explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3054: Scream Cipher

2025-02-22T16:27:35Z

172.68.54.166: /* Table */

{{comic
| number = 3054
| date = February 21, 2025
| title = Scream Cipher
| image = scream_cipher_2x.png
| imagesize = 287x416px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = AAAAAA A ÃA̧AȂA̦ ǍÅÂÃĀÁȂ AAAAAAA!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A ÃA̧ȂÁAǍẢÂA̋ ȦÅĀ - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A {{w|Cipher}} is a method of encryption, where characters or sometimes words are substituted for other characters in a set pattern, allowing for arbitrary strings to be enciphered using it. The complexity and strength of ciphers varies, from {{w|one-time pads}} and (historically) {{w|enigma machine|Enigma}} as stronger and more complex, to {{w|substitution ciphers}} as some of the weakest and least complex, where each character is simply given a set different symbol to represent it in the cipher.

This comic uses a substitution cipher, where all the letters of the English Alphabet are represented using the letter "A", with different {{w|diacritical marks}} to define the differences. This kind of cipher is often used on a recreational basis by children or casual enthusiasts, the similarity of the letters increasing the obcurity of the content and the skill or technology required for use, but there is also significant impracticality, as not only are substitution ciphers the easiest to break, but also the similarities in the letters do make the cipher hard to read and easy to misread, and the detail in the diacritical marks makes it easy to draw the "A"s incorrectly or ambiguously, potentially leading to [[3003: Sandwich Helix|part of the message being lost]]. This was our experience in the comments section of this very article, where one person implemented translator functions alongside another person crafting a message that failed to translate. However, the logic behind the code is mostly visual similarity, and if attentive to connecting concepts between the American and scream cipher alphabet, it could be quickly learned and translated in a glance.

It's named "Scream Cipher" (as a pun on {{w|stream cipher}}s, commonly used in computing) because the written form of a scream is a long string of As, possibly with some other characters at the end (and often an exclamation point for emphasis), such as "Aaaaaah!" or "Aaaaaaagh!". The name may or may not be a reference to IBM's {{w|Scream_(cipher)|Scream cipher}} published in 2002.

In the comic, [[Cueball]] texts the ciphered version for the plaintext "HELLO", and [[Megan]] responds with that for "HI".

The title text deciphers to "AAAAAA A SCARY MONSTER AAAAAAA!"

You can translate text to and from Scream Cipher using [https://github.com/matthewpwatkins/scream-cipher/ the Scream Cipher Translator] or [https://github.com/Reginald-Gillespie/ScreamCipher an alternative] with additional features.

Another recent comic featuring all "A"s was [[2957: A Crossword Puzzle]].

==Worked example==



Say we want to encode "Scream" in the Scream Cipher. First we would need to split out word into the letters, so S, C, R, E, A, M.

The first letter is S, so if we go to S in the table S is shown to become to Ã, C similarly becomes A̧, R becomes Ȃ, E corresponds to Á, A is the main letter so A is unchanged to A, and M becomes Ǎ. If we then write them again in order, we find SCREAM becomes ÃA̧ȂÁAǍ.

To turn cipher text back into normal text, the process is repeated in reverse. To translate A̧ẢA̯A̰ÁȂ, we go to A̧ in the table and find A̧ becomes C. Ả similarly becomes I, A̯ becomes P, A̰ becomes H, Á becomes E, and Ȃ becomes R. If we write the letters in order, we see that A̧ẢA̯A̰ÁȂ becomes CIPHER.

==Table==

The {{w|Unicode}} names of the characters in the cipher are as follows:

{|class="wikitable"
! colspan=2 | Input !! colspan=3 | Substitution
|-
! Plain !! Unicode description !! Cipher !! Unicode description(s) !! Notes
|-
| A || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A || A || '''U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A || Unadorned base character
|-
| B || U+0042 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B || Ȧ || '''U+0226 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DOT ABOVE || A with one dot over it, which can indicate a single change in math and science. Phonetic symbol for low central vowel
|-
| C || U+0043 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C || A̧ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0327 COMBINING CEDILLA''' || Cedille is often attached to a 'c', as in "français", as well as starting with 'c' itself.
|-
| D || U+0044 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D || A̱ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0331 COMBINING MACRON BELOW''' || Some see the lower bar as similar to the lower edge of the D.
|-
| E || U+0045 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E || Á || '''U+00C1 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH ACUTE || Many words have an acute e, as in "fiancé".
|-
| F || U+0046 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F || A̮ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+032E COMBINING BREVE BELOW''' ||
|-
| G || U+0047 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G || A̋ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+030B COMBINING DOUBLE ACUTE ACCENT''' || Adds one acute to E.
|-
| H || U+0048 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H || A̰ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0330 COMBINING TILDE BELOW''' || The low tilde has horizontal ink in the middle that moves vertical toward the sides, like an H.
|-
| I || U+0049 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I || Ả || '''U+1EA2 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH HOOK ABOVE ||
|-
| J || U+004A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER J || A̓ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0313 COMBINING COMMA ABOVE''' || The comma symbol looks like a small letter 'J' in some fonts
|-
| K || U+004B LATIN CAPITAL LETTER K || Ạ || '''U+1EA0 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DOT BELOW ||
|-
| L || U+004C LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L || Ă || '''U+0102 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH BREVE ||
|-
| M || U+004D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M || Ǎ || '''U+01CD LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH CARON || The top-centered caron is the same shape as the top center of the M.
|-
| N || U+004E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N || Â || '''U+00C2 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX || The lowercase letter 'n' also looks like a circumflex in some scripts. The circumflex peak mirrors the peak at the top left of the N.
|-
| O || U+004F LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O || Å || '''U+00C5 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE || The symbol contains the letter 'O'. In Scandinavian languages like Swedish, this *is* the letter 'O' (a written 'O' may be closer to a 'U', but not always)
|-
| P || U+0050 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P || A̯ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+032F COMBINING INVERTED BREVE BELOW''' || Refer to R: P also has a curve at the top center, but is encoded with one below.
|-
| Q || U+0051 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Q || A̤ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0324 COMBINING DIAERESIS BELOW''' || The two dots below the baseline reflect the two times Randall's Q touch the baseline. In the Orthographies of Spanish, Catalan, French and Galician, the grapheme 'qu' normally represents a single sound, before vowels 'e' and 'i'. In the few exceptions where the 'u' is pronounced, a diaeresis is added to it.
|-
| R || U+0052 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R || Ȃ || '''U+0202 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH INVERTED BREVE ||
The inverted centered top curve mirrors the curve at the top center of an R. |-
| S || U+0053 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S || Ã || '''U+00C3 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH TILDE || Tilde looks like a sideways 'S'.
|-
| T || U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T || Ā || '''U+0100 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH MACRON || The macron looks like the top horizontal line in the letter 'T'
|-
| U || U+0055 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U || Ä || '''U+00C4 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS || Many German words have a 'ü', as in "[[w|Fahrvergnügen]]". Similar to the encoding for Q, the two top dots mirror the two times the script of U reaches the top line.
|-
| V || U+0056 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER V || À || '''U+00C0 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH GRAVE || Grave has the letter 'V' in it, as well as being half of its shape.
|-
| W || U+0057 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W || Ȁ || '''U+0200 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DOUBLE GRAVE || The letter 'W' is visually two copies of the letter 'V'
|-
| X || U+0058 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER X || A̽ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+033D COMBINING X ABOVE''' || The symbol contains the letter 'X'.
|-
| Y || U+0059 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y || A̦ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0326 COMBINING COMMA BELOW''' || Comma is used con conjuntion as the letter 'Y' in some languages like Spanish
|-
| Z || U+005A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z || Ⱥ || '''U+023A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH STROKE || The strikethrough the letter A resembles the diagonal stroke of a capital "Z"
|}

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

:[Top of the panel has 26 letters of the alphabet, each followed by a hyphen and the letter "A" with a unique diacritical mark for each. "A - A" at the top is an exception, where the latter doesn't have a diacritic.]
:{|
|A - A
|-
|B - Ȧ
|G - A̋
|L - Ă
|Q - A̤
|V - À
|-
|C - A̧
|H - A̰
|M - Ǎ
|R - Ȃ
|W - Ȁ
|-
|D - A̱
|I - Ả
|N - Â
|S - Ã
|X - A̽
|-
|E - Á
|J - A̓
|O - Å
|T - Ā
|Y - A̦
|-
|F - A̮
|K - Ạ
|P - A̯
|U - Ä
|Z - Ⱥ
|}
:[Cueball and Megan typing on their phones, Cueball with two hands and Megan with one hand.]
:Cueball's phone: A̰ÁĂĂÅ
:Megan's phone: A̰Ả

:[Caption below the panel:]
:In the ''Scream Cipher'', messages consist of all As, with different letters distinguished using diacritics.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]
[[Category:Unicode]]

Talk:1168: tar

2020-04-14T19:55:07Z

172.68.54.166:

I thought the title text would be "tar --help"
[[Special:Contributions/123.202.19.132|123.202.19.132]] 06:59, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Is it good that I could have disarmed the bomb, and I have only used tar (or for that matter, Linux) sparsely? [[User:NSDCars5|NSDCars5]] ([[User talk:NSDCars5|talk]]) 12:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)NSDCars5

The comic is about the difficulty of the tar program options.

Even if his life depended on it and after years of usage, Bob/Randall could not come up with the right parameters without looking them up. So a situation is shown, where Bob's life depends on coming up with the right parameters:

* It shows an atomic warhead
* It has a user interface, which requests any valid tar command
* If it is not entered on the first try within 10s, the bomb is not disarmed and potentially explodes on the spot

Randall has come up with a situation, where the unix guy Bob can be the hero by knowing tar parameters. This is a pipe dream of a geek; nobody cares IRL, if you know tar parameters on the first try.

It is hilarious, that
* the bomb says in full detail the rules including that you should not cheat and it probably has no means to check whether you cheated. This is no game, but feels like one. In war and love every means is allowed - even cheating; it would also be self-defense for disarming the bomb; Bob and his colleagues are not even considering to cheat.
* the user has root access to the bomb, shown by the bomb as ~#, the tilde is the home directory, the # signifies super-user rights; even if the available programs prevent the bomb from being shutdown or disabled by a nonintended way, normally no root access is given for users of linux devices during normal usage; and disarming the bomb with official rules is normal usage of a bomb; a root prompt should not be necessary, if the bomb software is designed and configured well; possibly the unix prompt is a simulation for entering an answer
* Bob shurely needs more than 10s to come. So the bomb will have announced that questions, which require unix knowledge will follow - or has already asked other Unix questions; perhaps after 10s without entering anything a new question comes up
* this bomb can be disarmed with "common knowledge"

Small notes:
* The screen looks to be really grayscale (esp. the inverted "TEN") - not just because of the comic; it has at least 3 colors (black, white, tar gray); it could be that the "TEN" is updated dynamically and is thus inverted
* The comic is quite black: The screen and the bomb; Randall seldomly uses solid black areas; the bomb is a gloomy topic so it is black like "tar" (pun)

Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 07:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I think there is a visual double pun in this strip: the bomb disarmed by a tar command is a reference to the [[wikipedia:Tar (computing)#Tarbomb|tarbombs]], but it also looks like the [[wikipedia:File:Tsar Bomba Revised.jpg|Tsar Bomb(a)]]. --[[User:Koveras|Koveras]] ([[User talk:Koveras|talk]]) 08:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: I don’t think it looks like Tsar Bomba. If anything, it is much more similar to [[wikipedia:Fat Man|Fat Man]]. --[[User:Mormegil|Mormegil]] ([[User talk:Mormegil|talk]]) 08:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:: Yeah, but "Fat Man" doesn't sound like "tarbomb". --[[User:Koveras|Koveras]] ([[User talk:Koveras|talk]]) 10:48, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:: Furthermore, the Tsar bomb was much bigger; I think I've read somewhere that it had the size of a bus. --[[Special:Contributions/95.34.7.179|95.34.7.179]] 11:11, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I think another joke is in the fact that you don't know which Unix is running on the bomb so you don't actually know which parameter layout is supported. tar --help for example may or may not be valid since -- is a GNU extension.

tar -bvzx for a tar.bzip2 .... wait... no... argh... I've always just trusted my fingers.. --[[Special:Contributions/59.167.191.93|59.167.191.93]] 10:14, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: Will '''tar -?''' be valid everywhere?. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 19:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:: No, in very old implementations of tar (pre-POSIX), the hyphen is not permitted before flags. I believe that '''tar ?''' will be though. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.166|172.68.54.166]] 19:55, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

tar -lvvb archive.tar.bz
File not found. Sorry, you're dead.
~#
[[Special:Contributions/74.82.68.68|74.82.68.68]] 12:35, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Googling tar commands would definitely take more than 10 seconds, especially considering that Rob did not take his computer. (A smartphone is an option, but...)
Then again, why would "ten" be written in letters instead of numerals? [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 13:28, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:I think the clock is already counting down. So probably they've discovered the bomb with still some minutes on the display. They call Bob when there is a minute left, He arrives with 25 sec's on the display and 15s later the screendump is made... [[Special:Contributions/86.82.116.63|86.82.116.63]] 22:33, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:: This makes sense. --[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 22:41, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the current explantion is missing an important point: the tar commands are not that much difficult. What makes tar complicated is that there are many different implementations. The linux guy knows only gnu tar, but some unices have much different implementations and different commands. "tar --help" is certainly not available on an old hpux, for example. '''That''' make is difficult to type a valid tar command – even more if you don't know the implementation.
[[Special:Contributions/212.222.53.78|212.222.53.78]] 10:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: Will '''tar -?''' be valid everywhere?. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 19:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm a Windows user, so bear with me. Couldn't he type something like "man tar" to get the proper usage of the "tar" command on this particular system? It's a "man" command, so it shouldn't count as a try towards typing a "tar" command. Of course, maybe the bomb would explode if he entered anything else. [[Special:Contributions/70.31.159.230|70.31.159.230]] 13:46, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

