explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1238: Enlightenment

2015-12-29T05:20:00Z

199.27.129.107: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1238
| date = July 15, 2013
| title = Enlightenment
| image = enlightenment.png
| titletext = But the rules of writing are like magic spells. If you never acquire them, then not using them says nothing.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a reference to a scene one might imagine in {{w|Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace}} (if such a film would exist) in which {{w|Yoda}} expresses doubt in a young {{w|Anakin Skywalker|Anakin}}'s potential to join the {{w|Jedi}} order. Yoda delivers a speech similar to the one that [[Ponytail]] gives here, except that the end of the sequence he presents is "{{w|Dark side (Star Wars)|the dark side}}" instead of "being an asshole". Yoda is ultimately correct; Anakin's fears lead him to join the dark side so that he may keep his loved ones from dying; this is at the expense of the stability of the galaxy, however, and his actions are in vain, as {{w|Padmé Amidala|his wife}} dies nonetheless. The circle on the ground is also taken from the ''Star Wars'' scene, and [[Cueball]] is presumably in the {{w|Mace Windu}} role.

Here, [[Randall]] compares Anakin's decision to join the dark side to the propensity of many Internet commenters to correct others on their spelling and grammar, and to the extreme prevalence of criticism over commendation or confirmation. Randall's point is that correcting people, like joining the dark side, ultimately stems from insecurity.

Ponytail and Cueball challenge [[Megan]] to type the sentence "I heard you're idea's and their definately good", which contains four {{w|Commonly misspelled words|common misspellings}} (''{{w|wikt:you're|you''''re'''}}'' instead of ''{{w|wikt:your|you'''r'''}}'', ''{{w|possessive|idea'''''''s}}'' instead of ''{{w|wikt:ideas|ideas}}'' [see {{w|greengrocers' apostrophe}}], ''{{w|wikt:their|the'''ir'''}}'' instead of ''{{w|wikt:they're|the'''y're'''}}'', and ''{{w|wikt:definately|defin'''a'''tely}}'' instead of ''{{w|wikt:definitely|defin'''i'''tely}}'') and a grammatical error ({{w|run-on sentence|a missing comma}} before the word "and").
Regarding the content, this sentence is one that is highly unlikely to be ever read in an internet argument, as almost every time people still have things they claim to know better about.
Megan thus can't bring herself to typing this sentence, having spent so much time judging others for their trivial errors, even when they're saying helpful things like the sentence in question. Instead, it is strongly implied that she smashes the computer and runs away — demonstrating the sort of anger that [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grammar%20Nazi "Grammar Nazis"] and internet wiseacres like her can feel about punctuation and spelling errors, and about content-related errors respectively. Cueball and Ponytail remark on this, both failing to use {{w|apostrophe}}s.

The title text specifically refers to {{w|Terry Pratchett}}'s novel {{w|Equal Rites}}, in which the characters discover that the most powerful magic is not using magic — with the distinction that not using magic because you don't know how is not the same as choosing to refrain from using magic when you do know how. Randall is comparing this with use or misuse of the rules of Standard English: not even knowing the rules is not admirable, whereas knowing the rules but choosing to disregard them is. There is also a double meaning - not writing anything at all is in fact "saying nothing".

==Transcript==
:[The two Internet Bodhisattvas Ponytail and Cueball lecture Megan encircled by a wheel placed upon the ground.]
:Ponytail: To achieve '''internet enlightenment''', you must free yourself from insecurity.
:Megan: But insecurity keeps me humble!
:Ponytail: No. Insecurity leads to conceit. Conceit leads to judgment. Judgment leads to being an asshole.
:[A laptop is placed on a stand in front of Megan.]
:Megan: I'm ready. How do I begin?
:Ponytail: Type this sentence.
:[White text on black background.]
:I heard you're idea's and their definately good.
:[The laptop has been smashed to the floor. The circle, once full of hope and excitement, is now full of despair and no Megan.]
:Ponytail: She wasnt ready.
:Cueball: Its a difficult road.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

1509: Scenery Cheat Sheet

2015-12-12T19:19:14Z

199.27.129.107: /* Table */

{{comic
| number = 1509
| date = April 8, 2015
| title = Scenery Cheat Sheet
| image = scenery cheat sheet.png
| titletext = At the boundary between each zone, stories blend together. Somewhere in the New Mexico desert, the Roadrunner is pursued by a tireless Anton Chigurh.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic [[Randall]] jokes that large areas of the continental (mainland) United States can be characterized by the locations of a single movie. Especially in the Midwest, there are several very large areas that he describes with just one film. The map is the most detailed in the {{w|Northeastern United States|northeast}}, which is where Randall lives.

The map is divided into the 48 states of the mainland by thin gray lines. On top of these are drawn black lines that divide the map into 50 sections. (A 51st section is located in the Atlantic Ocean.) Inside each section is at least one reference that is supposed to describe the entire area encompassed by the section. In most cases it is the title of a movie (or two to three titles), but it could also be more general specter of movies (all movies with a big budget, or those with whose title is an east coast city name) or it could even be a book/song that describes the relevant area.

The map's heading describes the idea behind it; if you know this and the relevant movies, you can use it to determine where you are by comparing your knowledge of the movies with the scenery you can see from where you stand. Below the heading, the two groups of people who will get the most use out of this sheet are listed. The first is "GeoGuessrs". {{w|GeoGuessr}} is a game using {{w|Google Street View}} images, which drops the player in a random location and challenges them to work out where they are. (It was previously referenced in [[1214: Geoguessr]]). The second group is "crash-landed astronauts". Obviously, if you've just crash-landed on Earth, knowing your location would be very helpful.

Some entries (for instance, ''{{w|Groundhog Day (film)|Groundhog Day}}'') reflect the locations where the stories are set, and others (like ''{{w|Dances with Wolves}}'') reflect where they were filmed. Others are even more detached, as it is the sceneries from the movie that resembles a given place, even though it is neither filmed there or takes place there. It could also be a cartoon, which is of course only set in an imaginary world that may resemble the real world.

The title text references {{w|Anton Chigurh}} (portrayed by {{w|Javier Bardem}}), who is the main antagonist of the film ''{{w|No Country For Old Men}}.'' In this case he would have taken over the role of {{w|Wile E. Coyote}}, and would thus hunt down {{w|Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner|The Road Runner}} at the boundary between the sections for these two movies, which would be somewhere in the {{w|New Mexico}} desert.

