explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1063: Kill Hitler

2020-07-26T02:38:19Z

172.68.38.120: /* Trivia */

{{comic
| number = 1063
| date = June 1, 2012
| title = Kill Hitler
| image = kill_hitler.png
| titletext = Revised directive: It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history until you've at least taken a class on it.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Black Hat]] creates a one-use time machine. [[Cueball]] selects a common suggestion for using a time machine: killing {{w|Adolf Hitler}}. Black Hat has other ideas about how to use his time machine, but relents and goes off to kill Hitler. He returns, commenting that he found Hitler in a very noisy bunker in the year 1945.

In the real world, {{w|Death of Adolf Hitler|Adolf Hitler committed suicide}} on April 30, 1945, in the {{w|Führerbunker}} in Berlin. Berlin was under assault by Soviet forces and it was clear that the city would soon be taken. Germany surrendered to Allied forces almost immediately afterward, bringing an end to the {{w|World War II}} in the European theater. The fact that Black Hat killed Hitler in 1945 means that the war was nearing its end, the Holocaust had already resulted in the murders of millions, and little would be accomplished by Hitler's death. The fact that the death took place in the Führerbunker and the comment that "1945 was loud!", suggesting that Berlin was already under attack, imply that the killing took place around the time Hitler would have died anyway, possibly immediately before. Cueball's intent was clearly to kill Hitler before the start of World War II (possibly long before) in the hopes of preventing both the war and the Holocaust. He's horrified by the realization that Black Hat had used his sole opportunity for time travel and probably made little difference at all.

This is typical Black Hat behavior, going out of his way just to troll people like Cueball and cause horrible things to happen, in this case deliberately ''not'' changing any history or avoiding any of the atrocities carried out by Nazi Germany. That might be for the best, however, since killing Hitler early {{tvtropes|HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct|might cause more problems than it would solve}}.

Incidentally, there are conspiracy theories that Hitler was shot by someone other than himself. Also, if the {{w|Novikov self-consistency principle}} is true, Hitler's suicide was interrupted by Black Hat in the first place, and Black Hat was merely going back in time to do the thing he already did.

"BRB" is an abbreviation for "be right back".

The title text refers to the time travel theme from the {{w|Superman}} movie in which Jor-El states, "It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history." Here it is suggested that Black Hat needs to know some history before going back in time to interfere with it, perhaps so that he would do the right thing and kill Hitler ''before'' the Holocaust and World War II.

==Trivia==
* Hitler was also the subject of Black Hat's [[29| third appearance]].
* In [[1617: Time Capsule]], [[Beret Guy]] has the same mission, but has instead "traveled" forward in time, and when he arrives Hitler is long dead.
* There is an episode of Love, Death and Robots that is entirely about going back in time to kill Hitler.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat and Cueball stand in front of a double door, which bears the label 'TIME door'. Black Hat has his hands on his hips.]
:Black Hat: I finished my time machine, but it's one-use-only.
:Cueball: You ''gotta'' kill Hitler.

:[Close-up of Black Hat, one hand palm upward.]
:Black Hat: Why are you so obsessed with this Hitler guy? We have ''all'' of ''time'' we could explore!

:[Close-up of Cueball with both hands palm upward.]
:Cueball: He's evil incarnate! He murdered millions and sparked global war! ''Everyone'' agrees—if you get a time machine, you kill Hitler.

:[Black Hat enters the now open Time door as the other man looks on..]
:Black Hat: Fine, fine, I get it! Calm down. BRB, killing Hitler.

:[Black Hat returns, shutting the door with one hand. Cueball has outstretched arms.]
:Black Hat: There. Done. Are you happy?
:Cueball: ''Thank'' you.
:Black Hat: He was in some kind of bunker. 1945 was ''loud!''
:Cueball: '''''NO!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hitler]]
[[Category:Time travel]]

Talk:1058: Old-Timers

2020-07-26T02:35:23Z

172.68.38.120:

