explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

393: Ultimate Game

2016-09-23T13:11:00Z

108.162.221.140: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 393
| date = March 7, 2008
| title = Ultimate Game
| image = ultimate_game.png
| titletext = RIP, Gary.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Gary Gygax}} was a game designer best known for co-creating the iconic nerd pastime ''{{w|Dungeons and Dragons}}'' (D&D); as such, he is commonly described as the "father of D&D." He died on March 4, 2008, three days before this comic was released. It made him the first person to receive tribute in conjunction with his death on xkcd, but [[:Category:Tribute|not the last]]!

The idea of playing games (typically chess) with supernatural entities in exchange for one's soul is an old one and has been referenced in [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChessWithDeath many works], but mainly known in the form of playing Chess against the {{w|Death (personification)|personified version of Death}}, which was made famous in {{w|The Seventh Seal}}. The last part of this trope is used in this comic. Here, the specific twist is that the victim can choose which game they want to play. Naturally, it is only fitting that Gary would challenge Death to ''D&D''.

The problem is that ''Dungeons and Dragons'' isn't so much a game as it is a set of rules for describing stories. It requires the intervention of a {{w|Dungeon Master}} (or DM) to create a scenario which the players' characters must overcome. It's unclear exactly how the game between Gary and Death works, but given that ''D&D'' generally takes a long time to play due to the setup time and large amount of dice-rolling, and the fact that Gary seems to keep adding extra rulebooks (official or pseudo-official books which add new classes, items, spells, etc. for players to use), it's understandable why it would take longer than Death's boss would like.

Part of the humor in this comic comes from the fact that Death's boss, who would presumably be an extraordinarily powerful entity, appears to be a completely ordinary man in an ordinary office, complete with bald patch and potted plant.

Death's usage of the name "Jesus" in the final panel may be considered ironic given that he's, well, ''Death.''

==Transcript==
:[Split screen down the diagonal. Upper left: A man with only hair around his neck is standing to the left of a desk with a hand on it, speaking on an office phone on the desk. There is a photo in a frame behind the phone. Bottom right: Death in a cloak, black hole to the left where the head should be, speaks on cell phone he is holding up in his skeleton hand.]
:Man: Death?
:Death: Speaking.

:[A frame-less panel with a zoom out of the man on the phone, showing more of his office. Behind the desk there is a potted plant and above it a window (or a white board). The reply over the phone is indicated to come from the phone with a zigzag line.]
:Man: This is the boss. Where <u>are</u> you? You haven't been up to the office in days!
:Death (over the pone): I've been held up.

:[Full panel with Death speaking on his cell phone. It is apparent that he is leaning back again something white behind his back. The two replies on the phone is again indicated with zigzag lines.]
:Man (over the phone): What happened?
:Death: You know how when someone dies, they can challenge me to a game for their soul?
:Man (over the phone): Sure, standard procedure.

:[Death is revealed to be sitting on a chair to the right of a table leaning back against the chairs backrest (which could be seen in the first two images of Death as well). He is still speaking on his phone and in the other hand he holds his long scythe down with the blade below the table. On the other side of the table is a man (revealed to be Gary Gygax in the title text). The man has curly hair that seems to turn into a ponytail, but as he is looking out of the panel a little to the left away from Death it is hard to see the ponytail. He also has a full beard. Gary Gygax is leaning over his bag behind him taking out a book while resting the other hand on the table. On the table are already two other books of the same type. Behind them are two figurines (one Cueball and one with a pointy hat), then two dices and paper strewn about in front of Death. ]
:Death: Well, we didn't count on this guy. I might be a while.
:Gary Gygax: I add the paladin to my party.
:Death: Oh, Jesus. He's getting out <u>another</u> rulebook.

==See also==
*Although Gary is the father of ''D&D'', {{w|Dave Arneson}}'s contribution should not be ignored. Although xkcd did not cover his death in April 2009, a stick-figure tribute to the man who created the concept of role-playing games [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0644.html does exist], courtesy {{w|The Order of the Stick}}.
*On tvtropes this comics last two panel is used for their article on [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RulesLawyer RulesLawyer]!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Tribute]]

450: The Sea

2016-09-21T16:41:16Z

108.162.221.140: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 450
| date = July 16, 2008
| title = The Sea
| image = the_sea.png
| titletext = And then a second one, to drain the sea.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] becomes introspective when contemplating the sea. The straightforward reading of "how small I really am" means he feels humbled by the sea and recognizes his insignificance on this planet. This is a common sentiment expressed in poetry, literature, and blogs.

The final line ''I should get one of those pumps'' is most likely to, at first, be understood as getting a pump to drain the ocean. The reflection on the joke would run along the line that Cueball is so unsatisfied with the way the ocean makes him feel, the size of the sea intimidating him, that he intends to drain the sea to make him feel better about himself. (This is of course impossible{{Citation needed}} as the only place on Earth that will hold all that water is the sea itself.)