==Table==
*In this table all the movies (and others) from the map are mentioned.
**They are listed from top to bottom and (when possible) by going through the columns that seems to appear in the sections when going from left to right.
**The setting for the movie vs. the actual filming locations will be given to be compared to the section of the map where the titles are written.
**Explanations will be given in the Notes section.
**The {{w|List_of_U.S._state_abbreviations#Postal_codes|State Postal Codes}} will often be used here below when referring to a given state.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Movie Title
! Setting for Movie
! Actual Filming Location(s)
! Section on map
! Notes
|-
| {{w|The Goonies}}
| {{w|Astoria, Oregon|Astoria}}, OR
| {{w|Cannon Beach}}, and Astoria, OR
| {{w|Oregon}}'s northern coast
|
|-
| {{w|Twilight (2008 film)| Twilight}}
| {{w|Forks, Washington|Forks}}, WA
| {{w|Portland, Oregon|Portland}}, OR
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Washington (state)|Washington}}, {{w|Oregon}} and most northern part of {{w|California}} except for the part taken up by The Goonies.
| Same sections as 50 Shades of Grey (see below)
|-
| {{w|Fifty Shades of Grey (film)|50 Shades of Grey}}
| {{w|Seattle}}, WA
| {{w|Vancouver}}, BC
| Same sections as Twilight which is clear from this fact: The {{w|Fifty shades of Grey}} erotic romance novel was {{w|Fifty_Shades_of_Grey#Background|originally}} a {{w|fan fiction}} version of the {{w|Twilight (series)|Twilight}} novels, but when received well it eventually developed into three full novels, but set in the same locations as Twilight. The eastern halves of Washington and Oregon look nothing like the western halves of those states, as much of these regions are near-desert with no trees. None of the scenery in Twilight or Shades of Gray will have any resemblance to Eastern Washington or Oregon.
|-
| {{w|Zodiac (film)|Zodiac}}
| {{w|San Francisco Bay Area}}
| San Francisco Bay Area and {{w|Los Angeles}}
| San Francisco Bay Area, CA
| According to {{w|Zodiac_(film)#Production|Wikipedia}}, "The San Francisco Chronicle was built in the old post office in the Terminal Annex Building in downtown Los Angeles. A building on nearby Spring Street subbed for the Hall of Justice and the San Francisco Police Department. Production began on September 12, 2005. The filmmakers shot for five weeks in the San Francisco Bay Area and the rest of the time in Los Angeles, bringing the film in under budget, wrapping in February 2006. The film took 115 days to shoot."
|-
| {{w|The Rock (film)|The Rock}}
| {{w|Alcatraz Island}}
| Alcatraz Island
| Alcatraz Island, CA
|
|-
| {{w|Dances with Wolves}}
| {{w|Sedgwick,_Colorado#History|Fort Sedgwick}}, CO
| {{w|South Dakota}} and {{w|Wyoming}}
| rowspan= "2" | {{w|Montana}}, {{w|South Dakota}}, Wyoming, and {{w|Nebraska}}
|
|-
| {{w|Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers}}
| Planet Klendathu and Earth
| {{w|Hell's Half Acre (Wyoming)|Hell's Half Acre}}, WY
|
|-
| {{w|Napoleon Dynamite}}
| {{w|Preston, Idaho|Preston}}, Idaho
| Preston, Idaho
| {{w|Idaho}} (not including Preston)
|
|-
| {{w|The Sandlot}}
| Suburban {{w|Los Angeles}}
| {{w|Salt Lake City, Utah}}
| {{w|Idaho}}, {{w|Utah}}
|
|-
| {{w|Wild Wild West}}
| The southwest area
| {{w|Tucson, Arizona}}; {{w|Santa Fe, New Mexico}}; {{w|Pierce, Idaho}}
| {{w|Nevada}}
| Set near {{w|Promontory Point}}, UT
|-
| {{w|Top Gun}}
| {{w|NAS Miramar}}, San Diego, CA
| {{w|Nevada}}, NAS Miramar, San Diego, CA
| rowspan="2" | Nevada
|
|-
| {{w|Independence Day (1996 film)|Part of Independence Day}}
| Grand Canyon & Area 51
| Utah / Nevada
|
|-
| {{w|Sideways|That movie about wine & talking}}
| {{w|Santa Ynez Valley}}
| {{w|Santa Ynez Valley}}
| {{w|Central_Valley_(California)|California Central Valley}}
| He clearly means ''Sideways''. Mapped area does not include the Santa Ynez Valley wine country, but instead shows the {{w|Central_Valley_(California)|California Central Valley}}.
|-
| {{w|List of most expensive films|Every movie with a big budget...}}
|
| Hollywood, CA
| {{w|Southern_California|SoCal}}
|
|-
| {{w|Brokeback Mountain}}
| Wyoming
| Southern Alberta
| Wyoming
|
|-
| {{w|Oregon Trail (video_game)|Oregon Trail}} (The only part I ever got to)
| {{w|Platte River|Platte}}, {{w|Snake River|Snake}}, and {{w|Columbia River|Columbia}} river valleys
| Video Game, not a film
| Nebraska, Colorado, Utah
| Could also refer to the film ''{{w|The Oregon Trail (1936 film)|The Oregon Trail}}''. The parenthetical comment refers to the relative difficulty of surviving the whole trail in the game, especially as it catered to schoolkids for educational purposes.
|-
| {{w|Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner|Roadrunner cartoons}}
| {{w|Southern Arizona}}
| Animated, not filmed
| Four Corners - UT, AZ, NM, CO
|
|-
| {{w|The Truman Show}} but with desert in the background
| "Seahaven" (fictional place in the Los Angeles, CA area)
| Seaside, Florida, and Los Angeles, California
| Las Vegas NV, California, Arizona
| If it were filmed in Las Vegas...
|-
| {{w|Tombstone (film)|Tombstone}}
| {{w|Tombstone, Arizona|Tombstone, AZ}}
| Arizona
| rowspan="2" | Southern Arizona
|
|-
| {{w|The Mask of Zorro}}
| California
| Mexico
|
|-
| {{w|No Country for Old Men (film)|No Country for Old Men}}
| (West) Texas
| Texas, New Mexico
| Southern Arizona, Southern New Mexico, Southwest Texas
|
|-
| {{w|Fargo (film)|Fargo}}
| Fargo ND, Brainerd MN, Minneapolis MN
| Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN area, Hallock MN, Bathgate, ND
| Minnesota, Both Dakotas, Montana
|
|-
| {{w|Interstellar (film)|Interstellar}} (Earth parts)
| {{w|Northeast_megalopolis|BosWash}} (converted to farmland), probably near former NYC
| Alberta
| rowspan="3" | Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota
| "Earth Parts"
|-
| {{w|Star Trek (film)|Star Trek (2009)}} (Earth parts)
| Iowa
| Iowa
| "Earth Parts"
|-
| {{w|Field of Dreams}}
| Primarily IA; also, Boston, MA, and Chisholm, Minnesota
| Dyersville, IA
|
|-
| {{w|The Music Man (1962 film)|The Music Man}}
| River City, IA
| Warner Bros Studio, Burbank, CA
| Iowa, Missouri, Not-Chicago Illinois
|
|-
| {{w|The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)|The Wizard of Oz}}
| Kansas, Oz