:Yeah, all standard Unix installations should have man installed. But many mini installations don't, so these days Google is the standard backup.[[User:CityZen|CityZen]] ([[User talk:CityZen|talk]]) 14:58, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: Fixed comment/wasn't reading. Only thing I can say here is that I've used embedded distros without 'man'; you could probably 'strings' the binary though. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]])

Randall's joke is spot on, as usual. I've been using UNIX for nearly 30 years. Windows User's solution is elegant. Before Google there was the <code>man</code> command. In all seriousness, productivity on a UNIX box can be greatly enhanced simply by keeping good notes. I keep patterns of all sorts of UNIX commands handy so I don't have to look them up. As Wikipedia implies, <code>tar -tf</code> (I prefer <code>-tvf</code>) should be memorized because one quickly learns that one should ''always'' inspect tarballs before unpacking them. ''– [[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 14:11, 1 February 2013 (UTC)''

One of the reasons that tar is so useful is that it can often do exactly what you want when other, more obvious commands cannot. For instance, recursively copying a directory from one place to another (using "cp") can be tricky when symbolic links are involved, and thus people memorize incantations like "tar cf - . | (cd dest; tar xf -)". As well, it's a standard tool that's guaranteed to be found on every Unix installation (unlike zip/unzip).[[User:CityZen|CityZen]] ([[User talk:CityZen|talk]]) 14:58, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

tar --help. Problem solved. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:21, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: Maybe '''tar -?''' is better?. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 19:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

What about "tar xf foo.tar"? I always assume options without dash work everywhere because options they are the original scheme. Of course, foot.tar might be absent, but in my view, the command itself remains valid.
As to the time limit: I imagine a countdown starts when the first key is hit - that leaves little time for "man tar". [[Special:Contributions/46.142.35.251|46.142.35.251]] 16:49, 1 February 2013 (UTC) madd

It feels like a partial reference to comic [http://xkcd.com/208/ xkcd 208]--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.157.176|108.162.157.176]] 04:31, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't find tar all that tricky. The situation I'm always trumped with is when copying data, using cp, scp or rsync -r, then chmod -R /data 555. Why is '-R' capitalized? --[[Special:Contributions/98.253.217.12|98.253.217.12]] 19:54, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
:Because -r is 'substract the "read" right'. More interresting question is, why ssh -p but scp -P? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

First thing that struck me here was the Jurassic Park allusion. Surprised no-one else has mentioned it.--[[Special:Contributions/58.6.184.37|58.6.184.37]] 07:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
:No one mentioned "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?" question either ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:07, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Does this mean we should start retroactively rename cueball to "rob"?
:Rob is ''a'' Cueball, not ''every'' Cueball, so no. [[User:JET73L|JET73L]] ([[User talk:JET73L|talk]]) 14:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
::By that logic, Megan is ''a'' Cutie, not ''every'' Cutie. We should only name Megan in comics where her name appears. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 17:07, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

There is something morbid in the subtext here.... I have a feeling that Randall is going to kill off Megan, Rob, and "White Hat"... [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 01:47, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Randall, I am disappoint! I haven't used tar for more than a year and I don't err anymore: tar -xvzf file (.gz) or tar -xvjf file (.bz2), and I still consider myself quite the newb. Works on all flavors of linux I tried (I like trying linuxes on VMs, dunno about other unixes, but everytime I need it, I get it right, so I wouldn't even consider this in my list of hardest programs to get right first time). For those interested: -x extract -v verbose (I like it) -z uncompress (for some compression types, in some flavors this works with bz2, IIRC) -j uncompress (for bz2, maybe others). [[Special:Contributions/189.123.132.123|189.123.132.123]] 20:51, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

:Your "z" Is wrong for .bz2 (or .z or uncompressed); it's only for ".gz". The reason it works for you is that your distro is using BSD tar, which silently ignores compression-related flags on the t and x commands and figures it out automatically. Which means you're better off using "-xvf" than "-

:More importantly, "works on all flavors of linux I've tried" is a far cry from "portable". The majority of desktop Unix systems are not linux, but OS X. There are plenty of servers running other BSD flavors. And lots of old machines running commercial *nixes or OpenSolaris. Not to mention Cygwin, and native/MinGW ports to Windows. People checking in code because "it works on Fedora and Ubuntu, so it must be portable" is becoming as big a problem as when people used to test on three different BSD derivatives but no SysV. So you should feel bad. :P [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 01:54, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

:Originally bzip used -y. Not speaking about fact that bzip is pretty new - and some unixes don't have ANY compression support in their tar. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The quickest tar command with valid syntax would be "tar t". Every switch after the first command letter is optional. Even the initial dash is optional. [[Special:Contributions/85.24.234.35|85.24.234.35]] 11:03, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
:(That would also be a command that is valid in every known tar version throughout the universe.)
: Doesn't appear to work; console redirection is used as the input stream, terminated by Ctrl-D, at which point (on Android, and assuming you don't know the format) tar returns with "invalid tar magic" and then $? is non-zero (fail). If however you redirect 2>/dev/null, then $? returns 0 (success). I think the redirection is what's succeeding so any valid prestidigitation ought to work. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]])

The tar command actually has a unique syntax in unix. Classicly, it's first parameter is a subcommand (letter) followed by zero or more option letters. (And I think the subcommand had to be first.) Parameters for the options follow in sequence after that, in the same order the options where listed. Then, for the 'c' subcommand, an input filename list follows. This syntax was rather painful when you had perhaps 5 different option letters each with parameters, but this was a normal enough occurance when you specified the tape drive, tape block size, tape length, and a few others I can't even remember. Early implementations would have a file listing tape configurations so you could pick one and all its parameters with a single digit. In any case, it should be noted that a dash ('-') was actually NOT ALLOWED on the parameters. More recent versions of tar have attempted to add the more common unix option parsing, but still support the dash-less form. Having said all that, I tend to prefer "tar xvzf filename.tar.gz" and "tar tvzf filename.tar.gz". [[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 20:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure about it, so I'll not add to the explanation: doesn't "tarbomb" also refers to a malicious tarball that releases a ridiculously big file filled with blank/random data? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 01:26, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Um... the prompt is "~# "... That's a root prompt. Shouldn't Rob just "~# kill -9 1

Kernel panic – not syncing: Attempted to kill init!"? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.105|173.245.56.105]] 03:50, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

The user is root (indicated by the ~#). So, rm -rf / [[Special:Contributions/162.158.45.48|162.158.45.48]] 17:13, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
: Linux/OSX will limp along. Root's also probably preserved and the necessary reboot begs the question if you'd be better off rebooting (with power down) in the first place. Assuming it finishes in seconds (OSX is 12 minutes, about), that multiple commands were allowed, or that 'tar' doesn't have to appear first, I'd assume the verifier could be in ROM. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]])

I think the fact that there's a page and a half of comments arguing about what would be an 'obvious' solution shows how difficult a question this is... --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.226|108.162.237.226]] 08:44, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

It would be cool if someone made this (without the bomb) in real life. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.133.30|172.68.133.30]] 02:57, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

2288: Collector's Edition

2020-04-04T20:23:51Z

172.68.54.166: /* Trivia */ updated note on Friday's comic

{{comic
| number = 2288
| date = April 3, 2020
| title = Collector's Edition
| image = collectors_edition.png
| titletext = I'm sure you can find some suitable worldbuilding material if you scavenge through the archives.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. The hint table needs to be completed. The mechanics should be explained more in depth, if possible, screenshots of the hints, items in inventory, items-placing mechanics etc. should be added.}}

This is an April 1st comic. It is a large image, of which only part is visible, but it can be dragged around. This Space acts as a virtual common sandbox where viewers can interact. "Items" (small, often humorous images) can be 'collected' from other comics and then placed in this image by viewers. The collection then updates for all viewers in real-time. Multiples of the same item are often seen.

There is a "backpack" at the bottom, similar to "backpacks" in video games containing items collected by the player. As hinted by the title text, items can be found by visiting different XKCD comics/pages. Randomly, some pages will have a treasure chest which will contain the sticker related to the page. It is believed that the hint represents what page currently has a chest.

The sticker images can be seen at <nowiki>https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot_</nowiki>'''XXX'''.png, where XXX is a number from 001-253. Additionally, some images can be found at custom URLs, for example the periodic elements can be found at <nowiki>https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/element-</nowiki>'''XX'''.png, where XX is the element, and text loot at <nowiki>https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot-words-</nowiki>'''X'''.png, where X is the sentence.

