explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:193: The Perfect Sound

2014-09-23T00:18:44Z

173.245.56.191: Created page with "Should "cueball's friend" be an indexed term? He (she?) shows up often, and i identify with him the most.~~~~"

Should "cueball's friend" be an indexed term? He (she?) shows up often, and i identify with him the most.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.191|173.245.56.191]] 00:18, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Talk:192: Working for Google

2014-09-23T00:14:39Z

173.245.56.191:

I honestly can't see anything incomplete about it. But then, I may be naive about it. Anonymous 04:57, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
: Neither can I, however there is a bit of irrelevant information such as, how not to pad your resume and having original ideas -- the explanation probably should be edited down to be more consisce and to the proint of what the comic is about i.e. "sour grapes" [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]])

Perhaps the cake was foreshadowing http://xkcd.com/195/, the Map of The Internet. {{unsigned ip|173.245.56.85}}

A cake that has the shape of the Internet might actually be one shaped of Internet Explorer. [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 18:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
:No, it may not. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 19:25, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

There are some true stories of people showing up at Google interviews with gifts for the interviewers. In case if you wonder, they don't get hired. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.5|108.162.246.5]] 02:17, 29 January 2014

The cake should be created with a series of tubes.00:14, 23 September 2014 (UTC)~

Talk:60: Super Bowl

2014-09-10T18:29:38Z

173.245.56.191: Created page with "I'm gonna say this is a 1970's chevelle coupe. Or inspired by it."

I'm gonna say this is a 1970's chevelle coupe. Or inspired by it.

Talk:59: Graduation

2014-09-10T18:23:18Z

173.245.56.191:

This is very likely not [[Miss Lenhart]]. Her hair is the same, but the official transcript simply calls her "blonde", she's clearly a somewhat aimless student and not a teacher, and the strip does not fit the pattern stated as a certainty on her character page, where she is specifically named in every appearance. Also, this is a very early comic where Randall likely didn't have future characters in mind yet. So, I'm removing her name from the transcript. [[User:Jerodast|- jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 14:38, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
:Randall talks about Miss Lenhart only a few months later, in [[135: Substitute]]. It's impossible for us to know whether he had her in mind or not at this time, but the character ambiguity is standard for xkcd (not less so in the early ones). Since she is at least relevant in any investigation of Miss Lenhart, I'll include her in the categories, and it'll be open for everyone to make up their own minds! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 20:37, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Even teachers were once aimless students. Perhaps this conversation inspired Lenhart to be a teacher 18:23, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Talk:15: Just Alerting You

2014-09-09T22:26:45Z

173.245.56.191:

I think you mean an Apatosaurus. See {{xkcd|636}} for the difference.
The comic is funny because she is telling you she is strange but it should have been very ovious that she is strange because while most people travel by car or walking she rides a dinosaur which is not very common. ''Unsigned comment added by [[Special:Contributions/72.38.90.50|72.38.90.50]].''
:She could be telling the dinosaur that she's strange. OTOH, since she seems to be riding it, she probably isn't introducing herself to it. [[User:gijobarts|gijobarts]] ([[User Talk:gijobarts|talk]]) 00:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
She must be Eve.22:26, 9 September 2014 (UTC)~~

Talk:13: Canyon

2014-09-09T22:24:12Z

173.245.56.191:

Lined paper, why was this comic drawn on lined paper? Blegh. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:09, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
:Most early xkcd comics were literally scans of doodles that Randall drew in his (presumably) graph paper notebook while bored in class(?). [[User:Zowayix|Zowayix]] ([[User talk:Zowayix|talk]]) 21:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

An often used phrase is "The future is now", in reference to futuristic gadgets etc that one can see in todays world... what more furistic is an alien-planet vista with two humans in it?[[User:Squirreltape|Squirreltape]] ([[User talk:Squirreltape|talk]]) 23:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

This may also refer to the problem of timekeeping on another planets. [[User:Sten|'''STEN''']] ([[User talk:Sten|talk]]) 22:59, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
. . . Tidally locked planet, no spin, no appearence of the planet's star moving across the sky. Thus, the time, as judged by the placement of the sun in th sky, is always "Now." 13:11, 28 August 2014 (UTC)~

Talk:613: Threesome

2014-08-29T16:05:11Z

173.245.56.191: Created page with "Any specific solution to Megan, the phycisist, and the lucky third,s problem would result in chaotic motion and no apearent repetitions. Which sounds like fun, i don,t see wha..."