| Culver City, California
| Kansas, Colorado
| The Judy Garland version, presumably. The earth parts.
|-
| {{w|Twister (1996 film)|Twister}}
| Oklahoma
|
| Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas
|
|-
| {{w|True Grit (1969 film)|True Grit}}
| Arkansas
| New Mexico
| Northern Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas
| Obviously the {{w|True Grit (2010 film)|2010 version}}
|-
| {{w|Office Space}}
|
| Austin, TX
| rowspan="3" | Texas Triangle plus Southern Texas
|
|-
| {{w|Dazed and Confused (film)|Dazed and Confused}}
| Austin, TX
|
|
|-
| {{w|Kill Bill}}
| El Paso, TX
|
|-
| {{w|The Blues Brothers (film)|Blues Brothers}}
| Chicago
| Chicago and Milwaukee
| Chicago, Rockford, Kenosha, and some extra parts of Illinois
|
|-
| {{w|8 Mile (film)|8 Mile}}
| Wayne County, Michigan
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|A Christmas Story}}
| Hammond, IN
| Cleveland, OH
| rowspan="2" | Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio
|
|-
| {{w|Jack & Diane|That song about Jack and Diane}}
|
| Lake Monroe, IN
| "In the Heartland"
|-
| Anything by {{w|Mark Twain}}
| Hannibal, MO
|
| Cairo, IL, Mississippi River parts of Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi
| The mapped area doesn't quite include Twain's home town of Hannibal, MO.
|-
| {{w|Walk the Line}}
| Tennessee
|
| Tennessee and Kentucky
|
|-
| {{w|Big Fish}}
|
| Wetumpka and Montgomery, AL
| rowspan="2" | Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia
|
|-
| {{w|O Brother Where Art Thou}}
| Parchman Farm, MS
| Canton, MS; Florence, SC
|
|-
| {{w|Duck Dynasty}}
| {{w|West Monroe, Louisiana|West Monroe, LA}}
|
| Northern Louisiana and Mississippi
|
|-
| {{w|Princess and the Frog}}
| New Orleans
|Animated, not filmed
| rowspan="2" | Southern Louisiana
|
|-
| {{w|All Dogs go to Heaven}}
| New Orleans
|Animated, not filmed
|
|-
| {{w|Beasts of the Southern Wild}}
| Louisiana
| Montegut, LA
| Mississippi River Delta
|
|-
| {{w|Groundhog Day (film)|Groundhog Day}}
| {{w|Punxsutawney,_Pennsylvania|Punxsutawney, PA}}, {{w|Pittsburgh|Pittsburgh}}
| Woodstock, IL
| Western Pennsylvania, Western New York
|
|-
| {{w|Dirty Dancing}}
| {{w|Catskill Mountains}}
| {{w|Mountain_Lake_(Virginia)|Mountain Lake, VA}} and {{w|Lake_Lure,_North_Carolina|Lake Lure, NC}}
| Virginia/West Virginia border
|
|-
| {{w|October Sky}}
| Coalwood, WV
| East Tennessee
| Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia
|
|-
| {{w|Gone with the Wind (film)|Gone with the Wind}}
| Tara, near {{w|Jonesboro, Georgia|Jonesboro, GA}}
|
| rowspan="2" | Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia
|
|-
| {{w|Forrest Gump}}
| Alabama
| Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina
|
|-
| {{w|The Truman Show}}
| Los Angeles area
| {{w|Seaside, Florida|Seaside, FL}}
| Florida without Miami or the Everglades
|
|-
| {{w|Adaptation (film)|Adaptation}}
| Everglades, FL and surrounding areas
|
| Everglades, FL
| Very loosely based on the book "The Orchid Thief" by Susan Orlean, which chronicles the lifestyle of orchid thief and dealer John Laroche. The movie is about a screenwriter who struggles to adapt the book into a movie, turning himself into a main character in his own story.
|-
| {{w|Miami Vice}}
| Miami
| Television show: Many episodes in the South Beach section of Miami Beach, FL, also Broward and Palm Beach counties, FL; Film: Caribbean, Uruguay, Paraguay and South Florida
| Miami metro area
| Or the {{w|Miami Vice (film)|film}}
|-
| {{w|Super Troopers}}
| Vermont, NY ("Somewhere near the border")
| Various locations in New York State, including the City of Beacon, Westchester County, Rockefeller State Park Preserve, Fishkill, Newburgh, and Wappingers Falls
| Vermont, NY ("Somewhere near the border")
|
|-
| {{w|My Side of the Mountain|My Side of the Mountain (book)}}
| Adirondack Mountains, NY
| Catskill mountains, near Delhi, NY
| Northern New York
| The area shown on the map includes the Adirondacks, as well as the Tug Hill Plateau and the Finger Lakes. The Catskills appear to be excluded.
|-
| {{w|War of the Worlds (2005 film)|War of the Worlds (2005)}}
| Massachusetts
| California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia
| Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island
| Also referenced in [[556: Alternative Energy Revolution]]
|-
| {{w|Signs (film)|Signs}}
| {{w|Doylestown, Pennsylvania|Doylestown, PA}}
|
| rowspan="2" | Eastern Pennsylvania
|
|-
| {{w|The Village (2004 film)|The Village}}
| Covington, PA
| {{w|Chadds Ford Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania|Chadds Ford, PA}}
|
|-
| [Generic City]
| Washington DC, Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia
| N/A
| Washington DC, Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia
| Washington DC has a reputation for requiring extensive fees and permits to film within the city. As a result, most movies set in DC are filmed somewhere else entirely. Thus, DC movie backgrounds would only give a viewer an idea of what a generic city would look like.
|-
| {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}}
| Atlantic Coast
|
| North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware
| The Mega-tsunami
|-
| {{w|Pet Sematary}}
| Ludlow, Maine
| Hancock, Maine
| Maine
| Misspelled SemEtary in the comic.
|-
| {{w|What About Bob?|What about Bob}}
| Lake Winnipesaukee, NH
| Smith Mountain Lake, VA
| New Hampshire
|
|-
| {{w|The Departed}}
| Boston, MA
| Boston & New York
| Boston
|
|-
| {{w|Jaws (film)|Jaws}}
| Amity Island (stand-in for Martha's Vineyard)
| Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts (scenes on land or on the surface of the water), waters off Australia (footage of real sharks), California (underwater scenes)
| Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Long Island, Rhode Island
|
|-
| {{w|The Hunt for Red October (film)|The Hunt for Red October}}
| Climaxes somewhere off the eastern seaboard of North America ({{w|Grand Banks}} of Newfoundland are mentioned)
| Much of the sea filming was actually in the Pacific, near Los Angeles
| A large swathe of Atlantic Ocean off the east coast of the US
| Starts in Barents Sea. Enters Atlantic via Iceland, but underwater. Underwater scenes were filmed in "smoke tanks". There are also sequences in a river (Penobscot, ME)
|}