Wouldn't the heat from the servers have thawed the egg and killed her early? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:44, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
* What? That... ''What''? The egg isn't actually sent through the internet, if that's what you mean. The information from the parents' genes was taken from their proteins, encoded in digital format on the computer at the lab, sent to another lab, then re-encoded into protein format to be implanted in an egg. In that context, the egg was an entirely separate part of the process. If you mean the egg would have been thawed by the people at the Venter institute holding the egg up next to the servers, unprotected, while they implanted the synthesized genome (or the people at the lab doing the same thing with the unfertilized egg while sequencing the DNA), that's... well, simply not how that works. As for "killed her early": I'm not sure of a good way to ''start'' asking what you mean by that. As opposed to killing her at the intended time? As opposed to killing the unfertilized egg before they could sequence the DNA? Or even killing the physical egg while it was somehow being transported via the internet? [[User:JET73L|JET73L]] ([[User talk:JET73L|talk]]) 11:07, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
**Sincerely, Summer Glau {{unsigned|Wotpsycho}}
To me the title text seems to be referencing something completely different, as it seems to be coming from Neckbeard, to Buns, saying that he was on the internet before he was born as well, possibly in the form of pornography while his mother was pregnant. Just my idea. [[User:Tyman2651|Tyman2651]] ([[User talk:Tyman2651|talk]]) 20:43, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

:I was thinking along those lines, except maybe the conception was on the Internet. lol [[Special:Contributions/173.245.63.180|173.245.63.180]] 21:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
::The title text is clearly from Buns' perspective. [[User:Tharkon|Tharkon]] ([[User talk:Tharkon|talk]]) 20:39, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I cringe when I see her sit like that. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.161|108.162.238.161]] 16:44, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

:I sit like that. I'll hazard that odd personalities go with odd sittings. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.120|172.68.38.120]] 02:35, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Another important part of the joke is that BBSes have nothing to do with the Internet. While there were some that morphed into ISPs, e.g. Prodigy and AOL, mostly they were self contained and reached peak popularity after the modern internet was created. --[[User:Rhmcoff|Rhmcoff]] ([[User talk:Rhmcoff|talk]]) 04:25, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually not true that BBS had nothing to do with the internet, as many were on networks that had connections to email servers to send and
receive email from any domain, like today. When I was assisting running a system I sent and received such emails regualrry though my own
email address was a long cluster of text since it was used to direct the email to right BBS on the network on this side of gateway. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.231|162.158.62.231]] 13:21, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Talk:1049: Bookshelf

2020-07-26T02:27:40Z

172.68.38.120:

Rig this up to the entire twilight section. Problem solved. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:57, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Does ''Atlas Shrugged'' have any particular relevance to the strip? [[User:Alpha|Alpha]] ([[User talk:Alpha|talk]]) 02:14, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
::Ayn Rand is pretty controversial, and a lot of people dismiss her books outright. Some of them are an interesting read, though. {{unsigned|217.28.5.48}}

There is a factual inaccuracy in the explanation here — her philosophy is libertarian, not conservative. Please fix that. [[Special:Contributions/46.150.103.149|46.150.103.149]] 14:47, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

"far-right" ??? This very subjective and insulting. But I guess it's the aim of such assertion. [[Special:Contributions/109.255.215.93|109.255.215.93]] 07:47, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Another inaccuracy: Rand herself found the Libertarians, like any political party, to be counterintuitive to her philosophy of Objectivism. Though I think "libertarian" should be changed to "objectivism," I'll leave it and just make a side-note, because one could say that Atlas Shrugged is to Libertarians as the Bible is to Christians. [[User:Jinx|Jinx]] 20:55, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I have to agree, Objectivism is a philosophy, Libertarianism is a political movement. Although the two have a few overlaps, they are very different things. Rand was adamantly opposed the Libertarian Party and and wrote quite a bit about her objections. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.175|173.245.54.175]] 23:36, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Does Libertarianism have anything to do with this strip? Why is it included [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.156|173.245.50.156]] 21:24, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

As a communist, I love this one :D[[User:International Space Station|International Space Station]] ([[User talk:International Space Station|talk]]) 15:56, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Reading Atlas Shrugged right now. Randal's political beliefs would probably place him among the villains of the piece, a comic criticizing an influential work based on taste might place him there as well. Doesn't matter, my terrible tastes lead to me reading Atlas shrugged and xkcd so... careful Randal. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.6.94|172.69.6.94]] 14:12, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

All you guys in talk:

Proverb
a hit dog will holler

(US) An offended or defensive response to a statement suggests that the statement applies to the person complaining. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.120|172.68.38.120]] 02:27, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

449: Things Fall Apart

2020-07-23T22:13:06Z

172.68.38.120: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 449
| date = July 14, 2008
| title = Things Fall Apart
| image = things_fall_apart.png
| titletext = 'I'm nothing without you' is a fucked-up sentiment.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] are about to break up, Megan is trying to explain things but Cueball is constantly saying "I love you", asserting that the fact that he loves her should be enough to keep her from breaking up with him. But while loving the other person is a necessary condition for sustainability, it is not a ''sufficient'' reason all on its own.