===Hints===

{| class="wikitable"
!Hint
!Comic
!Unlocked item
!Item image
!Notes
|-
|Doctors in a row||Maybe [[1529: Bracket]] or [[497: Secretary: Part 4]]? Need confirmation.||Cory Doctorow || loot_019.png || These comics all have the same hint, but only one will have the chest
|-
|Get out the (US) vote||[[2224: Software Updates]]|| Statue of liberty ||loot_246.png||
|-
|Find a box of nice stuff on a picture with words like these|| [[1133: Up Goer Five]] (maybe incomplete) || Signpost || loot_126.png ||
|-
|Plug in or find another power source||[[1373: Screenshot]]|| ||loot_228.png or miniloot-words-dispenser.png (maybe incomplete)||
|-
|Sweet dreams, kitty||[[729: Laser Pointer]] (maybe incomplete)|| Cat licking laser point || loot_090.png ||
|-
|What is this hint pointing to? Hell if I know.||[[28: Elefino]] (maybe incomplete)|| ||loot_185.png||
|-
|Somebody set up us the bomb||[[286: All Your Base]]||Exploding rock||loot_197.png||
|-
|Cowabunga||[[1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] (maybe incomplete)||Women Science Fiction Authors || loot_175.png || [[197: Ninja Turtles]] also works
|-
|I want to believe||[[2156: Ufo]]||Ufo||loot_210.png||
|-
|Bleeped||[[290]], [[398]], [[430]], [[447]], [[533]], [[549]], [[677]], [[724]] or [[1671]]|| *$@#! ||loot_044.png||Comics that involve swearing
|-
|why waste time say few word when lot word do trick||[[7]], [[111]], [[139]], [[143]], [[179]], [[217]], [[445]], [[470]], [[822]], [[823]], [[1022]], [[1247]], [[1491]], [[1921]], [[1991]], [[2182]] or [[2231]]|| First Annual Award for Excellence in Being Very Smart ||loot_159.png||
|-
|Cooler than electric scooters||[[139]], [[409]], [[577]], [[578]], [[579]], [[580]] or [[581]]||An electric scooter||loot_006.png||
|-
|Take it from the top||[[1: Barrel - Part 1]] (maybe incomplete)||I am a turtle from [[889: Turtles]] || loot_095.png ||
|-
|I accept the yucca gnocchi, this meal is a success!||[[1713: 50 ccs]] (maybe incomplete)||Man carrying parentheses from [[297: Lisp Cycles]] || loot_031.png ||
|-
|Catch up on the news||[[1699: Local News]] (maybe incomplete)|| || ||
|-
|Participation trophy||[[2288: Collectors Edition]] (maybe incomplete)|| Server rack || loot_096.png ||
|-
|Find an opportunity for a sojourn||[[665]], [[681]], [[695]], [[1091]], [[1504]], [[1613]], [[1663]] or [[2111]]||Opportunity Mars rover from [[2111: Opportunity Rover]]||loot_161.png||
|-
|Tastier than tau day||[[179: e to the pi times i]] (maybe incomplete)||First annual award for excellence in being very smart || loot_159.png || Need to find out the difference between this, and the entry below!
|-
|Tastier than tau day||[[235]], [[396]], [[872]], [[1029]], [[1342]], [[1655]] or [[1967]]|| Pie sign ||loot_056.png|| Published on Pi day
|-
|418 I'm a teapot||[[1866: Russell's Teapot]] (maybe incomplete)||S.S. NASA: Space is Hard || loot_216.png ||
|-
|26th September, 1983||[[2052: Stanislav Petrov Day]]||White dove||loot_205.png||Might also be written "September 26th, 1983". Locale dependent?
|-
|There are 4241 as of Apr 1, 2020||[[1071: Exoplanets]] (maybe incomplete)|| Little girl from [[2264: Satellite]] || loot_151.png ||
|-
|asableiK||[[645: RPS]]|| A reverse Polish hotdog ||loot_079.png|| "Kielbasa" backwards, which is "sausage" in Polish
|-
|Critical mass elements||[[235: Kite]] or [[239: Blagofaire]]|| ||loot_203.png||
|-
|Some Februarys are more equal than others||[[390: Nightmares]]? (maybe incomplete)|| Cueball wheelie from [[272: Linux User at Best Buy]] || loot_036.png || Comic-hint connection largely conjectural; 390 was the first comic published on a leap day.
|-
|Five spice||[[1511: Spice Girl]] or [[1554: Spice Girls]]|| Rock guitarist ||loot_022.png||
|-
|Call the plumber||[[290: Fucking Blue Shells]] (maybe incomplete)|| || loot_058.png ||
|-
|Was it a rat I saw?||[[1632: Palindrome]] (maybe incomplete)|| Cueball with a large sack, pulling a wagon || loot_103.png || or [[1503: Squirrel Plan]] for cueball holding a balloon caught in a ceiling fan.
|-
|Churchill's gonna have to seriously rehydrate||[[1148: Nothing to Offer]]|| Bottle of soda ||loot_045.png||
|-
|Keep coming back|| || || ||
|-
|A new model released each year||Triggered by visiting all xkcd phone comics|| || ||
|-
|Tea Time||Maybe [[581: The Race: Part 5]]? Need confirmation.||All our tea ||loot_232.png||
|-
|Try pattern-matching! Look for comic 'bout alphabet?||[[1045: Constraints]]||Two Tetris blocks||loot_092.png||
|-
|Where's Hilbert?||[[195: Map of the Internet]] (maybe incomplete)|| Hilbert Curve || loot_021.png ||
|-
|Science fiction fetish||[[1585: Similarities]]|| ||loot_202.png||
|-
|The first one was funnier||[[11: Barrel - Part 2]] (maybe incomplete)||Falling feather / Sign "The uncomfortable truths well" || loot_250.png / loot_067.png ||
|-
|It's up to over 260 million cycles!||[[1941: Dying Gift]]|| Megan on a tire swing ||loot_127.png||
|-
|Sleeping Beauty is the same everywhere though||[[2233: Aurora Meaning]] (maybe incomplete)|| Sleeping Cat || loot_163.png ||
|-
|On the internet, nobody knows you're an arachnid||[[1530: Keyboard Mash]] (maybe incomplete)|| Cobwebbed frame from [[1135: Arachnoneurology]]|| loot_191.png ||
|-
|Did James Cameron pay for the rice cooker too?||[[1598: Salvage]] (maybe incomplete)||Rice bowl || loot_152.png ||
|-
|Never going to give you up||[[351]], [[389]], [[396]], [[524]], [[573]], [[609]], [[802]], [[1212]], [[1757]] or [[1981]]|| Cueball in car listening to music ||loot_010.png||
|-
|If red touches yellow, that's 24 ohms||[[1604: Snakes]], [[227: Color Codes]]? (maybe incomplete)|| Yoda with an mp3 player from What If || loot_247.png ||
|-
|An enthusiastic but questionable business opportunity||[[1021]], [[1032]], [[1117]], [[1293]], [[1493]], [[1533]], [[1772]], [[1812]], [[1871]], [[1903]], [[1997]], [[2140]], [[2209]] or [[2277]]|| Beret guy with a goat on leash ||loot_115.png||
|-
|Read the fine manual||[[293]], [[434]], [[456]], [[912]], [[1343]] or [[1692]]|| ||Multiple: loot_106.png, miniloot-words-hair.png, miniloot-words-ominous.png, miniloot-words-eruption.png, miniloot-words-flying.png or miniloot-words-ghost.png (maybe incomplete)||
|-
|That thing's undecimodal!||[[1347: t Distribution]] (maybe incomplete)|| Floating tentacled alien || loot_209.png ||
|-
|Actually, it's Myanmar-Shave now||[[491: Twitter]] (maybe incomplete)||Expensive bottle || loot_253.png ||
|-
|You don't have to find all 99||[[121: Balloon]] (maybe incomplete)||Balloon copter || loot_002.png || Or [[51: Malaria]] ?
|-
|Going in circles||[[378: Real Programmers]] (maybe incomplete)|| Cueball spinning in desk chair || loot_098.png ||
|-
|Couldn't you try knitting, or maybe stamp collecting?||[[37]], [[53]], [[60]], [[75]], [[79]], [[148]], [[168]], [[174]], [[236]], [[259]], [[287]], [[296]], [[326]], [[331]], [[389]], [[437]], [[451]], [[559]], [[590]], [[605]], [[687]], [[719]], [[733]], [[790]], [[845]], [[966]], [[1004]], [[1119]], [[1145]], [[1169]], [[1208]], [[1278]], [[1304]], [[1329]], [[1340]], [[1355]], [[1405]], [[1480]], [[1546]], [[1598]], [[1677]], [[1697]], [[1705]], [[1788]], [[1795]], [[1960]], [[1995]], [[2032]], [[2123]], [[2208]] or [[2252]]||Phishing License sign||loot_158.png||Mostly comics that include "My hobby:"
|-
|It's the ciiiiircle of HONK||[[537: Ducklings]] or [[1729: Migrating Geese]]||DUCKLOOP'D?||loot_069.png||
|-
|Fool me twice||Maybe [[880: Headache]]? Need confirmation.|| Raptor Attack || loot_033.png ||The second April fools' comic
|-
|oOOOoooo||Maybe [[316: Loud Sex]]? Need confirmation.|| Sleeping cat || ||
|-
|Maybe we can ask for new wishes||[[879: Lamp]]||Genie and his bottle||loot_004.png||If you place the genie last, you get another genie (indefinitely) - Needs verification, this may also just be a bug!
|-
|HACK THE PLANET||[[1337: Hack]] (maybe incomplete)|| Crash and Burn in the pool from the end of ''Hackers'' || loot_130.png ||
|-
|Monetization haute couteur||[[20]], [[23]], [[55]], [[123]], [[149]], [[150]], [[162]], [[208]], [[231]], [[242]], [[256]], [[273]], [[285]], [[303]], [[327]], [[377]], [[386]], [[420]], [[435]], [[442]], [[482]], [[505]], [[552]], [[556]], [[585]], [[614]], [[627]], [[657]], [[681]], [[688]], [[705]], [[710]], [[802]], [[821]], [[980]], [[1033]], [[1040]], [[1079]], [[1127]], [[1133]], [[1196]], [[1298]] or [[1428]] (maybe false positives)||Two bags of money ||loot_162.png||
|-
|Maybe writing a script would help||[[1319: Automation]]|| ||miniloot-words-eater.png (maybe incomplete)||
|-
|Go big to go small||[[1365: Inflation]]|| ||loot_245.png||
|-
|Are you projecting||[[850]], [[977]], [[1500]], [[1784]], [[1799]], [[2242]] or [[2256]]||Squirrel on a gun||loot_237.png||
|-
|Do spiders really have six legs||[[8]], [[43]], [[126]], [[427]], [[442]] or [[1110]]|| ||loot_007.png||
|-
|Istanbul or Constantinople or St. Trimble's Island?||[[1688: Map Age Guide]]||Cephalopod||loot_071.png||
|-
|Another rulebook?||[[393: Ultimate Game]]|| Merlin in a chair from [[270: Merlin]] ||loot_037.png||
|-
|Moooooon||[[482]], [[681]], [[1276]], [[1291]], [[1300]], [[1389]], [[1458]], [[1515]], [[1633]], [[1738]], [[1878]] or [[2258]]|| MOOOOOON ||loot_192.png||
|-
|Take a flight from LOL to FFS||[[1937: IATA Airport Abbreviations]]|| ||loot_049.png||
|-
|Everyone deserves a second chnace||All comics searched, no matches|| || ||The misspelling is intentional. [[745: Dyslexics]] would have been a good fit
|-
|Community contribution||[[822]], [[823]], [[824]], [[825]], [[826]]|| [Citation Needed] protester from [[285: Wikipedian Protester]] || loot_035.png ||
|-
|On the other side of the wardrobe||[[665: Prudence]], [[969: Delta-P]] or [[2218: Wardrobe]] (maybe incomplete)||Authentic Reindeer pulling sled from [[1776: Reindeer]] || loot_154.png ||
|-
|Today's your lucky day||[[1053: Ten Thousand]] (maybe incomplete)|| Ms. Frizzle || loot_105.png ||
|-
|[This hint has been redacted due to a copyright claim]||[[1005: SOPA]]|| ||loot_038.png||
|-
|Try a different approach||[[55: Useless]] (maybe incomplete)|| Equals sign ||loot_times.png or loot_div.png (maybe incomplete)||
|-
|The cake is a lie!||[[606: Cutting Edge]]|| Cake ||loot_144.png||
|-
|Joanna, fire.||[[322: Pix Plz]]|| Joanna with EMP cannon ||loot_026.png||
|-
|Everything changes from time to time when the fire nation attacks|| [[965: Elements]] || Symposium || ||
|-
|90KG x 300M||[[382: Trebuchet]]|| Trebuchet ||loot_041.png||
|-
|Copyright Enforcement Brigade||[[344: 1337: Part 4]]|| ||loot_046.png||
|-
|Where Cape Town meets Chukotka||[[1500: Upside-Down Map]]|| Crater ||loot_128.png||
|-
|Take a ride in a barrel||View all five barrel comics in reverse order ([[31]], [[25]], [[22]], [[11]], [[1]])|| Cueball at the door to the playpen-ball-filled apartment from [[150: Grownups]] || loot_005.png ||
|-
|Compiling...||[[303: Compiling]]|| ||loot_030.png||
|-
| || [[2288: Collectors Edition]] || Sheeple eye || loot_109.png ||
|-
| || [[2288: Collectors Edition]] || Time machine from [[1747: Spider Paleontology]] || loot_167.png ||
|}

==Trivia==
* This comic is the 2020 April Fools comic and was supposed to be released April 1st. However, the below message was displayed on the top of the page until early Friday (April 3rd) morning, when the comic finally went live. Friday's comic was published on Saturday.
<blockquote>
Note: For technical reasons Wednesday's comic will be posted Thursday instead. Apologies for the delay!
</blockquote>
* Placement is limited to 10,000 units from the origin. Users will receive no messages if they try placing something outside the boundary.
* Coordinates are relative to the bottom left corner of the canvass, thus as the default coordinates are "-370,-277" the canvass can be found to be 740 x 544 units.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands to the left of a vibrating box.]
:[The words "Collector's Edition" are written above him and boxed.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Interactive comics]]

2288: Collector's Edition

2020-04-03T16:33:15Z

172.68.54.166: /* Hints */

{{comic
| number = 2288
| date = April 3, 2020
| title = Collectors Edition
| image = collectors_edition.png
| titletext = I'm sure you can find some suitable worldbuilding material if you scavenge through the archives.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is an April 1st comic. It is a large image, of which only part is visible, but it can be dragged around. The space acts as a virtual common sandbox where viewers can interact. "Items" (small, often humorous images) can be 'collected' from other comics and then placed in this image by viewers. The collection then updates for all viewers in real time. Multiples of the same item are often seen.

There is a "backpack" at the bottom, similar to "backpacks" in video games containing items collected by the player. Items can be found by visiting different XKCD comics/pages. Randomly, some pages will have a treasure chest which will contain the sticker related to the page. It is believed that the hint represents what page currently has a chest.

The sticker images can be seen at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot_XXX.png, where XXX is a number from 001-253. Additionally, some images can be found at custom urls, for example the periodic elements can be found at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/element-XX.png, where XX is the element, and text loot at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot-words-X.png, where X is the sentence.