==Transcript==
:[Above the frame is the following text.]
:'''A cheat sheet for'''
:figuring out where in the US you are
:by recognizing the background from movies
:(for use by GeoGuessr players and crash-landed astronauts)

:[In the frame is a map of the mainland USA with the 48 mainland states lined out in thin gray lines. All areas on the map have been enclosed in sections divided by curved black lines. These sections sizes goes from encompassing several states down to just a small section of a single state. The sections cover the entire USA without any holes. There is also one section in the Atlantic Ocean. All sections are labeled. If the section is large enough the text stands inside, if it is too small, the text is outside and an arrow will point to the relevant section

:[Here below all the text on the map (mainly film titles) will be transcribed from top to bottom and (when possible) by going through the columns that seems to appear in the sections when going from left to right. The {{w|State Postal Codes}} will be used when referring to the states covered by each section]

:[Small section covering the west coast around the state border between WA and OR, which is surrounded on three sides by the next section mentioned below. It is labeled with an arrow:]
:The Goonies
:[Large section covering WA, OR and top of CA. The section has two titles, with the second one standing with smaller font below the first:]
:Twilight
:50 Shades of Grey
:[Small section around San Francisco, CA:]
:Zodiac
:[Very tiny section covering only Alcatraz off the coast of San Francisco, CA. It lies inside section mentioned above. It is labeled with an arrow:]
:The Rock
:[Large section covering most of MT as well as part of WY, SD and NE. The section has two titles:]
:Dances with Wolves
:Starship Troopers
:[Medium section covering most of ID and part of MT:]
:Napoleon Dynamite
:[Medium section covering part of OR, ID, NV and UT:]
:The Sandlot
:[Medium section mainly covering the top part of NV:]
:Wild Wild West
:[Medium section covering most of NV and small part of CA. The section has two titles, with the second one standing with smaller font below the first plus description:]
:Top Gun
:& the part of Independence Day where Will Smith crashes
:[Small section covering central CA:]
:That movie about wine & talking
:[Medium section covering a large part of the southern part of CA around Hollywood, Los Angeles:]
:Every movie with a big budget, explosions or someone who says "cool!"
:[Medium section covering half of WY and small parts of UT and CO:]
:Brokeback Mountain
:[Medium section covering part of WY, CO and NE. The part in parenthesis in a smaller font:]
:Oregon Trail
:(the only part I ever got to)
:[Large section covering small part of UT and the half bottom of UT and CO and top half of AZ and NM:]
:Roadrunner cartoons
:[Medium section covering a small part of the southern CA and small part of AZ. The part beneath the title in a smaller font:]
:The Truman Show,
:but with desert as the background
:[Small part at the bottom of AZ. The section has two titles:]
:Tombstone
:& The Mask of Zorro
:[Large section covering the a small part of AZ, the bottom half of NM as well as a third of TX:]
:No Country for Old Men
:[Large section covering all of ND, most of MN, half of SD and a small part of MT:]
:Fargo
:[Medium section covering most of NE and small parts of MN and IA. The section has three titles. The top two are marked with a square bracket to the left. The text of this given before the third title:]
:Interstellar
:Star Trek (2009)
:] Earth parts
:Field of Dreams
:[Medium section covering large parts of IA, MO and IL:]
:The Music Man
:[Medium section covering mainly KS, but also a small part of Co and OK:]
:The Wizard of Oz
:[Medium section covering most of OK and small part of MO and AR:]
:Twister
:[Medium section covering the top part of TX and small parts of OK and AR:]
:True Grit
:[Large section covering a third of TX (the eastern part all the way down) and small parts of AR and LA. The section has three titles:]
:Office Space
:Dazed and Confused
:Kill Bill
:[Small section around and below Chicago, IL, which is surrounded on three sides by the next large section mentioned below. It is labeled with an arrow:]
:Blues Brothers
:[Very small section almost a circle centered around Detroit, MI completely inside the section here below. It is labeled with an arrow:]
:8 Mile
:[Large section covering all of WI, MI, IN and OH as well as parts of IL and KY. That is except for the two small sections described above, which are inlaid in this one. There are two items in this section. The one below is in smaller font:]
:A Christmas Story
:&That song about Jack and Diane
:[Medium section covering half of AR, small parts of IL and MO as well as bits of KY, TN and MS:]
:Anything by Mark Twain
:[Medium section covering half of TN and part of KY:]
:Walk the Line
:[Large section covering all of AL most of MS and half of GA. There are two titles in this section:]
:Big Fish
:O Brother Where Art Thou
:[Small section covering top of LA and small part of MS:]
:Duck Dynasty
:[Medium section covering the bottom half of LA and the very bottom of MS. There is a very small section at the bottom of LA that are not included in this but in the next. There are two titles in this section:]
:Princess and the Frog
:All Dogs go to Heaven
:[Small section covering the very eastern end of the bottom of LA – maybe including New Orleans. It is labeled with an arrow:]
:Beasts of the Southern Wild
:[Medium section covering half of PA and western part NY:]
:Groundhog Day
:[Small section covering the middle part of VA as well as small parts of PA, MD and WV:]
:Dirty Dancing
:[Medium section covering most of WV, half of TN, a small parts of KY as well as tiny bits of VA, NC and GA:]
:October Sky
:[Large section covering all of SC, most of NC as well as half of VA and GA. There are two titles in this section:]
:Gone with the Wind
:Forrest Gump
:[Large section covering most of FL except the bottom part which are covered by the next two sections:]
:The Truman Show
:[Small section covering the very bottom of FL except the east coast. It is labeled with an arrow:]
:Adaptation
:[Small section covering the very bottom the east coast of FL. It is labeled with an arrow:]
:Miami Vice
:[Small section covering most of the top of VT and a small part of NY. It is labeled with an arrow:]
:Super Troopers
:[Small section covering the central part of NY.]
:My Side of the Mountain (book)
:[Small section covering the eastern part of NY, western part of MA, top part of CT as well as bits of VT and RI.:]
:War of the Worlds (2005)
:[Small section covering the eastern part of PA and small bits of NY and MD. There are two titles in this section:]
:Signs
:& The Village
:[Medium section covering several large cities of the east coast including New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. It covers most of DE and NJ and large parts of MD (with DC) and the bit of NY with the city. The text is not a title and the it is written in square brackets…:]
:[Generic city]
:[Small section covering the east coast along VA and NC, but also with small bits of MD and DE at the top:]
:Deep Impact
:[Medium section covering all of ME, the top tip of NH and eastern top of VT:]
:Pet Semetary
:[Small section covering the most of the bottom parts of NH and VT:]
:What about Bob
:[Very small section surrounding Boston in MA. It is labeled with an arrow:]
:The Departed
:[Small section covering the east coast along MA, RI, CT and NJ:]
:Jaws
:[Large section off the east coast in the Atlantic Ocean:]
:The Hunt for Red October

