitch*'' birthday card!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

Elaine Roberts

2016-06-24T21:01:00Z

108.162.219.56:

{{Infobox character
| image = Elaine_Roberts.png
| imagesize =
| caption = Elaine Roberts seen in [[1337: Part 3]]
| first_appearance = [[342: 1337: Part 2]]
}}

'''Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory Elaine Roberts''' is the world's best hacker. She is the oldest daughter of [[Mrs. Roberts]], and has a younger brother nicknamed [[Little Bobby Tables]]. She was mentored by {{w|Donald Knuth}} in his mountain hideaway for four years [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SurpassedTheTeacher until she bested him]. She has broken in to {{w|NSA}} headquarters with the help of {{w|Adrian Lamo}}. She helped {{w|Steve Jobs}} develop a vision of the future Apple, as well as having fought MPAA and RIAA ninja.

According to trivia in title text of [[342: 1337: Part 2]], "Elaine" is actually her middle name. Her actual "first" name is "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory" as stated in the title text of [[327: Exploits of a Mom]].

{{navbox-characters}}
[[Category:Characters]]

1698: Theft Quadrants

2016-06-24T13:03:13Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1698
| date = June 24, 2016
| title = Theft Quadrants
| image = theft_quadrants.png
| titletext = TinyURL was the most popular link shortener for long enough that it made it into a lot of printed publications. I wonder what year the domain will finally lapse and get picked up by a porn site.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|How difficult is it really? Is it a real problem}}

It is hard to steal nuclear launch codes. And a good thing too since they could be used to start a nuclear war.

It is also hard to steal the [http://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/visit-us/top-things-to-see-and-do/the-crown-jewels/visiting-the-crown-jewels/the-crown-jewels/ Crown Jewels], since they are protected by a [http://yeomenoftheguard.com/Windsor%20Castle.jpg complex security system]. But if they were stolen, it wouldn't be so bad for most people. (However, currently, they don't have a Prime Minister, a constitution, or much of an economy. A bit of bling might be all that is left of the UK)

It wouldn't be hard to steal the [http://www.oscarmayer.com/wienermobile Weinermobile] (a car shaped like a hot-dog, advertising the Oscar Mayer brand), and there would be little consequence if it were stolen.

It wouldn't be hard to steal the [http://tinyurl.com/ Tinyurl.com] domain name, but the consequences of that could be significant.

Tinyurl offer a url shortening service. They provide short urls that redirect to long ones. This is useful if you want to write down a very long url as it saves typing and is more accurate. Other companies including bit.ly offer a similar service, as do Google and Twitter. Tinyurl was, for a while, the most popular of these url shortening services. If their domain name were stolen, all the redirects from short URLs could be changed to forward traffic to sites hosting malware. This would have significant effects on a large number of people.

Domain hijacking is relatively common. If a hacker can obtain personal information about the domain owner, they can impersonate them to the domain registrar, and obtain control of the domain, and with that control defraud a large number of people.

As the title text notes, sites can be particularly vulnerable if they do not maintain their web site, as the registrar is free then to sell the same domain to any third party. A [https://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=tinyurl.com&type=domain whois search] finds that the tinyurl.com domain is next due for renewal in June 2018.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

Title text

2016-06-23T11:31:22Z

108.162.219.56:

The '''title text''' is an {{w|HTML attribute}} [[Randall]] puts on almost every xkcd image which normally adds something tangentially relevant to the topic of the comic. In some of the early comics, the title text was used to explain the joke. (Such as [[5: Blown apart]]) It can be accessed via hovering the mouse pointer over the image on the main site or clicking the Alt Text button on the mobile site. Many users {{w|Wikipedia:Alternative_text_for_images|incorrectly refer to it as "Alt text"}} rather than "Title text": (Although Randall himself refers to it as Alt text in [[45: Schrodinger]])

[[File:tt.png|left|The title text for 377: Journal 2]]

The title text for 377: Journal 2

[[Category:Meta]]

473: Still Raw

2016-06-20T16:39:59Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 473
| date = September 8, 2008
| title = Still Raw
| image = still raw.png
| titletext = We actually divorced once over the airplane/treadmill argument. (Preemptive response to the inevitable threads arguing about it: you're all wrong on the internet.)
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] has been thrown out of his house because he believes that {{w|Pluto}} should never have been a {{w|planet}}. Pluto was the ninth planet in our {{w|solar system}} between 1930 and 2006. (Jupiter was thought to be the ninth planet [http://spaceweather.com/swpod2006/13sep06/Pollock1.jpg from 1807 to 1845.)] In 2006 the {{w|IAU}} reclassified Pluto as a {{w|dwarf planet}}. The reasons are {{w|IAU_definition_of_planet|complicated}}, but the basic issue is that like {{w|1 Ceres|Ceres}}, {{w|2 Pallas|Pallas}}, {{w|3 Juno|Juno}}, and {{w|4 Vesta|Vesta}}, Pluto is too small to {{w|clearing the neighbourhood|function as a planet}} in the solar system. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_2gbGXzFbs Here is a good explanation.]

In the title text, the airplane/treadmill argument starts when someone asks whether an airplane can take off while it is on a treadmill that is opposing its progress (pulling it backward). The question usually leads to arguments because it is posed ambiguously. Properly defining the question shows that the airplane can indeed take off (because its forward motion is provided by its propeller/jet engine, not its wheels, which are free to spin at any speed) and experiments (such as Mythbusters') bear this out.

http://blog.xkcd.com/2008/09/09/the-@#$%&!-airplane-on-the-@#$%&!-treadmill/

http://www.airplaneonatreadmill.com/

The statement about being wrong is likely a reference to [[386: Duty Calls]]

==Transcript==
:[Cueball laying on sidewalk outside a house, surrounded by his belongings.]
:She threw me out yelling, "You don't say those words. Not in ''this'' house."
:It's been two years. I thought the wounds had healed.
:But I stand by what I said.
:Pluto never should have been a planet.

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

997: Wait Wait

2016-06-14T22:18:09Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */ typo

{{comic
| number = 997
| date = December 30, 2011
| title = Wait Wait
| image = wait_wait.png
| titletext = You can't stab Carl Kasell. He sounds all slow and stentorian, but he moves like a snake.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me}} is an hour-long weekly radio news panel game show produced by {{w|Chicago Public Radio}} and {{w|National Public Radio}}. The show is hosted by {{w|playwright}} and actor {{w|Peter Sagal}}. Each episode ends with the panelists making up a potential future news story, usually with implausible "facts". This comic is making puns on the title of the show based on what Peter Sagal might have done that was newsworthy.

{{w|Carl Kasell}}, who also served as the newsreader on {{w|Morning Edition}}, was the show's official judge and scorekeeper until May 2014 (after this comic was published), when he retired and was replaced by Bill Kurtis.

The 1st row, 4th paper may refer to the {{w|Michael_Richards#Laugh_Factory_incident| Laugh Factory Incident}} of 2006.

In the 3rd row, first paper, {{w|Lakshmi Singh}} is NPR's national midday newscaster.

In the 3rd row, 3rd paper is a reference to a protest at {{w|UC Davis}} (on the campus of University of California, Davis) protests in early 2012 in which sitting, peaceful protesters were calmly pepper-sprayed in their faces by a police officer. That spawned an [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-cop internet meme of epic proportions].

In the 4th row, 2nd paper is a reference to the movie, ''{{w|Ghostbusters}}''.

In the 4th row, 3rd paper is a reference to {{w|Granny Weatherwax}} of Terry Pratchett's ''{{w|Discworld}}'' novels; Granny Weatherwax is a witch who carries a sign saying "[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=i%20aten't%20ded I ATEN'T DED]"(sic) when having out-of-body experiences.

In the 5th row, 2nd paper is a reference to another internet meme in where someone leaves out the verb in the sentence. It is based on the [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-accidentally I Accidentally ___ meme].

In the 5th row, 3rd paper is a reference to the Eldritch abomination Cthulhu, from "{{w|The Call of Cthulhu}}" by {{w|H.P. Lovecraft}}. He is one the Old Ones, the Elder Gods, and is awakened by his worshipers chanting, "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" ("In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.") Hence the title, "Wait, Wait, Don't speak its name."

Two years later another New Years comic, [[1311: 2014]], took a similar look at what could happen in 2014, just as this does for 2012. Interesting enough the title of that comic (just the year it was looking at) is more related to the title of the next comic after this one, which is also a New Year comic, and the title is also just the number of the year: [[998: 2012]].

==Transcript==
:Headlines!

:Stockpiled in case Peter Sagal, host of NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, does something newsworthy in 2012.

:[Series of above-the-fold newspapers follows; Each has a headline, picture in most of them, and an explanation.]

:[First row, first paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Shoot Me
:[A fierce Peter Sagal in a balaclava brandishes a gun in a supermarket.]
:NPR's Sagal in Whole Foods hostage standoff.

:[First row, second paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Vote For Me
:Peter Sagal quits race for GOP top spot
:[A sullen and defeated Peter Sagal surrounded by supporters admits defeat.]

:[First row, third paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Judge Me
:Sagal opens up about his Kermit fantasy.
:[Stock profile images of Peter Sagal and Kermit the Frog.]

:[First row, fourth paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Fire Me
:[Stock profile image of Peter Sagal.]
:Peter Sagal let go after racist tirade.

:[Second row, first paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Cancel Me
:NPR axing news quiz.
:[NPR spokesperson delivering announcement.]

:[Second row, second paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Interrupt Me
:Sagal stabs Carl Kasell in on-air dispute.
:[Peter Sagal mid-attack with a knife.]

:[Second row, third paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Look At Me
:[Peter Sagal with a skin condition.]
:Peter Sagal's Poison Ivy Ordeal
:Peter Sagal: "My 'Nam"

:[Second row, fourth paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Friend Me
:Peter Sagal deletes his Facebook account.
:[Person holding up a laptop with an "Facebook account not found" screen.]

:[Third row, first paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Seduce Me
:How Lakshmi Singh stole Sagal's Heart.
:[A wistful Lakshmi Singh being left by a sullen Peter Sagal.]

:[Third row, second paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Leave Me
:[A wistful Peter Sagal being left by a furious Beth Sagal.]
:Sagal's wife out after affair

:[Third row, third paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Spray Me
:Police Raid Sagal's Occupy NPR protest
:[Scummy policeman in riot gear spraying Peter Sagal in the face point blank.]

:[Third row, fourth paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Indict Me
:Sagal, five others named in cash-for-tote-bags scandal
:[Peter Sagal doing a perp walk.]

:[Fourth row, first paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Clone Me
:Peter Sagal 'Outraged' over DNA harvesting.
:[Fiery Peter Sagal, missing a small amount of DNA, at a lectern.]

:[Fourth row, second paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Bust Me
:Peter Sagal's ghost captured
:[Ghostbusters, careful not to cross the streams, capture the ghost of Peter Sagal.]

:[Fourth row, third paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Dissect Me
:Snoozing Sagal nearly snuffed in autopsy snafu
:[Peter Sagal running away from from a very surprised pathologist.]
:Peter Sagal: "I ain't dead!"

:[Fourth row, fourth paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Objectify Me
:Peter Sagal is more than just a piece of meat

:[Fifth row, first paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Beatify Me
:[Peter Sagal shakes his fist at a picture of the pope.]
:Peter Sagal Rebukes Pope

:[Fifth row, second paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Me
:Peter Sagal Accidentally
:[Peter Sagal in a blank vacant.]

:[Fifth row, third paper.]
:Wait Wait Don't Speak Its Name
:[eyes... Eyes... AAAHHH.]
:Peter Sagal wakes Eldritch terror
:Peter Sagal:"AAAAAAAA"

:[Fifth row, fourth paper.]
:Wait Wait Even For NPR This Is A Bit Much
:This American Life to document the road to recovery for those who suffer the trauma of losing on Wait Wait

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

1682: Bun

2016-05-18T11:11:56Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1682
| date = May 18, 2016
| title = Bun
| image = bun.png
| titletext = If a wild bun is sighted, a nice gesture of respect is to send a 'BUN ALERT' message to friends and family, with photographs documenting the bun's location and rank. If no photographs are possible, emoji may be substituted.
}}

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|This explanation is less than one paragraph. Doesn't explain what a Bun is or anything about whether they are real or not. Please expand..}}
In this comic, [[Ponytail]] explains how the majority of society is woefully ignorant of the facts about Buns. When the layperson sees a Bun, they usually think it's a rabbit, which is a separate species altogether. [[Megan]] plays the part of an ignorant student that hasn't yet learned the importance of Bun ranking to society, and her classmates inform her of that.

==Transcript==

Ponytail/Teacher: Good morning class! Today, we will be learning about the bun.

Ponytail/Teacher: Buns have a hierarchy.

Ponytail/Teacher: A bun's rank is determined by its size. Smaller buns are higher-ranking.

Ponytail/Teacher: Most buns you see are relatively low-ranking.

Ponytail/Teacher: But this time of year, a lucky few may catch a glimpse of a ''king bun''.

Megan/Student: Ok, hang on.

Megan/Student: We're talking about rabbits and hares, right? Lagomorphs?

Ponytail/Teacher: Informally, yes. But in this course, we use the ''scientific'' term, "bun".

Megan/Student: (off-panel) Are we sure this is the right room for ''introductory mammalogy?''

Student #2: I'll check online.

Student #3: ''Shh!'' Show respect! We look upon the image of a king!

{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

1681: Laser Products

2016-05-16T20:22:31Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1681
| date = May 16, 2016
| title = Laser Products
| image = laser_products.png
| titletext = ERRORS: HAIR JAM. COLOR-SAFE CONDITIONER CARTRIDGE RUNNING LOW. LEGAL-SIZE HAIR TRAY EMPTY, USING LETTER-SIZE HAIR ONLY.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Initial draft outline. Please explain each technology, and elaborate on each combination. Maybe make a table similar to his but instead of reviews include explanations. Include wiki links. This comic is really good and deserves more explaining.}}
This comic takes three laser-based technologies - laser eye surgery, laserjet printers, and laser hair removal - and conflates them, with humourous results. These are illustrated through reviews by users of the resulting combinations. For the original combinations, the reviews are highly positive. For the new combinations, most are negative, because most of these new "technologies" are ill-conceived and possibly harmful.

"Laser eye surgery" gets a positive review, since it has successfully corrected the reviewer's vision, no longer requiring them to use glasses. However, "laser eye removal" would be very painful, and thus the review is negative, stating that the review had read the description incorrectly, likely believing it to be one of the real combinations on the chart. "Laser eye printer" refers to printing on (or possibly ''of'') an eyeball, which gets an "eww" response.

"Laser jet surgery" makes the reviewer nervous, as performing maintenance on a jet with lasers is potentially dangerous and could easily be done incorrectly. {{Citation needed}} Alternatively, "laser jet surgery" could mean laser surgery done on a human from a laser-mounted jet aircraft (unspecified whether the human being operated on is aboard that aircraft as well, another aircraft, or on land: in any case, not a safe idea. "Laser jet removal" implies the destruction of jets with lasers, which works, but angers the Federal Aviation Administration, and probably resulted in legal consequences for the reviewer. "Laserjet printing" gets a positive review, as it is legitimate printing technology that works well for the reviewer.

"Laser hair surgery" is rated negatively, noting how bizarre the phrase is and claiming that it was a very unpleasant haircut with the aftermath being the smell of burning hair. "Laser hair removal" is reviewed well, as it is a real process that effectively removes unwanted hair. "Laser hair printer" is negatively reviewed for being disgusting, the printer jamming, and the machine being unable to stop printing the hair. The title text expands on this, displaying a standard printer error message, replacing "paper" with "hair". It also replaces "ink" with "color-safe conditioner".

===Laser eye surgery===

[Explanation of how laser eye surgery works]

===Laserjet printing===

Laserjet printing, or more commonly known as laser printing, is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively charged cylinder called a "drum" to define a differentially-charged image. The drum then selectively collects electrically charged powdered ink (toner), and transfers the image to paper, which is then heated in order to permanently fuse the text and/or imagery. As with digital photocopiers and multifunction/all-in-one inkjet printers, laser printers employ a xerographic printing process. However, laser printing differs from analog photocopiers in that the image is produced by the direct scanning of the medium across the printer's photoreceptor. This enables laser printing to copy images more quickly than most photocopiers.

===Laser hair removal===

Laser hair removal is the process of removing unwanted hair by means of exposure to pulses of laser light that destroy the hair follicle. It had been performed experimentally for about twenty years before becoming commercially available in the mid-1990s. One of the first published articles describing laser hair removal was authored by the group at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1998.The efficacy of laser hair removal is now generally accepted in the dermatology community,[citation needed] and laser hair removal is widely practiced in clinics, and even in homes using devices designed and priced for consumer self-treatment. Many reviews of laser hair removal methods, safety, and efficacy have been published in the dermatology literature.

[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Weapon_System Laser Jet Removal]] (Although it's primarily meant to be used against jet ''missiles'' not jet planes (as the FAA quip suggests)

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Combinations
! Second word
! Surgery
! Removal
! Printer
|-
! Eye
| (4 1/2 stars) "I don't need glasses anymore!" || (1/2 star) "Aaaaaaa! Misread the description! Aaaaaaaaaaaa!" || (1 star) "Eww."
|-
! Jet
| (1 1/2 stars) "Too nervous to try it." || (2 1/2 stars) "Effective, but the FAA got ''really mad''." || (4 stars) "Prints great!"
|-
! Hair
| (2 1/2 stars) "Confusing word for haircut. Burning smell." || (4 stars) "Great results!" || (1/2 star) "Disgusting, won't turn off, jams constantly."
|-
|}

{{comic discussion}}

1680: Black Hole

2016-05-13T11:46:58Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1680
| date = May 13, 2016
| title = Black Hole
| image = black_hole.png
| titletext = It also brings all the boys, and everything else, to the yard.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More details... What would happen if a black hole like this was in a living room... It's not clear what exactly in the comic is a reference to the Big Lebowski movie. This needs clarification}}
[[Cueball]] is curious as to why [[Black Hat]] has a miniature {{w|black hole}} on his table; Black Hat responds that it "really brings the room together", making a pun on both the black hole aesthetically completing the room as well as it literally "bringing the room together" through its gravitational pull. Evidently the black hole is massive enough to bring the room together optically into visible {{w|Einstein ring}}s by {{w|gravitational lensing}}.

The comic references 'The Dude's' rug in the film "{{w|The Big Lebowski}}", whilst the title text makes a more contemporary cultural reference to a well-known song lyric from the song "{{w|Milkshake (song)|Milkshake}}" by {{w|Kelis}}; however, in this case, since {{w|gravity}} does not discriminate between which things it will attract{{Citation needed}}, it brings "the boys, and everything else", to Black Hat's yard.

[[Randall]] describes a similar scenario in the "Neutron Bullet" chapter of the [http://whatif.xkcd.com/book/ what if? book], and a black hole of similar dimensions in the [[what if?]] ''{{what if|129|Black Hole Moon}}''.

As depicted, the black hole is inconsistent with some aspect of physics:
* A large black hole would bring the room together... in less time than Cueball could converse with Black Hat.
* A small black hole could have {{w|tidal force}}s weak enough to permit Cueball to stand near it. However, unlike the scenario in "Neutron Bullet", it would emit {{w|Hawking radiation}} powerful enough to tear the room apart.
* A neutrally charged black hole would fall through the coffee table and burrow to Earth's core.
* This black hole appears to be about the size of a marble. A marble size is approximately earth's {{w|Schwarzschild radius}}, suggesting this black hole to have earth-like mass.

==Transcript==

:[Cueball is standing near a coffee table as Black Hat approaches. They are presumably in Black Hat's living room. The coffee table has a miniature black hole on top of it, resting on a small pedestal.]
:Cueball: Why do you have a miniature black hole on your coffee table?
:Black Hat: It really brings the room together.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]

1673: Timeline of Bicycle Design

2016-04-27T22:41:16Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1673
| date = 27 April, 2016
| title = Timeline of Bicycle Design
| image = timeline of bicycle design.png
| titletext = I'll be honest--the 1950s were a rough time for cycling.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|There still isn't much here. We could use a table of each bike design and what's wrong with it.}}
[[Randall]] created a 200 year history for bicycles with 13 designs ranging from 1810 to 2016.

The only model that both looks like a real model and fits the year is the 1875 model, which resembles the {{w|Penny-farthing}} The Penny-farthing was popular in the 1870s until the {{w|Safety bicycle}} took over around 1880. The 1875 model appears to be missing handlebars, but it's worth noting that on the real bicycle, the handlebars were very small and close to the saddle, and may be too small to appear in the drawing.

The 1860 model looks like the {{w|American Star Bicycle}}, but that bicycle was first invented in the 1880s.

Some of the other examples of "bikes" could, however, look like those in the image at the top of the {{w|Velocipede}} Wikipedia page.

Several of the "bikes" are shown with a human - [[Ponytail]] is "riding" the pole-vaulting bike, [[Cueball]] appears in four designs, and [[Megan]] appears in three. These humans provide a sense of scale and, in some cases, a demonstration of how the bike might be operated. Cueball's appearance in the 1900 design shows how huge that bike is, appearing to dwarf the previous two models while continuing the short trend of ever-increasing size.

Only two of the bikes have pedals (1875 and 2016) and only one has a sprocket with a chain (1980). Seven designs include a seat for the rider - eight if you count the device holding Megan in the 1980 model.

The 1925 model is reminiscent of a {{w|fractal}}; {{w|Benoit Mandelbrot}} was born in October 1924.

The 1880 model could be the result of an {{w|evolutionary algorithm}} trying to produce a bicycle. Some sub-optimal algorithms that have been given the task of creating a vehicle have been shown to misplace parts in ways that makes them completely useless and/or inaccessible - for example, placing a small wheel inside a much larger wheel.

This comic (especially the 2016 bicycle) is possibly also a reference to [https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~rlawson/cycleweb.html The Science of Cycology], a cognitive psychology project run by Rebecca Lawson at the University of Liverpool, which asked study participants to draw a bicycle from memory. The error rate was high, supporting a hypothesis that humans over-estimate their ability to explain how things work. Gianluca Gimini ran a similar project, [http://www.gianlucagimini.it/prototypes/velocipedia.html Velocipedia], in which he asked people to draw free-hand sketches of bicycles from memory, then later rendered some of the results as if they were real bikes.

Also, the designs given for the years from 1825 to 1925 distinctly resemble designs that tend to evolve in the various challenge environments in the genetic evolution games [http://boxcar2d.com/ BoxCar2D] ({{w|Flash Player}}) or [http://rednuht.org/genetic_cars_2/ Genetic Cars 2] ({{w|HTML5}}).

The title text refers to the scene labeled "1955" which depicts Cueball being chased by 3 bicycle wheels. Whatever caused the wheels to chase Cueball down a hill is left to the reader's imagination. This is obviously the most ridiculous of all of these designs, not to mention being completely unrideable, thus meaning that the era this "bike design" is from (1955, which is in the 50s) would be hard to ride a bike in if it was the only available design.

Of course let's remember- Most of these bike designs are completely r̶e̶a̶l̶ fake.

==Transcript==
:[13 drawings 8 in the top and 5 in the bottom row of different and weird "bicycle" designs. Above them there is a heading, and below each bike a year is given. On the very last cycle there is a drinking bottle with a label.]
:'''Timeline of Bicycle Design'''

:[Ponytail hanging on to a bending rod that goes down to a single normal sized bike wheel. It looks like a unicycle with no seat. The rod is bending quite a lot so she looks like she is about to use the contraption as a pole vault]
:1810

:[Cueball is running after a device holding on to a rod bend in several places before reaching the ground at a very small wheel that then is connected with a shorter rod to a normal sized bike wheel.]
:1825

:[Two normal sized bike wheels connected with a single rod between them.]
:1840

:[Megan sits on a large saddle on top of a double sized bike wheel, she has some kind of handle bars to hold on to (or it could just be the saddle) and then a small rod goes down to a half size front wheel.]
:1860

:[A regular drawing of a Penny-farthing with very small back wheel (half the size of the front wheel on the 1860 bike) and very large front wheel (larger than the 1860 bike) and pedals in the middle of the front wheel. The handle bars on such a bike is so small that it is likely they cannot be seen in this drawing.]
:1875

:[A huge wheel twice the size of the one on the Penny-farthing, and then a small wheel (like the small one on the Penny-farthing) hangs in a rod from the center of the giant wheel. The small wheel has a saddle attached, but it is not straight up.]
:1880

:[This is the largest bike. Not the largest drawings, but where the other have the characters in roughly the same size, this one has a small drawing of Cueball standing on top of the wheel holding on to some kind of handle bar. The wheel is about three time his height.]
:1900

:[Cueball sits in the "saddle" of a bike design the is similar to the Penny-farthing, but the saddle is more a rod, and the back wheel is on a rod going straight down from where the saddle ends. Also there are no pedals, and Cueball seems to hang on to the saddle reaching forward rather than having any control of the bike.]
:1915

:[A symmetrical saddle sits on top of single bike wheel, as with a unicycle but no pedals, but then there are (at least) six progressively smaller wheels in-line to the first, three to front and three to the rear, each new wheel approximately half the size of the one before. A possible fourth wheel, presumed to complete the set of medial stabilisers, can no longer be discerned from the rod that goes through the center of the larger wheels.]
:1925

:[Megan stands on top of a saddle with a oar that looks like the single-oar sculling used for gondolas in Venice. She holds this to the ground behind her, while trying to move her bike forward. The bike consists of four small wheels, one straight under her, one behind, one equally in front of her and the last even further in front. They are all connected to the saddle with individual rods.]
:1940

:[Three normal sized bike wheel are rolling down a hill after Cueball who runs away from them with his arms up.]
:1955

:[Megan sits on a bike contraption that seems to have a holder around her mid section rather than her sitting on a saddle. This holder goes to the back wheel below her, and there is actually a sprocket with a chain, although no clear pedals beneath her feet. She holds on to a very long handle bar, which connects with two long rods coming from the sprocket at the front end of the bike far ahead of Megan, below which is a wheel, to where the chain is actually going. Both wheels seems to be normal size.]
:1980

:[Another weird contraption of a bike with pedals on both normal sized wheels which have wheel guards on the side pointing down towards the front. The saddle hangs in a swing that connect to a rod above it which goes to the front of the bike and splits in two rods that connects to the center frame of the bike. In front of these there is a contraption that reminds of a handle bar, which sits just above the front wheel. The two wheels are connected with a long rod between the center of the wheels and in the middle of this is the center part of the frame going up toward the handle. On the middle of this is a bottle with a label. Towards the back wheel there are two rods sticking out, with no clear meaning.]
:2016
:Bottle: Milk

{{comic discussion}}



[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Charts]]

1673: Timeline of Bicycle Design

2016-04-27T22:37:18Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1673
| date = 27 April, 2016
| title = Timeline of Bicycle Design
| image = timeline of bicycle design.png
| titletext = I'll be honest--the 1950s were a rough time for cycling.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Still only scratching the surface of possible explanation. Also title text not mentioned.}}
[[Randall]] created a 200 year history for bicycles with 13 designs ranging from 1810 to 2016.

The only model that both looks like a real model and fits the year is the 1875 model, which resembles the {{w|Penny-farthing}} The Penny-farthing was popular in the 1870s until the {{w|Safety bicycle}} took over around 1880. The 1875 model appears to be missing handlebars, but it's worth noting that on the real bicycle, the handlebars were very small and close to the saddle, and may be too small to appear in the drawing.

The 1860 model looks like the {{w|American Star Bicycle}}, but that bicycle was first invented in the 1880s.

Some of the other examples of "bikes" could, however, look like those in the image at the top of the {{w|Velocipede}} Wikipedia page.

Several of the "bikes" are shown with a human - [[Ponytail]] is "riding" the pole-vaulting bike, [[Cueball]] appears in four designs, and [[Megan]] appears in three. These humans provide a sense of scale and, in some cases, a demonstration of how the bike might be operated. Cueball's appearance in the 1900 design shows how huge that bike is, appearing to dwarf the previous two models while continuing the short trend of ever-increasing size.