===Hints===

{| class="wikitable"
!Hint
!Comic
!Unlocked item
!Item image
!Notes
|-
|Doctors in a row||[[1529: Bracket]] ||Cory Doctorow || ||
|-
|Get out the (US) vote|| [[2224: Software Updates]] || Statue of liberty || loot_246.png ||
|-
|Find a box of nice stuff on a picture with words like these|| [[1133: Up Goer Five]] || Signpost || loot_126.png ||
|-
|Plug in or find another power source||[[1373: Screenshot]] || || loot_228.png ||
|-
|Sweet dreams, kitty||[[729: Laser Pointer]] || Cat licking laser point || ||
|-
|What is this hint pointing to? Hell if I know.||[[28: Elefino]] || || ||
|-
|Somebody set up us the bomb||[[286: All Your Base]] ||Exploding rock || ||
|-
|Cowabunga||[[1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] ||Women Science Fiction Authors || loot_175.png || [[197: Ninja Turtles]] also works
|-
|I want to believe||[[2156: Ufo]] ||Ufo || ||
|-
|Bleeped|| || || ||
|-
|why waste time say few word when lot word do trick||[[1022: So It Has Come To This]] || First Annual Award for Excellence in Being Very Smart || ||
|-
|Cooler than electric scooters||[[409: Electric Skateboard (Double Comic)]]||An electric scooter|| ||
|-
|Take it from the top||[[1: Barrel - Part 1]] ||I am a turtle || loot_095.png ||
|-
|I accept the yucca gnocchi, this meal is a success!||[[1713: 50 ccs]] ||Man carrying parentheses from [[297: Lisp Cycles]] || loot_31.png ||
|-
|Catch up on the news|| [[1699: Local News]] || || ||
|-
|Participation trophy|| [[2288: Collectors Edition]] || Server rack || ||
|-
|Find an opportunity for a sojourn||[[1504: Opportunity]] ||Opportunity Mars rover || ||
|-
|Tastier than tau day||[[179: e to the pi times i]] ||First annual award for excellence in being very smart || ||
|-
|418 I'm a teapot||[[1866: Russell's Teapot]] ||S.S. NASA: Space is Hard || ||
|-
|26th September, 1983||[[2052: Stanislav Petrov Day]] ||White dove || ||
|-
|There are 4241 as of Apr 1, 2020|| [[1071: Exoplanets]] || Little girl from [[2264: Satellite]] || ||
|-
|asableiK|| [[645: RPS]] || A reverse Polish hotdog || || "Kielbasa" backwards, which is "sausage" in Polish
|-
|Critical mass elements|| [[235: Kite]] || || loot_203.png ||
|-
|Some Februarys are more equal than others|| [[390: Nightmares]]? || Cueball wheelie from [[272: Linux User at Best Buy]] || || Comic-hint connection largely conjectural; 390 was the first comic published on a leap day.
|-
|Five spice||[[1554: Spice Girls]]|| Rock guitarist || ||
|-
|Call the plumber|| [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]] || || loot_058.png ||
|-
|Was it a rat I saw?|| [[1632: Palindrome]] || Cueball with a large sack, pulling a wagon || || or [[1503: Squirrel Plan]] for cueball holding a balloon caught in a ceiling fan.
|-
|Churchill's gonna have to seriously rehydrate||[[1148: Nothing to Offer]]|| Bottle of soda || ||
|-
|Keep coming back|| || || ||
|-
|A new model released each year|| || || ||
|-
|Tea Time||[[581: The Race: Part 5]] ||Floor tea ||loot_232.png|| Also [[479: Tones]] ? Also [[578: The Race: Part 2]] ?
|-
|Try pattern-matching! Look for comic 'bout alphabet?||[[1045: Constraints]] || || ||
|-
|Where's Hilbert?||[[195: Map of the Internet]] ||maze || ||
|-
|Science fiction fetish|| || || ||
|-
|The first one was funnier||[[11: Barrel - Part 2]]||Falling feather || ||
|-
|It's up to over 260 million cycles!|| || || ||
|-
|Sleeping Beauty is the same everywhere though||[[2233: Aurora Meaning]] || || ||
|-
|On the internet, nobody knows you're an arachnid|| [[1530: Keyboard Mash]] || Cobwebbed frame || ||
|-
|Did James Cameron pay for the rice cooker too?||[[1598: Salvage]] ||Rice bowl || ||
|-
|Never going to give you up||[[351: Trolling]] || || ||
|-
|If red touches yellow, that's 24 ohms||[[1604: Snakes]]|| Yoda with an mp3 player from What If || ||
|-
|An enthusiastic but questionable business opportunity||[[1533: Antique Factory]] or [[1021: Business Plan]]|| Beret guy with a goat on leash || ||
|-
|Read the fine manual|| [[1343: Manuals]] or [[293: RTFM]] || "Configure the network" window with a prompt for hostname || ||
|-
|That thing's undecimodal!||[[1347: t Distribution]] || Floating tentacled alien || ||
|-
|Actually, it's Myanmar-Shave now||[[491: Twitter]]||Expensive bottle || ||
|-
|You don't have to find all 99|| [[121: Balloon]] ||Balloon copter || loot_002.png || Or [[51: Malaria]] ?
|-
|Going in circles|| || || ||
|-
|Couldn't you try knitting, or maybe stamp collecting?||[[2123: Meta Collecting]]||Phishing License sign|| ||
|-
|It's the ciiiiircle of HONK||[[537: Ducklings]] ||DUCKLOOP'D? || ||
|-
|Fool me twice|| [[880: Headache]] || Raptor Attack || ||The second April fools' comic
|-
|oOOOoooo|| || || || https://xkcd.com/316/ ? definitely not https://xkcd.com/1393/- I got that hint while On that page. ?
|-
|Maybe we can ask for new wishes||[[879: Lamp]] ||Genie and his bottle ||loot_004.png ||
|-
|HACK THE PLANET||[[1337: Hack]] || || ||
|-
|Monetization haute couteur||[[20: Ferret]]||Two bags of money ||loot_162.png||
|-
|Maybe writing a script would help||[[1319: Automation]]|| || ||
|-
|Go big to go small|| [[1365: Inflation]] || || loot_245.png ||
|-
|Are you projecting||[[850: World According to Americans]] or [[977: Map Projections]]||Squirrel on a gun||loot_237.png||
|-
|Do spiders really have six legs||[[8: Red spiders]] || || ||
|-
|Istanbul or Constantinople or St. Trimble's Island?||[[1688: Map Age Guide]] ||Cephalopod || ||
|-
|Another rulebook?||[[393: Ultimate Game]]||Wizard in a chair || ||
|-
|Moooooon|| [[1300: Galilean Moons]] || MOOOOOON || ||
|-
|Take a flight from LOL to FFS|| [[1937: IATA Airport Abbreviations]] || || ||
|-
|Everyone deserves a second chnace|| || || ||
|-
|Community contribution|| [[826: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)]] || [Citation Needed] protester || ||
|-
|On the other side of the wardrobe|| [[969: Delta-P]] ||Authentic Reindeer pulling sled || ||
|-
|Today's your lucky day|| [[1053: Ten Thousand]] || Ms. Frizzle || loot_105.png ||
|-
|[This hint has been redacted due to a copyright claim]|| [[1005: SOPA]] || || ||
|-
|Try a different approach|| [[55: Useless]] || || loot_times.png ||
|-
|The cake is a lie!|| [[606: Cutting Edge]] || Cake || ||
|-
|Joanna, fire.||[[322: Pix Plz]] || Joanna with EMP cannon || loot_026.png ||
|-
|Everything changes from time to time when the fire nation attacks|| [[965: Elements]] || Symposium || ||
|-
|90KG x 300M|| [[382: Trebuchet]] || Trebuchet || ||
|-
|Copyright Enforcement Brigade|| [[344: 1337: Part 4]] || || loot_046.png ||
|-
|Where Cape Town meets Chukotka||[[1500: Upside-Down Map]] || || ||
|-
|Take a ride in a barrel|| || || || ('''not''' any of the comics in the barrel series)
|}

==Trivia==
* This comic is the 2020 April Fools comic, and was supposed to be released April 1st. However, the below message was displayed on the top of the page until early Friday (April 3rd) morning, when the comic finally went live. It remains to be seen if Friday's intended comic will be published later.
<blockquote>
Note: For technical reasons Wednesday's comic will be posted Thursday instead. Apologies for the delay!
</blockquote>
* Placement is limited to 10,000 units from origin. Users will receive no messages if they try placing something outside the boundary.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands to the left of a vibrating box.]
:[The words "Collector's Edition" are written above him and boxed.]

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2288: Collector's Edition

2020-04-03T15:30:16Z

172.68.54.166: Brief note on the backpack overlay disappearing on the Click and Drag comic, and a question about one of the hints.

== The joke ==
Very early on April 1st, Mojang\Microsoft released a version 20w14Infinite build of Minecraft which allows players to create millions of wildly different new worlds by writing text in a book & throwing it through a Nether portal. The world generated depends on what is written in the book, & some specific worlds contain many "starter chests" to help the player in their explorations. Players can share what they wrote in each book with others, allowing multiple players to each access the same new dimensions on their own. In this way, individual single-player Minecraft instances can essentially become a collaboratively evolving game featuring previously nonexistent block types. Given that Randall has done multiple comics referencing Minecraft & seems to be an avid player, & given the presence of "chests" & the "worldbuilding" & collaborative nature of this latest comic, I believe xkcd's April 3rd 2020 comic is a reference to this "final" Minecraft build.
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 14:10, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
== How the comic works ==
... is this going to be like [[1190: Time]]? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.63|162.158.74.63]] 04:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
: I hope so, otherwise I don't get the joke [[User:Forresthopkinsa|Forresthopkinsa]] ([[User talk:Forresthopkinsa|talk]]) 04:15, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
: The page just went down for me so maybe what we've seen isn't what it's supposed to be? [[User:Avi m|avis_magpie]] ([[User talk:Avi m|talk]]) 04:20, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Looks like the whole comic was just taken down. [[User:Parzivail|Parzivail]] ([[User talk:Parzivail|talk]]) 04:27, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
: Can confirm - the most recent comic is Pathogen again [[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.207|162.158.187.207]] 04:26, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
It is still up on the mobile website, but only if you directly go to comic page https://m.xkcd.com/2288 [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.146|172.69.22.146]] 05:10, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
: Perhaps this is a collector's edition because it was only up for a limited amount of time? {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.60|05:12, 3 April 2020}}
:: That was my immediate assumption. The title text says, "I'm sure you can find some suitable worldbuilding material if you scavenge through the archives." And I was viewing the comic by using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine — which, wouldn't you know it, captured the page exactly once before it went down. Between that and the title "Collector's Edition", I can't help thinking that the comic was actually intended to be viewed this way. Though for what reason, and what intended meaning, I couldn't tell you. …And jeez, in the time it took me to type this, the comic is back, but changed! Oy vey. [[User:NoriMori|NoriMori]] ([[User talk:NoriMori|talk]]) 06:42, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Maybe it's called collectors edition, because it was only available quite limited and to an unusual time? But that logic doesn't fit with the title text. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 05:14, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:I doubt that could be caused by "technical difficulties". [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.186|172.69.34.186]] 06:14, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

It looks like it went back up about 5 minutes age. I can't figure out if it's possible to do more than pan right now though. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.120|108.162.215.120]] 06:39, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:Yeah I see the same thing, looks like they're just testing it live. What a shame :(--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.242|108.162.215.242]] 06:47, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::what makes you assume that this is testing right now? however it doesn't seem to be very interactive apart from panning through it, and that it seems to chagne over time (the moon from [[1300]] wasn't there a few minutes ago, was it? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:49, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

:It's a giant pan similar to [https://xkcd.com/1110], although it's mostly empty, with some content at [https://xkcd.com/2288/#-361,-161]
. The title reads that you can find world building material, if you scavenge through the archives. I assume, more content will be unlocked as you read through past comics. [[User:Goatfryed|Goatfryed]] ([[User talk:Goatfryed|talk]]) 06:52, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::That would mean it is individual? That everyone gets their own picture? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:03, 3 April 2020 (UTC) Edit: I can kinda rule that out. I get the same picture on my phone and my work laptop, the work laptop is in a different country via vpn, and doesn't share any logins/advertisement ID's apart from explain xkcd with my phone... --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:05, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, it definitely changes. The orange swimming pool just showed up now. Also, at the bottom of the page, it says something about "backpack", and what appears to be a reference to some other xkcd comic. For example, "Hint: why waste time say few word when lot word do trick", which I think refers to Up Goer Five. But I have no idea what to do with that info. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.190|172.68.141.190]] 06:55, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:and the content seems to be related to previous comics and what-ifs... but still no clue what to do apart from exploring the page. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:57, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

So I just stumbled upon this and it seems to be exactly as other commentors have theorised: as you read previous comics more stuff gets added to the page. There seems to be some kind of backpack mechanic where you collect items from previous ones somehow, but, perhaps because I've already read all previous comics, that didn't seem to work for me. Instead I just had to click the link above the backpack, which opened the comic in a new tab, and it had a bunch of stuff there. We may need to co-ordinate to figure out if different people end up with different sets of items, and to ensure we have all of them, but I think other than that it should be just a cut and dry thing of making a table with every item in it. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.202|162.158.34.202]] 07:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:Hang on, mine just changed: before there was only 1 pool on the left, now there are two. I only went back to pathogens and then forwards agin. This may be harder than I thought, I'm going to start keeping a screenshot log of actions vs. results. [[User:Benkor42|Benkor42]] ([[User talk:Benkor42|talk]]) 07:17, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:You may need to try xkcd.com instead of www.xkcd.com - there seems to be an issue with the latter at the moment. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.216|162.158.255.216]] 07:18, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::Hold up it changed again! This time without a reload! [[User:Benkor42|Benkor42]] ([[User talk:Benkor42|talk]]) 07:28, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:::It seems to change periodically, the url does change everytime. New stuff always seems to be added, not old stuff rremoved. [[User:Benkor42|Benkor42]] ([[User talk:Benkor42|talk]]) 07:28, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::::The URL is related to the coordinates, it changes when you pan the image. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:34, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::::Timings seem to be random, working on double checking that rn. Highest first number so far is 1127, once it switches agin I'm going to experiement with manually editing the url.