==Trivia==
Not everything {{w|Mark Twain}} wrote was really set on the {{w|Mississippi River}}. For instance, he first gained attention as a fiction writer with "{{w|The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County}}," which is about {{w|Northern California}}. Indeed, during his lifetime, Twain was known mostly as a travel writer, not a novelist.

Kill Bill doesn't take place in southern or eastern Texas. The wedding chapel scene takes place in {{w|El Paso}}, around the same area No Country for Old Men takes place.

==See also==
*[https://geoguessr.com/ GeoGuessr's official website]
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Maps]]

1037: Umwelt

2015-12-12T03:34:47Z

199.27.129.107: Removing incomplete tag since there's no template indicating that this is incomplete

{{comic
| number = 1037
| date = April 1, 2012
| title = Umwelt
| image = umwelt_the_void.jpg
| titletext = Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit--from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your web browser.
}}
<div class="toclimit-3" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px;">__TOC__</div>

==Explanation==
An {{w|Umwelt}}, as the title text explains, is the idea that one's entire way of thinking is dependent on their surroundings. Thus, this {{w|April Fools}} comic changes based on the browser, location, or referrer. Thus, what the viewer is viewing the comic on, where they live, or where they came from determines which comic they actually see. As a result, there are actually multiple comics that went up on April Fools' Day, although only one is seen.
(Fun Fact: the German word "Umwelt" does not mean anything vaguely similar; it translates in all contexts almost exactly as "environment".)

Information about how the wide variety of data was collected and credit for the viewers who contributed can be found [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/rnst4/april_fools_xkcd_changing_comic/ here].

This comic was released on April 1 even though that was [[:Category:Sunday comics|a Sunday]] (only the third comic to be released on a Sunday). But it was only due to the April Fool joke, as it did replace the comic that would have been scheduled for Monday, April 2. The next comic was first released on Wednesday, April 4.

===The Void===
[[File:umwelt the void.jpg]]

If the device or browser you are using does not support Javascript, you will simply see a static image of a white swirl on a dark background.

Possible reference to The Ring (http://imgur.com/wlGmm), as though to suggest that using an alternative browser is dismal and horrific.

Davean (xkcd's sysadmin): "[This] comic isn't available everywhere and it can come up i[n] some situation[s] only for recognized browsers."

Browser: Alternative Browser

===Aurora===
[[File:umwelt aurora.png]]

One could interpret that since Megan didn't go out and therefore missed seeing the Aurora, the main character lied. That way, she wouldn't have felt sad that she missed out.

One might also believe that since xkcd is normally a black and white comic, Cueball is colorblind and didn't see anything of interest to him.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Locations: Canada, Boston, Maine, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Minnesota, Norway, Denmark

===Snake===
[[File:umwelt snake composite 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt snake composite.png|Full size]]

The joke here is the extreme length of snakes. The world's longest snake is the python, the longest ever being 33 feet or approx. 10 meters. The red and blue circles refer to the hit game {{w|Portal}}.
There is also a reference to the book "The Little Prince" in the second panel.

Also, the number and content of the panels changes depending on the size of your browser window.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Specific AltText for this image: Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit -from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your browser window size.

Location: Texas (on Chrome Version 33.0.1750.154 m), New Jersey, California (on Chrome Version 39.0.2171.95), Maryland

===Black Hat===
[[File:umwelt tortoise 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt tortoise.png|Full size]]

An analyst attempts to psychoanalyze [[Black Hat|Black Hat's]] [[72: Classhole|classhole]] tendencies. The joke here is that the turtle has actually been turned over and neither sees helping it as a priority. It's a reference to the Voight-Kampff test used in the movie Blade Runner (1982) to identify replicants.

Location: Seems to appear mostly in "other countries" — those without location-specific comics.

===Too Quiet===
[[File:umwelt too quiet 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt too quiet.png|Full size]]

A reference to {{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}} which has been [[87: Velociraptors|constantly]] [[135: Substitute|referred]] [[1110: Click and Drag|to]] [[155: Search History|before]] [[758: Raptor Fences|in]] this comic.

Also referencing the film {{w|2 Fast 2 Furious|2 Fast 2 Furious}}, an entertaining, yet intellectually unprovoking sequel in a popular film franchise, which is aimed at teenagers and young adults, prompting the blunt response from the stickman. The fact that Steve would use such a cliché {{w|2000s (decade)|noughties}} movie term in such an intense moment, and the subsequent curse, is the joke in this comic.

Location: short version — iPhone 5c Safari browser in Texas, iPhone 5 Chrome Browser in Minnesota, long version - Google Chrome browser in Indiana, Windows 8 Laptop

===Pond===
[[File:umwelt pond mobile.png]][[File:umwelt pond wide.png]]

Two different versions showed, the narrower version for mobile devices.

Location: The Netherlands and various other countries.

===Galaxies===
[[File:umwelt galaxies 1024.jpg]]
[[:File:umwelt galaxies.jpg|Full size]]

Megan is distracted from her conversation with [[Cueball]] by realizing that the space behind his head, from her vantage point, contains millions of galaxies. This is similar to an [http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/astro/hst_deep_field.jpg incredible photograph] taken by the Hubble Telescope, in which a tiny dark area of space in fact contained numerous galaxies.