Only two of the bikes have pedals (1875 and 2016) and only one has a sprocket with a chain (1980). Seven designs include a seat for the rider - eight if you count the device holding Megan in the 1980 model.

The 1925 model is reminiscent of a {{w|fractal}}; {{w|Benoit Mandelbrot}} was born in October 1924.

The 1880 model could be the result of an {{w|evolutionary algorithm}} trying to produce a bicycle. Some sub-optimal algorithms that have been given the task of creating a vehicle have been shown to misplace parts in ways that makes them completely useless and/or inaccessible - for example, placing a small wheel inside a much larger wheel.

This comic (especially the 2016 bicycle) is possibly also a reference to [https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~rlawson/cycleweb.html The Science of Cycology], a cognitive psychology project run by Rebecca Lawson at the University of Liverpool, which asked study participants to draw a bicycle from memory. The error rate was high, supporting a hypothesis that humans over-estimate their ability to explain how things work. Gianluca Gimini ran a similar project, [http://www.gianlucagimini.it/prototypes/velocipedia.html Velocipedia], in which he asked people to draw free-hand sketches of bicycles from memory, then later rendered some of the results as if they were real bikes.

Also, the designs given for the years from 1825 to 1925 distinctly resemble designs that tend to evolve in the various challenge environments in the genetic evolution games [http://boxcar2d.com/ BoxCar2D] ({{w|Flash Player}}) or [http://rednuht.org/genetic_cars_2/ Genetic Cars 2] ({{w|HTML5}}).

The title text refers to the scene labeled "1955" which depicts Cueball being chased by 3 bicycle wheels. Whatever caused the wheels to chase Cueball down a hill is left to the reader's imagination.

Of course let's remember- Most of these bike designs are completely r̶e̶a̶l̶ fake.

==Transcript==
:[13 drawings 8 in the top and 5 in the bottom row of different and weird "bicycle" designs. Above them there is a heading, and below each bike a year is given. On the very last cycle there is a drinking bottle with a label.]
:'''Timeline of Bicycle Design'''

:[Ponytail hanging on to a bending rod that goes down to a single normal sized bike wheel. It looks like a unicycle with no seat. The rod is bending quite a lot so she looks like she is about to use the contraption as a pole vault]
:1810

:[Cueball is running after a device holding on to a rod bend in several places before reaching the ground at a very small wheel that then is connected with a shorter rod to a normal sized bike wheel.]
:1825

:[Two normal sized bike wheels connected with a single rod between them.]
:1840

:[Megan sits on a large saddle on top of a double sized bike wheel, she has some kind of handle bars to hold on to (or it could just be the saddle) and then a small rod goes down to a half size front wheel.]
:1860

:[A regular drawing of a Penny-farthing with very small back wheel (half the size of the front wheel on the 1860 bike) and very large front wheel (larger than the 1860 bike) and pedals in the middle of the front wheel. The handle bars on such a bike is so small that it is likely they cannot be seen in this drawing.]
:1875

:[A huge wheel twice the size of the one on the Penny-farthing, and then a small wheel (like the small one on the Penny-farthing) hangs in a rod from the center of the giant wheel. The small wheel has a saddle attached, but it is not straight up.]
:1880

:[This is the largest bike. Not the largest drawings, but where the other have the characters in roughly the same size, this one has a small drawing of Cueball standing on top of the wheel holding on to some kind of handle bar. The wheel is about three time his height.]
:1900

:[Cueball sits in the "saddle" of a bike design the is similar to the Penny-farthing, but the saddle is more a rod, and the back wheel is on a rod going straight down from where the saddle ends. Also there are no pedals, and Cueball seems to hang on to the saddle reaching forward rather than having any control of the bike.]
:1915

:[A symmetrical saddle sits on top of single bike wheel, as with a unicycle but no pedals, but then there are (at least) six progressively smaller wheels in-line to the first, three to front and three to the rear, each new wheel approximately half the size of the one before. A possible fourth wheel, presumed to complete the set of medial stabilisers, can no longer be discerned from the rod that goes through the center of the larger wheels.]
:1925

:[Megan stands on top of a saddle with a oar that looks like the single-oar sculling used for gondolas in Venice. She holds this to the ground behind her, while trying to move her bike forward. The bike consists of four small wheels, one straight under her, one behind, one equally in front of her and the last even further in front. They are all connected to the saddle with individual rods.]
:1940

:[Three normal sized bike wheel are rolling down a hill after Cueball who runs away from them with his arms up.]
:1955

:[Megan sits on a bike contraption that seems to have a holder around her mid section rather than her sitting on a saddle. This holder goes to the back wheel below her, and there is actually a sprocket with a chain, although no clear pedals beneath her feet. She holds on to a very long handle bar, which connects with two long rods coming from the sprocket at the front end of the bike far ahead of Megan, below which is a wheel, to where the chain is actually going. Both wheels seems to be normal size.]
:1980

:[Another weird contraption of a bike with pedals on both normal sized wheels which have wheel guards on the side pointing down towards the front. The saddle hangs in a swing that connect to a rod above it which goes to the front of the bike and splits in two rods that connects to the center frame of the bike. In front of these there is a contraption that reminds of a handle bar, which sits just above the front wheel. The two wheels are connected with a long rod between the center of the wheels and in the middle of this is the center part of the frame going up toward the handle. On the middle of this is a bottle with a label. Towards the back wheel there are two rods sticking out, with no clear meaning.]
:2016
:Bottle: Milk

{{comic discussion}}



[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Charts]]

Beret Guy

2016-04-26T21:08:12Z

108.162.219.56:

{{Infobox character
| image = Beret_Guy.png
| imagesize = 40px
| caption = Beret guy, as seen in [[1117: My Sky]]
| first_appearance = [[167: Nihilism]]
}}
'''Beret Guy''' is a [[stick figure]] character in [[xkcd]]. He is distinguished by his white beret.

==Characteristics==
Beret Guy is an optimist, and sometimes a naive one (although he is rarely a victim in the strip). He is a funny and sometimes even borderline cute character, and when he is in the strip is usually the basis of that strip's joke. He enjoys philosophizing, often taking the role of the {{w|existentialist}}. He has a very surreal side to him, often thinking about or being involved in bizarre situations. He also is shown to take things far too literally, sometimes making things surreal.

He has been quite fascinated with bakeries as in [[434: xkcd Goes to the Airport]] and [[442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel]], in particular with {{w|scone}}s (see [[452: Mission]] as well as the title text of [[677: Asshole]] and [[1030: Keyed]].)

Beret Guy had a steady job as a bartender in three comics [[328: Eggs]], [[474: Turn-On]], and [[712: Single Ladies]]. However, in later comics, he apparently quit his job to become a "business professional", according to [[1032: Networking]]. There are many comics where he has unusual, impossible, or completely unnecessary jobs, like he has in [[1117: My Sky]]. See all comics about [[:Category:Beret Guy's Business|Beret Guy's Business]]. He apparently, makes a load of money from doing this, but has no reasons other than the fact that he is "a business grown-up who makes business profits". He appears again, now with his own "real building he found" in [[1293: Job Interview]]. In [[1493: Meeting]], his business returns again, this time with a name ([http://CompanyName.website/ CompanyName.website]) and an explanation, albeit an unusual one, for how it makes money ("Money keeps appearing, but we have no idea how or why."). At this time, it is still massively successful, somehow. As of [[1533: Antique Factory]] it seems Beret Guy has reorganized his business and branched out from his technology area of expertise, and operating what he refers to as an antique factory. In reality the factory is simply a room with furniture in it where Beret Guy waits as the items age.

Beret Guy also seems to be a miracle maker - see a list of the [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers of Beret Guy]]. In [[1099: Tuesdays]], he grows "endless wings" and in the aforementioned [[1293: Job Interview]], he seems to be pouring soup from an electrical socket, as well as in [[1486: Vacuum]], where he misinterprets quantum physics and manages to get unlimited power from a vacuum cleaner. In [[1490: Atoms]], he appears to have a supernatural ability to see individual atoms (or at least the atomic make-up of items) and his mother seems to have had an unexplained amount of plutonium in her body. However, Beret Guy seems to have no doubt that these events are perfectly normal; in fact, he just seems to accept them as they are without question.

In the What if? [https://what-if.xkcd.com/6/ Glass Half Empty], he seems to be quite oblivious to pain, especially about foreign objects sticking into his head. This may explain why we never see him without his beret as it may have been stapled to his head - see title text of [[291: Dignified]]. Said comics also speculates he might have been born by Caesarean section.

In the What if? [http://what-if.xkcd.com/147/ Niagera Straw], he appears in the last comic, going down a relevistic stream of water, oblivious to the fact that said stream of water was destroying the world, in a barrel.

To sum up, Beret Guy is a very naive man with the strange superpower of having the world around him acting according to his naive vision.

He shares several traits with Beriah from [http://www.meninhats.com/ Men in Hats], as [[Black Hat]] does with Aram from the same series, but in contrast to the latter, this doesn't appear to have been officially acknowledged.

He may also have a relative in [[Beret Girl]]

See also: [[:Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]].

{{navbox-characters}}
[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Characters with Hats]]

Talk:802: Online Communities 2

2016-04-26T21:04:04Z

108.162.219.56:

I believe I can explain why the e-mail, SMS and Internet areas of the map are surrounded by the "Spoken Language" country. Yes, SMS, e-mail and most of the Internet are "written", but they're more of a "written spoken language", sharing many traits with informal spoken language. Maybe Wikipedia articles and blog posts can be classified as "standard written texts", but most other forms of electronically-mediated communication bare more resemblance to the way we speak: forums, chatrooms, Facebook posts, SMS texts, the usage of acronyms and smiley faces, etc. It's a widely researched phenomenon, and it continues to be a topic in the fields of linguistics, psychology, sociology and education (literacy attainment). As an aspiring linguist myself, I smiled when I noticed that these so-called "written" forms were next to spoken language :) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.10|108.162.215.10]] 22:16, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if it's intentional that 4chan looks like a penis...{{unsigned ip|‎65.40.201.44}}

It needs to explain the ferry between 4chan and Gaia. Although, so does a lot of other stuff. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.45|108.162.216.45]] 07:58, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I am still working on this. However, not only is this a big job, but I also have a lot to do outside here. In fact, I might even take a break from the Internet. I am simply warning others here. [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 04:37, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

about the Catbus Route on 4chan island in the Forums inset: Might it have something to do with the catbus in the animated film Totoro? In the film, the bus appears to have a regular route, or at least standard bus stops. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.40|108.162.219.40]] 07:55, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Has anyone calculated the size of this (using Sulawesi for scale)? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.150|108.162.221.150]] 00:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

This comic makes a brief guest appearance at [//www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hFAOXdXZ5TM#t=256 4:25] in the MinutePhysics post about magnets. [[User:Fewmet|Fewmet]] ([[User talk:Fewmet|talk]]) 01:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Is there an explanation of why the Twitter area more or less resembles the shape of US/Mexico? If you have a look at the Youtube area then there's Alaska, too. And since Justin Bieber is Canadian and the "Bieber Bay" seems to resemble the Great Lakes... Was Twitter an "US only thing" back in 2010? [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:11, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
:Pareidolia. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.56.23|162.158.56.23]] 22:39, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Kind of cruel that someone linked to TV Tropes up there.--[[Special:Contributions/198.41.239.32|198.41.239.32]] 06:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The "Russia (DJ)" island just next to Sarah Palin's area is probably a reference to her very commented statement that you can see Russia from Alaska,[http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/05/sarah-palin-never-said-can-see-russia-house/] somehow implying that it gave her some kind of expertise in international relations.--[[User:Pere prlpz|Pere prlpz]] ([[User talk:Pere prlpz|talk]]) 10:06, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

I looked, couldn't find anything about the Hidden Internet, Dark Web, Deep Web, etc. I sort of imagine it looks like a deep chasm or river (Styx?) to another world with the likes of the NSA, Wikileaks, Electronic Frontier Foundation on the outskirts. Tor is one entrance (or ferry?) to the Netherworld. -- [[User:GeoWendy|GeoWendy]] 5:41 PM Tuesday, January 26 (UTC)

In what way is this explanation "incomplete" still?! It's marked as today's "incomplete explanation of the day" but it's already sixteen printed pages long. How much more content does there need to be before this site will consider this page to no longer be "incomplete?" Yikes... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.253.18|162.158.253.18]] 20:20, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Annoying pedant again, here with another annoyingly pedantic statement. (https://xkcd.com/1405/)
RPG is short for ROLe PLAYING GAME. NOT "ROLE PLAYER GAME" It doesn't matter now, because I fixed it, but if someone who doesn't understand the difference between MMO and MMORPG, they can at least remember to fix "Role Player Game."
Annoying Pedant out.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.128|162.158.92.128]] 10:54, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

MMO is not short for MMORPG. It's just not. MMO means Massively Multiplayer Online. Like Dota 2, which is in no way an RPG. Or maybe Realm of the Madgod. Also not and RPG, but YES an MMO. that little gripe having been posted publicly, however, I've just realized that even if it's the day's incomplete article, nothing's going to happen, so fair warning: I'm going to do it meself.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.128|162.158.92.128]] 10:48, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

There are many things wrong with the part about MMOs.
[[User:AnnoyingInconsistentPedant|AnnoyingInconsistentPedant]] ([[User talk:AnnoyingInconsistentPedant|talk]]) 20:25, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

I added some things to MMO isle. Someone should probably give better descriptions though. I didn't have the time to research: Active Worlds, Smallworlds, UO, EQ. Feel free to add those in if you are looking for something to inprove. [[User:PowerKitten|PowerKitten]] ([[User talk:PowerKitten|talk]]) 15:45, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

It seems like this comic has been "incomplete" for all eternity. This comic is in the "Incomplete explanation spotlight" more than ANY OTHER COMIC. The thing's huge! That's natural! I say this explanation does a pretty good job of explaining most if not every grating detail about this comic! I think we should use the Incomplete Spotlight for comic explanations that are ACTUALLY BAD. So can we stop giving this explanation grief for maybe leaving out a few 5-pixel towns? Thank you and stop fussing.
-A person who thinks this explanation is good

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 11:34, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
: No. If an explanation is incomplete, an explanation should be edited until the point where it is as complete as possible. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.86|141.101.104.86]] 16:04, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that. I'm saying that there are other explanations that are more incomplete than this one. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 21:04, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Category:Incomplete explanations

2016-04-25T20:30:39Z

108.162.219.56:

This is the category page for incomplete pages that have either incomplete or no explanation, or are missing something else important. To add pages to this category, add {{tl|incomplete}} to their source text.

802 isn't even considered "incomplete" anymore. Could someone get it out of the spotlight? Thanks.

[[Category:explain xkcd]]

802: Online Communities 2

2016-04-24T21:53:47Z

108.162.219.56:

{{comic
| number = 802
| date = October 6, 2010
| title = Online Communities 2
| image = online_communities_2.png
| titletext = Best trivia I learned while working on this: 'Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize it's the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the WORLD?' Then you wait for the listener to do a double-take.
}}
A [http://xkcd.com/802_large/ larger version] of this picture can be found by clicking the comic on xkcd.
{{TOC}}

==Explanation==
This comic shows a map of internet communities where the size of each region roughly corresponds to its size, and its proximity to other regions indicates similarities.

This is the successor of [[256: Online Communities]]. It differs in that it is updated, and furthermore, instead of using the ''membership'' of whichever service to determine its size on the map, it uses its "daily social activity."

The map actually has two super−maps intended to show the relative usage of types of communication: the online community map is surrounded by the much larger "countries" of E−Mail, SMS ("Instant Messaging") and "Cell Phones," which in turn are surrounded by the even huger "Spoken Language." It is unclear whether "Cell Phones" is intended to represent an independent region, or whether it is meant to be a sub-region of "Spoken Language." The ambiguity is exacerbated by the fact that cell phones are the primary medium of SMS, and are also used to access email and online communities. It's also unclear why other forms of communication, such as handwritten letters, are not included.

At the title text [[Randall]] explains that, using his definition of "most activity per day," Farmville is actually the ''second'' most popular social-network farming game - the Chinese game Happy Farm was more popular at the time. This strikes many English-speaking xkcd readers as odd, because Farmville is much more famous, leading one to wonder how it could not be the most played. The phrase "browser-based social-networking-centered farming game" is an example of an [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OverlyNarrowSuperlative overly-narrow superlative.]

===Facebook Region===
The Facebook region deals with social networks, that is, websites oriented towards having people meet.

'''{{w|Facebook}}''' is a social networking site that allows people to meet old real−life friends and make new friends that share similar interests. One of its most notable features is that a member can update a "status" or make normal posts about the happenings of the member's life, complete with pictures, other members "liking" these posts. The size of the Facebook region is not exaggerated; most websites seem to allow "liking" their content or allow/require logging in the website with a Facebook account. There even are cell phones with a "Facebook" button!

*'''{{w|FarmVille}}''' and '''{{w|Farm Town}}''' are Facebook games in which users manage farms. '''{{w|Happy Farm}},''' the Chinese game that inspired the other two, does not require Facebook integration, so it is separated by a solid line from Facebook. The "Unethical Bay" refers to how these games tend to addict players into constantly buying virtual items of questionable value.

*'''People You Can't Unfriend''' refers to people whom, due to real-life expectations and relationships, unfriending them is difficult, no matter how you really feel about them.

*'''Blatherskite River''' refers to the conversations on Facebook, which may be long yet devoid of general meaning or logic.

*'''Data Mines''' refer to the data mining that Facebook does with the interests of its members. This fuels the profitable advertising business at the expense of customer trust.

*'''Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions''' refer to how interactions with family members on Facebook suddenly become more awkward because everyone on Facebook (and sometimes ''off'' Facebook, given that you do not necessarily need to log in if you want to see someone's Facebook account) if you are discussing with your family through post comments.

*'''524,287 Strong for Mersenne Primes''' refers to the communities who gain followers for a cause. A {{w|Mersenne prime}} is a prime number that is 1 less than a power of 2; 524287 is the 7th known Mersenne prime.

*'''Jungle-Bay Mountains of "It's Complicated"''' refers to one of Facebook's options as to what a user's relationship status currently is. A Jungle-Bay Mountain is a complicated and undefined climate, hence the complication.

*'''"lamebook bay"''' refers to the online website "lamebook", where users post photos of funny things that happen on facebook (these can include statuses, "fails", put-downs and images.)

*'''"Old Facebook" Resistance''' refers to Facebook's earlier users, who have often resisted (and resented) changes made to Facebook as it became more popular.

*'''Privacy Controls''' is located on the map surrounded by a Lava Pool, which is a reference to how difficult it is to find the privacy controls within Facebook.

*'''Niche Market Mountains''' refers to social networks aimed towards more niche markets are located. Similar to how mountains tend to be isolated from mainland, niche social networks tend to be just that: niche, without much interaction with the general populace.
*'''Charred Wasteland of Abandoned Social Networks''' refers to the tons of websites wanting to take advantage of the success of websites like Facebook to compete or even overpower with them. Even so, these websites tend to not have the userbase or even the expertise towards the long-term, hence they become wastelands: environments devoid of life, except the few life forms that are from these wastelands (in this case, the ones who are loyal to the website or which are sadly few).
*In the Charred Wasteland stands '''{{w|Ozymandias}}''', the titular broken statue of Shelley's poem. In the poem, only "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and a "shattered visage" are all that remain of the once-great statue and both of these features are present in the comic. According to the poem, the pedestal before the broken statue reads "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings..." hence "friend of friends" below Ozymandias on the map.
*In the north are the '''Duckface Mountains''' and the '''Red Cup Mountains'''."Duckface" refers to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duck-face this incredibly obnoxious facial expression], and "red cup pictures" are any pictures containing party-goers holding disposable red plastic beverage cups. Facebook is absolutely flooded with both types of pictures.
*In the south is '''Buzzword Bay'''. {{w|Buzzword}}s are words and phrases that make you sound a lot more topical than you actually are, used to garner attention; again, Facebook status updates are commonly filled with buzzwords.

While Facebook is the largest "country" of the Facebook Region, there are a lot of smaller "countries" that represent smaller social networks.

*Below Facebook (and "Old Facebook' Resistance") is '''{{w|Diaspora (social network)|Diaspora}}''', a fully open-source, decentralized, privacy-respecting-and-expecting alternative to Facebook. From what this map tells, Diaspora is little-known, even if Facebook is taken out of the context.
*'''{{w|StudiVZ}}''' is a German-speaking social network similar if not a ripped-off version of Facebook.
*'''{{w|XING}}''' is a German-speaking social platform similar to LinkedIn.
*'''{{w|Ning (website)|Ning}}''' is a service to create custom social websites. Its free services shut down in 2010.
*'''{{w|Taringa!}}''' is a Spanish-speaking social network that is based on a forums. Copyrighted material is frequently found there.
*Next to the Euro(pean) Gulf is '''{{w|Skyrock (social network site)}}''', a French-speaking social network.
*'''{{w|Wer-kennt-wen}}''' is a German-social network somewhat like MySpace.
*'''{{w|Nasza-klasa.pl}}''' or NK, is a Polish-speaking social network based on school relationships.
*'''{{w|Badoo}}''' is a social network primarily based on dating and picture-sharing.
*'''{{w|Classmates.com}}''' is a service in which the user can meet classmates that came from the same high school. The website is probably best known by its memetic advertisement that said [http://dudemanphat.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-am-i-supposed-to-care-about-nick.html "She married him??!! And they've got 7 kids??"] (Incidentally, [http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2003325519_adcouple27.html there is more to the coupled picture than what the advertisement says.])
*'''{{w|Myspace}}''' is a social networking website that is a kind of proto-Facebook: users could customize their one-page websites with whatever they wanted, make their interests and daily lives public, and interact with other users. Back in the mid 2000s, MySpace was the largest social network, many people using the website; however, the surprisingly-less-customizable Facebook ended up taking the place of MySpace. The "bands" country of MySpace refers to how a lot of bands in the day advertised and interacted using the website. Indeed, the latest incarnation of MySpace (in terms of 2013) is more oriented towards band members.
*'''{{w|LinkedIn}}''' is a social network aimed towards people in the workplace, which is why it is adjacent to '''Corporate Bay'''.
*'''{{w|Orkut}}''' was one of Google's first social networks before Google made [https://plus.google.com/ Google+]. It shut down in 2014.
*'''{{w|Hi5}}''' is a social network that is very popular among people in Latin America.
*'''{{w|Renren}}''' ('''「人人」''', "people" in Chinese) is "a Chinese copy of Facebook."
*'''{{w|Bebo}}''' was a social network popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It went bankrupt in 2013 and will move away from social networking and into apps.
*'''{{w|Friendster}}''' - One of the first major social networks, it has fallen way off in usage in recent years and was eclipsed by MySpace. It is still popular in Asia.
*'''{{w|VK (social networking website)|Vkontakte}}''' or VK, is the second largest social network service in Europe after Facebook. It is available in several languages, but particularly popular among Russian-speaking users around the world.
*'''{{w|Netlog}}''' is a Belgian social networking website specifically targeted at the global youth demographic.
*'''{{w|Mixi}}''' is an online Japanese social networking service.
*'''{{w|Qzone}}''' is a social networking website, which is big in China. According to a report published by Tencent, possibly surpassing other social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace in China.
*'''{{w|Tuenti}}''' is a Spain-based, social networking service, that has been referred to as the "Spanish Facebook."
*'''{{w|Cloob}}''' is a Persian-language social networking website, mainly popular in Iran. After the locally (and internationally) popular social networking website Orkut was blocked by the Iranian government, a series of local sites and networks, including Cloob, emerged to fill the gap.
*'''{{w|Kaixin001}}''' is a social networking website which ranks as the 13th most popular website in China and 67th overall.
*'''{{w|Piczo}}''' was a privately held blog website for teens. In November 2012, Piczo.com shut down.
*'''{{w|Odnoklassniki}}''' is a social network service for classmates and old friends. It is popular in Russia and former Soviet Republics.
*'''{{w|Adult FriendFinder}}''' is a pornographic dating site.
*'''{{w|Match.com}}''' is a dating site, mainly targeted at people looking for marriage.
*'''{{w|Ok Cupid}}''' is another dating site, however it has been owned by Match.com since 2011.
*'''{{w|PlentyofFish}}''' is yet another dating site, also owned by Match.com since June 2015.
*'''{{w|Sulawesi}}''' is a real-life island in the Indonesian archipelago. It also appears in 256: Online Communities.

===MMO Isle===
MMOs (short form of "Massive Multiplayer Online Game") are online games where multiple people take the role of a character and play in a setting hosted by the game.

*'''[https://www.habbo.com/ Habbo Hotel]''' is a website where someone creates a human avatar an interacts in a virtual world that is not that different from the one in real life.
*'''[http://www.clubpenguin.com/ Club Penguin]''' is [http://disney.com/ Disney's] MMO where someone creates a penguin avatar and interacts with other in a more polar, cartoony setting. Club Penguin is aimed towards children.
*'''[http://maplestory.nexon.net/ Maple Story]''' is an MMO that has a more natural setting. The most distinguishing feature of Maple Story is its cartoony pixel art.
*'''[http://www.gamefaqs.com/ GameFAQs]''', while not an MMO, is a website that has the largest repository of walkthoughs, that is, guides that help someone beat a game. GameFAQs is notable for not only its large repository of walkthroughs of games that are across an extreme variety of consoles, handhelds, and even computers (not all of them MMOs), but also the drama that is rumoured to happen in the GameFAQs forums.
*'''[http://www.ign.com/ IGN]''' (full: '''Imagine Games Network'''), while also not an MMO, is the largest website that gives news on video games in general, not just MMOs. Each of the games mentioned in the site have pages that have summaries, reviews, screenshots, other art, videos, and links to news related to its games.
*'''[http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml FFXI]''' (full: '''Final Fantasy XI''') is an MMO from SquareEnix, being the first MMO of the popular ''Final Fantasy'' series.
*'''[http://www.runescape.com/community Runescape]''' is an older MMO.
*'''[http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/ Starcraft II]''' is a realtime strategy game with a science fiction setting that heavily involves space travel. While technically not an MMO, it has a significant online multiplayer component.
*'''[http://us.battle.net/wow/en/ WoW]''' (full: '''World of Warcraft''') is the definitive MMO, being not only the most popular and one of the longest-running but also the most expansive (having its own spinoff games, comic books, novels, and even figurines), WOW giving the idea of how an MMO should be. A player can choose from a variety of races, each with its own heavy history.
*'''[http://secondlife.com/ Second Life]''' is similar to Habbo, albeit with a bigger suspension of disbelief (one example being that the player does not need to be a human) and in a 3D setting.
*'''[http://www.nationstates.net/ NationStates]''' is a text-based political simulation game. Notably, some of its traffic comes not from the actual game (which is optional), but the extensive set of political, roleplaying, and general forums attached.
*'''[http://www.urbandead.com/ Urban Dead]''' describes itself as "A Massively Multi-Player Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse", which sums it up pretty well.
*'''[http://www.kingdomofloathing.com KoL]''' (full: '''Kingdom of Loathing''') is a comedic browser-based MMO-ish RPG with minimalistic stick-figure art.
*'''{{w|CDC Games}}''' is a Chinese company reputed to be the largest MMORPG distributor.
*'''{{w|Eve Online|EVE Online}}''' is a science fiction MMO which is notable because of its virtual economy.
*'''{{w|Gaia Online|Gaia}}''' or Gaia Online, while not an MMO, is a forum oriented towards pop culture, including video games and Japanese media. Its most notable feature is the heavy customization possible of a member's pixel-art avatar. Its members tend to roleplay a lot, albeit in a more written, story-based form. Gaia has gained a reputation with its members stealing art and causing drama. The ferry that links the gaia island with 4chan was most likely due to the "boxxy" row, where vlogger boxxy posted videos of her using gaia, which then were circulated on 4chan. This resulted in a division of the sites users, and many more hacking attacks, including a DDOS attack on 4chan itself.
*'''[https://www.everquest.com EverQuest]''' (full: '''EverQuest''') is one of the first MMO's, it's still running and has a huge number of expansions.
*'''[https://www.uo.com UO]''' (full: '''Ultima Online''') along with EverQuest this was one of the first and longest running MMO's.