Any specific solution to Megan, the phycisist, and the lucky third,s problem would result in chaotic motion and no apearent repetitions. Which sounds like fun, i don,t see what Megan,s problem was. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.191|173.245.56.191]] 16:05, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1313: Regex Golf

2014-08-29T15:50:08Z

173.245.56.191:

This is fairly simple fun little one.

Regex is sort for regular expressions. A regular expression is a series of characters that denotes a search criteria. For example, you could write a regular expression that would search for anything that looks like an address (a la [http://www.xkcd.com/208/ comic 208]).

Regex golf is a game in which you attempt to write a regular expression that will search through a list of items and bring back only those items that meet a certain criteria, but not anything else. The joke is that regular expressions are used to search text, but themselves are text strings. This means that you could write a regular expression that would look for another regular expression. You can then apply ''ad infinitum'', and the universe implodes or something.

--[[User:Holshy|Holshy]] ([[User talk:Holshy|talk]]) 05:40, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

The last panel includes, of course, a regex "/(meta-)*regex golf/," which represents the phrase "regex golf" preceded by the phrase "meta-" up to ''infinite'' times.

As a punchline, it also refers to Jamie Zawinski's well-known quote about regex,

<blockquote>Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.</blockquote>

Thus, the punchline is that the addition of meta layers to regex golf generates more problems for the programmer, but that was also the setup of the comic. So either the punchline is really weak—worth a chuckle if you got the above two references—or I missed the joke.
[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.63|199.27.128.63]] 06:22, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Could anybody comment on the first regex? Do I get it right that
beyond others it will match all strings that contain a "b"? I can hardly believe that is not the case for any star trek subtitle... [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.194|173.245.53.194]] 06:54, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
:This is the case for all Star Trek Subtitles. Wikipedia's list of movies had no b. It'll match anything containing a word ending in ''m'', any word beginning with ''n'' or ''t'' that is not the first word, or any word with a ''b''. No Trek movies match. Oddly, so far as I can figure out, the regex in the first panel is wrong, in that it doesn't match the second Star Wars movie at all. And before you tell me prequels don't count, the sole purpose of "m " is to match The Phanto''m ''Menace.[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.138|199.27.128.138]] 07:10, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Attack of[ t]he Clones (to be read plainly, not as a regular expression). [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.107|173.245.53.107]] 07:29, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
:Ah, I thought it was ''The Clone Wars''. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.138|199.27.128.138]] 15:36, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
So, if I add an "e" to the "tn" and delete the "|b" I'm a better golf player than her? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.194|108.162.212.194]] 08:23, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
:Or you could just move the "b" into the "tn" group. --11:08, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I got a sneak preview of this comic at about 6:34 EST...at first it appeared to be random text in a irc message, but with this comic it now makes sense to me. [[User:Verticalbar|Verticalbar]] ([[User talk:Verticalbar|talk]]) 09:31, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

'''Regex golf''' (c.f. {{w|Perl golf}}) is a programming competition / is a pastime of finding regular expression that matches one set of strings while matching none of the other set. See for example http://regex.alf.nu --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 11:03, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