The title text is an imaginative leap from this scenario: that the galaxies would be up to no good once Cueball is turned away from them. This is presumably a reference to [http://www.mariowiki.com/boo Boo], an enemy from certain Mario games who moves toward Mario only when Mario is facing away from Boo.

This comic was only reported once... the intended environmental context is a mystery.

Location: unknown

===xkcd Gold===
[[File:umwelt xkcd gold.png]]

This is probably a reference to the 4chan Gold Account, an implementation on 4chan that does not actually exist, and is usually used to trick newcomers into revealing their credit card numbers. The joke is that "Gold Account" users can supposedly block other users from viewing images they have posted. The fifth panel is probably a reference to Beecock, a notorious set of shocker images. 4chan's moderators have been known to give out "beecock bans" or "/z/ bans" to particularly annoying users, which redirect the user to a page containing beecock and the text "OH NO THE BOARD IS GONE".

Referrer: 4chan

===Yo Mama===
[[File:umwelt dog ballast.png]]

Possible reference to Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "{{w|Harrison Bergeron}}."

Possibly a veiled criticism of Facebook. This could be slightly rewritten as: "This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid of dissent, so it tracks everyone at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop submitting information to Facebook. But that dystopian future is now."

Referrer: Facebook

===Reddit===
[[File:umwelt reddit.png]]

Reference to referencing, because Reddit, as a referring site, likes references to its referencing in its references.

This comic also features recursive imagery similar to [[688: Self-Description|Self Description]] where the second panel embeds the entire comic within itself.

Referrer: Reddit

===Buns and Hot dogs===
[[File:umwelt somethingawful.jpg]]

This is a reference to the question "Why do hot dogs come in packages of 6 while buns come in packages of 8?"

Referrer: SomethingAwful, Questionable Content, & MetaFilter

===Twitter===
[[File:umwelt twitter.jpg]]

A summary of the content "typically" found on Twitter.

In the tweet feed, there are three tweets about some podcast on the top, followed by the tweet containing link they clicked on to get to the comic, tweets about Rob Delaney, unspecified passive-aggressive tweets, and a tweet from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_ebooks Horse Ebooks] retweeted by one of the users the reader follows.

On the left, the topmost dialog, with profile information, shows that the user has posted 1,302 tweets, but only follows 171 people and has even fewer followers, at a measly 48. This is marked with a sad face, implying that the user wants more followers.

Below that is the "who to follow" dialog, which is written up as consisting of "assholes".

Below that is the "trending tags" dialog for the United States. It is full of tags about word games, tags about misogyny, and tags about Justin Bieber.

Below that is an unidentified dialog full of "stuff your eyes automatically ignore". And finally, on the bottom is the background colour, which is "a really pleasant blue".

Referrer: Twitter

===Wikipedia===
[[File:umwelt wikipedia wide.jpg]]
[[File:umwelt wikipedia mobile.png]]

The term {{w|Mile High Club}} (or MHC) is a slang term applied collectively to individuals who have had sexual intercourse while on board of an aircraft. Randall says that reading the news articles on it has distracted him from making that comic.

Two different versions shown, the narrower version (the single panel with all the text) for mobile devices.

Referrer: Wikipedia

===Google Chrome===
[[File:umwelt chrome1.jpg]]

{{w|Sergey Brin}} (born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the most profitable Internet companies. As of 2013, his personal wealth was estimated to be $24.4 billion. Randall makes the joke that as the founder of Google, Brin's permission would be needed to use Google Chrome. Because there are millions of people who use Google, it is likely that at least some of the time Brin would be asleep, thus he would need to be woken.

Browser: Chrome

===Chrome/Firefox===
[[File:umwelt chrome2.png]]

Mozilla {{w|Firefox}} is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Cueball is complaining about {{w|Google Chrome}}, to which [[Ponytail]] replies that there is an {{w|add-on}} that fixes what he is complaining about. When questioned, she replies that the add-on is Firefox, which isn't an add-on at all and is instead a different browser.

Browser: Chrome

===Google Chrome-2===
[[File:umwelt chrome3.png]]

This panel references Google Chrome's error screen, which shows a puzzle piece. The comic humorously implies that Chrome is looking for that piece. However, the piece in question cannot possibly line up with any corner.

Browser: Chrome

===Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing===
[[File:umwelt firefox incognito.png]]

Another reference to crashing web browsers.

Browser: Firefox (Incognito only?)

===Internet Explorer===
[[File:umwelt ie.png]]

Yet another reference to crashing web browsers

Browser: Internet Explorer

===Maxthon===
[[File:umwelt maxthon.png]]

Browser: Maxthon

===Netscape Navigator===
[[File:umwelt netscape womanoctopus.png]]

[[File:umwelt netscape man.png]]

{{w|Netscape Navigator}} was a web browser popular in the 1990s.

Browser: Netscape

===Rockmelt===
[[File:umwelt rockmelt.png]]

{{w|Rockmelt}} is a social-media-based browser.

Reference to the gospel song {{w|Longing for Old Virginia: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1934)|"There's no hiding place down here" by The Carter Family}}, later covered by Stephen Stills.

:I run to the rock just to hide my face
:And the rocks cried out, no hiding place
:There's no hiding place down here

It may additionally be a reference to the ''Babylon 5'' episode "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place," which featured the song.

Browser: Rockmelt

===Plugin Disabled===
[[File:umwelt plugin disabled.png]]

When the Google Chrome web browser does not have the required software (called a plug-in) to display a web page's content, it displays a puzzle piece icon and an error message. In this case, Chrome informs the user that the content is impossible to display.

Browser: Plugin (?) Disabled

===Corporate Networks===
[[File:umwelt corporate general.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon other.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate google chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft other.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes other.png]]

These error messages appear if the user is on a network owned by one of the corporations noted. The error message includes a warning against speaking on the company's behalf.

ISP: Corporate networks of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NY Times

===Military===
[[File:umwelt military.png]]

[[Cueball]] assumes that anyone using a military network has an important job like watching for incoming missiles. He includes a thank-you to the user for their military service.

ISP: Military networks

===T-Mobile===
[[File:umwelt tmobile.png]]

Reference to T-Mobile's distinguishing feature of weaker coverage, in relation to other major providers.

ISP: T-Mobile

===Verizon and AT&T===
[[File:umwelt verizon.png]]

[[File:umwelt att.png]]

Reference to Verizon and AT&T's scandals/controversy regarding implementation of bandwidth caps.