The title text says that 'I'm nothing without you' is a fucked-up sentiment. This could read to imply that that's what Cueball really means, and he isn't saying it that way because 'I love you' is a more acceptable way of expressing it. Saying it over and over again, like he is doing, has almost the same effect, though. Conventionally, it could be said that mindset of someone believing that they are nothing without their partner—in other words, defining their identity in terms of the other person—is a dangerous and unhealthy sentiment. A person should have enough self-identity and sense of self-worth to know that they have value even outside the context of a relationship.

The title of the comic, "Things Fall Apart" could be a reference to the poem {{w|The Second Coming (poem)|''The Second Coming''}} by W.B. Yeats, which contains the line "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold", implying that things between Megan and Cueball are falling apart, and the fact that Cueball is still in love with Megan (arguably, the "center" of the relationship) isn't enough to sustain them.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are holding hands. The speech is in bubbles with arrows pointing towards the two. Not as usual with text just written above a line from the speaker.]
:Megan: I wonder about us.
:Cueball: I love you.

:[Megan lets go of Cueball's hand. But he keeps his hand in the same position as before. Cueball's speech bubble covers the bottom of Megans, indicating he speaks partly over her sentence.]
:Megan: We don't have fun together.
:Cueball: I love you.

:[As Megan keeps her hands down Cueball lifts his arm even more towards her. His speech bubble is covering the top part of his head, as well as the bottom of Megan's bubble.]
:Megan: It's like we're clinging to the "relationship" framework like it's all we got.
:Cueball: I love you.

:[Megan leans back from Cueball as he leans towards her arm outstretched toward her. Cueball's speech bubble covers the lower right section of Megan's bubble, breaking her sentence of in the middle of her last word, clearly showing he speaks in over her speech.]
:Megan: Who are you trying to reassur—
:Cueball: I love you I love you I love you I love you

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Romance]]

Talk:449: Things Fall Apart

2020-07-23T22:10:58Z

172.68.38.120:

Aaaand this is up, This is one of my favorite comics of xkcd. [[User:StuckInReality|StuckInReality]] ([[User talk:StuckInReality|talk]]) 07:30, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
:Please start only pages with a proper explanation.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:43, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
::I do understand, Sir. [[User:StuckInReality|StuckInReality]] ([[User talk:StuckInReality|talk]]) 00:25, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
I think that there is a bit of "the Cueball doth protest too much" in here. He's fighting Megan's explanations without giving his own.{{unsigned|Theo}}

The explaination of the title text seems off. It reads more like the author saying that an obsessive mindset (going so far as to think that you are nothing without the other person) is "fucked up" in the sense of dangerous or undesirable, implying that people shouldn't measure self worth by a relationship to another. In fact, I'm gonna change the comment.[[User:Pennpenn|Pennpenn]] ([[User talk:Pennpenn|talk]]) 01:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

The title text could be a continuation of the Kübler-Ross model for grief. The constant repeating of Cueball that he loves Megan would be the denial phase, while the transition to heavy cursing in the title text could be a sign of moving on to anger. [[User:Donny2112|Donny2112]] ([[User talk:Donny2112|talk]]) 06:04, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Weird. I almost never use the random button on xkcd, but I did yesterday 2-3 times, and then once today. The last I came to yesterday was this comic. And I may have missed seeing this before, even though I believed I have been through at least the first 600 comics... Or maybe it just did not register the first time? But today it did as the first comic I got with random was [[489: Going West]] where Megan breaks up with Cueball who do not wish to break up. And they are only 40 comics between. I can also not remember reading that one before. But they are so similar, and that I got those on two random comics in a row is just weird and fun to me! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:35, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I read the title text very differently. Cueball is saying "I love you" over and over again instead of saying "I'm nothing without you", because he knows that it's a fucked up thing to say. But it's what he wants to say. Gonna at least add that. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.120|172.68.38.120]] 22:10, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

441: Babies

2020-07-23T22:00:22Z

172.68.38.120: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 441
| date = June 25, 2008
| title = Babies
| image = babies.png
| titletext = I bet my future kids will read this someday. DEAR FUTURE KIDS: how did you get internet in the cellar?
}}