I was briefly able to do things. Open the archieve, navigate it to one of the comics, that are hinted for (e.g. compiling or iata) and when viewing that comic I get a lootbox, with an image I can then place in the 2288. It worked twice, and now it doesn't again... neither with those that have worked before, nor with others I am fairly sure have been placed by other people. (such as galilean moons) --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:I'm working on assembling an image log, wonder if we could compare? Also, the two number url could be useful, rn I'm on -1378, -152 [[User:Benkor42|Benkor42]] ([[User talk:Benkor42|talk]]) 07:25, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::What do you mean by compare? Also the URL is related to the coordinates, it changes when you pan the image. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:34, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:::Yh just got that, is that the same for other panning comics (I'm a little new)? And I was wondering if the comic changed per person/system like certain previous comics. [[User:Benkor42|Benkor42]] ([[User talk:Benkor42|talk]]) 07:40, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::::Just seen a previous comment from you saying it doesn't change cross-system. However, it definetely changes with time, so the question is whether that's per user or done on a sort of universal clock, so we all unlock the same new content at the same time.
:::::I didn't complete writing up the thing I was able to do above... after opening the lootbox I got one image related to the comic I opened in my backpack and was able to place that in the actual 2288, where it now is placed. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:50, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::::::For me that didn't happen, it started with a loading screen type thing, and then objects just started appearing seemingly at random. I've also noticed some of them dissapear. I feel like the best course of action would be to start with a table of all the different objects, and then see if we can figure out when/why they appear later.
::::::: At least 2 objects appeared, because I placed them. It is a colaboration of many xkcd readers to do this world building here. I placed one of the sword fights around #439,-181 and the non-inverted kite at #-1679,-290 . --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:55, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::::::::Do you agree that the best course of action would therefore be a table with all the items? [[User:Benkor42|Benkor42]] ([[User talk:Benkor42|talk]]) 08:03, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:::::::::Not a big fan of tables, unless there really is content of muliple categories to be entered for one line. A list would do fine I guess? Also I find lists easier to work with. Or what would be the columns you'd set up? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::::::::::Something along the lines of the comic that it's a reference to, an image, and an explanation. Do we know if you find the same sticker at the same comic every time? If so, then that. A list would work well too. [[User:Benkor42|Benkor42]] ([[User talk:Benkor42|talk]]) 08:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::::::::::From looking at what image URLs don't 404, it looks like there are 253 stickers, which is quite a lot for a table.[[User:Matthias1|Matthias1]] ([[User talk:Matthias1|talk]]) 10:03, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:::::I think we can unlock new elements by reading older comics (seemingly at random, it doesn't work with every comic read) and that everyone can see the changes once they are put on the global picture. If someone could check, I have put berret guy and his goat around (5000,0)
::::::Yep, he's there. [[User:Benkor42|Benkor42]] ([[User talk:Benkor42|talk]]) 08:01, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I almost feel like someone needs to show them this xkcd... https://xkcd.com/169/

It seems to be an interactive canvas. You can find stickers in chests on specific comics and put them in your backpack, and then when you come back here you can choose where to put them on the canvas. The hints in the empty backpack are cryptic references to comics. {{unsigned ip|162.158.107.85}}
:Yep, I figured the same thing, but for me it only worked twice (fly from wtf to lol was a reference to the iata thing and compiling was a reference to the compiling one) - but it didn't work again. Also: Some of the placed images are clearly references to what-if. Like the squirrel on top of an AK47 or the yoda powering an IPOD. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:59, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I've made a catalog of the stickers but it's only partial because stuff keeps appearing: https://photos.app.goo.gl/dPYeYVpGqu5tqGTt5 [[User:Lev|Lev]] ([[User talk:Lev|talk]]) 08:02, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I got it. I wrote the steps on reddit and included some screenshots. Feel free to use it to edit this page https://old.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/fu1dt0/xkcd_2288_collectors_edition/fmaqp1w/ [[User:Ufolicker|Ufolicker]] ([[User talk:Ufolicker|talk]]) 09:27, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Am I too late to participate in this or am I doing something wrong? Where is this hint supposed to appear? I only see an empty backpack and the canvas on which references to different comics are placed. No comic I've visited, either inspired by references on the canvas, nor by random selection has any chest or other interactive components to it. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 09:53, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:No, you're doing it right. Hints show up in the backpack area. Obviously no one is sure of anything, but even users who have seen hints have reported not seeing hints on a different browser/device. I suspect something similar to [https://xkcd.com/1037/ Umwelt], where different hints are shown to different people. And I think once a chest is picked up, it stops appearing to everyone that could see it, but that's a guess.[[User:Matthias1|Matthias1]] ([[User talk:Matthias1|talk]]) 10:03, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::Ok, I was unsure because on my windows 10 laptop I have yet to see a hint. I've tried chrome, firefox and internet explorer. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 11:09, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:::Finally got it to work in Safari in iOS [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 11:13, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::::I took part in the scavenger hunt and about 2 hours ago it stopped showing hints. So I assume it shut down and there is nothing to do anymore.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [[User:Curse|Curse]] ([[User talk:Curse|talk]]) 15:15, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

When I view the comic, I don't see the closed box - the screen is absolutely full of stickers. I've not done any scavenger hunting (I'd upload an image, but I don't have permissions to do so) [[User:Kvetch|Kvetch]] ([[User talk:Kvetch|talk]]) 11:10, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Hints I've seen so far: "The first one was funnier" (chest appeared in comic 1, contained I'm a turtle);
"418 I'm a teapot"
"26th September, 1983" (comic 2052, Stanislav Petrov Day, white dove); [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.135|172.69.134.135]] 11:20, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps a table for found chests with no attached hints? I've stumbled across a few but don't know if they're hinted at or not :). [[User:Deranged|Deranged]] ([[User talk:Deranged|talk]]) 11:54, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:Maybe add a line to the table with a blank first box, the link in the second box, empty third box? Someone will match it up. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.37|162.158.166.37]] 12:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

"Churchill's gonna have to rehydrate" is Nothing to Offer. Can't remember what number, I think 1148?

In other news, the bad ads are back ([[Talk:2220: Imagine Going Back in Time/Ads|previous discussion]]) - who's in charge of dealing with them anyway? [[User:Arcorann|Arcorann]] ([[User talk:Arcorann|talk]]) 12:25, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Could someone post an image showing what it looks like to find a chest on a comic? I've browsed to some of the comics referenced as having chests but couldn't see one so far. Thanks![[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.13|141.101.69.13]] 12:54, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:I've uploaded a few images on https://imgur.com/gallery/4q1QIW5. Can't upload them here yet, new account [[User:Madsmtm|madsmtm]] ([[User talk:Madsmtm|talk]]) 13:24, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

"The other side of the wardrobe", someone's put in the solution [[2218: Wardrobe]]; but I also found the chest on [[665: Prudence]]. Can there be multiple solutions to the same hint? [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 13:00, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Is anyone else having issues with things just not working? I clicked around a bit, it gave me the award in being very smart, and now won't give me any hints or chests. [[User:Crazymachinefan|Crazymachinefan]] ([[User talk:Crazymachinefan|talk]]) 13:57, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
::I am also not getting any hints anymore after getting one chest.[[User:Eesley|Eesley]] ([[User talk:Eesley|talk]]) 14:01, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
:::Nope, nothing to get anymore. [[User:Curse|Curse]] ([[User talk:Curse|talk]]) 15:15, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

The "Was it a rat I saw" hint is probably [[1632: Palindrome]]. I haven't gotten the hint yet, so I can't confirm. [[User:Nvaiko24|Nvaiko24]] ([[User talk:Nvaiko24|talk]]) 14:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Interestingly, the [[1110: Click and Drag]] disables the backpack overlay. Also, anyone have any news on how to get the Go Big to Go Small hint?

I got the "First annual award for excellence in being very smart" on page 7, rather than 179 as stated above. Can't remember what the hint was. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.222|162.158.34.222]] 14:26, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Found that award on comic 7, too. And "Researchers are reporting record number of sharks (loot 159) on comic 1368, but I'll be damned if I know the hint. Those give me nothing [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.43|162.158.91.43]] 14:44, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Found another one! It's a bug on a box, loot_007. From comic #442, no idea what hint goes with it. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.7|162.158.74.7]] 15:18, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

== Browser agent related issues: Post what browser (Chrome, Firefox; mobile, desktop) you are using here & what issues (if any) you experience when interacting with this comic. ==

On Chrome version 80.0.3987.162 in mobile view, only "Collector's Edition" appears for me. The comic is not scrollable or interactive, & the backpack does not appear. In desktop view, the collectively added content appears, as does the backpack. (I have not tested whether I can add things, yet.)
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 13:52, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

2288: Collector's Edition

2020-04-03T14:17:43Z

172.68.54.166: Undo revision 189824 by 172.68.54.166 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2288
| date = April 3, 2020
| title = Collectors Edition
| image = collectors_edition.png
| titletext = I'm sure you can find some suitable worldbuilding material if you scavenge through the archives.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is an April 1st comic. It is a large image, of which only part is visible, but it can be dragged around. The space acts as a virtual common sandbox where viewers can interact. "Items" (small, often humorous images) can be 'collected' from other comics and then placed in this image by viewers. The collection then updates for all viewers in real time. Multiples of the same item are often seen.

There is a "backpack" at the bottom, similar to "backpacks" in video games containing items collected by the player. Items can be found by visiting different XKCD comics/pages. Randomly, some pages will have a treasure chest which will contain the sticker related to the page. It is believed that the hint represents what page currently has a chest.

The sticker images can be seen at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot_XXX.png, where XXX is a number from 001-253. Additionally, some images can be found at custom urls, for example the periodic elements can be found at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/element-XX.png, where XX is the element, and text loot at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot-words-X.png, where X is the sentence.

===Hints===

{| class="wikitable"
!Hint
!Comic
!Unlocked item
!Item image
!Notes
|-
|Doctors in a row||[[1529: Bracket]] ||Cory Doctorow || ||
|-
|Get out the (US) vote|| || || ||
|-
|Find a box of nice stuff on a picture with words like these|| || || ||
|-
|Plug in or find another power source||[[1373: Screenshot]] || || ||
|-
|Sweet dreams, kitty||[[729: Laser Pointer]] || || ||
|-
|What is this hint pointing to? Hell if I know.||[[28: Elefino]] || || ||
|-
|Somebody set up us the bomb||[[286: All Your Base]] ||Exploding rock || ||
|-
|Cowabunga||[[1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] ||Women Science Fiction Authors || || [[197: Ninja Turtles]] also works
|-
|Take a ride in a barrel|| || || ||
|-
|I want to believe||[[2156: Ufo]] ||Ufo || ||
|-
|Bleeped|| || || ||
|-
|why waste time say few word when lot word do trick|| || || ||
|-
|Cooler than electric scooters||[[2195: Dockless Roombas]]||An electric scooter|| || ||
|-
|Take it from the top||[[1: Barrel - Part 1]] ||I am a turtle || || ||
|-
|I accept the yucca gnocchi, this meal is a success!||[[1713: 50 ccs]] || || ||
|-
|Catch up on the news|| [[1699: Local News]] || || ||
|-
|Participation trophy|| [[2288: Collectors Edition]] || Server rack || ||
|-
|Find an opportunity for a sojourn||[[1504: Opportunity]] ||Opportunity Mars rover || ||
|-
|Tastier than tau day||[[179: e to the pi times i]] ||First annual award for excellence in being very smart || ||
|-
|418 I'm a teapot||[[1866: Russell's Teapot]] ||S.S. NASA: Space is Hard || ||
|-
|26th September, 1983||[[2052: Stanislav Petrov Day]] ||White dove || ||
|-
|Take it from the top|| || || ||
|-
|There are 4241 as of Apr 1, 2020|| || || ||
|-
|asableiK|| [[645: RPS]] || A reverse Polish hotdog || || "Kielbasa" backwards, which is "sausage" in Polish
|-
|Critical mass elements|| || || ||
|-
|Some Februarys are more equal than others|| [[390: Nightmares]]? || Cueball wheelie from [[272: Linux User at Best Buy]] || || Comic-hint connection largely conjectural; 390 was the first comic published on a leap day.
|-
|Five spice||[[1554: Spice Girls]]|| Rock guitarist || ||
|-
|Call the plumber|| || || ||
|-
|Was it a rat I saw?|| || || ||
|-
|Churchill's gonna have to seriously rehydrate||[[1148: Nothing to Offer]]|| Bottle of soda || ||
|-
|Keep coming back|| || || ||
|-
|A new model released each year|| || || ||
|-
|Tea Time||[[579: The Race: Part 3]] ||Floor tea || ||
|-
|Try pattern-matching! Look for comic 'bout alphabet?||[[1045: Constraints]] || || ||
|-
|Where's Hilbert?||[[195: Map of the Internet]] ||maze || ||
|-
|Science fiction fetish|| || || ||
|-
|The first one was funnier||[[11: Barrel - Part 2]]||No chest - hint disappears || ||
|-
|It's up to over 260 million cycles!|| || || ||
|-
|Sleeping Beauty is the same everywhere though|| || ||
|-
|On the internet, nobody knows you're an arachnid|| [[1530: Keyboard Mash]] || Cobwebbed frame || ||
|-
|Did James Cameron pay for the rice cooker too?||[[1598: Salvage]] ||Rice bowl || ||
|-
|Never going to give you up||[[351: Trolling]] || || ||
|-
|If red touches yellow, that's 24 ohms||[[1604: Snakes]]|| Yoda with an mp3 player from What If || ||
|-
|An enthusiastic but questionable business opportunity||[[1533: Antique Factory]]|| || ||
|-
|Read the fine manual|| [[1343: Manuals]] || || ||
|-
|That thing's undecimodal!||[[1347: t Distribution]] || || ||
|-
|Actually, it's Myanmar-Shave now||[[491: Twitter]]||Expensive bottle || ||
|-
|You don't have to find all 99|| || || ||
|-
|Going in circles|| || || ||
|-
|Couldn't you try knitting, or maybe stamp collecting?||[[2123: Meta Collecting]]||Phishing License sign|| ||
|-
|It's the ciiiiircle of HONK||[[537: Ducklings]] ||DUCKLOOP'D? || ||
|-
|Fool me twice||[[880: Headache]] ||Raptor Attack || ||
|-
|oOOOoooo|| || || || https://xkcd.com/316/ ?
|-
|Maybe we can ask for new wishes||[[879: Lamp]] ||Genie and his bottle || ||
|-
|HACK THE PLANET||[[1337: Hack]] || || ||
|-
|Monetization haute couteur|| || || ||
|-
|Maybe writing a script would help||[[1319: Automation]]|| || ||
|-
|Go big to go small|| || || ||
|-
|Are you projecting||[[977: Map Projections]]| |Squirrel on a gun| || ||
|-
|Do spiders really have six legs||[[8: Red spiders]] || || ||
|-
|Istanbul or Constantinople or St. Trimble's Island?||[[1688: Map Age Guide]] ||Cephalopod || ||
|-
|Another rulebook?||[[393: Ultimate Game]]||Wizard in a chair || ||
|-
|Moooooon|| [[1300: Galilean Moons]] || MOOOOOON || ||
|-
|Take a flight from LOL to FFS|| [[1937: IATA Airport Abbreviations]] || || ||
|-
|Everyone deserves a second chnace|| || || ||
|-
|Community contribution|| || || ||
|-
|On the other side of the wardrobe|| [[2218: Wardrobe]] || || ||
|-
|Today's your lucky day|| || || ||
|-
|[This hint has been redacted due to a copyright claim]|| [[1005: SOPA]] || || ||
|-
|Try a different approach|| || || ||
|-
|The cake is a lie!|| [[606: Cutting Edge]] || Cake || ||
|-
|Go big to go small|| || || ||
|-
|Joanna, fire.||[[322: Pix Plz]] || || ||
|-
|Everything changes from time to time when the fire nation attacks||[[965: Elements]] ||Symposium || ||
|-
|90KG x 300M|| [[382: Trebuchet]] || Trebuchet || ||
|}