ISP: Verizon and AT&T

===France===
[[File:umwelt france.jpg]]

A Google search of "French Military Victories" + 'I'm feeling lucky' used to direct to "did you mean: french military defeats" (due to a {{w|Google bomb}}), referencing a stereotype of the French:[http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.html][http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-frenchmilitaryvictories.htm][http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokefrenchmilitaryhistory.htm]

Locations: France & Quebec

===Germany===
[[File:umwelt germany.png]]

This comic references the {{w|Berlin airlift#The start of the Berlin Airlift|Berlin Airlift}}, a relief measure for citizens in West Berlin (surrounded by East Germany) instituted by the Western Allies after World War II. In reality, the Western Allies flew a grand total of 500,000 tons of food over the Soviet blockade in planes. Randall puts a twist on this event by making it more fun: dropping supplies from a grand chairlift. The play on words is that "chairlift" rhymes with "airlift" and thus makes an easy substitution. The chair force is also a name that other service branches use to make fun of the air force.

Location: Germany

===Israel===
[[File:umwelt israel.png]]

Transcript:

בחורה: אמא, פגשתי בחור נהדר! אבל הוא לא יהודי.‏

...

רגע, מה את אומרת, "גם אנחנו לא"?‏

אני לגמרי מבולבלת.‏

(Translation from Hebrew)

Person: Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.

A reference to the multiple use of the word Jewish to denote both a religious group and a nationality/ethnicity.

Location: Israel

===Carnot Cycle===
[[File:umwelt japan.png]]

A pun on "cycle"; a "{{w|Carnot cycle}}" is a thermodynamic cycle (e.g. refrigeration). Its efficiency depends on the temperature of the hot and cold 'reservoirs' in which it is operating. The icon on the side of the motorcycle resembles a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carnot_cycle_p-V_diagram.svg graph of the Carnot cycle.]

Location: Japan

===UK===
[[File:umwelt uk.jpg]]

He worded this as though to imply that the UK is a state of the U.S., and an unimportant one at that, which pokes fun at the UK, creating a paradox (sort of).

Location: UK

===Blizzard===
[[File:umwelt disasters blizzard.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or blizzards are harsher conditions to live under.

For each location this displayed in, the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Georgia, Halifax, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, the Northeast, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Texas, Toronto, Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin

===Tornado===
[[File:umwelt disasters tornado.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or tornadoes are harsher conditions to live under.

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Dallas, Illinois, Georgia, The Midwest, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Tennessee, Texas

===Hurricane===
[[File:umwelt disasters hurricane.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or hurricanes are harsher conditions to live under.

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: D.C, Florida, Georgia, Houston, Miami, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia

===Lake Diver Killer===
[[File:umwelt lake diver.png]]

This comic shows a news reporter standing in front of a lake. She is reporting on a serial killer who targets divers. As more divers are sent in to investigate and/or search for bodies, more divers go missing and are presumably murdered.

Locations: Bay Areas

Location: Vermont showed an image specifically referencing Lake Champlain

===Lincoln Memorial===
[[File:umwelt lincoln memorial.png]]

Locations: Illinois & Washington D.C.

===Helicopter Hunting===
[[File:umwelt helicoptor.png]]

In Alaska, governments and individuals have {{w|Wolf hunting#North America 2|shot wolves en masse from helicopters}} in an attempt to artificially inflate populations of game, such as moose and caribou, to make hunting them easier. This is opposed by many, as the game populations are not endangered (thus, this threatens ecological balance); wolves are a small threat to livestock in North America; most of the wolf body —including meat and bones— goes wasted as they are sought mainly for their pelts.

Location: Alaska

===Newspaper===
[[File:umwelt life scientists.png]][[File:umwelt life rit.png]][[File:umwelt life umass.png]]

Creating new life has long been a well understood process, in a lab or otherwise.

Location: Various

Specific versions appeared for RIT and UMass Amherst

===Robot Paul Revere===
[[File:umwelt paul revere.png]]

Combination of the legend of {{w|Paul Revere#"Midnight Ride"|Paul Revere}} and computer binary.

Location: Boston

===Counting Cards===

All four colleges in this series are in Massachusetts and, being similar, in pairs, rival each other to some extent (Harvard-MIT, and Smith-Wellesley). The comic contains a reference to the {{w|MIT Blackjack Team}}, which entered popular culture via the {{w|21 (2008 film)|film 21}}, and a possible reference to Orwell's book '1984' and/or {{w|Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|popular homage to it via Star Trek}}: "There are four lights."[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChYIm6MW39k]

Bonus: The thought-gears in panel 3 are spinning against each other.

Location: Harvard

[[File:umwelt counting cards harvard.png]]

Location: MIT

[[File:umwelt counting cards mit.png]]

"Course 15s" at MIT are the business major students, often mocked for taking a less-rigorous program.

Location: Smith

[[File:umwelt counting cards smith.png]]

Location: Wellesley

[[File:umwelt counting cards wellesley.png]]

Both Wellesley and Smith are all-women colleges.

===Giant Box Trap===
[[File:umwelt box trap.png]]

Randall got his undergrad in Physics at the {{w|Christopher Newport University}}, and was scheduled to return shortly to give a talk.

Location: Christopher Newport University

===Chemo Support===
[[File:umwelt chemo.jpg]]

Randall's now-wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and apparently DFCI is where they've been spending much of their time.

Location: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

===Reviews===
[[File:reviews.png]]

The previous strip appears twice when using [[wikipedia:Tor (anonymity network)|Tor]].

Browser: Any using Tor, and reports of seeing it on a Kindle Fire HD

==Transcript==
:[Note to courageous readers- The transcript has been reordered in the order in which the comics appear in the picture and appropriate names have been given.]

:'''The Void'''
:[An epic void with a bright light shining right on you.]

:'''Aurora'''
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar flare that's causing some Great Aurorae. CBC says they may even be visible here! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: Hockey's on.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

:'''Aurora-US'''
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar storm causing northern lights over Canada. CNN say they might even be visible {Options: "As Far South As Us", "Here in Boston", "Maine", "Ohio", "Oregon", "New York"}! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: It's cold out.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

:'''Snake'''
:[Two people standing next to each other. Megan is holding the head end of a snake. Depending on the width of your browser, the snake is: three frames, the third of which has a little bit of a bump; the first frame has a human-size bump, the second has a third person looking at the snake, and the third has the snake going though two Portals; a squirrel and the human-size bump in the first frame, a ring next to the third person in the second frame, and Beret Guy riding the snake in front of the portal; or The squirrel, a fourth person within the snake being coiled, and the human bump in the first frame, the ring, a fifth person in love, and the third person in the second frame, Beret Guy and the portal in the third frame, and the same two people in the fourth frame.]