*'''{{w|City of Heroes|CoH}}''' or City of Heroes was a superhero-based MMORPG that was shut down November 2012.
*'''[http://atlantica.nexon.net/ Atlantica]''' (full: '''Atlantica Online''') is a turn-based MMORPG.
*'''[http://lineage.plaync.com/ Lineage]''' is a Korean MMORPG, it's North American servers were closed 2011/06/29 due to being unprofitable.
*'''[http://www.lineage2.com/en/ Lineage II]''' is a Korean MMORPG, mainly played in Asia along with it's predecessor. It adopted a Free to Play model on 2011/11/30.
*'''{{w|SubSpace_(video_game)|SubSpace}}''' was a 2D, topdown shooter released in 1997. The servers have been shut down, but it continues to operate through the work of fans. It's widely considered an early entry into the MMO genre due to it's unprecedentedly high player count.

Other notable regions include:
*The '''Mountains of Steam''', referring to the game distribution service [http://store.steampowered.com/ Steam] where people can buy and download video games in general, not just MMOs. There is also an extensive [http://steamcommunity.com/ community] where users can share content, and instant messaging chat by text, voice, or game streaming.
*'''River Grind''' refers to "grinding." In most MMOs, the character is a fighter of some sorts, yet starts at a level 1, signifying the character's aptitude level in combat. The character can level up and gain more aptitude levels through earning experience, of which the most reliable and otherwise common way is the process of "grinding," that is, repeatedly fighting opposing monsters (sometimes of a level notably lower that your character's), gaining experience points from winning these battles until your character gains a level, that is, "levels up". While a practical necessity in strengthening the character, this process can be tiresome, hence the expression "grinding."
*'''Spawn Camp''' refers to "spawn points", the places where AI-powered enemies and players who have died in-game respawn, and the act of "spawn camping", in which the player character simply stands behind or around the spawn points to fight the enemy creatures or respawning players as soon as they appear.
*'''Gulf of Lag''' refers to how the MMO can be slowed down a considerable amount due to the large amount of players simultaneously using the same server, this congestion bogging down the server and frustrating the users.
*'''[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/final-boss-of-the-internet End Guy for the Internet]''' refers to "end bosses," the last — and usually hardest to defeat — "bad guy" in a game (or a section of a game).

===YouTube Region===
The YouTube region refers to websites that are based on user-created content.

'''[https://www.youtube.com/ YouTube]''' is the definitive video website where people can upload videos with the purpose of public viewing, ranging from home movies through official music videos through Let's Plays of people playing video games to questionably-legal uploads of cartoons and films. Google had purchased YouTube.

Many of the sites on the map are just references to {{w|viral video}}s at {{w|YouTube}}:
*'''Viral Shores''' refers to how viral videos (whether they be viral marketing or simply memes) tend to proliferate on YouTube.
*'''Britney''' likely refers to pop singer {{w|Britney Spears}} and the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc‎ "Leave Britney Alone" guy].
*'''Maru Gulf''' refers to Maru the Cat, a YouTube celebrity [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/676:_Abstraction also mentioned in xkcd].
*'''Prairie Dog Habitat''' likely refers to the viral video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw Dramatic Chipmunk] (which is actually a Prairie Dog).
*'''Rick Rolling Hills''' references, well, {{w|Rickrolling}}. More information [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ here]. The "deserted" note likely refers to how Rick Astley himself is tired of the meme, or again, how people tend to leave the video upon getting "Rick Roll'd," never actually going to the video with the express purpose of viewing the video.
*'''Lunar Landing Soundstage''' is, of course, a reference to the {{w|Moon landing conspiracy theories}}, which Randall has railed on before.
*'''{{w|OK Go}} Bay''' refers to the band "OK Go" who have multiple viral music videos on YouTube, most famously [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA "Here it goes again"] featuring treadmills.

The '''HTML5 swamp''' refers to YouTube's spotty support of HTML 5 (an update on HTML that is frequently touting its media capabilities, making HTML 5 a viable alternative to Flash). Of course, by the time the comic was written, HTML 5 was still in its infancy. The Music Video Bay refers to the amount of music videos (official or otherwise) are present in YouTube.

Other counties of the YouTube region include:
*'''[https://vimeo.com/ vimeo]''', a website where people tend to showcase artistic content that they made on their own, notably independent studios.

Snob Sound:
*'''[https://secure.flickr.com/ Flickr]''', a website where people can upload and share photographs they took.
*'''[http://fotolog.com Fotolog]''', a photo website very popular in South America in 2004-2008, which was used as a social network.
*'''[http://www.last.fm/ Last.fm]''', a music website that is notable of its "scrobbling" feature.
*'''[http://www.deviantart.com/ deviantArt]''', the largest art website, where people can upload, sell, and buy not only art itself, but also video, audio, Flash-work, and even skins (the original purpose of deviantArt). While many big-name/professional people and organizations have their works in deviantArt, the site is more infamous for the large amount of people who upload low-quality fan-art and fan-characters, most notably of media from Japan. Another point of infamy is the large amount of drama that can happen in the website.

*'''[https://www.newgrounds.com/ Newgrounds]''', a website that hosts art, (Flash-based) videos, audio, and (Flash-based) games to which other users can comment and rate. Even so, content from Newgrounds tends to be obscene, though there is a filtering system if a viewer does not wish to see obscene content.
*'''[http://www.chatroulette.com/ Chatroulette]''' is a website where people are randomly paired up with each other and video/text chat.
*'''{{w|Brickshelf}}''' is the online resource for {{w|LEGO}} fans.
*'''[https://tumblr.com/ Tumblr]''', where people could make a blog and post text, pictures, video, audio, quotes, and links. The most distinguishing feature is the ability to "reblog" these posts from other's people's blogs into the user's own blog. Notable features of Tumblr include sketchblogs (where people upload their sketches), Ask blogs (where people answer questions other users ask, the moderators of these blogs usually pretending to be a character from a form of media), and the large amount of "social justice" (where people fight against racism, sexism, and other forms of negative discrimination). (See also [[1043: Ablogalypse]].)
*'''{{w|b3ta}}''' is a popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by The Guardian.

The '''Isle of teenagers who just discovered macroeconomics''' is a joke about how teenagers tend to think that the world and the economy are a lot simpler than they actually are. Combined with the typical internet mindset, this leads to a lot of teenagers posting blogs and videos and comments on blogs and videos describing how idiotic the government and other red-tape-related adults are.
The '''Snob Sound''' could refer to the large amount of people who look down on others in the surrounding websites (one example being an original artist looking down on people who draw mainly fan-art). '''The Iraq''' is a reference to Miss Teen USA 2007, in which Ms. Teen South Carolina, Lauren Katlin, said "I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as...the US should help the US and should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we are able to build up our future." The usage of "the Iraq" has became a meme.

===Twitter Region===
*'''Bieber Bay''' is a reference to {{w|Justin Bieber}}, a pop singer whose singing sprouted on YouTube and became very popular on Twitter and other social media. He is very much vilified because of his rather feminine appearance and his hordes of fans (called "Beliebers") that seem to support him to ridiculous extents. Lately, though, Justin Beiber has taken a "bad boy" attitude because of all the Beliebers who are willing to defend him no matter what, him partaking in a lot of questionable activities that include tattoos, questionably-legal substances, and buying prostitution, thus lowering his popularity in the general populace.
*'''{{w|Google Buzz}}''' is a former social network attempted by Google. It has since been shut down.
*'''Bit.Ly Mountains''' is a reference to the URL shortening service {{w|bit.ly}}.
*'''Kanye's Isle of Sadness''' is a reference to the musician {{w|Kanye West}}, whose Twitter, at the time, was [http://www.buzzfeed.com/mlew15/25-of-kanye-wests-most-thought-provoking-tweets-h0se famously introspective and stream-of-consciousness].
*'''Sarah Palin USA''' is the Twitter handle of former politician {{w|Sarah Palin}}.
*'''Clueless Politician Coast''' is a reference to the number of politicians on Twitter and other social networks who repeatedly share clueless updates that more often create an uproar than help their election chances.
*'''Desert of Food Updates''' is a reference to the number of pictures of food that are shared on social media (especially Twitter). There has even been some controversy on posting such pictures.
*'''Journalists Trying to Find the Cutting Edge''' is referencing journalists on Twitter trying to keep up with the way that news is gathered and delivered now, despite usually working for a newspaper that publishes once a day.
*'''SHAQ''' is a reference to the former NBA basketball player, {{w|Shaq}}.
*'''{{w|identi.ca}}''' is an open source social networking and micro-blogging service, being an alternative to Twitter.
*''' Breaking! Waves''' is a pun on the fact that so many people used the word "Breaking" at the beginning of tweets that do not warrant that tag that the word has lost most of its meaning and become a joke. It is a pun because waves "break" on the shore.
*'''Web 3.0''' refers to the unofficial term {{w|Web 2.0}}. In this case, "Web 1.0" refers to websites that give information to users. Web 2.0 refers to websites where the users themselves create content. Web 3.0 has sometimes been used as a term for {{w|semantic web}}, a machine-readable version of the web, but this usage is far from universal.
*'''Hashtag games whose popularity confuses and depresses you''' refers to the game where a user posts something under a particular hashtag and others respond with their own ideas, all tagged under the same phrase. This has been very popular for no clear reason, as Randall notes.

===Geotagged Bay===
*'''{{w|Yelp}}''' is a website where people post reviews of real-life public locations (one example being restaurants).
*'''{{w|Geocaching}}''' is a worldwide GPS scavenger hunt where users upload positions of caches and others will find them and log it online.
*'''{{w|Foursquare}}''' is a location-based social network.
*'''Latitude''' refers to {{w|Google Latitude}}.

===Troll Bay and the Sea of Memes===
*'''{{w|Reddit}}''' is the self-described "front page of the Internet" in which users submit stories, photos and videos and the best are "up-voted" to the top of the page.
*'''{{w|Help:Using talk pages|Wikipedia Talk Pages}}''' refer to the pages where Wikipedia editors discuss how to improve articles.
*'''{{w|Wikia}}''' is a 3rd party wiki software, used in the making of the user-editable encyclopedias of just about any subject matter.
*'''{{w|StumbleUpon}}''' is a website-sharing service.
*'''{{w|Delicious (website)|Delicious}}''' is a bookmarking and bookmark-sharing service.
*'''{{w|Digg}}''' is a former competitor to Reddit in the social-news sphere, but now has been sold and restarted as an aggregator of news stories.
*'''{{w|Slashdot}}''', labeled "/." on the map, is a technical news site.
*'''{{w|Fark}}''' is a community website that allows members to comment on news articles from other sites.
*'''{{w|YTMND}}''' is an acronym for "You're The Man Now, Dog!" It's also a community in which users can create meme-type nonsense by playing music over an image (either static or animated).

===Skype Region===
The Skype Region refers to different IM, or Instant Messaging services, that enable almost-real-time text chatting between multiple people. These often allow services like voice chat and even video calls.

*'''{{w|Skype}}''' is, according to Randall, the most popular of these among the internet. It has many features to allow peer-to-peer voice chats, as well as allowing calls to be made at a price to actual phones.
*'''{{w|AIM}}''' or AOL Instant Messenger is a chat client created by AOL.
*'''GG''' or {{w|Gadu-Gadu}} is an instant messenger client popular in Poland.
*'''{{w|Yahoo Messenger}}''' is an instant messenger client by Yahoo.
*'''{{w|Google Talk}}''' is a voice/video chatting service from Google (that Google has been replacing with Hangouts). Google Talk also has an invasion fleet at its shores.
*'''{{w|ICQ}}''' is an older messaging service, albeit with an 18+ requirement (despite pornography not being the point of ICQ).
*'''{{w|Windows Live Messenger}}''', or "MSN", was the messaging service of Microsoft before Microsoft bought Skype. MSN was useful in that people could draw and send pictures to other chatters.
*'''{{w|UseNet}}''' was one of the original ways to communicate on the internet, though people can download (copyrighted) files through the service. Since it is still in use by some, it gets the tag "Still Around!" on the map.
*'''{{w|IRC}} Isles''' refers to the ancestor of Internet-powered chatting. People would have connected to a server and spoke publicly. IRC is still in use (per 2014, notably in getting help from users4. One of those isles is #xkcd which is an IRC community around [[xkcd]].

===Bay of Drama===
*'''{{w|FanFiction.net}}''' is a website where people can submit their fanfiction (stories by fans written about other peoples' media, normally that about popular media). The website tends to have people that are not helpful to those who legitimately want critique of their own stories.
*'''{{w|Xanga}}''' is a blogging service that, while popular at its time, lost out to...
*'''{{w|LiveJournal}}''' was the most popular blogging service before Tumblr.
*'''ONYD''' - Reference to {{w|Oh No You Didn't}}, which is explained in the Blogosphere region.
*'''{{w|Dreamwidth}}''' is a LiveJournal fork emphasizing its open-source nature.

===Blogosphere===
The Blogosphere region contains several general {{w|blog}} topics.
*'''{{w|photo blog|Photo Blogs}}''' are commonly used to chronicle the lives of the authors through photographs.
*'''Diary Blogs''' are another popular use of blogs (and, in fact, the original use) where authors write commentary about their lives.
*'''Bay of Grammar Pedantry''' deals with the fact that, whether due to a lack of proper education, a habit of using "chat-speak" in the text-limited SMS and MMS, or simply due to the (generally) more relaxed nature of the Internet, blog authors tend to write with horrible composition, a point of annoyment to a lot of other people due to the subsequent increased difficulty of reading the horribly-written material.
*'''Fandom Blogs''' are blogs created by a "{{w|fandom}}" which is a community of fans. A fandom blog deals with the subject matter of the respective fandom.
*'''Sea of Zero (0) Comments''' refers to blogs that get very little attention and therefore have no comments.
*'''SpamBlog Straits''' references spammers who use blogs to increase the number of links to their site to try to game search engines.
*'''OffTopic.com''' is a general interest forum that refers to itself as "the largest general discussion forum on the internet."
*Many more straightforward blogs, including:
**'''Writing/Poetry'''
**'''Gossip Blogs'''
**'''Political Blogs'''
**'''Music Blogs'''
**'''Tech Blogs'''
**'''Business Blogs'''
**'''Corporate Blogs'''
**'''Religious Blogs'''
**'''Miscellaneous Blogs'''
*'''Blog Blogs''' - These can refer to blogs that talk about the matter about blogging itself, though they can also refer to blogs which authors use in talking about blogging.

===Blogosphere (Core Region)===
Gossip Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on gossip surrounding celebrities and other well-known persons.
*'''{{w|Jezebel}}''' is a liberally feminist blog, hosted by Gawker.
*'''{{w|deadline.com|Deadline}}''' is an online entertainment news magazine.
*'''{{w|TMZ}}''' is a celebrity news website.
*'''{{w|Gawker}}''' is a blog that is the host of other blogs.
*'''LJ Oh No They Didn't''' - LiveJournal {{w|Oh No They Didn't}} - Oh No They Didn't, also known as ONTD, is the largest community on LiveJournal with over 100,000 members. The community focuses on celebrity gossip and pop culture with most of its posts aggregated from other gossip blogs.
*'''Doucheblog''' refers to blogs that were once insightful but that spiraled into long rants due to relationship changes of their authors.
*'''Isle of Mockery''' is a reference to the fact that some of what these blogs do is mock celebrities or other for doing or saying stupid things on camera.

Liberal Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "liberal" or "progressive" slant. These blogs tend to lean for the Democratic party.
*'''{{w|Huffington Post}}''' is a news blog.
*'''{{w|Paul Krugman}}''' is an American economist who considers himself a liberal.
*'''{{w|Daily Beast}}''' is a news and opinion website focusing on politics and pop culture.
*'''{{w|Talking Points Memo|TPM}}''' is a political journal run by Josh Marshall.
*'''{{w|Ezra Klein}}''' used to have his own site at the Washington Post, but is now the editor of [Vox.com].
*'''{{w|Think Progress}}''' is a political news blog.
*'''{{w|Daily Kos|Kos}}''' is another political blog.

Bay of Flame:
*'''{{w|Politics Daily}}''' is a political journalism website launched by AOL.
*'''CNN Political Ticker''' is CNN's political blog.
*'''{{w|Mediaite}}''' is a news and opinion blog covering politics and entertainment in the media.
*'''{{w|NY Times}}''' is one of the most famous newspapers, thus the comparatively large size of its island.
*'''{{w|The Talk}}''' is a talk show on CBS that discusses the latest headlines "through the eyes of mothers."
*Libertarian Isle (shaped like a {{w|Nolan Chart}})

Conservative Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "conservative" or Republican slant.
*'''{{w|Pajamas Media}}''' is a media company and operator of conservative news.
*'''{{w|Michelle Malkin}}''' is a conservative blogger, political commentator, and author.
*'''{{w|Hot Air}}''' is a news blog founded by Michelle Malkin.
*'''{{w|RedState|Red State}}''' is a political blog.
*'''{{w|American Thinker}}''' is a daily online magazine focused on politics.
*'''{{w|Townhall}}''' is a web publication and print magazine.

Tech Blogs:
*'''{{w|Boy Genius Report}}''' is a weblog that focuses on technology and consumer gadgets.
*'''{{w|Gizmodo}}''' is a news and opinion blog, hosted by Gawker, that talks about life's more technological matters.
*'''{{w|Engadget}}''' is another technology-oriented, albeit independent, blog.
*'''Crunchgear''' is a blog that reviews gadgets and other hardware.
*'''{{w|Techcrunch}}''' is an online publisher of technology industry news.
*'''{{w|Joystiq}}''' is a news and opinion blog that focuses on gaming.
*'''{{w|Kotaku}}''' is another gaming-oriented news/opinion blog, the main difference beig that Kotaku is owned by Gawker.

Assorted:
*'''{{w|BoingBoing}}''' is "i blog about wonderful things", the topics being quite random.
*'''{{w|Lifehacker}}''' is another Gawker blog, is a blog that teaches people how to simplify their lives through 'lifehacking', that is, using their resources in creative wayss. While the subject matter is life in general, there is a significant technological slant.
*'''{{w|Deadspin}}''' is a sports and sports gossip blog founded by Will Leitch.
*'''Meatorama''' is a blog that talks about cooking meat.

===QQ Region===
*'''Baidu Baike''' (「百度百科」, "Baidu Encyclopedia") and '''Hudong''' (「互动百科」, "Interactive Encyclopedia" ) are two Chinese online encyclopedias. Baidu Baike is powered by the same company as Baidu, the search engine popular in China.
* The '''Ma Le Ge Bi''' and the '''Grass Mud Horse Bay''' could refer to the {{w|Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures}}.
* The '''Location of Jia Junpeng''' refers to the Internet meme of {{w|Jia Junpeng}} in 2009 in China.
*'''{{w|Tencent QQ}}''' is a Chinese instant messaging program.
*In English communities "QQ" has several more common definitions:
**An {{w|emoticon}}, representing a face with two large, crying eyes.
**A synonym for "rage quit", in which a video game player quits the game out of sheer frustration. It originated in ''Warcraft II'' multiplayer, where pressing Ctrl+Q+Q would quit the game, and became more widely known in ''World of Warcraft''.
**These definitions are commonly combined, usually to mock the "rage quitter".
*The Gulf of China refers to how sites in the region are based in People's Republic of China ("Red China"). The '''Great Firewall''' refers to {{w|The Great Firewall of China}}, a pun on {{w|The Great Wall of China}}. Similar to how The Great Wall of China was meant to keep intruding nations out of the then-capital of the city, The Great Firewall of China is meant to keep visitors from visiting censored websites. However, either a VPN or remote access to a computer in a "freer" country can circumvent the Firewall. Oddly other Chinese websites (Qzone, Renren etc.) are not enclosed in this zone.

===Forums Islands===
Forums are websites where one person post a topic to which other people can discuss.

While the map has a zoomed in version, this article shall discuss the two bigger islands, first.

*'''[http://www.2ch.net 2channel]''' is a Japanese imageboard that was actually the original inspiration for 4chan.
*'''[http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites Craigslist]''' is a classified advertisement website with sections devoted to just about everything... which formerly included prostitution services, hence the '''The Former Site of Adult Services'''.

In the zoomed-in map, there is the following:
*'''[https://www.4chan.org/ 4chan.org]''' is an {{w|imageboard}} in which people can upload pictures while others comment on them. The website is infamous for its loose/often non-existent rules, incredibly vulgar userbase, source of new memes, and spawning of trolls. 4chan's random board, known internally as '''/b/''', is almost constantly flooded with porn and image macros. This is why Randall's incarnation of 4chan is shaped like a penis.
*'''420chan''' and '''7chan''', other imageboards in the style of 4chan. Their relative lack of popularity and derivative nature leads a lot of 4chan users to mock them; hence, their position on Randall's map suggests that they're mere wads of semen.
*'''Encyclopedia Dramatica''', labeled '''ED''' on the map, is a wiki site dedicated to chronicling internet memes and other noteworthy sites, events, people, and anything else that catches their attention, generally in a very satirical manner. The site is heavily populated by 4chan users. Many people are offended by the articles and talks that go on in the wiki and forum, which is perhaps the reason that it appears to be represented as a wad of sperm. The image of sperm also makes sense since ED is used as a messaging center for the group "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is represented in the map as part of the testicles of the 4chan island(see below at the gulf named Anonymous).
*'''Tunnel to Habbo''' is a reference to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pools-closed the 2006 Habbo Hotel Raids], in which hundreds of 4chan Anons simultaneously logged onto Habbo Hotel and proceeded to be as obnoxious as possible, standing in formations of swastikas and penises or body-blocking the swimming pools.
*'''{{w|Catbus}} Route''' is likely a reference to {{w|Lolcat}}s in general.
*'''[http://www.ebaumsworld.com/ eBaum's World]''' is a media-hosting website founded by Eric Bauman. The site has lost a lot of traffic after (quite valid) accusations of stolen content.
*The gulf labelled '''{{w|Anonymous (group)|Anonymous}}''' is most likely a reference to the leaderless, anonymous international network called "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is composed of (mainly) anarchic activist hackers. Anonymous was created on the /b/ messaging board of 4chan, hence why the bay of Anonymous is on the coast of /b/. Also, the fact that the bay is in the "testicles"(/b/) of the 4chan island "penis" is referring to how Anonymous was created on 4chan, in the same way that sperm is created in the testicles of a penis, possibly a subtle jab at the group.

To the south and east is an archipelago of islands representing various regional and special-interest forums. Moving clockwise from 4chan island is
* '''Storm 2K''' is an online website hosting information on tropical cyclones and tools for tracking them, and has a forum with multiple categories and threads for discussion on tropical cyclones, as well as multiple tropical cyclone models and reconnaissance information.
* '''Skyscraper city''' is an internet forum website for skyscraper hobbyists and enthusiasts.
* An island containing two websites related to women, namely
** '''Wizaz.pl''' is a Polish website, presumably for women, with a forum filled with discussions mainly about beauty, health, women, hobbies, and fun.
** '''Baby and bump''' is a self-described "pregnancy forum, baby and parenting community."
An island contaning
** '''ForoCoches''' is a very popular Spanish (as in from Spain) forum mainly about automobiles, but holds discussions on virtually any topic.
** '''Bodybuilding.com''' is(as you can hopefully tell) a website for bodybuilders. It contains a forum for general discussions on bodybuilding that includes topics such as supplements, exercises, and nutrition.
** '''Bokt.nl''' calls itself the largest community on the topic of horses. A Dutch website, it holds topics about virtually anything involving horses.
** '''Cruise Critic''' is a website with a large forum about cruises in general.
* '''Lay it low''' is a website for discussing lowriding(changing a car so that its ground clearance go lower than the clearance of the original design from the manufacturer.
* '''[http://www.twoplustwo.com/ Two plus two]''' is a poker & gambling forum
* An island containing:
** '''Fan forum'''
** '''[http://www.facethejury.us/ Face the jury]''' is an online forum, originally founded for users to upload pictures of themselves to be judged by other users
** A smaller nearby island is '''Datalounge'''
* An island containing gaming-related sites
** '''D2JSP'''
** '''EA UK'''
** '''Gametrailers'''
* Smaller islands next to the D2JSP island are
** '''Steam powered'''
** '''World of players'''
** '''Nedgaf'''
** '''Overclock'''
* A smaller island of regional and special-interest forums:
** '''[http://digitalspy.com/ Digital Spy]''', a British media and entertainment news service
** '''[http://www.onliner.by/ onliner.by]''', a Belarusian digital technology forum
** Zona Ford
** '''[http://lowyat.net/ lowyat]''', a large Malaysian technology forum
** exbil
** '''[http://www.macrumors.com/ MacRumors]''', an Apple news and discussion site
** Adjacent to this, an island labelled '''[http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ Whirlpool Forums]''', a large Australian broadband and technology forum. The drawing reflects Australia being an island continent separated from other countries.
* An island made up of several European forums:
** '''[http://www.jlaforums.com/ JLA Forums]'''
** '''[http://www.fok.nl/ fok.nl]''', a Dutch forum site that is one of the largest internet communities in the Netherlands
** '''[http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ The Student Room]''', a British forum and wiki for secondary and tertiary students
** '''[http://www.boards.ie/ boards.ie]''' "Now Ye're talking", a popular Irish forum site
** '''[http://www.forum.hr/ forum.hr]''', a Croatian forum
** '''rus-chat''', possibly a reference to [http://rus-chat.de/ rus-chat.de]
* The largest single-site island is [http://www.somethingawful.com/ SomethingAwful], a website that is meant to showcase all things "awful". SomethingAwful also has a large trollbase, but they tend to be more honorable than the ones from Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan. One example is there being a spotty holding of the no-furries rule in the forums. The forums themselves are famous because of the holding of the Let's Plays of [http://lparchive.org/Dangan-Ronpa/ Dangan Ronpa] and [http://danganronpa2mirror.tumblr.com/ Super Dangan Ronpa 2], which had cooked up public interest to the point of there being an English-language release of the games. (Note that, due to these Let's Plays being in a forums that frequently hides behind a "paywall" that requires a paid account before accessing, the links provided go to their mirrors.)

==Transcript==
:'''Map of Online Communities'''
:Size on map represents volume of Daily Social activity (posts, chat, etc). Based on data gathered over the Spring and Summer of 2010.

:[Two insets on the upper left-hand corner shows that this map is a tiny portion of the huge continent of Spoken Language, encompassing portions of the Internet, Email, and Cell Phones (SMS).]

:[The largest landmass on the map by far, which takes up nearly the entire northern half of the map is "Facebook" - with large states in the south-east of the country labeled 'Farmville' and 'Happy Farm'. There is a much smaller state to the west of these called 'Farm Town'. To the north of these states is a large swath of unremarkable land entitled 'Northern Wasteland of Unread Updates.' This is directly north of the large Dopamine Sea.

:A peninsula on the south-west, just below the Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions, houses many tiny states, such as MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Bebo, & Hi5. It is bordered on the south by Buzzword Bay, which contains several islands of varying sizes. Among these are YouTube and Twitter (the largest), which are separated by the Social Media Consultant Channel. To the south-east of Twitter, across the Sea of Protocol Confusion, is another, equally large island. Most of it is Skype, with the north having two largish states called AIM and Windows Live Messenger. On the south-west part of the island are two smaller states called GG and Yahoo Messenger.

:The Island of Skype is extremely close to, but separated by the Great Firewall (a dashed line), the large landmass of QQ. It's north shore is the Gulf of China and Grass Mud Horse Bay. Outside of these bays, over the Great Firewall are two islands called Craigslist and 2Channel.