==Trivia==
* This comic is the 2020 April Fools comic, and was supposed to be released April 1st. However, the below message was displayed on the top of the page until early Friday (April 3rd) morning, when the comic finally went live. It remains to be seen if Friday's intended comic will be published later.
<blockquote>
Note: For technical reasons Wednesday's comic will be posted Thursday instead. Apologies for the delay!
</blockquote>

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands to the left of a vibrating box.]
:[The words "Collector's Edition" are written above him and boxed.]

{{comic discussion}}

2288: Collector's Edition

2020-04-03T14:14:50Z

172.68.54.166:

{{comic
| number = 2288
| date = April 3, 2020
| title = Collectors Edition
| image = collectors_edition.png
| titletext = I'm sure you can find some suitable worldbuilding material if you scavenge through the archives.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is an April 1st comic. It is a large image, of which only part is visible, but it can be dragged around. The space acts as a virtual common sandbox where viewers can interact. "Items" (small, often humorous images) can be 'collected' from other comics and then placed in this image by viewers. The collection then updates for all viewers in real time. Multiples of the same item are often seen.

There is a "backpack" at the bottom, similar to "backpacks" in video games containing items collected by the player. Items can be found by visiting different XKCD comics/pages. Randomly, some pages will have a treasure chest which will contain the sticker related to the page. It is believed that the hint represents what page currently has a chest.

The sticker images can be seen at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot_XXX.png, where XXX is a number from 001-253. Additionally, some images can be found at custom urls, for example the periodic elements can be found at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/element-XX.png, where XX is the element, and text loot at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot-words-X.png, where X is the sentence.

===Hints===

{| class="wikitable"
!Hint
!Comic
!Unlocked item
!Item image
!Notes
|-
|Doctors in a row||[[1529: Bracket]] ||Cory Doctorow || ||
|-
|Get out the (US) vote|| || || ||
|-
|Find a box of nice stuff on a picture with words like these|| || || ||
|-
|Plug in or find another power source||[[1373: Screenshot]] || || ||
|-
|Sweet dreams, kitty||[[729: Laser Pointer]] || || ||
|-
|What is this hint pointing to? Hell if I know.||[[28: Elefino]] || || ||
|-
|Somebody set up us the bomb||[[286: All Your Base]] ||Exploding rock || ||
|-
|Cowabunga||[[1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] ||Women Science Fiction Authors || || [[197: Ninja Turtles]] also works
|-
|Take a ride in a barrel|| || || ||
|-
|I want to believe||[[2156: Ufo]] ||Ufo || ||
|-
|Bleeped|| || || ||
|-
|why waste time say few word when lot word do trick|| || || ||
|-
|Cooler than electric scooters||[[2195: Dockless Roombas]]||An electric scooter|| || ||
|-
|Take it from the top||[[1: Barrel - Part 1]] ||I am a turtle || || ||
|-
|I accept the yucca gnocchi, this meal is a success!||[[1713: 50 ccs]] || || ||
|-
|Catch up on the news|| [[1699: Local News]] || || ||
|-
|Participation trophy|| [[2288: Collectors Edition]] || Server rack || ||
|-
|Find an opportunity for a sojourn||[[1504: Opportunity]] ||Opportunity Mars rover || ||
|-
|Tastier than tau day||[[179: e to the pi times i]] ||First annual award for excellence in being very smart || ||
|-
|418 I'm a teapot||[[1866: Russell's Teapot]] ||S.S. NASA: Space is Hard || ||
|-
|26th September, 1983||[[2052: Stanislav Petrov Day]] ||White dove || ||
|-
|Take it from the top|| || || ||
|-
|There are 4241 as of Apr 1, 2020|| || || ||
|-
|asableiK|| [[645: RPS]] || A reverse Polish hotdog || || "Kielbasa" backwards, which is "sausage" in Polish
|-
|Critical mass elements|| || || ||
|-
|Some Februarys are more equal than others|| [[390: Nightmares]]? || Cueball wheelie from [[272: Linux User at Best Buy]] || || Comic-hint connection largely conjectural; 390 was the first comic published on a leap day.
|-
|Five spice||[[1554: Spice Girls]]|| Rock guitarist || ||
|-
|Call the plumber|| || || ||
|-
|Was it a rat I saw?|| || || ||
|-
|Churchill's gonna have to seriously rehydrate||[[1148: Nothing to Offer]]|| Bottle of soda || ||
|-
|Keep coming back|| || || ||
|-
|A new model released each year|| || || ||
|-
|Tea Time||[[579: The Race: Part 3]] ||Floor tea || ||
|-
|Try pattern-matching! Look for comic 'bout alphabet?||[[1045: Constraints]] || || ||
|-
|Where's Hilbert?||[[195: Map of the Internet]] ||maze || ||
|-
|Science fiction fetish|| || || ||
|-
|The first one was funnier||[[11: Barrel - Part 2]]||No chest - hint disappears || ||
|-
|It's up to over 260 million cycles!|| || || ||
|-
|Sleeping Beauty is the same everywhere though|| || ||
|-
|On the internet, nobody knows you're an arachnid|| [[1530: Keyboard Mash]] || Cobwebbed frame || ||
|-
|Did James Cameron pay for the rice cooker too?||[[1598: Salvage]] ||Rice bowl || ||
|-
|Never going to give you up||[[351: Trolling]] || || ||
|-
|If red touches yellow, that's 24 ohms||[[1604: Snakes]]|| Yoda with an mp3 player from What If || ||
|-
|An enthusiastic but questionable business opportunity||[[1533: Antique Factory]]|| || ||
|-
|Read the fine manual|| [[1343: Manuals]] || || ||
|-
|That thing's undecimodal!||[[1347: t Distribution]] || || ||
|-
|Actually, it's Myanmar-Shave now||[[491: Twitter]]||Expensive bottle || ||
|-
|You don't have to find all 99|| || || ||
|-
|Going in circles|| || || ||
|-
|Couldn't you try knitting, or maybe stamp collecting?||[[2123: Meta Collecting]]||Phishing License sign|| ||
|-
|It's the ciiiiircle of HONK||[[537: Ducklings]] ||DUCKLOOP'D? || ||
|-
|Fool me twice||[[880: Headache]] ||Raptor Attack || ||
|-
|oOOOoooo|| || || || https://xkcd.com/316/ ?
|-
|Maybe we can ask for new wishes||[[879: Lamp]] ||Genie and his bottle || ||
|-
|HACK THE PLANET||[[1337: Hack]] || || ||
|-
|Monetization haute couteur|| || || ||
|-
|Maybe writing a script would help||[[1319: Automation]]|| || ||
|-
|Go big to go small|| || || ||
|-
|Are you projecting||[[977: Map Projections]]| |Squirrel on a gun| || ||
|-
|Do spiders really have six legs||[[8: Red spiders]] || || ||
|-
|Istanbul or Constantinople or St. Trimble's Island?||[[1688: Map Age Guide]] ||Cephalopod || ||
|-
|Another rulebook?||[[393: Ultimate Game]]||Wizard in a chair || ||
|-
|Moooooon|| [[1300: Galilean Moons]] || MOOOOOON || ||
|-
|Take a flight from LOL to FFS|| [[1937: IATA Airport Abbreviations]] || || ||
|-
|Everyone deserves a second chance|| || || ||
|-
|Community contribution|| || || ||
|-
|On the other side of the wardrobe|| [[2218: Wardrobe]] || || ||
|-
|Today's your lucky day|| || || ||
|-
|[This hint has been redacted due to a copyright claim]|| [[1005: SOPA]] || || ||
|-
|Try a different approach|| || || ||
|-
|The cake is a lie!|| [[606: Cutting Edge]] || Cake || ||
|-
|Go big to go small|| || || ||
|-
|Joanna, fire.||[[322: Pix Plz]] || || ||
|-
|Everything changes from time to time when the fire nation attacks||[[965: Elements]] ||Symposium || ||
|-
|90KG x 300M|| [[382: Trebuchet]] || Trebuchet || ||
|}

==Trivia==
* This comic is the 2020 April Fools comic, and was supposed to be released April 1st. However, the below message was displayed on the top of the page until early Friday (April 3rd) morning, when the comic finally went live. It remains to be seen if Friday's intended comic will be published later.
<blockquote>
Note: For technical reasons Wednesday's comic will be posted Thursday instead. Apologies for the delay!
</blockquote>

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball stands to the left of a vibrating box.]
:[The words "Collector's Edition" are written above him and boxed.]

{{comic discussion}}

544: Pep Talk

2019-05-02T21:29:51Z

172.68.54.166: grammar

{{comic
| number =544
| date =February 16, 2009
| title =Pep Talk
| image =pep_talk.png
| titletext =Listen! They said a team of chess players coached by someone with no understanding of basketball would never be competitive in the NBA! Well, it turns out they're pretty perceptive.
}}

==Explanation==
Another comic where [[Randall]] takes a less than serious look at sports.{{Citation needed}}

The halftime {{w|Motivational speaker|pep talk}} of a {{w|basketball}} game is commonly used by coaches to inspire his team to come back from a seemingly insurmountable deficit, and to make strategic changes that will help them do so. Unfortunately, the basketball coach [[Cueball]] has absolutely no fundamental understanding of the sport, and has pulled his team (of Cueball-like players) into the locker room while the game is still in progress, not during halftime, enabling the other team to score at will.

He could have tried to get a {{w|Time-out (sport)|time-out}}, but still he would not have been allowed to take his team down to the locker room.

The title text parodies a common plot of, especially US, {{w|List_of_sports_films#Basketball|sports movies}} in which an inexperienced team (and sometimes coach) still manage to win a title after a highly motivational pep talk (see for instance {{w|Hoosiers}}). In this case the players are not even just poor basketball players but rather {{w|chess}} players and the coach knows nothing of the sport, the opposite of what is usually the case in said movies. And, of course, in this case those pessimistic about their chances were proven right.

In [[1392: Dominant Players]] Randall compares basketball with chess.

==Transcript==
:[Coach-Cueball stands at the end of a double row of benches in the players locker room. He speaks to his team of five Cueball-like players, two are sitting with towels on the left bench, one stands behind them, and two are sitting on the right bench, one of them resting his head on his hands.]
:Coach-Cueball: Okay, team. We're sixteen points down. If we want to come back from this—
:Offscreen: Woo!! Score!!!
:Coach-Cueball: Okay, now we're eighteen points down. ...Listen—I'm starting to think we should only take these breaks at halftime.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Basketball]]

573: Parental Trolling

2019-04-16T22:01:25Z

172.68.54.166: /* Explanation */ Fixed grammar

{{comic
| number = 573
| date = April 24, 2009
| title = Parental Trolling
| image = parental trolling.png
| titletext = They'll pick music and culture that they know annoys you. Building in behavioral easter eggs is a fair retaliation!
}}

==Explanation==
Set in the future, a daughter approaches her father playing a music video of {{w|Rick Astley's}} "{{w|Never Gonna Give You Up}}". The daughter insults her father's generation's versions of playing pranks, specifically {{w|Rickrolling}}. The daughter refers to this as "{{w|trolling}}" (part of the comics title), which is popular jargon for trying to disrupt a person or community via an action to elicit an emotional response. She then comments that Cueball's generation's trolling efforts suck.