However, in English, the sentences ''I'm small'' and ''I'm big'' can also be a euphemism for ''my penis is small'' and ''[http://es.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=big&defid=3086531 my penis is big]''.

Even if Cueball is not literally saying that he has a small penis, men very commonly associate their own self-image with the size of their organ. Therefore, enlarging it would improve their self-image and make them feel less small.

The final line in the comic: ''I should get one of those pumps'', could thus be understood to reference a {{w|penis pump}}, a device that is alleged to permanently increase the size of the male member{{Citation needed}}.

The title text is referencing that Cueball would also like another pump - and this one should be the one for draining the sea. But by specifying in the title text that the first pump is not for the sea, [[Randall]] is ensuring that it is possible to understand the full joke.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands on a beach at night, staring out across the moonlit ocean. The three lines of text stand above the moon, above Cueball (white on black) and on the beach (black on white).]
:Cueball: The sea always makes me realize
:Cueball: how small I really am.
:Cueball: I should get one of those pumps.

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

Danish

2016-09-20T19:28:47Z

108.162.221.140: /* Name */

{{Infobox character
| image = Danish.png‎
| caption = Danish, as seen in [[1027: Pickup Artist]]
| first_appearance = [[377: Journal 2]]
}}

'''Danish''' is a [[stick figure]] character in [[xkcd]].

==Characteristics==
Danish is characterized by her cynicism and devilish tricks; She is very similar in appearance to [[Megan]], but has clearly longer hair. Personality-wise, she is similar to [[Black Hat]], whom she seems to have a permanent (romantic) relationship with. She thus mainly appears in comics together with Black Hat, which is the most certain give away that a long haired woman is Danish and not Megan.

==Name==
Like most xkcd characters, her real name is unknown. The name "Danish" is picked from when [[Black Hat]] called her "my dearest darling danish", as a term of endearment, referring to a {{w|danish pastry}} in [[515: No One Must Know]]. Obviously this is not her real name, but as it is the only name given to her by any character, it is the name used here.

==Appearances==
Danish first appeared in the [[:Category:Journal|Journal]] series as an adversary of Black Hat that could match his evil and cunning ways. In the end of that series it seems that she got under Black Hat's skin, and they might actually end up going on a date.

She thus later appears to be in a continued (some times romantic) relationship with Black Hat as for instance seen in [[440: Road Rage]], [[515: No One Must Know]], [[524: Party]] and [[542: Cover-Up]]. She mainly appears together with Black Hat, although after her first seven appearances (with him) after ''Journal'' ended, she begun appearing without him, the first time was in [[914: Ice]]. In case where Black Hat is not in the comic, it can be difficult to determine with certainty that it is her, but when the subject is as crazy as in for instance ''Ice'', that is reason enough to list that character as Danish.

A girl that physically looks like Danish appeared in [[139: I Have Owned Two Electric Skateboards]], long before she was introduced in the Journal series. In [[177: Alice and Bob]] a similar looking character with propensity to destruction is called Eve – a reference to cryptographic schemes involving communication between Alice and Bob with Eve playing role of an attacker.

In [[1608: Hoverboard]] there is a [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/b/bc/1608_1012x1078y_Bridge_on_the_Rebel_Blockade_Runner.png long haired woman on the bridge] of the Rebel Runner, whose behavior towards both Star Wars as well as Star Trek fans could suggest that it was Danish. But there is not enough evidence that this is so to list her as Danish.

{{navbox-characters}}

[[Category:Characters]]

Talk:374: Journal

2016-09-20T17:40:04Z

108.162.221.140:

It seems to me that panel four is referencing the "This is why we can't have nice things" meme.--[[Special:Contributions/208.233.39.21|208.233.39.21]] 13:23, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
:Well maybe. Because without knowing that meme it seems like there is something missing. (Like "...we can't have nice people visiting"). --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:21, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I interpret the title text (about how he writes nice things he would say to the girl in the journal) as part of his technique: he puts himself in the mood of being interested in the girl so that his facial and body language would convey this information as best as possible (so, for example, he will be able to generate a fake blush). [[User:Danshoham|Mountain Hikes]] ([[User talk:Danshoham|talk]]) 19:08, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
:I thought the title text was Black Hat insulting nice people by burning their thoughts [[Special:Contributions/162.158.57.101|162.158.57.101]] 18:47, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
::It is probably both --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:21, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I think Black Hat's roommate is Rob, rather than Cueball. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.140|108.162.221.140]] 17:40, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

1726: Unicode

2016-08-30T13:22:56Z

108.162.221.140:

{{comic
| number = 1726
| date = August 29, 2016
| title = Unicode
| image = unicode.png
| titletext = I'm excited about the proposal to add a "brontosaurus" emoji codepoint because it has the potential to bring together a half-dozen different groups of pedantic people into a single glorious internet argument.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More details needed?}}

Three highway engineers, [[Cueball]] in the river and another Cueball-like guy and a person with white hair (either sex) on the distant bank, is placing traffic signs in a river trying to guide the water flow (as made clear in the caption).