:In the Dopamine Sea, off the southern shores of Farmville and Happy Farm, is MMO Isle. Its largest state is WoW, with Runescape, Lineage, Maple Story, Habbo, and the Mountains of Steam among its notable landmarks. To the southeast of the island is the Gulf of Lag, in which sits the CDC Games island, with Eve Online.

:To the east of Twitter is Troll Bay, with such islands as Reddit and Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicio.us, and Wikipedia Talk Pages. To their south are the IRC isles, of which one is the tiny island of #xkcd.

:East of these islands, and north of Skype island, is the Sea of Memes. In this sea, to the north of Craigslist and 2Channel, is an archipelago of tiny islands. There is an inset, labeled 'Forums.' (See below.)

:To the southwest of Twitter island, in the Sea of Opinions, are the blog islands. These lie south of the islands in Buzzword Bay, as well. The northernmost islands in this group are centered around the Bay of Drama, on which can be found Diary Blogs, Gossip Blogs, and Livejournal. Gossip Blogs share an island with Political, Music, and Tech Blogs. To the north of this island is a smaller island called Photo Blogs. South of Diary Blogs, and off the southwest coast of Music blogs is a smaller island called Fandom Blogs. South of Tech Blogs, off of which sprouts the small peninsula of Business Blogs, is the Spamblog Straits. On the other side of the straits is a large island made up of Miscellaneous Blogs, with two states demarcated as Religious Blogs and Blog Blogs. Southwest of the Blog Islands is the Sea of Zero (0) Comments.]

:[An inset of a group of islands in the sea of memes located on the lower right corner of the map, labeled 'Forums'. The largest by far is 4chan and /b/. Also found here are D2JSP, JLA Frums, Fan Forum, Something Awful, and many smaller ones, too numerous to list here.]

:[The northeastern third of Gossip/Political/Tech Blogs island is another inset labeled 'Blogosphere (Core)'. This can be found on the lower left corner of the map. Two peninsulas in Political Blogs bookend the Bay of Flame -- these are Liberal Blogs and Conservative Blogs. Between them lie several tiny islands such as Politics Daily, CNN Politcal Ticker, and Mediaite. Off the coast of Liberal Blogs lies the island of NYTimes, off the coast of Conservative Blogs is Libertarian Isle. Between the two lies The Talk. The northern peninsula of Tech Blogs contains places such as Gizmodo, Engadget, Joystiq, and Kotaku.]

:[Text found between the two insets, which are directly below the main map.]
:ABOUT THIS MAP
:Communities rise and fall, and total membership numbers are no longer a good measure of a community's current size and health. This updated map uses size to represent total social activity in a community -- that is, how much talking, playing, sharing, or other socializing happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I did my best and tried to be consistent.

:Estimates are based on the numbers I could find, but involved a great deal of guesswork, statistical inference, random sampling, nonrandom sampling, a 20,000-cell spreadsheet, emailing, cajoling, tea-leaf reading, goat sacrifices, and gut instinct (i.e. making things up).

:Sources of data include Google and Bing, Wikipedia, Alexa, Big-Boards.com, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Akismet, every website statistics page I could find, press releases, news articles, and individual site employees. Thanks in particular to folks at Last.fm, LiveJournal, Reddit, and the New York Times, as well as sysadmins at a number of sites who shared statistics on condition of anonymity.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Online Communities]]
[[Category:Rickrolling]]

513: Friends

2016-04-23T23:32:55Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 513
| date = December 5, 2008
| title = Friends
| image = friends.png
| titletext = Friends with detriments.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is talking apparently to [[Megan]]. He confesses that he has a crush on her. Usually the next step, when a boy likes a girl (or a girl likes a boy), is to ask the other person out. But Cueball takes a different route and in the comic he explains his thought process. Presumably he actually explains this to Megan.

He explains that he is afraid of rejection, and so instead of asking her out directly, promises to be her "best friend" and someone who is always "there for you", in the hopes that this will eventually lead to Megan developing an attraction for him. This way, Cueball does not have to risk Megan saying 'No' to him, as she will be led to make the first move instead. Cueball is aware that this may not be an ideal situation for Megan, conceding that she may end up changing her definition of happiness to make her feel more comfortable in the relationship, while she is conscious of the fact that she doesn't really love Cueball. Cueball recognises that if Megan fell for him this way, she would probably have this fact at the back of her mind forever.

And so, after painting this elaborate - but troubling - future, Cueball asks ''sound good''? Megan, however, is not won over by Cueball's plan, and tells him that she is going to date "this ''jerk''" instead (she could have said any name here - to Cueball it will always sound like ''jerk''!) This suggests that she would much rather date someone else rather than date Cueball whom she - as he correctly implies - does not love.

Cueball declares that the other suitor ''doesn't respect you'', an absurdly hypocritical comment given his manipulative plan. He explained earlier that he would ''tear down the jerks you date'', this last line could also be him actually executing on the plan he just detailed.

The title text is a play on the concept of ''friends with benefits'', wherein two friends have casual sex without entering a committed relationship. ''Friends with detriments'' suggests that having Cueball as her "friend" damages Megan's chances of getting a relationship (and sex) with anyone else, since Cueball will tear any candidate down. Also, despite Cueball claiming to be Megan's friend (and appearing to value this friendship), his plans are rather selfish and manipulative, making him a "friend" who is in fact detrimental.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is talking to a girl.]
:Cueball: I have a crush on you.

:[Cueball is shown alone.]
:Cueball: I could ask you out, and move on with my life if you said no.

:Cueball: Or, WE COULD BE FRIENDS!

:Cueball: See, I don't want to consider that you might not be attracted to me. I'm scared of rejection, so I've decided relationships should grow :smoothly out of friendships.

:[Megan is shown sitting at her computer.]
:Cueball: When you have problems, I'll be there for you, night after night.
:Cueball: Selflessly.
:Computer (Instant message from boy): *hug*

:[Megan is shown slamming door and walking to Cueball to get a hug.]
:Cueball: I'll tear down the jerks you date, and wait for you to realize how good I am for you. That only I will ever understand you.
:''SLAM''
:Megan: ''Sniff''
:Cueball: There there

:[Cueball is shown alone again.]
:Cueball: You don't want to hurt my feelings, and I won't ever force the issue. I'll tell myself it's because I "Value our friendship."

:Cueball: Bit by bit, I'll make you depend on me.

:[Cueball and girl are shown sitting on a rock in a park, reading a book together.]
:Cueball: You'll think about how long it would take to build this kind of connection again.

:[Cueball and girl are shown sitting on a couch drinking, getting closer, and kissing.]
:Cueball: And in a moment of weakness
:Cueball: and loneliness
:Cueball: you'll give in.

:[Megan is shown sitting at the computer with Cueball behind her facing the other way washing dishes.]
:Cueball: It'll feel comfortable and natural. You'll quietly revise your definition of love and try to be happy. And sometimes you will be.

:[Megan is shown sitting at the computer.]
:Cueball: Only the wistfulness in your gaze and the tiny pause before you say "I love you" will hint that this wasn't the ending you'd hoped for.
:Cueball: Sound good?

:[Megan is holding hands with another boy, talking to Cueball.]
:Megan: ...I'm going to date this jerk.
:Cueball: But he doesn't respect you!

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

Talk:856: Trochee Fixation

2016-04-23T22:46:29Z

108.162.219.56:

So trochees make her happy. So what? Why do we care SO MUCH that she stop saying those words and stop being happy? She likes it, why can't we deal with it? Would you want someone to surgically remove whatever makes you happy from YOUR brain? Leave her alone!

Bad advice mallard would like a word with you. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:08, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

"Cowboy" but no "Bebop"? (Also [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_Bebop a real cartoon show], albeit an adult anime -- NOT FOR KIDS.) I'm disappointed. --BigMal27 // [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.88|173.245.55.88]] 11:55, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Why... why does the little girl say "hooker" at the end of the comic? 13:16, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
:Why not? Perhaps she's seen some television cop shows which use the term. Or perhaps she likes rugby (it's the name of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_union_positions#Hooker one of the playing positions]). [[User:Grutness|Grutness]] ([[User talk:Grutness|talk]]) 01:56, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

In particular I think the Neil Stephenson reference is to Snowcrash, where hackers are able to transmit a linguistic virus that disrupts speech patterns into what appears to be intense aphasia or glossolalia. According to the science* of the book, a similair technique could be used to manipulate the brain in a variety of ways, including a 'trocheeotomy.' {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.57}}

The current explanation mentions a reversal of the stress pattern at the end, but that doesn't happen. As discussed in the comic, the girl has simply come up with a new list of trochees. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.203|108.162.246.203]] 22:54, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Trochee is autological. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 8.8.8.8] 11:22, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

I feel like the two words "raptor Jesus" could be a reference to the meme. 02:05, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

----
But what if you're fixated on three-syllable words? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.222|162.158.2.222]] 23:01, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

856: Trochee Fixation

2016-04-23T22:44:04Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 856
| date = February 4, 2011
| title = Trochee Fixation
| image = trochee fixation.png
| titletext = If you Huffman-coded all the 'random' things everyone on the internet has said over the years, you'd wind up with, like, 30 or 40 bytes *tops*.
}}

==Explanation==

A {{w|trochee}} is a type of {{w|metric foot}}. A foot is a measure in poetry, it consists of stressed beats and unstressed beats. A trochee is a foot which consists of one stressed beat followed by an unstressed beat. "Trochee" itself is an example of this as you stress the first syllable and don't stress the second syllable ("TROH-kee".)

Trochee fixation is supposedly caused by people experiencing rushes of {{w|dopamine}} when they hear or speak trochees during their youth. Due to the rush of dopamine they become more fixated on trochees. In the endless quest for dopamine, they continue to search for trochees (typically on the internet) while also producing more places to encounter trochees meaning more fixation for others with the disorder. [[Megan]] proposes a "radical trocheeotomy" which appears to be a type of {{w|psychosurgery}} due to the erasing of memory. [[Cueball]] misinterprets Megan's intent as a "{{w|tracheotomy}}", a removal of the girl's vocal cords, of which he is in favor.

Megan proceeds with the trocheeotomy, but luckily it does not have the intended effect. Though the previous trochees have been forcefully and unkindly removed, the girl immediately generates new ones: "BAN-jo," "TUR-tle," "JET-pack," "FER-ret," and so on. The correct way of removing the fixation would be to alter {{w|mesolimbic pathway}}. Megan, not realizing this, succumbs to attempting to removing the girl's trochee fixation via cranially-applied brick. Depending on how hard the girl is hit with the brick she may have memory loss and potentially forget all the trochees she knows, but if this method is carried out she will have significant brain damage and will likely start fixating on trochees that she hears.

There are references to {{w|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles}} and {{w|Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers}}, both of which are examples of actual, trochaic TV show titles. Additionally, there is a reference to sci/fi author {{w|Neal Stephenson}} who has written {{w|Snow Crash}}, {{w|Anathem}} and many other books.

"Jetpack ferret" could be a reference to [[20: Ferret]], although the ferret in question only had wings.

{{w|Huffman coding}} is a lossless data compression algorithm that works by recording a specific string and then only recording that the string is repeated a certain number of characters later on until eventually it only contains a "dictionary" of unique substrings and then mentions of where those substrings repeat. In highly repetitive data this can cut down the file size immensely, which is what Randall is implying by saying you would only end up with 30–40 bytes. Most of the "random" stuff said on the Internet has been said before.

Trochee and other types of poetry "feet" is the subject of [[1383: Magic Words]], and the trochaic form is explored further in [[1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]].

[http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/04/trochee-chart/ On the blog], Randall published statistics about the occurrence number of certain combinations (now obviously inaccurate).

==Transcript==
:Girl: Robot ninja! Pirate doctor laser monkey! Narwhal zombie badger hobo bacon kitty captain penguin raptor Jesus!

:Megan: We'd been seeing this brain damage for years, but only recently did our linguists identify the pattern behind it.

:Megan: The patients fixate on animals and types of people whose names are trochees (two syllables, with the accent on the first).

:The malfunction causes a rush of dopamine whenever these trochees are heard or spoken.
:[Chart shows "internet" and "brain," with arrows marked "trochees" traveling both ways between them. An arrow marked "dopamine" loops from the brain back to the brain.]

:The warning signs appear in childhood:
:[Child sits in front of TV.]
:Child: Yeah! Mighty teenage morphin' ninja power mutant turtle rangers!
:Social reinforcement focuses the fixation on a few dozen words.
:Cueball (off-panel): Is there a cure?

:[Girl is reclining under a big machine pointed at her face.]
:Megan: We're about to try a radical trocheeotomy.
:Cueball: Rip out her vocal chords? I'm in favor.
:Megan: No, we're modifying her vocabulary* to erase the words she's fixated on.
:<nowiki>*</nowiki>Digitoneurolinguistic hacking! It's totally real! Ask Neal Stephenson.

:Megan: Either the gap will be filled by normal words, or she'll just generate a new set of trochees.
:Megan: Here goes.
:[She pulls the lever on a large panel.]
:''kachunk bzzzZZZZZZ''

:[Girl is waking up.]
:Girl: ...GzZhRmPh ...
:Girl ...banjo turtle!
:Girl: Jetpack ferret pizza lawyer! Dentist hamster wombat plumber turkey jester hindu cowboy hooker bobcat scrapple!
:Megan (off-panel): Sigh.
:Megan: Time for plan B.
:Cueball: Someone get a brick.

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

1649: Pipelines

2016-04-23T11:50:01Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1649
| date = February 29, 2016
| title = Pipelines
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| image = pipelines.png
| titletext = In the future, every single pipeline will lead to the bowl of a giant blender, and we'll all just show up with a bucket each day to take our share of the resulting smoothie.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|The table with all the items should be filled out with explanations etc. and the diameter should be calculated from real data (with references). Or with the new version of the table another column should be added with the use in gigaliter for each substance in the US to compare. Anyone who is up for calculating how long it would take to fill the pool with US saliva?}}

Follows a similar idea to the [[what if?]] ''{{what if|147|Niagara Straw}}'' (from three days before this comic's release), where the entire water flow over {{w|Niagara Falls}} is imagined to flow through a straw (i.e. 7 mm diameter) with disastrous results.

In this comic [[Randall]] imagines what size pipes are necessary to carry US domestic production/consumption of various fluids if the flow rate were fixed at 4 meters per second. Randall notes that "many pipes would overlap", owing to the fact that consumption of one item as corn syrup would be due to the production of one of the others, in this case soda pop (another example, than the previous one which is actually mentioned in the comic, could be gasoline which is produced from petroleum ).

The top panel is in [http://store-xkcd-com.myshopify.com/products/actual-size-stickers actual size] (something Randall often jokes about, like in the very next released what if? ''{{what if|148|Eat the Sun}}'', where he shows part of the sun in actual size in the 2nd picture, but in this comic he ''actually'' means it). This means that if you look at the image in actual size (or measure lengths in the full size image) then the measured diameter is the diameter Randall has calculated the pipe should be, based on his data for the consumption of these substances.

In the second panel the pipes are too big for his drawing. To indicate the scale he has both inserted a human (appearance like [[Miss Lenhart]],) and the top panel has been shrunk down to indicate how much larger the bottom panel is (this is similar to the link between the panels in [[980: Money]]). Using the size of the top panel and the smaller insert, it can be found that the scale is 20:1. The woman is 9 cm tall in the image, which makes her 180 cm — 5 feet 11 inches — in "real life". The pipe next to her for gasoline would have a diameter of 2.2 m.

Since the caption at the top mentions both fluid produced and consumed in the US it becomes very difficult to find out which number Randall uses. For instance the consumption of wine in the US and the production of wine in the US is not necessarily the same as wine is both imported and exported. Should there then be two pipes? Unlike similar comics (like Money mentioned above) there are no references for where Randall has the data for this comic.

As usual with xkcd, the absurdity — and improbability — of routing the entirety of each fluid through a single pipe at any point is the source of humor. In addition, despite Randall's stated assumption that all the fluids are magically flowing at the same rate as public water (4 meters per second), many could never actually do so; some "fluids" shown are too viscous (e.g. peanut butter, Silly Putty, meat), adhesive (e.g. maple syrup), or thermally impractical (e.g. glass, cheese, ice cream and yogurt). Lastly, many are just plain zany (e.g. saliva a reference to another what if? {{what if|144|Saliva Pool}}). Note that at the bottom of the last panel there is a much larger pipe for the tap water used by the public. All substances are listed below in the [[#Table|table]].

The title text refers to a possible future based on the idea of this comic in which all the pipes with the above-mentioned fluids will actually lead into the same hole as shown in the top right panel. This hole will then be the bowl of a giant blender that mixes all these substances together to a ''{{w|smoothie}}''. The future people will then just come up to this blender and get a bucket full of this mix each day. In reality, this would be an impractical method of getting all of the fluids. Setting the logistical considerations of such a setup aside, this would mean that ketchup and salsa, both intended for human consumption, would be mixed with fluids which are harmful to humans, such as windshield wiper fluid.

Note: "Soup" has been left out, and it might have been expected in this comic due to the similarity to this system with [[Beret Guy]]'s use of a "soup outlet" as an entrepreneur in [[1293: Job Interview]]. It is probably a larger pipeline than salsa and possibly even ketchup. However, there are many different varieties of soups, and most soup is probably not bought finished, both very good reasons to not include it in the chart. But still the idea of having a soup outlet is very similar to this comic.

===Table===
*All the substances are listed here in the "reading" order also used in the transcript.
*The diameter is for the inner part of the tube.
*GL is for GigaLiters - or Billion Liters. This is strictly the annual discharge of the Size (cm) column at 4 m/s.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
|+ All substances with size as found in the picture, vs. size calculated from public information
|-
! scope="col" | Substance
! scope="col" | Size (cm)
! scope="col" | Annual Discharge (GL)
! scope="col" | Explanation
|-
| {{w|Toothpaste}}
| 3.5
| 0.121
| In the title text of [[1599: Water Delivery]] Randall claims that he as a child could not understand why there were no toothpaste pipe to his house when there was one for water. Given this is at the top, this is a clear allusion to this comment. Calculation is based on 542 g/year per capita consumption of toothpaste. Source:[https://www.google.com/search?q=toothpaste+consumption+by+country&tbm=isch&pf=m#imgrc=2wpGcxkoKlCvAM%3A here].
The year the graph was made in is estimated to be 2013, and 316.5 million estimated 2013 US population to calculate the diameter above.
|-
| {{w|Nail polish}}
| 0.4
| 0.000159
| Much less than acetone, which is used as a nail polish remover.
|-
| {{w|Windshield washer fluid}}
| 5.6
| 0.311
| Largely water
|-
| {{w|Silly putty}}
| 0.1
| 0.0000991
| Smallest diameter
|-
| {{w|Shampoo}}
| 4
| 0.159
|
|-
| {{w|Honey}}
| 5.2
| 0.268
|
|-
| {{w|Blood donation|Donated blood}}
| 0.9
| 0.00803
|
|-
| {{w|Vanilla}}
| 0.4
| 0.000159
| Not the ice but the spice (which is black as the substance in the vanilla pipe).
|-
| {{w|Ketchup}}
| 5.2
| 0.268
|
|-
| {{w|Salsa (sauce)|Salsa}}
| 3.6
| 0.128
| Smaller than a typical jar
|-
| {{w|Sunscreen}}
| 1.35
| 0.0181
|
|-
| {{w|Personal lubricant}}
| 0.65
| 0.00419
| AKA lube
|-
| {{w|LCD liquid}}
| 0.26
| 0.000670
| For {{w|Liquid-crystal display}}
|-
| {{w|Mayonnaise|Mayo}}
| 4.4
| 0.192
| Or mayonnaise
|-
| {{w|Printer ink}}
| 1.4
| 0.192
|
|-
| {{w|Maple syrup}}
| 1.8
| 0.0178
|
|-
| {{w|Hair conditioner|Conditioner}}
| 2.5
| 0.0620
| For hair
|-
| {{w|Mustard (condiment)|Mustard}}
| 3.7
| 0.136
|
|-
| {{w|Liquid soap}}
| 4.7
| 0.219
|
|-
| {{w|Olive oil}}
| 6.2
| 0.381
| Largest diameter in the upper chart
|-
| {{w|Coffee}}
| 58
| 33.4
|
|-
| {{w|Peanut butter}}
| 8.6
| 0.733
| Smallest diameter in the bottom chart
|-
| {{w|Ice cream}}
| 20
| 3.97
|
|-
| {{w|Cheese}}
| 70
| 48.6
| Made from milk (cow) also in the chart
|-
| {{w|Soft Drink|Soda}}
| 82
| 66.7
| As in {{w|Soft Drink|soda pop}} aka soft drinks (flavored carbonated water) or {{w|Carbonated water|club soda}} (unflavored carbonated water). In many parts of the U.S. flavored carbonated water is referred to simply as "soda".
|-
| {{w|Acetone}}
| 13.6
| 1.83
| An organic chemical used as a highly potent cleaner in labs.
|-
| {{w|Liquor}}
| 15
| 2.23
| May not include beer or wine (also in chart)
|-
| {{w|Gasoline}}
| 220
| 480.
| Made from petroleum, also in the chart
|-
| {{w|Yogurt}}
| 15
| 2.23
| Made from milk (cow), also in the chart
|-
| {{w|Milk#Cow.27s_milk|Milk (cow)}}
| 106
| 111
|
|-
| {{w|Bottled water}}
| 71
| 50.0
| See also [[1599: Water Delivery]]
|-
| {{w|Sugar}}
| 42
| 17.5
| See also [[1639: To Taste]]
|-
| {{w|Saliva}}
| 85
| 71.6
| From these data it could be calculated how long it would take America to drool enough to fill that pool from the what if? {{what if|144|Saliva Pool}}.
|-
| {{w|Wine}}
| 18
| 3.21
| Americans drank just under [https://www.wineinstitute.org/resources/statistics/article86 900 million gallons of wine in 2014], or almost 3.4 million cubic metres per year meaning that Americans drink about 0.11 m3/s. With the pipe flowing at 4 m/s this pipe must have an area of 268 cm2. The radius of a pipe of area 268 cm^2 is 9.25 cm. The wine pipe should thus have a diameter of 18.5 cm, very close to the one found by measuring on the chart.
|-
| {{w|HFCS}}
| 20
| 3.97
| High fructose corn syrup
|-
| {{w|Breast milk|Milk (human)}}
| 10.6
| 1.114
|
|-
| {{w|Petroleum}}
| 318
| 1002
| Largest diameter in the bottom chart, except for the public water. Also known as crude oil. Used to make for instance gasoline, also in the chart.
|-
| {{w|Meat}}
| 59
| 34.5
|
|-
| {{w|Glass}}
| 28
| 7.77
|Glass is rumored to be a liquid. However, glass is an amorphous solid; people, wrongfully, assumed this lack of crystallinity gave it the potential for viscous flow, making it technically a liquid. This is incorrect as glass is composed of covalently bound molecules in a somewhat disorganized fashion, more similar to a thermoset plastic than a liquid. This common misconception was referred to before in the title text of [[843: Misconceptions]].
|-
| {{w|Beer}}
| 54
| 28.9
|
|-
| {{w|Tea}}
| 41
| 16.67
|
|-
| {{w|Cement}}
| 74
| 54.3
|
|-
| {{w|Tap water|Public water}}
| 2550
| 64,465
| Using the formula [http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/564058/calculate-the-radius-of-a-circle-given-the-chord-length-and-height-of-a-segment here] it is possible to calculate the diameter of a circle given the chord length = l and height = h of a segment. From the drawing (and scaling) l = 390 cm and h = 15 cm. The formula states that D = h + l2/(4*h) = 15 cm + (390 cm)2/(4*15 cm) = 2550 cm.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the first main panel, to the left of a smaller panel to the right.]
:<big>The size of the US’s</big>
:<big><big>'''Pipelines'''</big></big>
:<big>if each fluid produced or consumed in the US has to be carried by a single pipe</big>
:Assuming they all flowed at the same speed of about 4m/s
:Note: Many pipelines would overlap (eg. '''soda'''/corn syrup)

:[There is a small panel to the right showing three gray pipes of different sizes leading out over a large hole in the ground. Only a part of the hole can be seen at the bottom left part of the panel, but it curves around indicating it is a large circular hole. The pipes are supported by small legs beneath them and from the end of all three thick liquids are squirting out and down into the hole. The first pipe is by far the largest; the liquid from it is white, but not as white as the background. The second pipe is by far the smallest squirting dark red liquid and the final rightmost pipe is in between and squirts our light brown liquid. Each pipe is labeled. The label on the smallest cannot be read properly, but from the info gained in the next panel it can be inferred for certain what it says (and this is indicated here below):]
:[Large pipe (white)]: Mayo
:[Small pipe (dark red)]: Nail polish
:[Medium pipe (light brown)]: Maple syrup

:[Below is a large panel with a caption at the top. And below this there are twenty circles in different sizes and with different color (or even texture). Each circle is labeled, for the five smallest the label is outside, in one case with an arrow indicating where the label belongs. The rest has the label inside. The text is in black except for four of those with text inside, but with red of black color. Here the text is white. The labels are indicated by color and size, going roughly from top left in reading order based on the position and size of circles not of position of the text:]

:<big>Actual size </big> (When viewed on a typical computer screen) 
:[Medium green blue and white spiral]: Toothpaste
:[Tiny dark red]: Nail polish
:[Big light blue with white specks]: Windshield washer fluid
:[Very tiny purple]: Silly putty
:[Medium light green]: Shampoo
:[Large dark yellow]: Honey
:[Very small blood red]: Donated blood
:[Tiny black]: Vanilla
:[Big red]: Ketchup
:[Medium dark red with chunks of in different green and lighter red colors]: Salsa
:[Small white]: Sunscreen
:[Very small light green]: Personal lubricant
:[Very tiny gray]: LCD liquid
:[Medium off-white]: Mayo
:[Very small black]: Printer ink
:[Small light brown]: Maple syrup
:[Small light green]: Conditioner
:[Medium yellow]: Mustard
:[Large light green]: Liquid soap
:[Big olive green]: Olive oil

:[The panel just described is indicated to fit into a small rectangle at the top left of the next panel below. There are four lines ending at the four corners of this small rectangle, two of these are going to the two bottom corners and the other two ends on the lower part of the panel just above the small rectangle. They are indicated to go under the panel and would hit the two top corners if extrapolated. The 11 largest circles are clearly seen, but most of the other circles can also be noted. The colors are the same but any features in the original circles as well as the labels are gone. The part of the black top frame of the next panel below is faded out to gray in between the section cut off by the two lines going to the bottom corners of the panel above. This rectangle indicated the increasing size compared to the first panel above.]

:[Apart from the insert mentioned above the second panel follows the same layout, but with 22 circles with even larger range of sizes. The panel is more than twice as long as the first panel. A Megan-like girl, but with white hair, is drawn at the top of the panel just left of the middle. Her hair close to the top, just below the line going to the right corner above. There are two medium and five smaller circles to her left and one small close to her head and one huge circle to her right. Her feet are less than a third down this panel standing on top of the next row of circles. In the bottom half of the panel there is a giant circle which almost touches the left side of the panel. There are smaller circles above it and down along the right side. One last circle is to the left almost at the bottom. At the very bottom is a slightly curving line to indicate a much much larger blue circle that only graces the panel (no. 23). There is a small green fish in this water to the left of the label. Below the labels are again listed as above. One label has a foot note. But it is written directly beneath the circle in which it is referenced. So it will be written together with the label on the next line. There is also one case with an arrow used to indicate where the label belongs.]