The humour is in that the dad reveals he has 'trolled' his daughter by creating a reaction in which her speech centres would shut down when she gets upset, thus eliciting an emotional response which perfectly displays his prank. This would not be possible in real life unless he messed with her brain which would be dangerous and illegal.{{Citation needed}}

In this comic, the girl holds an ultra-thin tablet, a futuristic technology when this comic was released, a year before the release of the iPad. It also shows a curved computer monitor and keyboard, which seem to float above the desk.

The title text refers to the conflict between teenagers and adults over music and culture, with teenagers often listening to music which annoys their parents. '{{w|Easter egg (interaction design)|Easter egg}}' is a term used to describe a hidden inside joke or feature inside software. Here, the daughter has been treated like a piece of software by her father Cueball. He states that since the kids on purpose chooses music and culture that they know annoys their parents, it is a fair retaliation to build in such Easter egg responses. Many people would probably disagree on this, but maybe not so much parents with teenagers at home...

==Transcript==
:[In a frame crossing the top border of the first panel of the comic:]
:The future

:[Cueball is sitting at a futuristic desktop computer with the curved screen and keyboard both floating above the table, and a girl with pigtails is standing behind him with a portable ultra-thin screen. She shows the screen to Cueball. On it is a man with dark hair.]
:Girl: Hey dad, look at this old music video.
:Video: We're no strangers to love...
:Cueball: Wow, you got me.

:[The girl now looks at the device.]
:Girl: Did your generation really use this to troll people? ''So'' lame. You know, you guys '''sucked''' at pranks.

:[The girl is holding the device down along her legs as Cueball turns from his computer and addresses her.]
:Cueball: Did we? I once raised a kid with conditioning so her speech centers shut down when she was upset.

:[The girl has dropped the device on the floor and are fisting her hands. Cueball has turned back and are typing on the keyboard.]
:Girl: What? No, you couldn't have bleegle warble yargle arrgh!
:Cueball: Teehee.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Rickrolling]]

1038: Fountain

2019-04-14T13:45:53Z

172.68.54.166: Corrected the amount of force the user has to be able to hold on the umbrella equation. (Was ignoring gravity)

{{comic
| number = 1038
| date = April 4, 2012
| title = Fountain
| image = fountain.png
| titletext = Implausible, did you say? Sorry, couldn't quite hear you from all the way up heeeeeeeeere!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is about how it's considered implausible to "fly" by positioning an umbrella over a water jet.

From the first panel (and assuming that [[Cueball]] is of average height) - it looks like the center fountain is about 10m high. By comparison with the size of his head in the second panel, the jet appears to be about 10cm in diameter. The velocity of the water exiting the nozzle has to be about 14 meters/second in order to reach 10m against gravity. If we approximate the nozzle as being a 10cm x 10cm square - that translates to 140 liters/second - or 140kg/s of water. That produces an upward force of almost 2,000 newtons! If we presume that [[Cueball]] weighs 100kg (~1,000N)- he should be experiencing a net upward force of about 1,000N. Which means that he'll accelerate at about 1g! Holding onto the umbrella against a force of 1g is very different than hanging by your hands from a horizontal bar, since you would actually experience two gravities of force, due to gravity being added. Some people could still manage this, but you would probably need to be in good shape physically to pull it off.

Conclusion is that IF the umbrella is strong enough - this trick will actually work!

However, if you imagine a typical 6-spoke umbrella - then 1000N is 166N of upward force per spoke. It's hard to believe you could hang a 1.6kg weight off of each spoke of an umbrella without it bending.

The title text emphasizes that [[Cueball]] did indeed reach a high altitude - so we must conclude that his umbrella is some specially made high-strength device.

Since the fountain tops out at about 10m - and presumably it would be somewhat reduced with Cueball's weight on it - his feet might only be about 6 to 8 meters above the ground when he stops moving upwards. A fall from that height is survivable - especially if the drag of the umbrella slows him down somewhat.

==Transcript==
:[A full color image of a fountain with three massive water jets. A Cueball seen from afar walks up to these while holding an umbrella.]
:[Cueball splashes through the pond which makes sounds:]
:Splish
:Splash
:[Cueball gets to one of the jets.]
:[Cueball opens up the umbrella with a:]
:Click
:[Cueball opens the umbrella and swings it into water jet stream (which is outside the image). The umbrella makes a sound when opened:]
:Fwoop
:[Cueball is pulled up by the water jet stream (which is outside the image). Only his feet and the water dripping of them into the pond can be seen. The sound he makes follows him up with longer and longer distance between the letters (written in lower-case).]
:Cueball: Wheeeeeeee!

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

2059: Modified Bayes' Theorem

2018-10-16T18:15:58Z

172.68.54.166: /* Explanation */ Expanded the mathematical explanation

{{comic
| number = 2059
| date = October 15, 2018
| title = Modified Bayes' Theorem
| image = modified_bayes_theorem.png
| titletext = Don't forget to add another term for "probability that the Modified Bayes' Theorem is correct."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|When using the Math-syntax please also care for a proper layout. Please edit the explanation below and only mention here why it isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{{w|Bayes' Theorem}} is an equation in statistics that gives the probability of a given hypothesis accounting not only for a single experiment or observation but also for your existing knowledge about the hypothesis, i.e. its prior probability. Randall's modified form of the equation also purports to account for the probability that you are indeed applying Bayes' Theorem itself correctly by including that as a term in the equation.

Bayes' theorem is:

<math>P(H \mid X) = \frac{P(X \mid H) \, P(H)}{P(X)}</math>,
where
*<math>P(H \mid X)</math> is the probability that <math>H</math>, the hypothesis, is true given observation <math>X</math>. This is called the ''posterior probability''.
*<math>P(X \mid H)</math> is the probability that observation <math>X</math> will appear given the truth of hypothesis <math>H</math>. This term is often called the ''likelihood''.
*<math>P(H)</math> is the probability that hypothesis <math>H</math> is true before any observations. This is called the ''prior'', or ''belief''.
*<math>P(X)</math> is the probability of the observation <math>X</math> regardless of any hypothesis might have produced it. This term is called the ''marginal likelihood''.

The purpose of Bayesian inference is to discover something we want to know (how likely is it that our explanation is correct given the evidence we've seen) by mathematically expressing it in terms of things we can find out: how likely are our observations, how likely is our hypothesis ''a priori'', and how likely are we to see the observations we've seen assuming our hypothesis is true. A Bayesian learning system will iterate over available observations, each time using the likelihood of new observations to update its priors (beliefs) with the hope that, after seeing enough data points, the prior and posterior will converge to a single model.

If <math>P(C)=1</math> the modified theorem reverts to the original Bayes' theorem (which makes sense, as a probability one would mean certainty that you are using Bayes' theorem correctly).

If <math>P(C)=0</math> the modified theorem becomes <math>P(H \mid X) = P(H)</math>, which says that the belief in your hypothesis is not affected by the result of the observation (which makes sense because you're certain you're misapplying the theorem so the outcome of the calculation shouldn't affect your belief.)

This happens because the modified theorem can be rewritten as: <math>P(H \mid X) = (1-P(C))\,P(H) + P(C)\,\frac{P(X \mid H)\,P(H)}{P(X)}</math>. This is the {{w|Linear interpolation|linear-interpolated}} weighted average of the belief you had before the calculation and the belief you would have if you applied the theorem correctly. This goes smoothly from not believing your calculation at all (keeping the same belief as before) if <math>P(C)=0</math> to changing your belief exactly as Bayes' theorem suggests if <math>P(C)=1</math>. (Note that <math>1-P(C)</math> is the probability that you are using the theorem incorrectly.)

The title text suggests that an additional term should be added for the probability that the Modified Bayes Theorem is correct. But that's ''this'' equation, so it would make the formula self-referential, unless we call the result the Modified Modified Bayes Theorem (or Modified2). It could also result in an infinite regress -- we'd need another term for the probability that the version with the probability added is correct, and another term for that version, and so on. If the modifications have a limit, then we can make that the Modifiedω Bayes Theorem, but then we need another term for whether we did ''that'' correctly, leading to the Modifiedω+1 Bayes Theorem, and so on through every {{w|ordinal number}}. It's also unclear what the point of using an equation we're not sure of is (although sometimes we can: {{w|Newton's Laws}} are not as correct as Einstein's {{w|Theory of Relativity}} but they're a reasonable approximation in most circumstances. Alternatively, ask any student taking a difficult exam with a formula sheet.).

If we denote the probability that the Modifiedn Bayes' Theorem is correct by <math>P(C_n)</math>, then one way to define this sequence of modified Bayes' theorems is by the rule <math>P_n(H \mid X) := P_{n-1}(H \mid X) P(C_n) + (1-P(C_n))P(H)</math>

One can then show by induction that <math>P_n(H \mid X) = \prod_{i=1}^n P(C_i)\left(\frac{P(X \mid H)}{P(X)} - P(H) \right) + P(H).</math>

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

:Modified Bayes' theorem:

:P(H|X) = P(H) × (1 + P(C) × ( P(X|H)/P(X) - 1 ))

:H: Hypothesis
:X: Observation
:P(H): Prior probability that H is true
:P(X): Prior probability of observing X
:P(C): Probability that you're using Bayesian statistics correctly

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Statistics]]

Talk:2008: Irony Definition

2018-10-14T08:46:19Z

172.68.54.166: Suggestion adding the "Narrator" text from the code page

Adding to the irony are the complaints from overeducated drama fans criticizing common uses of the term, assuming that "dramatic irony" is the only valid definition. Search "alanis morissette ironic misuse" for lots of fun with semantics and pseudo-intellectualism. I suspect that Randall is poking fun at the critics, rather than those who misuse the term. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.89|172.68.142.89]] 17:56, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

* I agree it's poking fun at the critics. The explanation should include correct examples of irony that even non-USA pedantics agree meet the definition.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.82|108.162.216.82]] 19:03, 18 June 2018 (UTC)Pat

Should mention be made that a possible motivation of this comic is President Trump's misuse of the word "ironic" 11 days earlier in a tweet? [https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1004693718945984512]
[[User:Heshy|Heshy]] ([[User talk:Heshy|talk]]) 18:40, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
: Eleven days ago seems a bit distant to be an inspiration. It's not like this comic is infrequently updated.... [[Special:Contributions/172.68.59.30|172.68.59.30]] 23:51, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

If sarcasm is a type of irony, is this question ironic? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.82|162.158.126.82]] 20:19, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Since when is Canada not part of America? :) [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 02:09, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

;Incorrect interpretation
> The most common types of irony are sarcasm and paradox. Black Hat is using the latter

I think this interpretation misses the point. Whatever about sarcasm and paradox being examples of irony (I'm pretty sure sarcasm at least is not, paradox I'm not sure about either - irony is more about metacommentary than direct paradox), but Black Hat's statement isn't paradoxical anyway. Black Hat is using the term "irony" incorrectly, both in the comic and the title text. In the comic, be states that Cueball knows the definition of irony, implying that he, Black Hat does not. Cueball is angry that Black Hat is using "ironic" incorrectly.

Furthermore, the extra meta layer is that while Black Hat's statement is not ironic, the situation in the comic is ironic in itself: it's ironic that the Black Hat is choosing to use ironic in various statements even though he seems to imply that he knows full well that he does not know the definition of the word.

--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.4|162.158.38.4]] 06:45, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with the paragraph 'Blackhat is deliberately using his ignorance of language to mock Cueball by stating that it is "ironic" that he is using the word "Irony" without knowing what it means, but is still the happy one. This is both the grammatically correct use of the word "Ironic" and arguably itself an ironic situation.' For one thing, if he's ignorant of the definition of Irony then he can't be deliberately using said ignorance to be ironic, but that's OK because he's not being ironic. There's nothing ironic about him being the happy one despite not knowing what irony means - I would imagine that's true of many people, whilst many irony pedants are unhappy. {{unsigned ip|162.158.155.206}}

The current explanation is incorrect. Irony can be defined as a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result. Therefore, Black Hat is using the word correctly in the comic, as Cueball's idea that being right will make him happy opposes the reality that by understanding what is correct he is only frustrated when people use the word incorrectly. In the Title Text, Black Hat uses the word incorrectly to further justify the point made above, that Cueball's expectations are subverted because knowledge only brings him frustration. {{unsigned ip|162.158.78.130}}
:I wouldn't say the explanation is absolutely correct, thus the incomplete-tag is still in there, but your definition isn't better than the current explanation. Irony is a statement, but an event can be ironic. Your third sentence overwhelms me and the title text is told by Cueball (Black Hat glares at him.) BTW: Please do not insert your comment into others and also do not forget to sign your post. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:01, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

;Probably the worst explanation here for ever
First I've moved this following sentences to this discussion (small comments by me in parentheses):
*The misuse of the word ironic when one means especially inconvenient is a common one, with a well-known example being Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic". (Not irony in many parts)
*This issue represents one that exists on a larger scale with so-called "Grammar Nazis" correcting grammar and word choice in ways that do not affect the overall meaning. (This not about Grammar Nazis)
*In the comic, Blackhat misuses the word ironic by saying that it's funny, because even though he didn't use a word correctly, he is not upset about it. (Slightly still in the explanation)
*The title text then continues the joke by misusing the word 'ironic' as if it were a feeling. (Cueball just misspells something)
Then I've written a first draft, please help. And one more: It's ''ironic'' that a German native speaker has to figure out how the humor at this comic works. I'm sure I don't cover all. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:28, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

