explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

480: Spore

2013-09-21T05:46:24Z

139.216.242.254: Made it make more sense in regard to the comic

{{comic
| number = 480
| date = September 24, 2008
| title = Spore
| image = spore.png
| titletext = Way to not support the GMA 950 under OS X, Spore. :(
}}

==Explanation==
'{{w|Spore (2008 video game)|Spore}}' is a game that was released in 2008. Too bad it was $50 when it first came out. Spore starts you off as a small little water bug and when you become smart enough you leave the water for land and start growing. Scale wise you start off very small and only concerned with your spot of water. The next two stages the scale grows to being the entire continent. Once you start building cities you get to view the entire planet. The last stage is space, where you get to first travel your own solar system, then the entire galaxy. Since Cueball can't afford Spore (which is now only about $15) he instead is recreating the experience by playing older games, starting off with small scale games ('{{w|SimAnt}}' comes to mind), then up to '{{w|The Sims}}', then '{{w|SimCity}}' before playing a game on a planet level ('{{w|Populous}}') then galactic level ('{{w|Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri|Alpha Centauri}}')

The title text refers to the game not being able to run on the Mac using a {{w|GMA 950}} which is a type of Intel integrated graphics processor. It was first supported in OSX 10.4. It lacked hardware support for "Vertex Shader 2.0" which some games required.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sitting at computer desk, surrounded by game boxes.]
:Cueball: Sweet, beat '{{w|Populous}}'. Now, on to '{{w|Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri|Alpha Centauri}}'.
:Until I can afford '{{w|Spore (2008 video game)|Spore}}', I'm just playing through all my old games in order of scale.

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

Talk:526: Converting to Metric

2013-08-29T02:52:55Z

139.216.242.254:

Why is 3L a two-liter bottle?[[Special:Contributions/75.69.96.225|75.69.96.225]] 21:16, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Because this is America and we supersize our sodas!

My names River, that is all --[[Special:Contributions/139.216.242.254|139.216.242.254]] 02:52, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Talk:1047: Approximations

2013-08-29T02:44:14Z

139.216.242.254:

They're actually quite accurate. I've used these in calculations, and they seem to give close enough answers. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:03, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I only see a use for the liters in a gallon one. The rest are for trolling or simple amusement. The cosine identity bit our math team in the butt at a competition. It was painful. --[[User:Quicksilver|Quicksilver]] ([[User talk:Quicksilver|talk]]) 05:27, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Annoyingly this explanation does not cover 42 properly, it does not say that Douglas Adams got the number 42 from Lewis Carroll, who is more relevant to the page because he was a mathematician named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was obsessed with the number forty-two. The original plate illustrations of Alice in Wonderland drawn by him numbered forty-two. Rule Forty-Two in Alice in Wonderland is "All persons more than a mile high to leave the court", There is also a Code of Honour in the preface of The Hunting of the Snark, an extremely long poem written by him when he was 42 years old, in which rule forty-two is "No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm". The queens in Alice Through the Looking Glass the White Queen announces her age as "one hundred and one, five months and a day", which - if the best possible date is assumed for the action of Through the Looking-Glass - gives a total of 37,044 days. With the further (textually unconfirmed) assumption that both Queens were born on the same day their combined age becomes 74,088 days, which is 42 x 42 x 42. --[[Special:Contributions/139.216.242.254|139.216.242.254]] 02:43, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Talk:1047: Approximations

2013-08-29T02:43:05Z

139.216.242.254:

They're actually quite accurate. I've used these in calculations, and they seem to give close enough answers. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:03, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I only see a use for the liters in a gallon one. The rest are for trolling or simple amusement. The cosine identity bit our math team in the butt at a competition. It was painful. --[[User:Quicksilver|Quicksilver]] ([[User talk:Quicksilver|talk]]) 05:27, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Annoyingly this explanation does not cover 42 properly, it does not say that Douglas Adams got the number 42 from Lewis Carroll, who is more relevant to the page because he was a mathematician named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was obsessed with the number forty-two. The original plate illustrations of Alice in Wonderland drawn by him numbered forty-two. Rule Forty-Two in Alice in Wonderland is "All persons more than a mile high to leave the court", There is also a Code of Honour in the preface of The Hunting of the Snark, an extremely long poem written by him when he was 42 years old, in which rule forty-two is "No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm". The queens in Alice Through the Looking Glass the White Queen announces her age as "one hundred and one, five months and a day", which - if the best possible date is assumed for the action of Through the Looking-Glass - gives a total of 37,044 days. With the further (textually unconfirmed) assumption that both Queens were born on the same day their combined age becomes 74,088 days, which is 42 x 42 x 42. [[Special:Contributions/139.216.242.254|139.216.242.254]] 02:43, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Talk:221: Random Number

2013-08-16T06:35:12Z

139.216.242.254:

The syntax looks like perfectly valid java to me.[[Special:Contributions/213.64.1.189|213.64.1.189]] 22:00, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Looks like Java to me too.
As a proof of good joke, RFC 1149 was successfully implemented several times. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 08:55, 11 May 2013 (UTC)