:[Medium dark gray]: Coffee
:[Very tiny gray]: Peanut butter
:[Very small gray with black specks]: Ice cream
:[Very small yellow with white specks]: Cheese
:[Large brown with white fizzing]: Soda
:[Tiny White]: Acetone
:[Tiny gray]: Liquor
:[Huge dark yellow]: Gasoline
:[Tiny White with blue and orange specks]: Yogurt
:[Big white]: Milk (cow)
:[Large light blue]: Bottled water
:[Small white]: Sugar
:[Large light gray with white specks]: Saliva
:[Very small light yellow]: Wine
:[Very small orange]: HFCS
:[Very tiny white]: Milk (human)
:[Gigantic dark gray]: Petroleum
:[Medium dark red with black texture]: Meat (mostly solid)
:[Small white]: Glass*
::<nowiki>*</nowiki>Solid at room temperature
:[Medium light brown]: Beer
:[Small gray brown]: Tea
:[Large gray]: Cement
:[Gracing bottom of panel light blue, with a fish inside]: Public water

==Trivia==
*In addition to the what if? article, the relevancy of pipelines, particularly regarding public water, is heightened due to the ongoing public health crisis in {{w|Flint, Michigan}}, caused by recent (mis-)management of their public water system.
**See McLaughlin, Elliot. [http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/18/us/flint-michigan-water-crisis-five-things/index.html 5 things to know about Flint's water crisis], '{{w|CNN}}', January 21, 2016. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
**Studies have shown that temporary use of the Flint River as a water source caused corrosive water to leach lead from old pipes, causing lead poisoning in many residents, particularly children; other ill effects in addition to lead have been noted.
**The crisis has lead to a public outcry against the state "emergency financial management" team appointed and supervised by the state executive (Gov. Rick Snyder and staff) and an outpouring of support from nearby communities such as Metro Detroit via bottled water donations to Flint residents.
*This is the third comic posted on Leap Day ({{w|February 29}}) on Monday in 2016; the previous ones were:
**[[390: Nightmares]] on a Friday in 2008 and
**[[1023: Late-Night PBS]] on a Wednesday in 2012.
**If the current M-W-F schedule continues, the next such comic will not happen before 2036 when the leap day again falls on a Friday (Following the {{w|Solar cycle (calendar)|28 year cycle}}).
**It may also be interesting to note that the first three leap years after xkcd began (in just over 10 years) all fell on a release day, then followed by a break of 20 years.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
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[[Category:Rankings]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Animals]]

Category:Incomplete explanations

2016-04-23T11:44:14Z

108.162.219.56:

This is the category page for incomplete pages that have either incomplete or no explanation, or are missing something else important. To add pages to this category, add {{tl|incomplete}} to their source text.

[[Category:explain xkcd]]

Requests Area:

DON'T PUT ONLINE COMMUNITIES 2 IN THE SPOTLIGHT. THE SPOTLIGHT IS FOR BAD COMIC EXPLANATIONS, NOT HUGE COMICS WHO'S EXPLANATIONS ARE GREAT BUT DON'T HAVE EVERY GRATING DETAIL! PUT THE SPOTLIGHT ON SOMETHING ELSE!

Category:Incomplete explanations

2016-04-23T11:43:24Z

108.162.219.56:

This is the category page for incomplete pages that have either incomplete or no explanation, or are missing something else important. To add pages to this category, add {{tl|incomplete}} to their source text.

[[Category:explain xkcd]]

Requests Area:

DON'T PUT ONLINE COMMUNITIES 2 IN THE SPOTLIGHT. THE SPOTLIGHT IS FOR BAD COMIC EXPLANATIONS, NOT HUGE COMICS WHO'S EXPLANATIONS ARE GREAT BUT NOT COMPLETE! PUT THE SPOTLIGHT ON SOMETHING ELSE!

Category:Incomplete explanations

2016-04-23T11:42:43Z

108.162.219.56:

This is the category page for incomplete pages that have either incomplete or no explanation, or are missing something else important. To add pages to this category, add {{tl|incomplete}} to their source text.

[[Category:explain xkcd]]

Requests:

DON'T PUT ONLINE COMMUNITIES 2 IN THE SPOTLIGHT. THE SPOTLIGHT IS FOR BAD COMIC EXPLANATIONS, NOT HUGE COMICS WHO'S EXPLANATIONS ARE GREAT BUT NOT COMPLETE! PUT THE SPOTLIGHT ON SOMETHING ELSE!

802: Online Communities 2

2016-04-23T11:39:15Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 802
| date = October 6, 2010
| title = Online Communities 2
| image = online_communities_2.png
| titletext = Best trivia I learned while working on this: 'Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize it's the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the WORLD?' Then you wait for the listener to do a double-take.
}}
A [http://xkcd.com/802_large/ larger version] of this picture can be found by clicking the comic on xkcd.
{{TOC}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This comic is helplessly and inexplainably huge. Cut the explainers some slack! This comic is by far the most common to be in the Incomplete Spotlight. It's HUGE. Use the spotlight for ACTUALLY BAD explanations, not just explanations that are unfortunately stuck with a huge comic! Get this thing out of the spotlight!}}

This comic shows a map of internet communities where the size of each region roughly corresponds to its size, and its proximity to other regions indicates similarities.

This is the successor of [[256: Online Communities]]. It differs in that it is updated, and furthermore, instead of using the ''membership'' of whichever service to determine its size on the map, it uses its "daily social activity."

The map actually has two super−maps intended to show the relative usage of types of communication: the online community map is surrounded by the much larger "countries" of E−Mail, SMS ("Instant Messaging") and "Cell Phones," which in turn are surrounded by the even huger "Spoken Language." It is unclear whether "Cell Phones" is intended to represent an independent region, or whether it is meant to be a sub-region of "Spoken Language." The ambiguity is exacerbated by the fact that cell phones are the primary medium of SMS, and are also used to access email and online communities. It's also unclear why other forms of communication, such as handwritten letters, are not included.

At the title text [[Randall]] explains that, using his definition of "most activity per day," Farmville is actually the ''second'' most popular social-network farming game - the Chinese game Happy Farm was more popular at the time. This strikes many English-speaking xkcd readers as odd, because Farmville is much more famous, leading one to wonder how it could not be the most played. The phrase "browser-based social-networking-centered farming game" is an example of an [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OverlyNarrowSuperlative overly-narrow superlative.]

===Facebook Region===
The Facebook region deals with social networks, that is, websites oriented towards having people meet.

'''{{w|Facebook}}''' is a social networking site that allows people to meet old real−life friends and make new friends that share similar interests. One of its most notable features is that a member can update a "status" or make normal posts about the happenings of the member's life, complete with pictures, other members "liking" these posts. The size of the Facebook region is not exaggerated; most websites seem to allow "liking" their content or allow/require logging in the website with a Facebook account. There even are cell phones with a "Facebook" button!

*'''{{w|FarmVille}}''' and '''{{w|Farm Town}}''' are Facebook games in which users manage farms. '''{{w|Happy Farm}},''' the Chinese game that inspired the other two, does not require Facebook integration, so it is separated by a solid line from Facebook. The "Unethical Bay" refers to how these games tend to addict players into constantly buying virtual items of questionable value.

*'''People You Can't Unfriend''' refers to people whom, due to real-life expectations and relationships, unfriending them is difficult, no matter how you really feel about them.

*'''Blatherskite River''' refers to the conversations on Facebook, which may be long yet devoid of general meaning or logic.

*'''Data Mines''' refer to the data mining that Facebook does with the interests of its members. This fuels the profitable advertising business at the expense of customer trust.

*'''Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions''' refer to how interactions with family members on Facebook suddenly become more awkward because everyone on Facebook (and sometimes ''off'' Facebook, given that you do not necessarily need to log in if you want to see someone's Facebook account) if you are discussing with your family through post comments.

*'''524,287 Strong for Mersenne Primes''' refers to the communities who gain followers for a cause. A {{w|Mersenne prime}} is a prime number that is 1 less than a power of 2; 524287 is the 7th known Mersenne prime.

*'''Jungle-Bay Mountains of "It's Complicated"''' refers to one of Facebook's options as to what a user's relationship status currently is. A Jungle-Bay Mountain is a complicated and undefined climate, hence the complication.

*'''"lamebook bay"''' refers to the online website "lamebook", where users post photos of funny things that happen on facebook (these can include statuses, "fails", put-downs and images.)

*'''"Old Facebook" Resistance''' refers to Facebook's earlier users, who have often resisted (and resented) changes made to Facebook as it became more popular.

*'''Privacy Controls''' is located on the map surrounded by a Lava Pool, which is a reference to how difficult it is to find the privacy controls within Facebook.

*'''Niche Market Mountains''' refers to social networks aimed towards more niche markets are located. Similar to how mountains tend to be isolated from mainland, niche social networks tend to be just that: niche, without much interaction with the general populace.
*'''Charred Wasteland of Abandoned Social Networks''' refers to the tons of websites wanting to take advantage of the success of websites like Facebook to compete or even overpower with them. Even so, these websites tend to not have the userbase or even the expertise towards the long-term, hence they become wastelands: environments devoid of life, except the few life forms that are from these wastelands (in this case, the ones who are loyal to the website or which are sadly few).
*In the Charred Wasteland stands '''{{w|Ozymandias}}''', the titular broken statue of Shelley's poem. In the poem, only "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and a "shattered visage" are all that remain of the once-great statue and both of these features are present in the comic. According to the poem, the pedestal before the broken statue reads "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings..." hence "friend of friends" below Ozymandias on the map.
*In the north are the '''Duckface Mountains''' and the '''Red Cup Mountains'''."Duckface" refers to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duck-face this incredibly obnoxious facial expression], and "red cup pictures" are any pictures containing party-goers holding disposable red plastic beverage cups. Facebook is absolutely flooded with both types of pictures.
*In the south is '''Buzzword Bay'''. {{w|Buzzword}}s are words and phrases that make you sound a lot more topical than you actually are, used to garner attention; again, Facebook status updates are commonly filled with buzzwords.

While Facebook is the largest "country" of the Facebook Region, there are a lot of smaller "countries" that represent smaller social networks.

*Below Facebook (and "Old Facebook' Resistance") is '''{{w|Diaspora (social network)|Diaspora}}''', a fully open-source, decentralized, privacy-respecting-and-expecting alternative to Facebook. From what this map tells, Diaspora is little-known, even if Facebook is taken out of the context.
*'''{{w|StudiVZ}}''' is a German-speaking social network similar if not a ripped-off version of Facebook.
*'''{{w|XING}}''' is a German-speaking social platform similar to LinkedIn.
*'''{{w|Ning (website)|Ning}}''' is a service to create custom social websites. Its free services shut down in 2010.
*'''{{w|Taringa!}}''' is a Spanish-speaking social network that is based on a forums. Copyrighted material is frequently found there.
*Next to the Euro(pean) Gulf is '''{{w|Skyrock (social network site)}}''', a French-speaking social network.
*'''{{w|Wer-kennt-wen}}''' is a German-social network somewhat like MySpace.
*'''{{w|Nasza-klasa.pl}}''' or NK, is a Polish-speaking social network based on school relationships.
*'''{{w|Badoo}}''' is a social network primarily based on dating and picture-sharing.
*'''{{w|Classmates.com}}''' is a service in which the user can meet classmates that came from the same high school. The website is probably best known by its memetic advertisement that said [http://dudemanphat.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-am-i-supposed-to-care-about-nick.html "She married him??!! And they've got 7 kids??"] (Incidentally, [http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2003325519_adcouple27.html there is more to the coupled picture than what the advertisement says.])
*'''{{w|Myspace}}''' is a social networking website that is a kind of proto-Facebook: users could customize their one-page websites with whatever they wanted, make their interests and daily lives public, and interact with other users. Back in the mid 2000s, MySpace was the largest social network, many people using the website; however, the surprisingly-less-customizable Facebook ended up taking the place of MySpace. The "bands" country of MySpace refers to how a lot of bands in the day advertised and interacted using the website. Indeed, the latest incarnation of MySpace (in terms of 2013) is more oriented towards band members.
*'''{{w|LinkedIn}}''' is a social network aimed towards people in the workplace, which is why it is adjacent to '''Corporate Bay'''.
*'''{{w|Orkut}}''' was one of Google's first social networks before Google made [https://plus.google.com/ Google+]. It shut down in 2014.
*'''{{w|Hi5}}''' is a social network that is very popular among people in Latin America.
*'''{{w|Renren}}''' ('''「人人」''', "people" in Chinese) is "a Chinese copy of Facebook."
*'''{{w|Bebo}}''' was a social network popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It went bankrupt in 2013 and will move away from social networking and into apps.
*'''{{w|Friendster}}''' - One of the first major social networks, it has fallen way off in usage in recent years and was eclipsed by MySpace. It is still popular in Asia.
*'''{{w|VK (social networking website)|Vkontakte}}''' or VK, is the second largest social network service in Europe after Facebook. It is available in several languages, but particularly popular among Russian-speaking users around the world.
*'''{{w|Netlog}}''' is a Belgian social networking website specifically targeted at the global youth demographic.
*'''{{w|Mixi}}''' is an online Japanese social networking service.
*'''{{w|Qzone}}''' is a social networking website, which is big in China. According to a report published by Tencent, possibly surpassing other social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace in China.
*'''{{w|Tuenti}}''' is a Spain-based, social networking service, that has been referred to as the "Spanish Facebook."
*'''{{w|Cloob}}''' is a Persian-language social networking website, mainly popular in Iran. After the locally (and internationally) popular social networking website Orkut was blocked by the Iranian government, a series of local sites and networks, including Cloob, emerged to fill the gap.
*'''{{w|Kaixin001}}''' is a social networking website which ranks as the 13th most popular website in China and 67th overall.
*'''{{w|Piczo}}''' was a privately held blog website for teens. In November 2012, Piczo.com shut down.
*'''{{w|Odnoklassniki}}''' is a social network service for classmates and old friends. It is popular in Russia and former Soviet Republics.
*'''{{w|Adult FriendFinder}}''' is a pornographic dating site.
*'''{{w|Match.com}}''' is a dating site, mainly targeted at people looking for marriage.
*'''{{w|Ok Cupid}}''' is another dating site, however it has been owned by Match.com since 2011.
*'''{{w|PlentyofFish}}''' is yet another dating site, also owned by Match.com since June 2015.
*'''{{w|Sulawesi}}''' is a real-life island in the Indonesian archipelago. It also appears in 256: Online Communities.

===MMO Isle===
MMOs (short form of "Massive Multiplayer Online Game") are online games where multiple people take the role of a character and play in a setting hosted by the game.

*'''[https://www.habbo.com/ Habbo Hotel]''' is a website where someone creates a human avatar an interacts in a virtual world that is not that different from the one in real life.
*'''[http://www.clubpenguin.com/ Club Penguin]''' is [http://disney.com/ Disney's] MMO where someone creates a penguin avatar and interacts with other in a more polar, cartoony setting. Club Penguin is aimed towards children.
*'''[http://maplestory.nexon.net/ Maple Story]''' is an MMO that has a more natural setting. The most distinguishing feature of Maple Story is its cartoony pixel art.
*'''[http://www.gamefaqs.com/ GameFAQs]''', while not an MMO, is a website that has the largest repository of walkthoughs, that is, guides that help someone beat a game. GameFAQs is notable for not only its large repository of walkthroughs of games that are across an extreme variety of consoles, handhelds, and even computers (not all of them MMOs), but also the drama that is rumoured to happen in the GameFAQs forums.
*'''[http://www.ign.com/ IGN]''' (full: '''Imagine Games Network'''), while also not an MMO, is the largest website that gives news on video games in general, not just MMOs. Each of the games mentioned in the site have pages that have summaries, reviews, screenshots, other art, videos, and links to news related to its games.
*'''[http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml FFXI]''' (full: '''Final Fantasy XI''') is an MMO from SquareEnix, being the first MMO of the popular ''Final Fantasy'' series.
*'''[http://www.runescape.com/community Runescape]''' is an older MMO.
*'''[http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/ Starcraft II]''' is a realtime strategy game with a science fiction setting that heavily involves space travel. While technically not an MMO, it has a significant online multiplayer component.
*'''[http://us.battle.net/wow/en/ WoW]''' (full: '''World of Warcraft''') is the definitive MMO, being not only the most popular and one of the longest-running but also the most expansive (having its own spinoff games, comic books, novels, and even figurines), WOW giving the idea of how an MMO should be. A player can choose from a variety of races, each with its own heavy history.
*'''[http://secondlife.com/ Second Life]''' is similar to Habbo, albeit with a bigger suspension of disbelief (one example being that the player does not need to be a human) and in a 3D setting.
*'''[http://www.nationstates.net/ NationStates]''' is a text-based political simulation game. Notably, some of its traffic comes not from the actual game (which is optional), but the extensive set of political, roleplaying, and general forums attached.
*'''[http://www.urbandead.com/ Urban Dead]''' describes itself as "A Massively Multi-Player Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse", which sums it up pretty well.
*'''[http://www.kingdomofloathing.com KoL]''' (full: '''Kingdom of Loathing''') is a comedic browser-based MMO-ish RPG with minimalistic stick-figure art.
*'''{{w|CDC Games}}''' is a Chinese company reputed to be the largest MMORPG distributor.
*'''{{w|Eve Online|EVE Online}}''' is a science fiction MMO which is notable because of its virtual economy.
*'''{{w|Gaia Online|Gaia}}''' or Gaia Online, while not an MMO, is a forum oriented towards pop culture, including video games and Japanese media. Its most notable feature is the heavy customization possible of a member's pixel-art avatar. Its members tend to roleplay a lot, albeit in a more written, story-based form. Gaia has gained a reputation with its members stealing art and causing drama. The ferry that links the gaia island with 4chan was most likely due to the "boxxy" row, where vlogger boxxy posted videos of her using gaia, which then were circulated on 4chan. This resulted in a division of the sites users, and many more hacking attacks, including a DDOS attack on 4chan itself.
*'''[https://www.everquest.com EverQuest]''' (full: '''EverQuest''') is one of the first MMO's, it's still running and has a huge number of expansions.
*'''[https://www.uo.com UO]''' (full: '''Ultima Online''') along with EverQuest this was one of the first and longest running MMO's.

*'''{{w|City of Heroes|CoH}}''' or City of Heroes was a superhero-based MMORPG that was shut down November 2012.
*'''[http://atlantica.nexon.net/ Atlantica]''' (full: '''Atlantica Online''') is a turn-based MMORPG.
*'''[http://lineage.plaync.com/ Lineage]''' is a Korean MMORPG, it's North American servers were closed 2011/06/29 due to being unprofitable.
*'''[http://www.lineage2.com/en/ Lineage II]''' is a Korean MMORPG, mainly played in Asia along with it's predecessor. It adopted a Free to Play model on 2011/11/30.
*'''{{w|SubSpace_(video_game)|SubSpace}}''' was a 2D, topdown shooter released in 1997. The servers have been shut down, but it continues to operate through the work of fans. It's widely considered an early entry into the MMO genre due to it's unprecedentedly high player count.

Other notable regions include:
*The '''Mountains of Steam''', referring to the game distribution service [http://store.steampowered.com/ Steam] where people can buy and download video games in general, not just MMOs. There is also an extensive [http://steamcommunity.com/ community] where users can share content, and instant messaging chat by text, voice, or game streaming.
*'''River Grind''' refers to "grinding." In most MMOs, the character is a fighter of some sorts, yet starts at a level 1, signifying the character's aptitude level in combat. The character can level up and gain more aptitude levels through earning experience, of which the most reliable and otherwise common way is the process of "grinding," that is, repeatedly fighting opposing monsters (sometimes of a level notably lower that your character's), gaining experience points from winning these battles until your character gains a level, that is, "levels up". While a practical necessity in strengthening the character, this process can be tiresome, hence the expression "grinding."
*'''Spawn Camp''' refers to "spawn points", the places where AI-powered enemies and players who have died in-game respawn, and the act of "spawn camping", in which the player character simply stands behind or around the spawn points to fight the enemy creatures or respawning players as soon as they appear.
*'''Gulf of Lag''' refers to how the MMO can be slowed down a considerable amount due to the large amount of players simultaneously using the same server, this congestion bogging down the server and frustrating the users.
*'''[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/final-boss-of-the-internet End Guy for the Internet]''' refers to "end bosses," the last — and usually hardest to defeat — "bad guy" in a game (or a section of a game).

===YouTube Region===
The YouTube region refers to websites that are based on user-created content.

'''[https://www.youtube.com/ YouTube]''' is the definitive video website where people can upload videos with the purpose of public viewing, ranging from home movies through official music videos through Let's Plays of people playing video games to questionably-legal uploads of cartoons and films. Google had purchased YouTube.

Many of the sites on the map are just references to {{w|viral video}}s at {{w|YouTube}}:
*'''Viral Shores''' refers to how viral videos (whether they be viral marketing or simply memes) tend to proliferate on YouTube.
*'''Britney''' likely refers to pop singer {{w|Britney Spears}} and the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc‎ "Leave Britney Alone" guy].
*'''Maru Gulf''' refers to Maru the Cat, a YouTube celebrity [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/676:_Abstraction also mentioned in xkcd].
*'''Prairie Dog Habitat''' likely refers to the viral video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw Dramatic Chipmunk] (which is actually a Prairie Dog).
*'''Rick Rolling Hills''' references, well, {{w|Rickrolling}}. More information [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ here]. The "deserted" note likely refers to how Rick Astley himself is tired of the meme, or again, how people tend to leave the video upon getting "Rick Roll'd," never actually going to the video with the express purpose of viewing the video.
*'''Lunar Landing Soundstage''' is, of course, a reference to the {{w|Moon landing conspiracy theories}}, which Randall has railed on before.
*'''{{w|OK Go}} Bay''' refers to the band "OK Go" who have multiple viral music videos on YouTube, most famously [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA "Here it goes again"] featuring treadmills.

The '''HTML5 swamp''' refers to YouTube's spotty support of HTML 5 (an update on HTML that is frequently touting its media capabilities, making HTML 5 a viable alternative to Flash). Of course, by the time the comic was written, HTML 5 was still in its infancy. The Music Video Bay refers to the amount of music videos (official or otherwise) are present in YouTube.

Other counties of the YouTube region include:
*'''[https://vimeo.com/ vimeo]''', a website where people tend to showcase artistic content that they made on their own, notably independent studios.

Snob Sound:
*'''[https://secure.flickr.com/ Flickr]''', a website where people can upload and share photographs they took.
*'''[http://fotolog.com Fotolog]''', a photo website very popular in South America in 2004-2008, which was used as a social network.
*'''[http://www.last.fm/ Last.fm]''', a music website that is notable of its "scrobbling" feature.
*'''[http://www.deviantart.com/ deviantArt]''', the largest art website, where people can upload, sell, and buy not only art itself, but also video, audio, Flash-work, and even skins (the original purpose of deviantArt). While many big-name/professional people and organizations have their works in deviantArt, the site is more infamous for the large amount of people who upload low-quality fan-art and fan-characters, most notably of media from Japan. Another point of infamy is the large amount of drama that can happen in the website.

*'''[https://www.newgrounds.com/ Newgrounds]''', a website that hosts art, (Flash-based) videos, audio, and (Flash-based) games to which other users can comment and rate. Even so, content from Newgrounds tends to be obscene, though there is a filtering system if a viewer does not wish to see obscene content.
*'''[http://www.chatroulette.com/ Chatroulette]''' is a website where people are randomly paired up with each other and video/text chat.
*'''{{w|Brickshelf}}''' is the online resource for {{w|LEGO}} fans.
*'''[https://tumblr.com/ Tumblr]''', where people could make a blog and post text, pictures, video, audio, quotes, and links. The most distinguishing feature is the ability to "reblog" these posts from other's people's blogs into the user's own blog. Notable features of Tumblr include sketchblogs (where people upload their sketches), Ask blogs (where people answer questions other users ask, the moderators of these blogs usually pretending to be a character from a form of media), and the large amount of "social justice" (where people fight against racism, sexism, and other forms of negative discrimination). (See also [[1043: Ablogalypse]].)
*'''{{w|b3ta}}''' is a popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by The Guardian.

The '''Isle of teenagers who just discovered macroeconomics''' is a joke about how teenagers tend to think that the world and the economy are a lot simpler than they actually are. Combined with the typical internet mindset, this leads to a lot of teenagers posting blogs and videos and comments on blogs and videos describing how idiotic the government and other red-tape-related adults are.
The '''Snob Sound''' could refer to the large amount of people who look down on others in the surrounding websites (one example being an original artist looking down on people who draw mainly fan-art). '''The Iraq''' is a reference to Miss Teen USA 2007, in which Ms. Teen South Carolina, Lauren Katlin, said "I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as...the US should help the US and should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we are able to build up our future." The usage of "the Iraq" has became a meme.

===Twitter Region===
*'''Bieber Bay''' is a reference to {{w|Justin Bieber}}, a pop singer whose singing sprouted on YouTube and became very popular on Twitter and other social media. He is very much vilified because of his rather feminine appearance and his hordes of fans (called "Beliebers") that seem to support him to ridiculous extents. Lately, though, Justin Beiber has taken a "bad boy" attitude because of all the Beliebers who are willing to defend him no matter what, him partaking in a lot of questionable activities that include tattoos, questionably-legal substances, and buying prostitution, thus lowering his popularity in the general populace.
*'''{{w|Google Buzz}}''' is a former social network attempted by Google. It has since been shut down.
*'''Bit.Ly Mountains''' is a reference to the URL shortening service {{w|bit.ly}}.
*'''Kanye's Isle of Sadness''' is a reference to the musician {{w|Kanye West}}, whose Twitter, at the time, was [http://www.buzzfeed.com/mlew15/25-of-kanye-wests-most-thought-provoking-tweets-h0se famously introspective and stream-of-consciousness].
*'''Sarah Palin USA''' is the Twitter handle of former politician {{w|Sarah Palin}}.
*'''Clueless Politician Coast''' is a reference to the number of politicians on Twitter and other social networks who repeatedly share clueless updates that more often create an uproar than help their election chances.
*'''Desert of Food Updates''' is a reference to the number of pictures of food that are shared on social media (especially Twitter). There has even been some controversy on posting such pictures.
*'''Journalists Trying to Find the Cutting Edge''' is referencing journalists on Twitter trying to keep up with the way that news is gathered and delivered now, despite usually working for a newspaper that publishes once a day.
*'''SHAQ''' is a reference to the former NBA basketball player, {{w|Shaq}}.
*'''{{w|identi.ca}}''' is an open source social networking and micro-blogging service, being an alternative to Twitter.
*''' Breaking! Waves''' is a pun on the fact that so many people used the word "Breaking" at the beginning of tweets that do not warrant that tag that the word has lost most of its meaning and become a joke. It is a pun because waves "break" on the shore.
*'''Web 3.0''' refers to the unofficial term {{w|Web 2.0}}. In this case, "Web 1.0" refers to websites that give information to users. Web 2.0 refers to websites where the users themselves create content. Web 3.0 has sometimes been used as a term for {{w|semantic web}}, a machine-readable version of the web, but this usage is far from universal.
*'''Hashtag games whose popularity confuses and depresses you''' refers to the game where a user posts something under a particular hashtag and others respond with their own ideas, all tagged under the same phrase. This has been very popular for no clear reason, as Randall notes.

===Geotagged Bay===
*'''{{w|Yelp}}''' is a website where people post reviews of real-life public locations (one example being restaurants).
*'''{{w|Geocaching}}''' is a worldwide GPS scavenger hunt where users upload positions of caches and others will find them and log it online.
*'''{{w|Foursquare}}''' is a location-based social network.
*'''Latitude''' refers to {{w|Google Latitude}}.

===Troll Bay and the Sea of Memes===
*'''{{w|Reddit}}''' is the self-described "front page of the Internet" in which users submit stories, photos and videos and the best are "up-voted" to the top of the page.
*'''{{w|Help:Using talk pages|Wikipedia Talk Pages}}''' refer to the pages where Wikipedia editors discuss how to improve articles.
*'''{{w|Wikia}}''' is a 3rd party wiki software, used in the making of the user-editable encyclopedias of just about any subject matter.
*'''{{w|StumbleUpon}}''' is a website-sharing service.
*'''{{w|Delicious (website)|Delicious}}''' is a bookmarking and bookmark-sharing service.
*'''{{w|Digg}}''' is a former competitor to Reddit in the social-news sphere, but now has been sold and restarted as an aggregator of news stories.
*'''{{w|Slashdot}}''', labeled "/." on the map, is a technical news site.
*'''{{w|Fark}}''' is a community website that allows members to comment on news articles from other sites.
*'''{{w|YTMND}}''' is an acronym for "You're The Man Now, Dog!" It's also a community in which users can create meme-type nonsense by playing music over an image (either static or animated).