As rivers flow according to the landscape, this plan will not work and the river will continue on its course. Cueball is very frustrated by this and is still trying to make the river obey the traffic laws. The caption lays out the punchline: The comic compares the useless approach of Cueball attempting to divert a flowing, moving river with fixed signs that do nothing, with the {{w|Unicode Consortium}}'s attempt to define the diverse and ever-changing human language with strict technical standards.

{{w|Unicode}} is a largely successful attempt to have a standard for representing all possible letters, numerals, digits and symbols that make up human writing in all languages. This includes the roman letters used in this article, characters with modifiers like ê (both with the common characters as well as the modifiers selectable separately), logographic characters like in Chinese, syllabic writing system like Japanese, right-to-left and/or top-to-bottom writing systems, mathematical symbols and many other writing systems.

As the newest edition comes {{w|emoji}} which is also referenced in the title text (see below). The symbols on the signs in the river are real road signs, but interestingly enough they also both exist in Unicode, with the warning sign triangle with an exclamation mark ⚠ having [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/26a0/index.htm code (U+26A0)] and the black, rightwards arrow ➡ having [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/27a1/index.htm code (U+271A)]. As can be imagined, coping with the wide variety of character sizes, orientations, ways they can be modified, capitalization rules, etc. can get to be very challenging as the Unicode Consortium tries to write rules that accommodate how printed language is actually used. Emoji has become a [[:Category:Emoji|recurrent theme]] on xkcd.

The title text refers to a proposal (see [http://unicode.org/L2/L2016/16072-jurassic-emoji.pdf Jurassic Emoji proposal]) to add three dinosaur heads to the official list of emoji. (See also
[http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2016/16103-jurassic-fdbk.pdf initial feedback] and [http://www.courtneymilan.com/dino/ Proposer's timeline/status page]).

This is likely to stir a glorious internet argument between the following half-dozen opposing (and {{w|pedantic}}) camps that may now be brought together:
*Those who favor the inclusion of more emoji vs. those who oppose emoji on principle.
*Those who accept the existence of ''{{w|Brontosaurus}}'' vs. those who deny its status as a species unique from ''{{w|Apatosaurus}}''.
**[[Randall]] has made it clear what he believes in [[636: Brontosaurus]].
**Although it seems new development has occurred since the release of that comic, suggesting that Brontosaurus is a specific species. But that is still debated...
*Those who favor a traditional, scaly image of dinosaurs vs. those who have accepted the feathered-dinosaur paradigm.
*Those who prefer a different dinosaur species be included instead.
*Those who point out that two of the dinosaurs in the "Jurassic Emoji" set actually come from the {{w|Cretaceous period}}, and as such renaming is necessary vs. those who think that "{{w|Jurassic}}" is a cooler word (because of the movies).
*Those who for religious or other reasons deny the existence of dinosaurs.

See also this [http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2016-m08/0103.html discussion about this comic on the Unicode mailinglist]...

Highway engineer's was also the subject of [[253: Highway Engineer Pranks]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing in a river close to it's right bank, the water reaching up to his thighs. He is holding on to a traffic sign standing towards right. It has a label and an arrow below this pointing to the right bank. With his other arm he is pointing to the left at the advancing water masses. Further up the river is another street sign this sign has an exclamation mark inside a triangle. The water flow is indicated with several lines on the river surface, mainly moving along the river, but around Cueball and the signs there are circular lines. In the distance on the left bank of the river two people are standing and making gestures with raised arms. The left has white hair (could be either sex) and the other is a Cueball-like guy. A third sign is lying on the ground to the left of them face down. Behind them is a slope up to a road with a parked car. The road continues out over a a bridge that crosses the river. The river which passes under it both left and right of a central pillar. At that distance the right bank of the river (and thus the right end of the bridge) is not visible, being outside the panel. On each river bank grass can be seen and on the right bank also a small stone.]
:Cueball: No, go ''this'' way, not-
:Cueball: Are you even ''listening!?''
:Cueball: ... ''Hey! That's not what that area is for!''
:Sign with arrow: Detour
:Sign with triangle: !

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Watching the Unicode people try to govern the infinite chaos of human language with consistent technical standards is like watching highway engineers try to steer a river using traffic signs.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Apatosaurus]]
[[Category:Emoji]]