;Major cleanup
Okay, I've pretty much reworked the page, hopefully in a satisfactory way. I think the incomplete tag can go pretty soon. --[[User:Sensorfire|Sensorfire]] ([[User talk:Sensorfire|talk]]) 18:10, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
:At the title text Cueball replies to Black Hat who glares at him as shown in the picture. I'm still convinced he says ''ironic'' when he means ''iconic''. In this interpretation the sentence "It makes me feel really ironic" makes much more sense because Cueball is annoyed by Black Hat pursuing him. And unless someone explains why this view is nonsense it should be added to the explanation. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:33, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
::Your view doesn't really make sense because it (1) doesn't really fit with the comic and (2) is a real stretch. As for the first point: the joke of the comic is that Black Hat is intentionally misusing the word "ironic" to annoy Cueball, who presumably has been pedantic about this. So it makes sense that this joke would be continued in the title text, with Black Hat misusing the word in an even more absurd way. As for the second point: Nobody uses the word "iconic" like that. It doesn't fit with the joke of the comic and it's a ridiculous usage that Cueball, presumably as an "ironic" pedant, wouldn't use. Furthermore, Cueball is shown in the comic to be upset and/or angry (with the little black line thing over his head). The word ''glare'' connotes staring at someone angrily, which Cueball would be at Black Hat for his crimes against the word "ironic", but Black Hat would not be angry at Cueball. He's just being his typical, sadist, classhole self. So, your view is totally ruled out by {{w|Occam's Razor}}, because it relies on a change in the joke, a character behaving uncharacteristically, and extremely unusual usage of 2 separate words. I'm sorry, Dgbrt, but your view really doesn't make sense. --[[User:Sensorfire|Sensorfire]] ([[User talk:Sensorfire|talk]]) 16:14, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
:::There are not always ''correct'' explanations. But there are no crimes in this comic, Black Hat is just annoying Cueball while looking at him and not vice versa. The phrase "stop glaring at me" is a meme which also should be explained. Nonetheless: Black Hat glares at Cueball, I can't see anything else in the picture. An alternative view at the explanation should be valid.
:::Maybe irrelevant but funny, the are glasses called [https://www.abbaopticalusa.com/catalog-1 Ironic Iconic]. I'm not a native English speaker so maybe there is something more I do miss.
:::BTW: I've moved the current title text section to the bottom. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:22, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
::::It's true that we can't always find the 100% correct explanation that captures exactly what Randall intended in every way. That said, I think this one is actually fairly clear-cut. In the comic, Black Hat is annoying Cueball by misusing the word "ironic". In the title text, then, it would make sense for this joke to continue. As to "crimes", there are no ''literal'' crimes in this comic. I was using an idiom there, though it's understandable if you didn't get that. As to who is looking at who, it's true that Black Hat appears to be looking at Cueball as they walk. However, he is not ''glaring''. The word "glare" in this context could only refer to the definition, "to stare with a fiercely or angrily piercing look" or similar. Black Hat isn't angry. He's having a great time bothering Cueball. Cueball is angry. It's entirely possible that between the comic and title text, Black Hat passed in front of Cueball, or that the comic is actually an angled view of BH and Cueball walking side-by-side, or even that Cueball just turned around to glare. I don't know that "stop glaring at me" is a meme; an internet search for the phrase found nothing particularly memetic. If you can provide a good alternative explanation, then feel free, but I don't think many editors would agree with the one you gave previously. --[[User:Sensorfire|Sensorfire]] ([[User talk:Sensorfire|talk]]) 14:10, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
:::::Sadly no one else has an opinion here.
:::::Furthermore I've to apologize for not saying thanks to your major cleanup; I typically say thanks before I criticize minor parts. Sorry for that.
:::::But for the title text you still didn't convince me. Assuming that "Black Hat passed in front of Cueball" is a guess not shown or even hinted in the comic, meaning, this assumption has to be mentioned. Which still brings me to the view that Black Hat is looking at Cueball after he finished his talking, Cueball is irritated and annoyed and shouts back. But, gulled as he is, he used a phonetic similar word. But I assume you still fully disagree...
:::::--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:13, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
::::::It's no problem at at all! The page badly needed a cleanup, and I had some time to kill. We're all just here to make the wiki better. ^_^
::::::But yes, I really do have to disagree with your interpretation of the title text. It's contingent on an odd use of the word "glare" and an even more odd usage (and misspelling/mispronunciation) of the word "iconic". I know you're not a native English speaker, but nobody I know who is one would ''ever'' say that someone glaring at them "makes me feel really iconic". Take the [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/iconic Webster's definition of "iconic"]. None of these definitions are things that someone you know and are on a walk and in conversation with would feel if you glared at them. And again, how would this even continue the joke? I think your interpretation is oddly convoluted; it's certainly not something I would have ever thought of upon reading it, and I don't think most editors here would have, either.
::::::On the other hand, the interpretation that it is Black Hat speaking makes more sense because (1) it continues the joke that was made in the comic, (2) it is within character for Black Hat to continue pestering Cueball by misusing the word "ironic", (3) it better fits the definition of the word "glare" (as Cueball is shown to be angry, and BH is not), (4) the only odd word usage involved is that of the word "ironic", which, again, continues the established joke and is thus expected, and (5) the only real potential problem with it is easily resolved. It is true that Cueball appears to be in front of Black Hat, which would make it odd for him to be looking at Black Hat. But I offered 3 possibilities above that resolve this (Black Hat could have walked ahead, it could simply be an angled shot of them walking side-by-side, Cueball could have looked back at BH), none of which are particularly unparsimonious or unlikely.
::::::If we could get another editor to chime in, that would probably helpful. --[[User:Sensorfire|Sensorfire]] ([[User talk:Sensorfire|talk]]) 20:34, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
:::::::I'm not sure I qualify as another editor, since I just made my account to reply to this thread. Maybe I will do some good editing in the future. But I am a native english speaker, and I have to agree with Sensorfire: no one would use the word "iconic" the way Dgbrt has described. I would have have made this assumption in reading the comic and don't think anyone else I know would have made this assumption either, because it's not a normal usage of english. I ''do'' think people would use the word "ironic" the way Black Hat did (and mean to say "ironic"), as people use this word in all sorts of ways to mean all sorts of things, including to pester people who struggle with other people using words incorrectly, as it seems Black Hat is doing here. --[[User:Fivestones|Fivestones]] ([[User talk:Fivestones|talk]]) 16:26, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Suggestion, couuld we add the Narration from the code to this page? Narration: The narrator stands on a beach at night, staring out across the moonlit ocean. 
Narrator: THE SEA ALWAYS MAKES ME REALIZE 
Narrator: HOW SMALL I REALLY AM. 
Narrator: I SHOULD GET ONE OF THOSE PUMPS. 
Tooltip: And then a second one, to drain the ocean. 
and PS I love ToolTip and wish we ccould use it always instead of "title text".[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.166|172.68.54.166]] 08:46, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

2053: Incoming Calls

2018-10-01T21:17:38Z

172.68.54.166: /* Removed reference to "saying 'yes' to opt-in to something you don't mean to." Snopes has debunked that "scam". There is no known case of anyone ever doing that. */

{{comic
| number = 2053
| date = October 1, 2018
| title = Incoming Calls
| image = incoming_calls.png
| titletext = I wonder if that friendly lady ever fixed the problem she was having with her headset.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Please edit the explanation below and only mention here why it isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic shows a graph of incoming phone calls over time to [[Randall]] since he was younger than six years. The graph doesn't show the absolute numbers but the proportion of callers. Because it's safe to assume that calls from his family didn't decrease over the years, other calls just increased over time and this graph can be misunderstood because the number of calls in the recent years are probably much higher than in 1990. This leads to Randall's second header line when he states that he "finally stopped picking up for unknown numbers", which is still roughly the same fraction but the amount is much more today.

Over time, Randall's friends and family have been less likely to make phone calls to him, likely due to the use of text messages and other messaging apps. Additionally, although there was a large percentage of phone calls from legal {{w|Telemarketing|telemarketers}} in the 1990s, this percentage has significantly dropped, most likely due to the creation of the {{w|National Do Not Call Registry}}, which allows individuals and families in the United States to register phone numbers that are exempt from telemarketers. Instead, there has been a rise in phone calls from {{w|Phone fraud|scammers}} and political advertisements. Even if a phone number is registered on the National Do Not Call Registry, they may still receive phone calls from political organizations. It is implied that the latter two groups have caused Randall to stop answering phone calls from unknown numbers.

The title text refers to a common scamming tactic in which a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocall robocaller], typically one named "Emily," will claim to be having trouble with their headset and say "Can you hear me now?" The trick being that you will think you're talking to a person, not a computer that took a second or two to connect. However, this is not the case and will usually simply transfer the victim to a real person to get scammed. Without a credit card or social security number there is nothing that they can do.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A line graph shows the portions of phone calls by type over time beginning slightly before 1990 until today.]
:'''Incoming personal calls over time'''
:or: why I finally stopped picking up for unknown numbers

:[The x-axis is labeled with years beginning at 1990 in five year segments up to NOW (2018). The y-axis always shows 100 %.]
:[The calls are (from top to down):]
:Appointment reminders, misc. (small growing all over time)
:Family (larger in the beginning, constant with some fluctuations since 2000)
:Friends (growing from 1995 to 2005, then decreasing but intersected with "that one friend who hates texting", after that decreasing)
:Legal telemarketers (peak in the beginning, decreasing over time)
:Auto insurance scammers (a big peak between 2005 and 2012)
:Other scammers (beginning in 2010, replacing the auto insurance, increasing until today)
:Political (starting in 2002 and increasing since then)
:Wrong numbers (constant up to 2000 and then decreasing to nearly zero today)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Timelines]]

2049: Unfulfilling Toys

2018-09-21T19:50:32Z

172.68.54.166:

{{comic
| number = 2049
| date = September 21, 2018
| title = Unfulfilling Toys
| image = unfulfilling_toys.png
| titletext = We were going to do a falling-apart Rubik's cube that was just 27 independent blocks stuck together with magnets, but then we realized it was actually really cool and even kind of worked, so we cut that one.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a Stretch Armstrong made out of hard plastic. Please edit the explanation below and only mention here why it isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic lists and illustrates a number of classic toys that are missing a key piece or attribute that makes them work and/or that makes them unique. As such, they are not much fun{{Citation needed}}.

====Rigid Slap Bracelet====
Slap Bracelets are flexible bars that when you hit them on your arm they twist and become a bracelet. A rigid one would not twist and would be deeply frustrating and painful.

====Sealed Stomp Rocket====
A stomp rocket has a rubber pouch full of air, connected via a hose to a cylinder containing a tightly-fitting rocket on a stick. By stomping on the pouch, the air is forced into the cylinder launching the rocket into the air. By sealing the air channel, the rocket would stay in the cylinder and the person would just be bounced into the air by the pouch -- acting like the world's smallest bouncy house -- or the pouch will burst rending the toy even more useless.

====Pump-only Supersoaker====
A supersoaker is a water gun that works by first pumping air into the gun, which introduces air pressure next to the water, then releasing the water using the gun's trigger -- the extra pressure from the pumped air makes the water go much further than a regular water gun. In this version, the water cannot be released, so the fun part of the water gun -- getting to spray your friends -- isn't there.

====Glass Glow Stick====

In a classic glow-stick, made of flexible plastic, one much first bend it enough to break the glass cylinder inside. This allows the chemicals inside to mix and begin glowing within the plastic tube. If the entire tube were made of actual glass, however, it would not only shatter into many sharp glass pieces, but would also cover the hands of the unfortunate user with a mixture of harmful chemicals.

====Wingless Sky Dancer====

In the traditional toy, a doll or figure with folded-up wings sits on top of a hand-held device with a wrapped string or other mechanism that lets it spin the doll very fast. As the doll spins, centripetal force causes the wings to unfold and provide lift, and the doll rises up in the air and flies, spinning, sometimes going quite high. Without the wings, the doll will spin but otherwise remain flightless.

====No-strings-attached Yo-yo====
In a traditional yo-yo, one attaches a string to their finger and the other end of the string is loosely attached to the yo-yo, such that it will hold the yo-yo but the yo-yo can still spin. In this case, the string is included but not attached to the yo-yo, so the yo-yo, when it reaches the end of the string, will keep going instead of coming back to the person or spinning at the end of the string.

This one actually exists and some people are even quite good at it. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5P-fdrlBg8 for example.
====Title-text: Falling-Apart Rubik's cube====
In order to build the magnetic Rubik's cube, you would need to embed magnets (like the little hockey-puck shaped ones for magnetic bulletin boards) in the the uncolored (inward-facing) sides of each cube. You would need to take care to have the correct pole of each magnet facing outward in order for it to work, but you can achieve that by having the corners and the central outside cubes use one pole (say north) facing outward and have the edge and center (hidden) cube use the other pole (say south) facing outward. In that way each piece would be attracted to its correct neighboring piece and if you rotated a side, it would resist turning until you got half way around, then it would be drawn into the correct new position.

This also exists, is rather functional, and is the only way to make fun Rubik's cube shapes such as 1x5x5. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb8ENlS-5Go

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
{{comic discussion}}