===Skype Region===
The Skype Region refers to different IM, or Instant Messaging services, that enable almost-real-time text chatting between multiple people. These often allow services like voice chat and even video calls.

*'''{{w|Skype}}''' is, according to Randall, the most popular of these among the internet. It has many features to allow peer-to-peer voice chats, as well as allowing calls to be made at a price to actual phones.
*'''{{w|AIM}}''' or AOL Instant Messenger is a chat client created by AOL.
*'''GG''' or {{w|Gadu-Gadu}} is an instant messenger client popular in Poland.
*'''{{w|Yahoo Messenger}}''' is an instant messenger client by Yahoo.
*'''{{w|Google Talk}}''' is a voice/video chatting service from Google (that Google has been replacing with Hangouts). Google Talk also has an invasion fleet at its shores.
*'''{{w|ICQ}}''' is an older messaging service, albeit with an 18+ requirement (despite pornography not being the point of ICQ).
*'''{{w|Windows Live Messenger}}''', or "MSN", was the messaging service of Microsoft before Microsoft bought Skype. MSN was useful in that people could draw and send pictures to other chatters.
*'''{{w|UseNet}}''' was one of the original ways to communicate on the internet, though people can download (copyrighted) files through the service. Since it is still in use by some, it gets the tag "Still Around!" on the map.
*'''{{w|IRC}} Isles''' refers to the ancestor of Internet-powered chatting. People would have connected to a server and spoke publicly. IRC is still in use (per 2014, notably in getting help from users4. One of those isles is #xkcd which is an IRC community around [[xkcd]].

===Bay of Drama===
*'''{{w|FanFiction.net}}''' is a website where people can submit their fanfiction (stories by fans written about other peoples' media, normally that about popular media). The website tends to have people that are not helpful to those who legitimately want critique of their own stories.
*'''{{w|Xanga}}''' is a blogging service that, while popular at its time, lost out to...
*'''{{w|LiveJournal}}''' was the most popular blogging service before Tumblr.
*'''ONYD''' - Reference to {{w|Oh No You Didn't}}, which is explained in the Blogosphere region.
*'''{{w|Dreamwidth}}''' is a LiveJournal fork emphasizing its open-source nature.

===Blogosphere===
The Blogosphere region contains several general {{w|blog}} topics.
*'''{{w|photo blog|Photo Blogs}}''' are commonly used to chronicle the lives of the authors through photographs.
*'''Diary Blogs''' are another popular use of blogs (and, in fact, the original use) where authors write commentary about their lives.
*'''Bay of Grammar Pedantry''' deals with the fact that, whether due to a lack of proper education, a habit of using "chat-speak" in the text-limited SMS and MMS, or simply due to the (generally) more relaxed nature of the Internet, blog authors tend to write with horrible composition, a point of annoyment to a lot of other people due to the subsequent increased difficulty of reading the horribly-written material.
*'''Fandom Blogs''' are blogs created by a "{{w|fandom}}" which is a community of fans. A fandom blog deals with the subject matter of the respective fandom.
*'''Sea of Zero (0) Comments''' refers to blogs that get very little attention and therefore have no comments.
*'''SpamBlog Straits''' references spammers who use blogs to increase the number of links to their site to try to game search engines.
*'''OffTopic.com''' is a general interest forum that refers to itself as "the largest general discussion forum on the internet."
*Many more straightforward blogs, including:
**'''Writing/Poetry'''
**'''Gossip Blogs'''
**'''Political Blogs'''
**'''Music Blogs'''
**'''Tech Blogs'''
**'''Business Blogs'''
**'''Corporate Blogs'''
**'''Religious Blogs'''
**'''Miscellaneous Blogs'''
*'''Blog Blogs''' - These can refer to blogs that talk about the matter about blogging itself, though they can also refer to blogs which authors use in talking about blogging.

===Blogosphere (Core Region)===
Gossip Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on gossip surrounding celebrities and other well-known persons.
*'''{{w|Jezebel}}''' is a liberally feminist blog, hosted by Gawker.
*'''{{w|deadline.com|Deadline}}''' is an online entertainment news magazine.
*'''{{w|TMZ}}''' is a celebrity news website.
*'''{{w|Gawker}}''' is a blog that is the host of other blogs.
*'''LJ Oh No They Didn't''' - LiveJournal {{w|Oh No They Didn't}} - Oh No They Didn't, also known as ONTD, is the largest community on LiveJournal with over 100,000 members. The community focuses on celebrity gossip and pop culture with most of its posts aggregated from other gossip blogs.
*'''Doucheblog''' refers to blogs that were once insightful but that spiraled into long rants due to relationship changes of their authors.
*'''Isle of Mockery''' is a reference to the fact that some of what these blogs do is mock celebrities or other for doing or saying stupid things on camera.

Liberal Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "liberal" or "progressive" slant. These blogs tend to lean for the Democratic party.
*'''{{w|Huffington Post}}''' is a news blog.
*'''{{w|Paul Krugman}}''' is an American economist who considers himself a liberal.
*'''{{w|Daily Beast}}''' is a news and opinion website focusing on politics and pop culture.
*'''{{w|Talking Points Memo|TPM}}''' is a political journal run by Josh Marshall.
*'''{{w|Ezra Klein}}''' used to have his own site at the Washington Post, but is now the editor of [Vox.com].
*'''{{w|Think Progress}}''' is a political news blog.
*'''{{w|Daily Kos|Kos}}''' is another political blog.

Bay of Flame:
*'''{{w|Politics Daily}}''' is a political journalism website launched by AOL.
*'''CNN Political Ticker''' is CNN's political blog.
*'''{{w|Mediaite}}''' is a news and opinion blog covering politics and entertainment in the media.
*'''{{w|NY Times}}''' is one of the most famous newspapers, thus the comparatively large size of its island.
*'''{{w|The Talk}}''' is a talk show on CBS that discusses the latest headlines "through the eyes of mothers."
*Libertarian Isle (shaped like a {{w|Nolan Chart}})

Conservative Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "conservative" or Republican slant.
*'''{{w|Pajamas Media}}''' is a media company and operator of conservative news.
*'''{{w|Michelle Malkin}}''' is a conservative blogger, political commentator, and author.
*'''{{w|Hot Air}}''' is a news blog founded by Michelle Malkin.
*'''{{w|RedState|Red State}}''' is a political blog.
*'''{{w|American Thinker}}''' is a daily online magazine focused on politics.
*'''{{w|Townhall}}''' is a web publication and print magazine.

Tech Blogs:
*'''{{w|Boy Genius Report}}''' is a weblog that focuses on technology and consumer gadgets.
*'''{{w|Gizmodo}}''' is a news and opinion blog, hosted by Gawker, that talks about life's more technological matters.
*'''{{w|Engadget}}''' is another technology-oriented, albeit independent, blog.
*'''Crunchgear''' is a blog that reviews gadgets and other hardware.
*'''{{w|Techcrunch}}''' is an online publisher of technology industry news.
*'''{{w|Joystiq}}''' is a news and opinion blog that focuses on gaming.
*'''{{w|Kotaku}}''' is another gaming-oriented news/opinion blog, the main difference beig that Kotaku is owned by Gawker.

Assorted:
*'''{{w|BoingBoing}}''' is "i blog about wonderful things", the topics being quite random.
*'''{{w|Lifehacker}}''' is another Gawker blog, is a blog that teaches people how to simplify their lives through 'lifehacking', that is, using their resources in creative wayss. While the subject matter is life in general, there is a significant technological slant.
*'''{{w|Deadspin}}''' is a sports and sports gossip blog founded by Will Leitch.
*'''Meatorama''' is a blog that talks about cooking meat.

===QQ Region===
*'''Baidu Baike''' (「百度百科」, "Baidu Encyclopedia") and '''Hudong''' (「互动百科」, "Interactive Encyclopedia" ) are two Chinese online encyclopedias. Baidu Baike is powered by the same company as Baidu, the search engine popular in China.
* The '''Ma Le Ge Bi''' and the '''Grass Mud Horse Bay''' could refer to the {{w|Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures}}.
* The '''Location of Jia Junpeng''' refers to the Internet meme of {{w|Jia Junpeng}} in 2009 in China.
*'''{{w|Tencent QQ}}''' is a Chinese instant messaging program.
*In English communities "QQ" has several more common definitions:
**An {{w|emoticon}}, representing a face with two large, crying eyes.
**A synonym for "rage quit", in which a video game player quits the game out of sheer frustration. It originated in ''Warcraft II'' multiplayer, where pressing Ctrl+Q+Q would quit the game, and became more widely known in ''World of Warcraft''.
**These definitions are commonly combined, usually to mock the "rage quitter".
*The Gulf of China refers to how sites in the region are based in People's Republic of China ("Red China"). The '''Great Firewall''' refers to {{w|The Great Firewall of China}}, a pun on {{w|The Great Wall of China}}. Similar to how The Great Wall of China was meant to keep intruding nations out of the then-capital of the city, The Great Firewall of China is meant to keep visitors from visiting censored websites. However, either a VPN or remote access to a computer in a "freer" country can circumvent the Firewall. Oddly other Chinese websites (Qzone, Renren etc.) are not enclosed in this zone.

===Forums Islands===
Forums are websites where one person post a topic to which other people can discuss.

While the map has a zoomed in version, this article shall discuss the two bigger islands, first.

*'''[http://www.2ch.net 2channel]''' is a Japanese imageboard that was actually the original inspiration for 4chan.
*'''[http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites Craigslist]''' is a classified advertisement website with sections devoted to just about everything... which formerly included prostitution services, hence the '''The Former Site of Adult Services'''.

In the zoomed-in map, there is the following:
*'''[https://www.4chan.org/ 4chan.org]''' is an {{w|imageboard}} in which people can upload pictures while others comment on them. The website is infamous for its loose/often non-existent rules, incredibly vulgar userbase, source of new memes, and spawning of trolls. 4chan's random board, known internally as '''/b/''', is almost constantly flooded with porn and image macros. This is why Randall's incarnation of 4chan is shaped like a penis.
*'''420chan''' and '''7chan''', other imageboards in the style of 4chan. Their relative lack of popularity and derivative nature leads a lot of 4chan users to mock them; hence, their position on Randall's map suggests that they're mere wads of semen.
*'''Encyclopedia Dramatica''', labeled '''ED''' on the map, is a wiki site dedicated to chronicling internet memes and other noteworthy sites, events, people, and anything else that catches their attention, generally in a very satirical manner. The site is heavily populated by 4chan users. Many people are offended by the articles and talks that go on in the wiki and forum, which is perhaps the reason that it appears to be represented as a wad of sperm. The image of sperm also makes sense since ED is used as a messaging center for the group "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is represented in the map as part of the testicles of the 4chan island(see below at the gulf named Anonymous).
*'''Tunnel to Habbo''' is a reference to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pools-closed the 2006 Habbo Hotel Raids], in which hundreds of 4chan Anons simultaneously logged onto Habbo Hotel and proceeded to be as obnoxious as possible, standing in formations of swastikas and penises or body-blocking the swimming pools.
*'''{{w|Catbus}} Route''' is likely a reference to {{w|Lolcat}}s in general.
*'''[http://www.ebaumsworld.com/ eBaum's World]''' is a media-hosting website founded by Eric Bauman. The site has lost a lot of traffic after (quite valid) accusations of stolen content.
*The gulf labelled '''{{w|Anonymous (group)|Anonymous}}''' is most likely a reference to the leaderless, anonymous international network called "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is composed of (mainly) anarchic activist hackers. Anonymous was created on the /b/ messaging board of 4chan, hence why the bay of Anonymous is on the coast of /b/. Also, the fact that the bay is in the "testicles"(/b/) of the 4chan island "penis" is referring to how Anonymous was created on 4chan, in the same way that sperm is created in the testicles of a penis, possibly a subtle jab at the group.

To the south and east is an archipelago of islands representing various regional and special-interest forums. Moving clockwise from 4chan island is
* '''Storm 2K''' is an online website hosting information on tropical cyclones and tools for tracking them, and has a forum with multiple categories and threads for discussion on tropical cyclones, as well as multiple tropical cyclone models and reconnaissance information.
* '''Skyscraper city''' is an internet forum website for skyscraper hobbyists and enthusiasts.
* An island containing two websites related to women, namely
** '''Wizaz.pl''' is a Polish website, presumably for women, with a forum filled with discussions mainly about beauty, health, women, hobbies, and fun.
** '''Baby and bump''' is a self-described "pregnancy forum, baby and parenting community."
An island contaning
** '''ForoCoches''' is a very popular Spanish (as in from Spain) forum mainly about automobiles, but holds discussions on virtually any topic.
** '''Bodybuilding.com''' is(as you can hopefully tell) a website for bodybuilders. It contains a forum for general discussions on bodybuilding that includes topics such as supplements, exercises, and nutrition.
** '''Bokt.nl''' calls itself the largest community on the topic of horses. A Dutch website, it holds topics about virtually anything involving horses.
** '''Cruise Critic''' is a website with a large forum about cruises in general.
* '''Lay it low''' is a website for discussing lowriding(changing a car so that its ground clearance go lower than the clearance of the original design from the manufacturer.
* '''[http://www.twoplustwo.com/ Two plus two]''' is a poker & gambling forum
* An island containing:
** '''Fan forum'''
** '''[http://www.facethejury.us/ Face the jury]''' is an online forum, originally founded for users to upload pictures of themselves to be judged by other users
** A smaller nearby island is '''Datalounge'''
* An island containing gaming-related sites
** '''D2JSP'''
** '''EA UK'''
** '''Gametrailers'''
* Smaller islands next to the D2JSP island are
** '''Steam powered'''
** '''World of players'''
** '''Nedgaf'''
** '''Overclock'''
* A smaller island of regional and special-interest forums:
** '''[http://digitalspy.com/ Digital Spy]''', a British media and entertainment news service
** '''[http://www.onliner.by/ onliner.by]''', a Belarusian digital technology forum
** Zona Ford
** '''[http://lowyat.net/ lowyat]''', a large Malaysian technology forum
** exbil
** '''[http://www.macrumors.com/ MacRumors]''', an Apple news and discussion site
** Adjacent to this, an island labelled '''[http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ Whirlpool Forums]''', a large Australian broadband and technology forum. The drawing reflects Australia being an island continent separated from other countries.
* An island made up of several European forums:
** '''[http://www.jlaforums.com/ JLA Forums]'''
** '''[http://www.fok.nl/ fok.nl]''', a Dutch forum site that is one of the largest internet communities in the Netherlands
** '''[http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ The Student Room]''', a British forum and wiki for secondary and tertiary students
** '''[http://www.boards.ie/ boards.ie]''' "Now Ye're talking", a popular Irish forum site
** '''[http://www.forum.hr/ forum.hr]''', a Croatian forum
** '''rus-chat''', possibly a reference to [http://rus-chat.de/ rus-chat.de]
* The largest single-site island is [http://www.somethingawful.com/ SomethingAwful], a website that is meant to showcase all things "awful". SomethingAwful also has a large trollbase, but they tend to be more honorable than the ones from Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan. One example is there being a spotty holding of the no-furries rule in the forums. The forums themselves are famous because of the holding of the Let's Plays of [http://lparchive.org/Dangan-Ronpa/ Dangan Ronpa] and [http://danganronpa2mirror.tumblr.com/ Super Dangan Ronpa 2], which had cooked up public interest to the point of there being an English-language release of the games. (Note that, due to these Let's Plays being in a forums that frequently hides behind a "paywall" that requires a paid account before accessing, the links provided go to their mirrors.)

==Transcript==
:'''Map of Online Communities'''
:Size on map represents volume of Daily Social activity (posts, chat, etc). Based on data gathered over the Spring and Summer of 2010.

:[Two insets on the upper left-hand corner shows that this map is a tiny portion of the huge continent of Spoken Language, encompassing portions of the Internet, Email, and Cell Phones (SMS).]

:[The largest landmass on the map by far, which takes up nearly the entire northern half of the map is "Facebook" - with large states in the south-east of the country labeled 'Farmville' and 'Happy Farm'. There is a much smaller state to the west of these called 'Farm Town'. To the north of these states is a large swath of unremarkable land entitled 'Northern Wasteland of Unread Updates.' This is directly north of the large Dopamine Sea.

:A peninsula on the south-west, just below the Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions, houses many tiny states, such as MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Bebo, & Hi5. It is bordered on the south by Buzzword Bay, which contains several islands of varying sizes. Among these are YouTube and Twitter (the largest), which are separated by the Social Media Consultant Channel. To the south-east of Twitter, across the Sea of Protocol Confusion, is another, equally large island. Most of it is Skype, with the north having two largish states called AIM and Windows Live Messenger. On the south-west part of the island are two smaller states called GG and Yahoo Messenger.

:The Island of Skype is extremely close to, but separated by the Great Firewall (a dashed line), the large landmass of QQ. It's north shore is the Gulf of China and Grass Mud Horse Bay. Outside of these bays, over the Great Firewall are two islands called Craigslist and 2Channel.

:In the Dopamine Sea, off the southern shores of Farmville and Happy Farm, is MMO Isle. Its largest state is WoW, with Runescape, Lineage, Maple Story, Habbo, and the Mountains of Steam among its notable landmarks. To the southeast of the island is the Gulf of Lag, in which sits the CDC Games island, with Eve Online.

:To the east of Twitter is Troll Bay, with such islands as Reddit and Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicio.us, and Wikipedia Talk Pages. To their south are the IRC isles, of which one is the tiny island of #xkcd.

:East of these islands, and north of Skype island, is the Sea of Memes. In this sea, to the north of Craigslist and 2Channel, is an archipelago of tiny islands. There is an inset, labeled 'Forums.' (See below.)

:To the southwest of Twitter island, in the Sea of Opinions, are the blog islands. These lie south of the islands in Buzzword Bay, as well. The northernmost islands in this group are centered around the Bay of Drama, on which can be found Diary Blogs, Gossip Blogs, and Livejournal. Gossip Blogs share an island with Political, Music, and Tech Blogs. To the north of this island is a smaller island called Photo Blogs. South of Diary Blogs, and off the southwest coast of Music blogs is a smaller island called Fandom Blogs. South of Tech Blogs, off of which sprouts the small peninsula of Business Blogs, is the Spamblog Straits. On the other side of the straits is a large island made up of Miscellaneous Blogs, with two states demarcated as Religious Blogs and Blog Blogs. Southwest of the Blog Islands is the Sea of Zero (0) Comments.]

:[An inset of a group of islands in the sea of memes located on the lower right corner of the map, labeled 'Forums'. The largest by far is 4chan and /b/. Also found here are D2JSP, JLA Frums, Fan Forum, Something Awful, and many smaller ones, too numerous to list here.]

:[The northeastern third of Gossip/Political/Tech Blogs island is another inset labeled 'Blogosphere (Core)'. This can be found on the lower left corner of the map. Two peninsulas in Political Blogs bookend the Bay of Flame -- these are Liberal Blogs and Conservative Blogs. Between them lie several tiny islands such as Politics Daily, CNN Politcal Ticker, and Mediaite. Off the coast of Liberal Blogs lies the island of NYTimes, off the coast of Conservative Blogs is Libertarian Isle. Between the two lies The Talk. The northern peninsula of Tech Blogs contains places such as Gizmodo, Engadget, Joystiq, and Kotaku.]

:[Text found between the two insets, which are directly below the main map.]
:ABOUT THIS MAP
:Communities rise and fall, and total membership numbers are no longer a good measure of a community's current size and health. This updated map uses size to represent total social activity in a community -- that is, how much talking, playing, sharing, or other socializing happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I did my best and tried to be consistent.

:Estimates are based on the numbers I could find, but involved a great deal of guesswork, statistical inference, random sampling, nonrandom sampling, a 20,000-cell spreadsheet, emailing, cajoling, tea-leaf reading, goat sacrifices, and gut instinct (i.e. making things up).

:Sources of data include Google and Bing, Wikipedia, Alexa, Big-Boards.com, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Akismet, every website statistics page I could find, press releases, news articles, and individual site employees. Thanks in particular to folks at Last.fm, LiveJournal, Reddit, and the New York Times, as well as sysadmins at a number of sites who shared statistics on condition of anonymity.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Online Communities]]
[[Category:Rickrolling]]

Talk:802: Online Communities 2

2016-04-23T11:35:14Z

108.162.219.56:

It seems like this comic has been "incomplete" for all eternity. This comic is in the "Incomplete explanation spotlight" more than ANY OTHER COMIC. The thing's huge! That's natural! I say this explanation does a pretty good job of explaining most if not every grating detail about this comic! I think we should use the Incomplete Spotlight for comic explanations that are ACTUALLY BAD. So can we stop giving this explanation grief for maybe leaving out a few 5-pixel towns? Thank you and stop fussing.
-A person who thinks this explanation is good

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 11:34, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

I believe I can explain why the e-mail, SMS and Internet areas of the map are surrounded by the "Spoken Language" country. Yes, SMS, e-mail and most of the Internet are "written", but they're more of a "written spoken language", sharing many traits with informal spoken language. Maybe Wikipedia articles and blog posts can be classified as "standard written texts", but most other forms of electronically-mediated communication bare more resemblance to the way we speak: forums, chatrooms, Facebook posts, SMS texts, the usage of acronyms and smiley faces, etc. It's a widely researched phenomenon, and it continues to be a topic in the fields of linguistics, psychology, sociology and education (literacy attainment). As an aspiring linguist myself, I smiled when I noticed that these so-called "written" forms were next to spoken language :) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.10|108.162.215.10]] 22:16, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if it's intentional that 4chan looks like a penis...{{unsigned ip|‎65.40.201.44}}

It needs to explain the ferry between 4chan and Gaia. Although, so does a lot of other stuff. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.45|108.162.216.45]] 07:58, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I am still working on this. However, not only is this a big job, but I also have a lot to do outside here. In fact, I might even take a break from the Internet. I am simply warning others here. [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 04:37, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

about the Catbus Route on 4chan island in the Forums inset: Might it have something to do with the catbus in the animated film Totoro? In the film, the bus appears to have a regular route, or at least standard bus stops. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.40|108.162.219.40]] 07:55, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Has anyone calculated the size of this (using Sulawesi for scale)? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.150|108.162.221.150]] 00:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

This comic makes a brief guest appearance at [//www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hFAOXdXZ5TM#t=256 4:25] in the MinutePhysics post about magnets. [[User:Fewmet|Fewmet]] ([[User talk:Fewmet|talk]]) 01:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Is there an explanation of why the Twitter area more or less resembles the shape of US/Mexico? If you have a look at the Youtube area then there's Alaska, too. And since Justin Bieber is Canadian and the "Bieber Bay" seems to resemble the Great Lakes... Was Twitter an "US only thing" back in 2010? [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:11, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
:Pareidolia. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.56.23|162.158.56.23]] 22:39, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Kind of cruel that someone linked to TV Tropes up there.--[[Special:Contributions/198.41.239.32|198.41.239.32]] 06:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The "Russia (DJ)" island just next to Sarah Palin's area is probably a reference to her very commented statement that you can see Russia from Alaska,[http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/05/sarah-palin-never-said-can-see-russia-house/] somehow implying that it gave her some kind of expertise in international relations.--[[User:Pere prlpz|Pere prlpz]] ([[User talk:Pere prlpz|talk]]) 10:06, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

I looked, couldn't find anything about the Hidden Internet, Dark Web, Deep Web, etc. I sort of imagine it looks like a deep chasm or river (Styx?) to another world with the likes of the NSA, Wikileaks, Electronic Frontier Foundation on the outskirts. Tor is one entrance (or ferry?) to the Netherworld. -- [[User:GeoWendy|GeoWendy]] 5:41 PM Tuesday, January 26 (UTC)

In what way is this explanation "incomplete" still?! It's marked as today's "incomplete explanation of the day" but it's already sixteen printed pages long. How much more content does there need to be before this site will consider this page to no longer be "incomplete?" Yikes... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.253.18|162.158.253.18]] 20:20, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Annoying pedant again, here with another annoyingly pedantic statement. (https://xkcd.com/1405/)
RPG is short for ROLe PLAYING GAME. NOT "ROLE PLAYER GAME" It doesn't matter now, because I fixed it, but if someone who doesn't understand the difference between MMO and MMORPG, they can at least remember to fix "Role Player Game."
Annoying Pedant out.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.128|162.158.92.128]] 10:54, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

MMO is not short for MMORPG. It's just not. MMO means Massively Multiplayer Online. Like Dota 2, which is in no way an RPG. Or maybe Realm of the Madgod. Also not and RPG, but YES an MMO. that little gripe having been posted publicly, however, I've just realized that even if it's the day's incomplete article, nothing's going to happen, so fair warning: I'm going to do it meself.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.128|162.158.92.128]] 10:48, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

There are many things wrong with the part about MMOs.
[[User:AnnoyingInconsistentPedant|AnnoyingInconsistentPedant]] ([[User talk:AnnoyingInconsistentPedant|talk]]) 20:25, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

I added some things to MMO isle. Someone should probably give better descriptions though. I didn't have the time to research: Active Worlds, Smallworlds, UO, EQ. Feel free to add those in if you are looking for something to inprove. [[User:PowerKitten|PowerKitten]] ([[User talk:PowerKitten|talk]]) 15:45, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Talk:802: Online Communities 2

2016-04-23T11:34:06Z

108.162.219.56:

It seems like this comic has been "incomplete" for all eternity. This comic is in the "Incomplete explanation spotlight" more than ANY OTHER COMIC. The thing's huge! That's natural! I say this explanation does a pretty good job of explaining most if not every grating detail about this comic! I think we should use the Incomplete Spotlight for comic explanations that are ACTUALLY BAD. So can we stop giving this explanation grief for maybe leaving out a few 5-pixel towns? Thank you and stop fussing.