The title text isn't exactly true... I haven't tried everything, but that regex doesn't match "gerald ford" at all. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.109|199.27.128.109]] 11:23, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
: Gerald Ford wasn't elected, he became President following Nixon's resignation.
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.209|173.245.52.209]] 12:12, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Inspired by regex.alf.nu, a reader built a page where the objective is to make a regular expression to match all Star Wars and no Star Trek: http://zegnat.github.io/xkcd1313/. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.127|173.245.53.127]] 14:00, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I added a list of all US elected presidents and the part of the title regex they match. I used a python script to generate it, with input from [http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_candidates here], then I removed all presidents that do not match after finding they really weren't elected. There may still be superflous ones, that weren't elected but do match the regex, please check. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.64|173.245.49.64]] 14:29, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone understand the final "No, I had those already"? Is it a reference to regexes in some way or could it be something like that there are infinite problems in life, even when not doing (Meta-)*-Regexes? --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.199|173.245.53.199]] 20:32, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

According to Peter Norvig (Director of research at google), one of the Regular Expression of Randall is wrong as demonstrated here : http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/xkcd1313.ipynb [[User:Mbussonn|Mbussonn]] ([[User talk:Mbussonn|talk]]) 20:47, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
: It's happening. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.153|173.245.53.153]] 11:39, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

"No one wins at [^ ]+ golf." [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.209|141.101.98.209]] 09:50, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
: Gee, would that be "No one wins at \S+ golf."? [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 23:57, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Why does this say that it is Case Sensitive. As far as I can tell it would not work if that were true.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.59|108.162.219.59]] 02:28, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

"Note that if one included the animated film “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” it would be matched by “ [tn]”."
- I don't see how this is true, since the T is at the beginning of the subtitle. If this matched, then surely so would all of the original series Star Trek films. {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.41}}

"I got infinite problems and a bitch ain,t one" 15:50, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Talk:913: Core

2014-08-29T15:25:18Z

173.245.56.191:

And the crust is just thin enough that volcanoes and earthquakes are a thing. Safety! '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:30, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Isn't the glancing down and saying "I study that" a reference to something more inappropriate? ~ JFreund
:I think that's the joke. [[User:NealCruco|NealCruco]] ([[User talk:NealCruco|talk]]) 17:27, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree. If you stand with your arm at shoulder height and gesture downwards, saying "I study that", you will be pointing both toward the center of the earth and at your own genitals. That is the joke in the title text. {{unsigned ip|173.245.52.196}}

And if Carlos Saldanha,s documentary is correct, the earth will be filled - FILLED - with velociraptors. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.191|173.245.56.191]] 15:25, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Talk:513: Friends

2014-08-29T15:14:28Z

173.245.56.191:

Tried it, doesn't work. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.154|173.245.53.154]] 21:04, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
:Are you the real Cueball? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:01, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
::Sometimes we're all the real Cueball.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.9|173.245.54.9]] 00:22, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I believe the explanation was incorrect as it stated that Cueball actually explains this idea to Megan. To be it seems obvious that he just explains his plans (to us), but by telling it to Megan it is even more obvious how unpleasant such a plan is. I have thus changed the explanation to fit this. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:08, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Also I think the title text explanation about Cueball entering into a relationship with Megan must be wrong. If they do that they are no longer friends. So I have added a different explanation. but will not yet delete the alternative. I will leave that up to others to decide if it makes sence to be friends with detriements/benefits if you are in a relationship...? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:58, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Do we have evidence of Megan,s preivious romances and relationships? I believe a Cueball marriage was postulated15:14, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Talk:212: Brain

2014-08-28T13:37:07Z

173.245.56.191:

I wonder if the brain is colored blue because it contains the 'blue'print for the tree house. [[User:Biohazard|Biohazard]] ([[User talk:Biohazard|talk]]) 12:51, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
The brain is oddly shapec, but the treehouse area seem to overlap the audio cortex13:37, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Talk:13: Canyon

2014-08-28T13:11:55Z

173.245.56.191:

Talk:709: I Am

2014-08-21T19:37:30Z

173.245.56.191:

The explanation leaps to the C3P0 explanation without even ''mentioning'' Ewoks. It might not make sense without mentioning Ewoks. And that's not a sentence I ever expected to ever type. [[Special:Contributions/31.111.50.225|31.111.50.225]] 21:43, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I thought Lars wanted to play bocce with c3po. This changes the whole series for me; the prequels are a parody.