==Explanation==
A common theme of xkcd is that one never feels that one has "transitioned to adulthood", in the sense of actually attaining the seriousness and sense of responsibility that children imagine all adults to possess. Here, the author illustrates this by imagining [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] taking on the ultimate "adult responsibility" — having a child, treating it as they would any other engineering project. Disassembling a project to check the parts is an activity that is appropriate for a self-built computer or robot, but most people would think that disassembling a child would be impractical.{{Citation needed}} Also, unless they've taken Dr. Frankenstein's course on reassembling and reanimating human beings, this would result in a grisly end for the baby.{{Citation needed}} Megan also shows her lack of child experience by holding the baby upside-down by the foot, which isn't a good idea.{{Citation needed}} Her behavior could also indicate that Megan is treating the child as an object rather than a human being.

The title text implies that [[Randall]] will have kids someday. It will be surprising if they read this comic, not just because it will give them an unflattering look into their father's attitudes on having children, but because he plans to lock them in the cellar where there will be no internet access. This is possibly a reference to {{w|Kaspar Hauser}}, who is a boy that was claimed to have grown up in a dark cell in Germany in the 19th century, or to the incestuous children of {{w|Josef Fritzl}}.

This is also the topic of [[674: Natural Parenting]] and [[1384: Krypton]].

Much later, a comic with the singular version of this title was released: [[1650: Baby]]. Here, Cueball refrains from saying something as stupid as he does here about another couple's baby. The couple looks similar to the one in this comic, though that may just be due to the basic-looking art style of xkcd.

==Transcript==
:It doesn't seem right that we're old enough to have kids.
:[Megan holds a baby upside-down by one leg.]
:Megan: Sweet! We made a baby!
:Cueball: Are we sure we did it right?
:Cueball: We should disassemble it, check all the parts, and put it back together.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Baby 1]]

Talk:341: 1337: Part 1

2020-07-23T17:32:46Z

172.68.38.120:

The number 1337 should be read up side down, it means "leet" = elite. This is hacker code for the top guys. 11:43, 27 October 2012 (UTC)mb

----

Actually, it is not upside down at all. The thr33 represents an e, the 1 an l and the 7 a t. 7h3r3 ar3 a150 many other ways to write in leet speak that I won't cover. Google is a thing. --[[Special:Contributions/75.186.140.173|75.186.140.173]] 04:30, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

ALL CAPS TALK LEADS TO B1FF T4LK.

B1FF T4LK LE4D$ 2 W4r37_t4LK.

W4r3Zt4lk L34d$ 2 31337 |¬4(|<3|27_ |>0o|) 74|_|<,

4|\||) 7|¬3|23 7!¬3 |)4|2|( 51|)3 |_|3$


(Rough quote from circa late 1980s, but with plenty of prior Internet/Fidonet/BBS history behind it...)

Remember, kids, when you TXT-SPK "Cu l8r", that there's nothing new under the sun. But also that outside your clique you're going to look affected, at the very least. You might as well {{w|ROT13}} instead, if you're so keen on obfuscation!</rot26_for_additional_security> [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 07:59, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

The HTTPS, VPN, SSH and in general any encrypted connections may be intercepted by the man-in-the-middle pretending to be the server you're trying to connect to, and the Snowden papers show that NSA had done so. The only protection is to have the server's certificate on your computer and check that it does indeed match the certificate presented by the server, or stop connecting if it doesn't match. But how many people do pay attention to this? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.5|108.162.246.5]] 23:23, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Is 'Elite Hackerz Dood' Talk a real thing or did you make it up? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.114|108.162.250.114]] 00:45, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

* See: [http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/crackers.html Crackers, phreaks, and lamers]. (Also: [http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/appendixc.html the difference between "hackers" and "crackers"].) [[User:KangaroOS|Kangaro]][[User talk:KangaroOS|OS]] 16:41, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Wifi comes secured by default now, making this officially a retro hacker joke. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.120|172.68.38.120]] 17:32, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2279: Symptoms

2020-03-11T18:38:48Z

172.68.38.120:

Coronavirus or Covid-19 should be tags. [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 17:39, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
:Agreed. Depending on how you count [[2278]], this series has been running continuously since [[2275]]. So this is the 4th or 5th NCOV-2019 comic. The only problem is what should we name the tag? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.211.34|172.68.211.34]] 18:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Re. the title text, my reaction would be, "The medicine must not be working. I'd better take more." [[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.120|172.68.38.120]] 18:38, 11 March 2020 (UTC)Pat