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 11:34, 23 April 2016 (UTC)A person who thinks this explanation is good

I believe I can explain why the e-mail, SMS and Internet areas of the map are surrounded by the "Spoken Language" country. Yes, SMS, e-mail and most of the Internet are "written", but they're more of a "written spoken language", sharing many traits with informal spoken language. Maybe Wikipedia articles and blog posts can be classified as "standard written texts", but most other forms of electronically-mediated communication bare more resemblance to the way we speak: forums, chatrooms, Facebook posts, SMS texts, the usage of acronyms and smiley faces, etc. It's a widely researched phenomenon, and it continues to be a topic in the fields of linguistics, psychology, sociology and education (literacy attainment). As an aspiring linguist myself, I smiled when I noticed that these so-called "written" forms were next to spoken language :) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.10|108.162.215.10]] 22:16, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if it's intentional that 4chan looks like a penis...{{unsigned ip|‎65.40.201.44}}

It needs to explain the ferry between 4chan and Gaia. Although, so does a lot of other stuff. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.45|108.162.216.45]] 07:58, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I am still working on this. However, not only is this a big job, but I also have a lot to do outside here. In fact, I might even take a break from the Internet. I am simply warning others here. [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 04:37, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

about the Catbus Route on 4chan island in the Forums inset: Might it have something to do with the catbus in the animated film Totoro? In the film, the bus appears to have a regular route, or at least standard bus stops. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.40|108.162.219.40]] 07:55, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Has anyone calculated the size of this (using Sulawesi for scale)? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.150|108.162.221.150]] 00:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

This comic makes a brief guest appearance at [//www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hFAOXdXZ5TM#t=256 4:25] in the MinutePhysics post about magnets. [[User:Fewmet|Fewmet]] ([[User talk:Fewmet|talk]]) 01:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Is there an explanation of why the Twitter area more or less resembles the shape of US/Mexico? If you have a look at the Youtube area then there's Alaska, too. And since Justin Bieber is Canadian and the "Bieber Bay" seems to resemble the Great Lakes... Was Twitter an "US only thing" back in 2010? [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:11, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
:Pareidolia. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.56.23|162.158.56.23]] 22:39, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Kind of cruel that someone linked to TV Tropes up there.--[[Special:Contributions/198.41.239.32|198.41.239.32]] 06:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The "Russia (DJ)" island just next to Sarah Palin's area is probably a reference to her very commented statement that you can see Russia from Alaska,[http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/05/sarah-palin-never-said-can-see-russia-house/] somehow implying that it gave her some kind of expertise in international relations.--[[User:Pere prlpz|Pere prlpz]] ([[User talk:Pere prlpz|talk]]) 10:06, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

I looked, couldn't find anything about the Hidden Internet, Dark Web, Deep Web, etc. I sort of imagine it looks like a deep chasm or river (Styx?) to another world with the likes of the NSA, Wikileaks, Electronic Frontier Foundation on the outskirts. Tor is one entrance (or ferry?) to the Netherworld. -- [[User:GeoWendy|GeoWendy]] 5:41 PM Tuesday, January 26 (UTC)

In what way is this explanation "incomplete" still?! It's marked as today's "incomplete explanation of the day" but it's already sixteen printed pages long. How much more content does there need to be before this site will consider this page to no longer be "incomplete?" Yikes... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.253.18|162.158.253.18]] 20:20, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Annoying pedant again, here with another annoyingly pedantic statement. (https://xkcd.com/1405/)
RPG is short for ROLe PLAYING GAME. NOT "ROLE PLAYER GAME" It doesn't matter now, because I fixed it, but if someone who doesn't understand the difference between MMO and MMORPG, they can at least remember to fix "Role Player Game."
Annoying Pedant out.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.128|162.158.92.128]] 10:54, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

MMO is not short for MMORPG. It's just not. MMO means Massively Multiplayer Online. Like Dota 2, which is in no way an RPG. Or maybe Realm of the Madgod. Also not and RPG, but YES an MMO. that little gripe having been posted publicly, however, I've just realized that even if it's the day's incomplete article, nothing's going to happen, so fair warning: I'm going to do it meself.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.128|162.158.92.128]] 10:48, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

There are many things wrong with the part about MMOs.
[[User:AnnoyingInconsistentPedant|AnnoyingInconsistentPedant]] ([[User talk:AnnoyingInconsistentPedant|talk]]) 20:25, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

I added some things to MMO isle. Someone should probably give better descriptions though. I didn't have the time to research: Active Worlds, Smallworlds, UO, EQ. Feel free to add those in if you are looking for something to inprove. [[User:PowerKitten|PowerKitten]] ([[User talk:PowerKitten|talk]]) 15:45, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

802: Online Communities 2

2016-04-23T11:28:01Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 802
| date = October 6, 2010
| title = Online Communities 2
| image = online_communities_2.png
| titletext = Best trivia I learned while working on this: 'Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize it's the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the WORLD?' Then you wait for the listener to do a double-take.
}}
A [http://xkcd.com/802_large/ larger version] of this picture can be found by clicking the comic on xkcd.
{{TOC}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Not all of the regions are fully explained. Many labels aren't even mentioned outside of the transcript. A gazillion tiny 10-pixel towns need to be added because this thing is huge.}}
This comic shows a map of internet communities where the size of each region roughly corresponds to its size, and its proximity to other regions indicates similarities.

This is the successor of [[256: Online Communities]]. It differs in that it is updated, and furthermore, instead of using the ''membership'' of whichever service to determine its size on the map, it uses its "daily social activity."

The map actually has two super−maps intended to show the relative usage of types of communication: the online community map is surrounded by the much larger "countries" of E−Mail, SMS ("Instant Messaging") and "Cell Phones," which in turn are surrounded by the even huger "Spoken Language." It is unclear whether "Cell Phones" is intended to represent an independent region, or whether it is meant to be a sub-region of "Spoken Language." The ambiguity is exacerbated by the fact that cell phones are the primary medium of SMS, and are also used to access email and online communities. It's also unclear why other forms of communication, such as handwritten letters, are not included.

At the title text [[Randall]] explains that, using his definition of "most activity per day," Farmville is actually the ''second'' most popular social-network farming game - the Chinese game Happy Farm was more popular at the time. This strikes many English-speaking xkcd readers as odd, because Farmville is much more famous, leading one to wonder how it could not be the most played. The phrase "browser-based social-networking-centered farming game" is an example of an [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OverlyNarrowSuperlative overly-narrow superlative.]

===Facebook Region===
The Facebook region deals with social networks, that is, websites oriented towards having people meet.

'''{{w|Facebook}}''' is a social networking site that allows people to meet old real−life friends and make new friends that share similar interests. One of its most notable features is that a member can update a "status" or make normal posts about the happenings of the member's life, complete with pictures, other members "liking" these posts. The size of the Facebook region is not exaggerated; most websites seem to allow "liking" their content or allow/require logging in the website with a Facebook account. There even are cell phones with a "Facebook" button!

*'''{{w|FarmVille}}''' and '''{{w|Farm Town}}''' are Facebook games in which users manage farms. '''{{w|Happy Farm}},''' the Chinese game that inspired the other two, does not require Facebook integration, so it is separated by a solid line from Facebook. The "Unethical Bay" refers to how these games tend to addict players into constantly buying virtual items of questionable value.

*'''People You Can't Unfriend''' refers to people whom, due to real-life expectations and relationships, unfriending them is difficult, no matter how you really feel about them.

*'''Blatherskite River''' refers to the conversations on Facebook, which may be long yet devoid of general meaning or logic.

*'''Data Mines''' refer to the data mining that Facebook does with the interests of its members. This fuels the profitable advertising business at the expense of customer trust.

*'''Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions''' refer to how interactions with family members on Facebook suddenly become more awkward because everyone on Facebook (and sometimes ''off'' Facebook, given that you do not necessarily need to log in if you want to see someone's Facebook account) if you are discussing with your family through post comments.

*'''524,287 Strong for Mersenne Primes''' refers to the communities who gain followers for a cause. A {{w|Mersenne prime}} is a prime number that is 1 less than a power of 2; 524287 is the 7th known Mersenne prime.

*'''Jungle-Bay Mountains of "It's Complicated"''' refers to one of Facebook's options as to what a user's relationship status currently is. A Jungle-Bay Mountain is a complicated and undefined climate, hence the complication.

*'''"lamebook bay"''' refers to the online website "lamebook", where users post photos of funny things that happen on facebook (these can include statuses, "fails", put-downs and images.)

*'''"Old Facebook" Resistance''' refers to Facebook's earlier users, who have often resisted (and resented) changes made to Facebook as it became more popular.

*'''Privacy Controls''' is located on the map surrounded by a Lava Pool, which is a reference to how difficult it is to find the privacy controls within Facebook.

*'''Niche Market Mountains''' refers to social networks aimed towards more niche markets are located. Similar to how mountains tend to be isolated from mainland, niche social networks tend to be just that: niche, without much interaction with the general populace.
*'''Charred Wasteland of Abandoned Social Networks''' refers to the tons of websites wanting to take advantage of the success of websites like Facebook to compete or even overpower with them. Even so, these websites tend to not have the userbase or even the expertise towards the long-term, hence they become wastelands: environments devoid of life, except the few life forms that are from these wastelands (in this case, the ones who are loyal to the website or which are sadly few).
*In the Charred Wasteland stands '''{{w|Ozymandias}}''', the titular broken statue of Shelley's poem. In the poem, only "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and a "shattered visage" are all that remain of the once-great statue and both of these features are present in the comic. According to the poem, the pedestal before the broken statue reads "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings..." hence "friend of friends" below Ozymandias on the map.
*In the north are the '''Duckface Mountains''' and the '''Red Cup Mountains'''."Duckface" refers to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duck-face this incredibly obnoxious facial expression], and "red cup pictures" are any pictures containing party-goers holding disposable red plastic beverage cups. Facebook is absolutely flooded with both types of pictures.
*In the south is '''Buzzword Bay'''. {{w|Buzzword}}s are words and phrases that make you sound a lot more topical than you actually are, used to garner attention; again, Facebook status updates are commonly filled with buzzwords.

While Facebook is the largest "country" of the Facebook Region, there are a lot of smaller "countries" that represent smaller social networks.

*Below Facebook (and "Old Facebook' Resistance") is '''{{w|Diaspora (social network)|Diaspora}}''', a fully open-source, decentralized, privacy-respecting-and-expecting alternative to Facebook. From what this map tells, Diaspora is little-known, even if Facebook is taken out of the context.
*'''{{w|StudiVZ}}''' is a German-speaking social network similar if not a ripped-off version of Facebook.
*'''{{w|XING}}''' is a German-speaking social platform similar to LinkedIn.
*'''{{w|Ning (website)|Ning}}''' is a service to create custom social websites. Its free services shut down in 2010.
*'''{{w|Taringa!}}''' is a Spanish-speaking social network that is based on a forums. Copyrighted material is frequently found there.
*Next to the Euro(pean) Gulf is '''{{w|Skyrock (social network site)}}''', a French-speaking social network.
*'''{{w|Wer-kennt-wen}}''' is a German-social network somewhat like MySpace.
*'''{{w|Nasza-klasa.pl}}''' or NK, is a Polish-speaking social network based on school relationships.
*'''{{w|Badoo}}''' is a social network primarily based on dating and picture-sharing.
*'''{{w|Classmates.com}}''' is a service in which the user can meet classmates that came from the same high school. The website is probably best known by its memetic advertisement that said [http://dudemanphat.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-am-i-supposed-to-care-about-nick.html "She married him??!! And they've got 7 kids??"] (Incidentally, [http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2003325519_adcouple27.html there is more to the coupled picture than what the advertisement says.])
*'''{{w|Myspace}}''' is a social networking website that is a kind of proto-Facebook: users could customize their one-page websites with whatever they wanted, make their interests and daily lives public, and interact with other users. Back in the mid 2000s, MySpace was the largest social network, many people using the website; however, the surprisingly-less-customizable Facebook ended up taking the place of MySpace. The "bands" country of MySpace refers to how a lot of bands in the day advertised and interacted using the website. Indeed, the latest incarnation of MySpace (in terms of 2013) is more oriented towards band members.
*'''{{w|LinkedIn}}''' is a social network aimed towards people in the workplace, which is why it is adjacent to '''Corporate Bay'''.
*'''{{w|Orkut}}''' was one of Google's first social networks before Google made [https://plus.google.com/ Google+]. It shut down in 2014.
*'''{{w|Hi5}}''' is a social network that is very popular among people in Latin America.
*'''{{w|Renren}}''' ('''「人人」''', "people" in Chinese) is "a Chinese copy of Facebook."
*'''{{w|Bebo}}''' was a social network popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It went bankrupt in 2013 and will move away from social networking and into apps.
*'''{{w|Friendster}}''' - One of the first major social networks, it has fallen way off in usage in recent years and was eclipsed by MySpace. It is still popular in Asia.
*'''{{w|VK (social networking website)|Vkontakte}}''' or VK, is the second largest social network service in Europe after Facebook. It is available in several languages, but particularly popular among Russian-speaking users around the world.
*'''{{w|Netlog}}''' is a Belgian social networking website specifically targeted at the global youth demographic.
*'''{{w|Mixi}}''' is an online Japanese social networking service.
*'''{{w|Qzone}}''' is a social networking website, which is big in China. According to a report published by Tencent, possibly surpassing other social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace in China.
*'''{{w|Tuenti}}''' is a Spain-based, social networking service, that has been referred to as the "Spanish Facebook."
*'''{{w|Cloob}}''' is a Persian-language social networking website, mainly popular in Iran. After the locally (and internationally) popular social networking website Orkut was blocked by the Iranian government, a series of local sites and networks, including Cloob, emerged to fill the gap.
*'''{{w|Kaixin001}}''' is a social networking website which ranks as the 13th most popular website in China and 67th overall.
*'''{{w|Piczo}}''' was a privately held blog website for teens. In November 2012, Piczo.com shut down.
*'''{{w|Odnoklassniki}}''' is a social network service for classmates and old friends. It is popular in Russia and former Soviet Republics.
*'''{{w|Adult FriendFinder}}''' is a pornographic dating site.
*'''{{w|Match.com}}''' is a dating site, mainly targeted at people looking for marriage.
*'''{{w|Ok Cupid}}''' is another dating site, however it has been owned by Match.com since 2011.
*'''{{w|PlentyofFish}}''' is yet another dating site, also owned by Match.com since June 2015.
*'''{{w|Sulawesi}}''' is a real-life island in the Indonesian archipelago. It also appears in 256: Online Communities.

===MMO Isle===
MMOs (short form of "Massive Multiplayer Online Game") are online games where multiple people take the role of a character and play in a setting hosted by the game.

*'''[https://www.habbo.com/ Habbo Hotel]''' is a website where someone creates a human avatar an interacts in a virtual world that is not that different from the one in real life.
*'''[http://www.clubpenguin.com/ Club Penguin]''' is [http://disney.com/ Disney's] MMO where someone creates a penguin avatar and interacts with other in a more polar, cartoony setting. Club Penguin is aimed towards children.
*'''[http://maplestory.nexon.net/ Maple Story]''' is an MMO that has a more natural setting. The most distinguishing feature of Maple Story is its cartoony pixel art.
*'''[http://www.gamefaqs.com/ GameFAQs]''', while not an MMO, is a website that has the largest repository of walkthoughs, that is, guides that help someone beat a game. GameFAQs is notable for not only its large repository of walkthroughs of games that are across an extreme variety of consoles, handhelds, and even computers (not all of them MMOs), but also the drama that is rumoured to happen in the GameFAQs forums.
*'''[http://www.ign.com/ IGN]''' (full: '''Imagine Games Network'''), while also not an MMO, is the largest website that gives news on video games in general, not just MMOs. Each of the games mentioned in the site have pages that have summaries, reviews, screenshots, other art, videos, and links to news related to its games.
*'''[http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml FFXI]''' (full: '''Final Fantasy XI''') is an MMO from SquareEnix, being the first MMO of the popular ''Final Fantasy'' series.
*'''[http://www.runescape.com/community Runescape]''' is an older MMO.
*'''[http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/ Starcraft II]''' is a realtime strategy game with a science fiction setting that heavily involves space travel. While technically not an MMO, it has a significant online multiplayer component.
*'''[http://us.battle.net/wow/en/ WoW]''' (full: '''World of Warcraft''') is the definitive MMO, being not only the most popular and one of the longest-running but also the most expansive (having its own spinoff games, comic books, novels, and even figurines), WOW giving the idea of how an MMO should be. A player can choose from a variety of races, each with its own heavy history.
*'''[http://secondlife.com/ Second Life]''' is similar to Habbo, albeit with a bigger suspension of disbelief (one example being that the player does not need to be a human) and in a 3D setting.
*'''[http://www.nationstates.net/ NationStates]''' is a text-based political simulation game. Notably, some of its traffic comes not from the actual game (which is optional), but the extensive set of political, roleplaying, and general forums attached.
*'''[http://www.urbandead.com/ Urban Dead]''' describes itself as "A Massively Multi-Player Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse", which sums it up pretty well.
*'''[http://www.kingdomofloathing.com KoL]''' (full: '''Kingdom of Loathing''') is a comedic browser-based MMO-ish RPG with minimalistic stick-figure art.
*'''{{w|CDC Games}}''' is a Chinese company reputed to be the largest MMORPG distributor.
*'''{{w|Eve Online|EVE Online}}''' is a science fiction MMO which is notable because of its virtual economy.
*'''{{w|Gaia Online|Gaia}}''' or Gaia Online, while not an MMO, is a forum oriented towards pop culture, including video games and Japanese media. Its most notable feature is the heavy customization possible of a member's pixel-art avatar. Its members tend to roleplay a lot, albeit in a more written, story-based form. Gaia has gained a reputation with its members stealing art and causing drama. The ferry that links the gaia island with 4chan was most likely due to the "boxxy" row, where vlogger boxxy posted videos of her using gaia, which then were circulated on 4chan. This resulted in a division of the sites users, and many more hacking attacks, including a DDOS attack on 4chan itself.
*'''[https://www.everquest.com EverQuest]''' (full: '''EverQuest''') is one of the first MMO's, it's still running and has a huge number of expansions.
*'''[https://www.uo.com UO]''' (full: '''Ultima Online''') along with EverQuest this was one of the first and longest running MMO's.

*'''{{w|City of Heroes|CoH}}''' or City of Heroes was a superhero-based MMORPG that was shut down November 2012.
*'''[http://atlantica.nexon.net/ Atlantica]''' (full: '''Atlantica Online''') is a turn-based MMORPG.
*'''[http://lineage.plaync.com/ Lineage]''' is a Korean MMORPG, it's North American servers were closed 2011/06/29 due to being unprofitable.
*'''[http://www.lineage2.com/en/ Lineage II]''' is a Korean MMORPG, mainly played in Asia along with it's predecessor. It adopted a Free to Play model on 2011/11/30.
*'''{{w|SubSpace_(video_game)|SubSpace}}''' was a 2D, topdown shooter released in 1997. The servers have been shut down, but it continues to operate through the work of fans. It's widely considered an early entry into the MMO genre due to it's unprecedentedly high player count.

Other notable regions include:
*The '''Mountains of Steam''', referring to the game distribution service [http://store.steampowered.com/ Steam] where people can buy and download video games in general, not just MMOs. There is also an extensive [http://steamcommunity.com/ community] where users can share content, and instant messaging chat by text, voice, or game streaming.
*'''River Grind''' refers to "grinding." In most MMOs, the character is a fighter of some sorts, yet starts at a level 1, signifying the character's aptitude level in combat. The character can level up and gain more aptitude levels through earning experience, of which the most reliable and otherwise common way is the process of "grinding," that is, repeatedly fighting opposing monsters (sometimes of a level notably lower that your character's), gaining experience points from winning these battles until your character gains a level, that is, "levels up". While a practical necessity in strengthening the character, this process can be tiresome, hence the expression "grinding."
*'''Spawn Camp''' refers to "spawn points", the places where AI-powered enemies and players who have died in-game respawn, and the act of "spawn camping", in which the player character simply stands behind or around the spawn points to fight the enemy creatures or respawning players as soon as they appear.
*'''Gulf of Lag''' refers to how the MMO can be slowed down a considerable amount due to the large amount of players simultaneously using the same server, this congestion bogging down the server and frustrating the users.
*'''[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/final-boss-of-the-internet End Guy for the Internet]''' refers to "end bosses," the last — and usually hardest to defeat — "bad guy" in a game (or a section of a game).

===YouTube Region===
The YouTube region refers to websites that are based on user-created content.

'''[https://www.youtube.com/ YouTube]''' is the definitive video website where people can upload videos with the purpose of public viewing, ranging from home movies through official music videos through Let's Plays of people playing video games to questionably-legal uploads of cartoons and films. Google had purchased YouTube.

Many of the sites on the map are just references to {{w|viral video}}s at {{w|YouTube}}:
*'''Viral Shores''' refers to how viral videos (whether they be viral marketing or simply memes) tend to proliferate on YouTube.
*'''Britney''' likely refers to pop singer {{w|Britney Spears}} and the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc‎ "Leave Britney Alone" guy].
*'''Maru Gulf''' refers to Maru the Cat, a YouTube celebrity [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/676:_Abstraction also mentioned in xkcd].
*'''Prairie Dog Habitat''' likely refers to the viral video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw Dramatic Chipmunk] (which is actually a Prairie Dog).
*'''Rick Rolling Hills''' references, well, {{w|Rickrolling}}. More information [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ here]. The "deserted" note likely refers to how Rick Astley himself is tired of the meme, or again, how people tend to leave the video upon getting "Rick Roll'd," never actually going to the video with the express purpose of viewing the video.
*'''Lunar Landing Soundstage''' is, of course, a reference to the {{w|Moon landing conspiracy theories}}, which Randall has railed on before.
*'''{{w|OK Go}} Bay''' refers to the band "OK Go" who have multiple viral music videos on YouTube, most famously [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA "Here it goes again"] featuring treadmills.

The '''HTML5 swamp''' refers to YouTube's spotty support of HTML 5 (an update on HTML that is frequently touting its media capabilities, making HTML 5 a viable alternative to Flash). Of course, by the time the comic was written, HTML 5 was still in its infancy. The Music Video Bay refers to the amount of music videos (official or otherwise) are present in YouTube.

Other counties of the YouTube region include:
*'''[https://vimeo.com/ vimeo]''', a website where people tend to showcase artistic content that they made on their own, notably independent studios.

Snob Sound:
*'''[https://secure.flickr.com/ Flickr]''', a website where people can upload and share photographs they took.
*'''[http://fotolog.com Fotolog]''', a photo website very popular in South America in 2004-2008, which was used as a social network.
*'''[http://www.last.fm/ Last.fm]''', a music website that is notable of its "scrobbling" feature.
*'''[http://www.deviantart.com/ deviantArt]''', the largest art website, where people can upload, sell, and buy not only art itself, but also video, audio, Flash-work, and even skins (the original purpose of deviantArt). While many big-name/professional people and organizations have their works in deviantArt, the site is more infamous for the large amount of people who upload low-quality fan-art and fan-characters, most notably of media from Japan. Another point of infamy is the large amount of drama that can happen in the website.

*'''[https://www.newgrounds.com/ Newgrounds]''', a website that hosts art, (Flash-based) videos, audio, and (Flash-based) games to which other users can comment and rate. Even so, content from Newgrounds tends to be obscene, though there is a filtering system if a viewer does not wish to see obscene content.
*'''[http://www.chatroulette.com/ Chatroulette]''' is a website where people are randomly paired up with each other and video/text chat.
*'''{{w|Brickshelf}}''' is the online resource for {{w|LEGO}} fans.
*'''[https://tumblr.com/ Tumblr]''', where people could make a blog and post text, pictures, video, audio, quotes, and links. The most distinguishing feature is the ability to "reblog" these posts from other's people's blogs into the user's own blog. Notable features of Tumblr include sketchblogs (where people upload their sketches), Ask blogs (where people answer questions other users ask, the moderators of these blogs usually pretending to be a character from a form of media), and the large amount of "social justice" (where people fight against racism, sexism, and other forms of negative discrimination). (See also [[1043: Ablogalypse]].)
*'''{{w|b3ta}}''' is a popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by The Guardian.

The '''Isle of teenagers who just discovered macroeconomics''' is a joke about how teenagers tend to think that the world and the economy are a lot simpler than they actually are. Combined with the typical internet mindset, this leads to a lot of teenagers posting blogs and videos and comments on blogs and videos describing how idiotic the government and other red-tape-related adults are.
The '''Snob Sound''' could refer to the large amount of people who look down on others in the surrounding websites (one example being an original artist looking down on people who draw mainly fan-art). '''The Iraq''' is a reference to Miss Teen USA 2007, in which Ms. Teen South Carolina, Lauren Katlin, said "I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as...the US should help the US and should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we are able to build up our future." The usage of "the Iraq" has became a meme.

===Twitter Region===
*'''Bieber Bay''' is a reference to {{w|Justin Bieber}}, a pop singer whose singing sprouted on YouTube and became very popular on Twitter and other social media. He is very much vilified because of his rather feminine appearance and his hordes of fans (called "Beliebers") that seem to support him to ridiculous extents. Lately, though, Justin Beiber has taken a "bad boy" attitude because of all the Beliebers who are willing to defend him no matter what, him partaking in a lot of questionable activities that include tattoos, questionably-legal substances, and buying prostitution, thus lowering his popularity in the general populace.
*'''{{w|Google Buzz}}''' is a former social network attempted by Google. It has since been shut down.
*'''Bit.Ly Mountains''' is a reference to the URL shortening service {{w|bit.ly}}.
*'''Kanye's Isle of Sadness''' is a reference to the musician {{w|Kanye West}}, whose Twitter, at the time, was [http://www.buzzfeed.com/mlew15/25-of-kanye-wests-most-thought-provoking-tweets-h0se famously introspective and stream-of-consciousness].
*'''Sarah Palin USA''' is the Twitter handle of former politician {{w|Sarah Palin}}.
*'''Clueless Politician Coast''' is a reference to the number of politicians on Twitter and other social networks who repeatedly share clueless updates that more often create an uproar than help their election chances.
*'''Desert of Food Updates''' is a reference to the number of pictures of food that are shared on social media (especially Twitter). There has even been some controversy on posting such pictures.
*'''Journalists Trying to Find the Cutting Edge''' is referencing journalists on Twitter trying to keep up with the way that news is gathered and delivered now, despite usually working for a newspaper that publishes once a day.
*'''SHAQ''' is a reference to the former NBA basketball player, {{w|Shaq}}.
*'''{{w|identi.ca}}''' is an open source social networking and micro-blogging service, being an alternative to Twitter.
*''' Breaking! Waves''' is a pun on the fact that so many people used the word "Breaking" at the beginning of tweets that do not warrant that tag that the word has lost most of its meaning and become a joke. It is a pun because waves "break" on the shore.
*'''Web 3.0''' refers to the unofficial term {{w|Web 2.0}}. In this case, "Web 1.0" refers to websites that give information to users. Web 2.0 refers to websites where the users themselves create content. Web 3.0 has sometimes been used as a term for {{w|semantic web}}, a machine-readable version of the web, but this usage is far from universal.
*'''Hashtag games whose popularity confuses and depresses you''' refers to the game where a user posts something under a particular hashtag and others respond with their own ideas, all tagged under the same phrase. This has been very popular for no clear reason, as Randall notes.

===Geotagged Bay===
*'''{{w|Yelp}}''' is a website where people post reviews of real-life public locations (one example being restaurants).
*'''{{w|Geocaching}}''' is a worldwide GPS scavenger hunt where users upload positions of caches and others will find them and log it online.
*'''{{w|Foursquare}}''' is a location-based social network.
*'''Latitude''' refers to {{w|Google Latitude}}.

===Troll Bay and the Sea of Memes===
*'''{{w|Reddit}}''' is the self-described "front page of the Internet" in which users submit stories, photos and videos and the best are "up-voted" to the top of the page.
*'''{{w|Help:Using talk pages|Wikipedia Talk Pages}}''' refer to the pages where Wikipedia editors discuss how to improve articles.
*'''{{w|Wikia}}''' is a 3rd party wiki software, used in the making of the user-editable encyclopedias of just about any subject matter.
*'''{{w|StumbleUpon}}''' is a website-sharing service.
*'''{{w|Delicious (website)|Delicious}}''' is a bookmarking and bookmark-sharing service.
*'''{{w|Digg}}''' is a former competitor to Reddit in the social-news sphere, but now has been sold and restarted as an aggregator of news stories.
*'''{{w|Slashdot}}''', labeled "/." on the map, is a technical news site.
*'''{{w|Fark}}''' is a community website that allows members to comment on news articles from other sites.
*'''{{w|YTMND}}''' is an acronym for "You're The Man Now, Dog!" It's also a community in which users can create meme-type nonsense by playing music over an image (either static or animated).

===Skype Region===
The Skype Region refers to different IM, or Instant Messaging services, that enable almost-real-time text chatting between multiple people. These often allow services like voice chat and even video calls.

*'''{{w|Skype}}''' is, according to Randall, the most popular of these among the internet. It has many features to allow peer-to-peer voice chats, as well as allowing calls to be made at a price to actual phones.
*'''{{w|AIM}}''' or AOL Instant Messenger is a chat client created by AOL.
*'''GG''' or {{w|Gadu-Gadu}} is an instant messenger client popular in Poland.
*'''{{w|Yahoo Messenger}}''' is an instant messenger client by Yahoo.
*'''{{w|Google Talk}}''' is a voice/video chatting service from Google (that Google has been replacing with Hangouts). Google Talk also has an invasion fleet at its shores.
*'''{{w|ICQ}}''' is an older messaging service, albeit with an 18+ requirement (despite pornography not being the point of ICQ).
*'''{{w|Windows Live Messenger}}''', or "MSN", was the messaging service of Microsoft before Microsoft bought Skype. MSN was useful in that people could draw and send pictures to other chatters.
*'''{{w|UseNet}}''' was one of the original ways to communicate on the internet, though people can download (copyrighted) files through the service. Since it is still in use by some, it gets the tag "Still Around!" on the map.
*'''{{w|IRC}} Isles''' refers to the ancestor of Internet-powered chatting. People would have connected to a server and spoke publicly. IRC is still in use (per 2014, notably in getting help from users4. One of those isles is #xkcd which is an IRC community around [[xkcd]].

===Bay of Drama===
*'''{{w|FanFiction.net}}''' is a website where people can submit their fanfiction (stories by fans written about other peoples' media, normally that about popular media). The website tends to have people that are not helpful to those who legitimately want critique of their own stories.
*'''{{w|Xanga}}''' is a blogging service that, while popular at its time, lost out to...
*'''{{w|LiveJournal}}''' was the most popular blogging service before Tumblr.
*'''ONYD''' - Reference to {{w|Oh No You Didn't}}, which is explained in the Blogosphere region.
*'''{{w|Dreamwidth}}''' is a LiveJournal fork emphasizing its open-source nature.

===Blogosphere===
The Blogosphere region contains several general {{w|blog}} topics.
*'''{{w|photo blog|Photo Blogs}}''' are commonly used to chronicle the lives of the authors through photographs.
*'''Diary Blogs''' are another popular use of blogs (and, in fact, the original use) where authors write commentary about their lives.
*'''Bay of Grammar Pedantry''' deals with the fact that, whether due to a lack of proper education, a habit of using "chat-speak" in the text-limited SMS and MMS, or simply due to the (generally) more relaxed nature of the Internet, blog authors tend to write with horrible composition, a point of annoyment to a lot of other people due to the subsequent increased difficulty of reading the horribly-written material.
*'''Fandom Blogs''' are blogs created by a "{{w|fandom}}" which is a community of fans. A fandom blog deals with the subject matter of the respective fandom.
*'''Sea of Zero (0) Comments''' refers to blogs that get very little attention and therefore have no comments.
*'''SpamBlog Straits''' references spammers who use blogs to increase the number of links to their site to try to game search engines.
*'''OffTopic.com''' is a general interest forum that refers to itself as "the largest general discussion forum on the internet."
*Many more straightforward blogs, including:
**'''Writing/Poetry'''
**'''Gossip Blogs'''
**'''Political Blogs'''
**'''Music Blogs'''
**'''Tech Blogs'''
**'''Business Blogs'''
**'''Corporate Blogs'''
**'''Religious Blogs'''
**'''Miscellaneous Blogs'''
*'''Blog Blogs''' - These can refer to blogs that talk about the matter about blogging itself, though they can also refer to blogs which authors use in talking about blogging.

===Blogosphere (Core Region)===
Gossip Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on gossip surrounding celebrities and other well-known persons.
*'''{{w|Jezebel}}''' is a liberally feminist blog, hosted by Gawker.
*'''{{w|deadline.com|Deadline}}''' is an online entertainment news magazine.
*'''{{w|TMZ}}''' is a celebrity news website.
*'''{{w|Gawker}}''' is a blog that is the host of other blogs.
*'''LJ Oh No They Didn't''' - LiveJournal {{w|Oh No They Didn't}} - Oh No They Didn't, also known as ONTD, is the largest community on LiveJournal with over 100,000 members. The community focuses on celebrity gossip and pop culture with most of its posts aggregated from other gossip blogs.
*'''Doucheblog''' refers to blogs that were once insightful but that spiraled into long rants due to relationship changes of their authors.
*'''Isle of Mockery''' is a reference to the fact that some of what these blogs do is mock celebrities or other for doing or saying stupid things on camera.

Liberal Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "liberal" or "progressive" slant. These blogs tend to lean for the Democratic party.
*'''{{w|Huffington Post}}''' is a news blog.
*'''{{w|Paul Krugman}}''' is an American economist who considers himself a liberal.
*'''{{w|Daily Beast}}''' is a news and opinion website focusing on politics and pop culture.
*'''{{w|Talking Points Memo|TPM}}''' is a political journal run by Josh Marshall.
*'''{{w|Ezra Klein}}''' used to have his own site at the Washington Post, but is now the editor of [Vox.com].
*'''{{w|Think Progress}}''' is a political news blog.
*'''{{w|Daily Kos|Kos}}''' is another political blog.

Bay of Flame:
*'''{{w|Politics Daily}}''' is a political journalism website launched by AOL.
*'''CNN Political Ticker''' is CNN's political blog.
*'''{{w|Mediaite}}''' is a news and opinion blog covering politics and entertainment in the media.
*'''{{w|NY Times}}''' is one of the most famous newspapers, thus the comparatively large size of its island.
*'''{{w|The Talk}}''' is a talk show on CBS that discusses the latest headlines "through the eyes of mothers."
*Libertarian Isle (shaped like a {{w|Nolan Chart}})

Conservative Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "conservative" or Republican slant.
*'''{{w|Pajamas Media}}''' is a media company and operator of conservative news.
*'''{{w|Michelle Malkin}}''' is a conservative blogger, political commentator, and author.
*'''{{w|Hot Air}}''' is a news blog founded by Michelle Malkin.
*'''{{w|RedState|Red State}}''' is a political blog.
*'''{{w|American Thinker}}''' is a daily online magazine focused on politics.
*'''{{w|Townhall}}''' is a web publication and print magazine.

Tech Blogs:
*'''{{w|Boy Genius Report}}''' is a weblog that focuses on technology and consumer gadgets.
*'''{{w|Gizmodo}}''' is a news and opinion blog, hosted by Gawker, that talks about life's more technological matters.
*'''{{w|Engadget}}''' is another technology-oriented, albeit independent, blog.
*'''Crunchgear''' is a blog that reviews gadgets and other hardware.
*'''{{w|Techcrunch}}''' is an online publisher of technology industry news.
*'''{{w|Joystiq}}''' is a news and opinion blog that focuses on gaming.
*'''{{w|Kotaku}}''' is another gaming-oriented news/opinion blog, the main difference beig that Kotaku is owned by Gawker.

Assorted:
*'''{{w|BoingBoing}}''' is "i blog about wonderful things", the topics being quite random.
*'''{{w|Lifehacker}}''' is another Gawker blog, is a blog that teaches people how to simplify their lives through 'lifehacking', that is, using their resources in creative wayss. While the subject matter is life in general, there is a significant technological slant.
*'''{{w|Deadspin}}''' is a sports and sports gossip blog founded by Will Leitch.
*'''Meatorama''' is a blog that talks about cooking meat.

===QQ Region===
*'''Baidu Baike''' (「百度百科」, "Baidu Encyclopedia") and '''Hudong''' (「互动百科」, "Interactive Encyclopedia" ) are two Chinese online encyclopedias. Baidu Baike is powered by the same company as Baidu, the search engine popular in China.
* The '''Ma Le Ge Bi''' and the '''Grass Mud Horse Bay''' could refer to the {{w|Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures}}.
* The '''Location of Jia Junpeng''' refers to the Internet meme of {{w|Jia Junpeng}} in 2009 in China.
*'''{{w|Tencent QQ}}''' is a Chinese instant messaging program.
*In English communities "QQ" has several more common definitions:
**An {{w|emoticon}}, representing a face with two large, crying eyes.
**A synonym for "rage quit", in which a video game player quits the game out of sheer frustration. It originated in ''Warcraft II'' multiplayer, where pressing Ctrl+Q+Q would quit the game, and became more widely known in ''World of Warcraft''.
**These definitions are commonly combined, usually to mock the "rage quitter".
*The Gulf of China refers to how sites in the region are based in People's Republic of China ("Red China"). The '''Great Firewall''' refers to {{w|The Great Firewall of China}}, a pun on {{w|The Great Wall of China}}. Similar to how The Great Wall of China was meant to keep intruding nations out of the then-capital of the city, The Great Firewall of China is meant to keep visitors from visiting censored websites. However, either a VPN or remote access to a computer in a "freer" country can circumvent the Firewall. Oddly other Chinese websites (Qzone, Renren etc.) are not enclosed in this zone.

===Forums Islands===
Forums are websites where one person post a topic to which other people can discuss.

While the map has a zoomed in version, this article shall discuss the two bigger islands, first.

*'''[http://www.2ch.net 2channel]''' is a Japanese imageboard that was actually the original inspiration for 4chan.
*'''[http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites Craigslist]''' is a classified advertisement website with sections devoted to just about everything... which formerly included prostitution services, hence the '''The Former Site of Adult Services'''.

In the zoomed-in map, there is the following:
*'''[https://www.4chan.org/ 4chan.org]''' is an {{w|imageboard}} in which people can upload pictures while others comment on them. The website is infamous for its loose/often non-existent rules, incredibly vulgar userbase, source of new memes, and spawning of trolls. 4chan's random board, known internally as '''/b/''', is almost constantly flooded with porn and image macros. This is why Randall's incarnation of 4chan is shaped like a penis.
*'''420chan''' and '''7chan''', other imageboards in the style of 4chan. Their relative lack of popularity and derivative nature leads a lot of 4chan users to mock them; hence, their position on Randall's map suggests that they're mere wads of semen.
*'''Encyclopedia Dramatica''', labeled '''ED''' on the map, is a wiki site dedicated to chronicling internet memes and other noteworthy sites, events, people, and anything else that catches their attention, generally in a very satirical manner. The site is heavily populated by 4chan users. Many people are offended by the articles and talks that go on in the wiki and forum, which is perhaps the reason that it appears to be represented as a wad of sperm. The image of sperm also makes sense since ED is used as a messaging center for the group "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is represented in the map as part of the testicles of the 4chan island(see below at the gulf named Anonymous).
*'''Tunnel to Habbo''' is a reference to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pools-closed the 2006 Habbo Hotel Raids], in which hundreds of 4chan Anons simultaneously logged onto Habbo Hotel and proceeded to be as obnoxious as possible, standing in formations of swastikas and penises or body-blocking the swimming pools.
*'''{{w|Catbus}} Route''' is likely a reference to {{w|Lolcat}}s in general.
*'''[http://www.ebaumsworld.com/ eBaum's World]''' is a media-hosting website founded by Eric Bauman. The site has lost a lot of traffic after (quite valid) accusations of stolen content.
*The gulf labelled '''{{w|Anonymous (group)|Anonymous}}''' is most likely a reference to the leaderless, anonymous international network called "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is composed of (mainly) anarchic activist hackers. Anonymous was created on the /b/ messaging board of 4chan, hence why the bay of Anonymous is on the coast of /b/. Also, the fact that the bay is in the "testicles"(/b/) of the 4chan island "penis" is referring to how Anonymous was created on 4chan, in the same way that sperm is created in the testicles of a penis, possibly a subtle jab at the group.

To the south and east is an archipelago of islands representing various regional and special-interest forums. Moving clockwise from 4chan island is
* '''Storm 2K''' is an online website hosting information on tropical cyclones and tools for tracking them, and has a forum with multiple categories and threads for discussion on tropical cyclones, as well as multiple tropical cyclone models and reconnaissance information.
* '''Skyscraper city''' is an internet forum website for skyscraper hobbyists and enthusiasts.
* An island containing two websites related to women, namely
** '''Wizaz.pl''' is a Polish website, presumably for women, with a forum filled with discussions mainly about beauty, health, women, hobbies, and fun.
** '''Baby and bump''' is a self-described "pregnancy forum, baby and parenting community."
An island contaning
** '''ForoCoches''' is a very popular Spanish (as in from Spain) forum mainly about automobiles, but holds discussions on virtually any topic.
** '''Bodybuilding.com''' is(as you can hopefully tell) a website for bodybuilders. It contains a forum for general discussions on bodybuilding that includes topics such as supplements, exercises, and nutrition.
** '''Bokt.nl''' calls itself the largest community on the topic of horses. A Dutch website, it holds topics about virtually anything involving horses.
** '''Cruise Critic''' is a website with a large forum about cruises in general.
* '''Lay it low''' is a website for discussing lowriding(changing a car so that its ground clearance go lower than the clearance of the original design from the manufacturer.
* '''[http://www.twoplustwo.com/ Two plus two]''' is a poker & gambling forum
* An island containing:
** '''Fan forum'''
** '''[http://www.facethejury.us/ Face the jury]''' is an online forum, originally founded for users to upload pictures of themselves to be judged by other users
** A smaller nearby island is '''Datalounge'''
* An island containing gaming-related sites
** '''D2JSP'''
** '''EA UK'''
** '''Gametrailers'''
* Smaller islands next to the D2JSP island are
** '''Steam powered'''
** '''World of players'''
** '''Nedgaf'''
** '''Overclock'''
* A smaller island of regional and special-interest forums:
** '''[http://digitalspy.com/ Digital Spy]''', a British media and entertainment news service
** '''[http://www.onliner.by/ onliner.by]''', a Belarusian digital technology forum
** Zona Ford
** '''[http://lowyat.net/ lowyat]''', a large Malaysian technology forum
** exbil
** '''[http://www.macrumors.com/ MacRumors]''', an Apple news and discussion site
** Adjacent to this, an island labelled '''[http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ Whirlpool Forums]''', a large Australian broadband and technology forum. The drawing reflects Australia being an island continent separated from other countries.
* An island made up of several European forums:
** '''[http://www.jlaforums.com/ JLA Forums]'''
** '''[http://www.fok.nl/ fok.nl]''', a Dutch forum site that is one of the largest internet communities in the Netherlands
** '''[http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ The Student Room]''', a British forum and wiki for secondary and tertiary students
** '''[http://www.boards.ie/ boards.ie]''' "Now Ye're talking", a popular Irish forum site
** '''[http://www.forum.hr/ forum.hr]''', a Croatian forum
** '''rus-chat''', possibly a reference to [http://rus-chat.de/ rus-chat.de]
* The largest single-site island is [http://www.somethingawful.com/ SomethingAwful], a website that is meant to showcase all things "awful". SomethingAwful also has a large trollbase, but they tend to be more honorable than the ones from Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan. One example is there being a spotty holding of the no-furries rule in the forums. The forums themselves are famous because of the holding of the Let's Plays of [http://lparchive.org/Dangan-Ronpa/ Dangan Ronpa] and [http://danganronpa2mirror.tumblr.com/ Super Dangan Ronpa 2], which had cooked up public interest to the point of there being an English-language release of the games. (Note that, due to these Let's Plays being in a forums that frequently hides behind a "paywall" that requires a paid account before accessing, the links provided go to their mirrors.)

==Transcript==
:'''Map of Online Communities'''
:Size on map represents volume of Daily Social activity (posts, chat, etc). Based on data gathered over the Spring and Summer of 2010.

:[Two insets on the upper left-hand corner shows that this map is a tiny portion of the huge continent of Spoken Language, encompassing portions of the Internet, Email, and Cell Phones (SMS).]

:[The largest landmass on the map by far, which takes up nearly the entire northern half of the map is "Facebook" - with large states in the south-east of the country labeled 'Farmville' and 'Happy Farm'. There is a much smaller state to the west of these called 'Farm Town'. To the north of these states is a large swath of unremarkable land entitled 'Northern Wasteland of Unread Updates.' This is directly north of the large Dopamine Sea.

:A peninsula on the south-west, just below the Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions, houses many tiny states, such as MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Bebo, & Hi5. It is bordered on the south by Buzzword Bay, which contains several islands of varying sizes. Among these are YouTube and Twitter (the largest), which are separated by the Social Media Consultant Channel. To the south-east of Twitter, across the Sea of Protocol Confusion, is another, equally large island. Most of it is Skype, with the north having two largish states called AIM and Windows Live Messenger. On the south-west part of the island are two smaller states called GG and Yahoo Messenger.

:The Island of Skype is extremely close to, but separated by the Great Firewall (a dashed line), the large landmass of QQ. It's north shore is the Gulf of China and Grass Mud Horse Bay. Outside of these bays, over the Great Firewall are two islands called Craigslist and 2Channel.

:In the Dopamine Sea, off the southern shores of Farmville and Happy Farm, is MMO Isle. Its largest state is WoW, with Runescape, Lineage, Maple Story, Habbo, and the Mountains of Steam among its notable landmarks. To the southeast of the island is the Gulf of Lag, in which sits the CDC Games island, with Eve Online.

:To the east of Twitter is Troll Bay, with such islands as Reddit and Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicio.us, and Wikipedia Talk Pages. To their south are the IRC isles, of which one is the tiny island of #xkcd.

:East of these islands, and north of Skype island, is the Sea of Memes. In this sea, to the north of Craigslist and 2Channel, is an archipelago of tiny islands. There is an inset, labeled 'Forums.' (See below.)

:To the southwest of Twitter island, in the Sea of Opinions, are the blog islands. These lie south of the islands in Buzzword Bay, as well. The northernmost islands in this group are centered around the Bay of Drama, on which can be found Diary Blogs, Gossip Blogs, and Livejournal. Gossip Blogs share an island with Political, Music, and Tech Blogs. To the north of this island is a smaller island called Photo Blogs. South of Diary Blogs, and off the southwest coast of Music blogs is a smaller island called Fandom Blogs. South of Tech Blogs, off of which sprouts the small peninsula of Business Blogs, is the Spamblog Straits. On the other side of the straits is a large island made up of Miscellaneous Blogs, with two states demarcated as Religious Blogs and Blog Blogs. Southwest of the Blog Islands is the Sea of Zero (0) Comments.]

:[An inset of a group of islands in the sea of memes located on the lower right corner of the map, labeled 'Forums'. The largest by far is 4chan and /b/. Also found here are D2JSP, JLA Frums, Fan Forum, Something Awful, and many smaller ones, too numerous to list here.]

:[The northeastern third of Gossip/Political/Tech Blogs island is another inset labeled 'Blogosphere (Core)'. This can be found on the lower left corner of the map. Two peninsulas in Political Blogs bookend the Bay of Flame -- these are Liberal Blogs and Conservative Blogs. Between them lie several tiny islands such as Politics Daily, CNN Politcal Ticker, and Mediaite. Off the coast of Liberal Blogs lies the island of NYTimes, off the coast of Conservative Blogs is Libertarian Isle. Between the two lies The Talk. The northern peninsula of Tech Blogs contains places such as Gizmodo, Engadget, Joystiq, and Kotaku.]

:[Text found between the two insets, which are directly below the main map.]
:ABOUT THIS MAP
:Communities rise and fall, and total membership numbers are no longer a good measure of a community's current size and health. This updated map uses size to represent total social activity in a community -- that is, how much talking, playing, sharing, or other socializing happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I did my best and tried to be consistent.

:Estimates are based on the numbers I could find, but involved a great deal of guesswork, statistical inference, random sampling, nonrandom sampling, a 20,000-cell spreadsheet, emailing, cajoling, tea-leaf reading, goat sacrifices, and gut instinct (i.e. making things up).

:Sources of data include Google and Bing, Wikipedia, Alexa, Big-Boards.com, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Akismet, every website statistics page I could find, press releases, news articles, and individual site employees. Thanks in particular to folks at Last.fm, LiveJournal, Reddit, and the New York Times, as well as sysadmins at a number of sites who shared statistics on condition of anonymity.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Online Communities]]
[[Category:Rickrolling]]

Category:Cancer

2016-04-20T14:59:43Z

108.162.219.56:

[[Randall]]'s (then, fiancée) wife was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer in October of 2010. He immediately immersed himself in research of what cancer was, what treatments were like, etc. Every once in a while, his research, and happenings with his family bubble to the surface in the form of a comic.

*[http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/11/05/submarines/ This] is the first mention of the cancer.
*[http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/06/30/family-illness/ Here] is a blag post from Randall in June 2011 with an update.

[[Category:Comics by topic|Comics by topic]]

You may also notice that the tone of these cancer-themed comics slowly gets happier. This could be due to a number of factors. We can only hope this means [[Randall Munroe]]'s wife is getting better.

Category:Cancer

2016-04-20T14:59:09Z

108.162.219.56:

[[Randall]]'s (then, fiancée) wife was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer in October of 2010. He immediately immersed himself in research of what cancer was, what treatments were like, etc. Every once in a while, his research, and happenings with his family bubble to the surface in the form of a comic.

*[http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/11/05/submarines/ This] is the first mention of the cancer.
*[http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/06/30/family-illness/ Here] is a blag post from Randall in June 2011 with an update.

[[Category:Comics by topic|Comics by topic]]

You may also notice that the tone of these cancer-themed comics slowly gets happier. This could be due to a number of factors. We can hope this means [[Randall Munroe]]'s fiancee is getting better.

842: Mark

2016-04-20T14:17:46Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 842
| date = January 3, 2011
| title = Mark
| image = mark.png
| titletext = I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I will not stop until I find out what.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic [[Cueball]] believes he is part of a secret society, so secret that he doesn't know anything about the society. His belief in the existence of the society, and that he is a part of it, stem from one contact with an 'agent'. Most people would immediately dismiss the idea of such a secret society, especially with no evidence of its existence, and no knowledge of the goals or even whether it is inherently good or evil.

Six years after being 'chosen', Cueball finds the scrap of paper with an address on, and the can of {{w|kerosene}}. Both of these events are not unlikely, and easily explained as simple coincidences, but Cueball somehow sees this as a command that he must burn down the house. Cueball shows that he is willing to put other peoples lives at risk, destroy property and posessions, and face the possibility of prison all because of one event six years prior.

Cueball's belief in the society, his delusional linking of the address and kerosene, and his actions in burning down the house, show how badly he wants to be part of something bigger, and to find meaning in the "Chaos of Life".

The punchline refers to an old grade school/middle school prank (Urban Dictionary: [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pen15+club pen 15 club], [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pen15 Pen 15].) You'd typically walk up to an unsuspecting schoolmate and ask him if he wants to join the Pen Fifteen club. You'd tell him that to join, you merely have to write the club name on him. You'd then write "PEN15" on his hand or arm, and everyone would laugh at him because it looks like "PENIS". In this case, [[Cueball]] fell victim to this prank as a child without ever figuring out the joke.

As for the title text, {{w|solipsism}} is the philosophical idea that only your own mind is sure to exist while other minds can't be really known and so those other minds are not proved to be real.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and a child are talking.]
:Child: What's that on your arm?
:Cueball: The mark of a secret society.

:Child: If it's secret, why tell me-
:Cueball: Because I know nothing. I can't betray them because I don't know who they are. I was chosen by an agent 20 years ago. That was my first and last direct contact. It's safer that way.

:Six years later I found a piece of paper in the street with an address on it. The next day I found a can of kerosene in my garage that I'm sure I never bought.
:[The panel represents these actions by highlighting the mentioned objects in a world of gray.]

:I didn't know whose house it was. I just knew that I'd been given my orders. And I carried them out.
:[A dark figure is silhouetted against a flame.]

:Cueball: I don't know who or what we're fighting.
:Cueball: Maybe we're the bad guys.
:Cueball: It doesn't matter to me.

:Cueball: It's enough to know that there are forces working beneath the chaos of life, and I'm a ''part'' of them.

:Cueball: That whatever this "pen fifteen" club is,
:Cueball: I'm ''in'' it.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Penis]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

117: Pong

2016-04-15T21:51:36Z

108.162.219.56: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 117
| date = June 19, 2006
| title = Pong
| image = pong.png
| titletext = Following this, the pong paddle went on a mission to destroy Atari headquarters and, due to a mixup, found himself inside the game The Matrix Reloaded. Boy, was THAT ever hard to explain to him.
}}

== Explanation ==
This comic largely refers to the 1999 movie ''{{w|The Matrix}}'', which is about escaping a simulated reality. In the movie a hacker called {{w|Neo (The Matrix)|Neo}} realizes that the world he lives in is fake, and that, like every other human, he is used as a slave battery by machines which, to keep them under control, make them feel like they're "living" in what is actually a computer-generated simulation of the world, called the "Matrix". Upon discovery, Neo rebels to this misuse of mankind, and trains himself to interact with the computers that run the world until, being "the One" mentioned by a prophecy, he is able to control and use them to his own advantage. He takes part in a series of missions against those machines which wanted to keep the humans trapped in a simulated environment.

In {{w|Pong}}, one of the earliest video games, one can play virtual table tennis against the computer. A ball (the tiny block) is "hit" by a paddle (the long block) and crosses over the screen, to be "hit" again by the other paddle. Failure to return the ball results in a point won by the opponent. The speed of the ball increases as the rally runs longer.

The two game programmers in the first frame apply Neo's story to the {{w|Artificial intelligence|AI}} bots they create to serve as computer players in their video games: what if one of them learns enough to become sentient, and understands the environment the programmers trapped it in? The outcome is shown: the paddle bot, understanding the game and realizing it is "the One", takes control of the code of Pong to make the ball stop and drop. The same thing happens in the movie, where Neo, by "seeing through the code", is able to stop bullets fired at him, and simply let them drop on the floor.

In the image text, we learn that after increasing in intelligence, the "paddle" went on to destroy the headquarters of {{w|Atari}}, the producer of Pong which "trapped" the paddle into the game, much like Neo sought to destroy the machines to free the humans. In the process, the paddle ended up inside the game ''{{w|Enter the Matrix}}'' (a video game produced with ''{{w|The Matrix Reloaded}}'', a sequel to ''The Matrix''), also published by Atari. Since the whole premise of The Matrix is that everyone is trapped in virtual reality, the paddle now found itself in a virtual virtual reality or essentially a meta-virtual reality, which could be pretty hard to comprehend.

==Transcript==
:Cueball: So what do we do if video game AI opponents become smart enough to question the "Matrix" into which we've put them?
:Pong paddle: Wait a minute! None of this is real! I can see through the world! I can see the code! I AM THE ONE!
:[The pong ball is moving towards the paddle.]
:[The pong ball slows down.]
:[The pong ball stops in midair.]
:[The pong ball drops towards the bottom of the screen.]
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:The Matrix]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

Talk:111: Firefox and Witchcraft - The Connection?

2014-05-31T02:59:04Z

108.162.219.56: Created page with "Correlation does not equal causation.... I think that's one of the underlying points of this. That, and people who use IE don't understand that."

Correlation does not equal causation.... I think that's one of the underlying points of this. That, and people who use IE don't understand that.

Talk:1358: NRO

2014-04-21T14:17:02Z

108.162.219.56:

Could what if #32 be valid here? https://what-if.xkcd.com/32/ --[[User:Mralext20|Mralext20]] ([[User talk:Mralext20|talk]]) 07:30, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

: Nah. Spy satellites are usually on geosynced orbits, so they always hover over the same area of the ground, meaning no blur. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 14:17, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Not only he is using the satellites, he is also using the software - probably something which will highlight recognized target on photo. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:28, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I always thought this was a reference to the Governments Facial Recognition software they're working on. Combine that with the NSA's spy satellites and you can locate anyone anywhere. Maybe the NRO is a combination of such organizations and technologies (very very deadly) and they're testing it out using a Where's Waldo book. Not only testing the camera's on the satellite's resolution but the facial recognition's softwares ability to pick out a specific person in a crowd. [[User:Glitch|Glitch]] ([[User talk:Glitch|talk]]) 14:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

333: Getting Out of Hand

2014-03-04T19:59:56Z

108.162.219.56: Added Wikipedia Category

{{comic
| number = 333
| date = October 24, 2007
| title = Getting Out of Hand
| image = getting out of hand.png
| titletext = Wikipedia's role as brain-extension, while a little troubling, is also really cool.
}}

==Explanation==
Given how {{w|Wikipedia}} has an ever-expanding variety of topics, the grand majority of them in great detail, there is a possibility (even a temptation) of relying on Wikipedia to learn from every topic that leaves you confused... even {{w|foreplay}}. ('Bedtime' and 'us time' is not necessarily 'computer time'.)

==Transcript==
:[A couple is in bed in the dark, and Cueball reaches out from under the covers to do a Wikipedia search about Foreplay.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]