:Megan: I found a snake, but then I forgot to stop.

:'''Black hat'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk. One is Black Hat. The other is an analyst. Black Hat has a number of terminals attached to his head.]
:Analyst: You come across a tortoise in the desert. You flip it over. It struggles to right itself. You watch. You're not helping. Why is that?

:Black Hat: It '''knows''' what it did.

:[View of the entire scene, with said turtle off in the distance on its back and trying to right itself.]

:'''Too quiet'''
:[A group of four scale down a wall into a field in the middle of the night. They walk off single-file.]
:Person 1: It's quiet.

:Person 3: Yeah - *Too* quiet.

:[A Velociraptor is off in the distance, following the group.]
:Person 4: Yeah - too *too* quiet.

:Person 2: Yeah - 2quiet2furious.
:Person 1: Fuck off, Steve.

:'''Pond'''
:[A landscape showing a pond, some reeds, and a set of mountains off in the distance.]

:'''Galaxies'''
:[A trio of galaxies.]
:Galaxy 1: He's not looking!
:Galaxy 3: Let's get him!
:[Lines draw in illustrating the eye-line of one of a pair of people.]
:Cueball: So he said he didn't get the text, but c'mon, he *never* misses texts. Right? ..hello?
:Megan: I'm just staring at your head freaked out by the fact that there are millions of galaxies *directly behind it*.

:'''xkcd Gold'''
:[Cueball holding bat.]

:Cueball: Sorry, but this comic

:[Cueball starts to wind up.]

:Cueball: requires

:[Cueball prepares to strike with bat.]

:Cueball: XKCD

:[Cueball swings at a beehive.]
:GOLD

:[Penis Bees fly out of the beehive.]

:'''Yo mamma'''
:[Cueball yells at a friend.]
:Cueball: Oh yeah? Well you mama's so ''cynical'', her only dog ballast is a ''leash''!
:(This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid dogs can hover, so it requires them to wear weights at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop buying dog weights.)

:'''Reddit'''
:Five seconds ago:
:[You sitting in front of a desk, reading a reddit thread.]
:You: Oh, hey, reddit has a link to some XKCD april fools comic.

:Now: [An image of the xkcd comic page.]
:Five seconds from now:

:You: ..hey

:30 seconds from now:
:[DANCE PARTY!]

:'''Buns and Hot dogs'''
:Cueball: What I wanna know is why do hot dogs come in packages of six while buns come in these huge sacks of ash and blood from which "Ave Maria" is faintly audible?
:[Chanting sacks of gore in the background.]

:'''Twitter'''
:[A Twitter account page with the following: Many tweets, fewer following, even fewer followers, A bunch of assholes in the suggested follow box, trending topics partitioned into: Word Games, Misogyny, and Bieber, stuff your eyes automatically ignore, A really pleasant blue. and the timeline: Something about a podcast, Someone confused because the description doesn't match the link, The link you clicked on to get to this comic, Rob Delaney, Passive Aggression, and horse ebooks.]

:'''Wikipedia'''
:[There's no comic here because instead of drawing one, I spent the last hour reading every news story cited in the Wikipedia article on The Mile High Club.]

:'''Google Chrome'''
:[A Chrome plugin error page.]
:Chrome: This plugin requires Sergey Brin's permission to run. Please wait while he is woken.

:'''Chrome/Firefox'''
:[Two people; Cueball is sitting at a desk in front of a laptop.]
:Cueball: Man, chrome's hardware acceleration really sucks.
:Ponytail: Oh - Theres' a great add-on that fixes it.
:Cueball: Oh? What's it called?
:Ponytail: "Firefox".

:'''Google Chrome-2'''
:[A Chrome plugin error page with the characteristic jigsaw piece.]
:Chrome: Chrome is looking for this piece. Have you seen it? Chrome thinks it links up with a corner.

:'''Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing'''
:[Firefox error page.]
:Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing. You know how I'm not supposed to peek at your browsing in private mode? Firefox.. is sorry. Firefox will not blame you if you
:[Button with text.]
:Click here to report this incident.

:'''Internet Explorer'''
:[IE error page.]
:IE: Error: Internet Explorer has given up.

:'''Maxthon'''
:Cueball: Maxthon? Hey, 2005 called. Didn't say anything. All I could hear was sobbing. This is getting harder. Anyway, yeah, Maxthon's still cool! Didn't know it was still around!

:'''Netscape Navigator'''
:[Two different versions exist: one with Cueball talking and one with Megan with tentacle arms talking.]
:Person: Netscape Navigator? Hey, the nineties called - drunk as usual. I hung up without saying anything. This is getting harder. Anyway - it's cool that you'e got netscape running.

:'''Rockmelt'''
:[Cueball running to laptop.]
:I ran to Rockmelt to hide my face

:[Cueball sitting at laptop.]
:But Rockmelt cried out -

:[Laptop shouting.]
:NO HIDING PLACE

:[zoom out.]
:NO HIDING PLACE DOWN HERE

:'''Google Chrome-3'''
:[A chrome plugin error page.]
:Chrome: There does not exist --nor could there '''ever''' exist-- a plugin capable of displaying this content.

:'''Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google - Chrome'''
:[Chrome error page.]
:Chrome: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Microsoft/Amazon - Firefox'''
:[Firefox error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Microsoft/The Times'''
:[Error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/The Times is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Corporate - Generic'''
:[Error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, we work as a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Military'''
:[Person looking at two browser windows.]
:Cueball: I know y'all know what you're doing. But if you're on a military machine and you're supposed to be watching for missiles or something, I hope you're keeping an eye on that in the background while you're reading comics. Also: Thanks.

:'''T-Mobile'''
:[Error page.]
:Data Error: T-Mobile was unable to establish a connection

:'''Verizon'''
:[Error page]
:Error: You have exceeded your Verizon monthly bandwidth cap. Mobile web browsing has been disabled.

:'''France'''
:[Two people; one of which is browsing using a laptop.]
:Cueball: Hey, you're French, right? Ever see what happens when you type "French Military Victories" into Google?
:French person: Does it take you to an article on Napoleon?

:French person: ..no? Strange, given how he kicked everyone's asses up and down Europe for over a decade.

:[Beat frame.]

:Cueball: Touche.
:French person: You know, that'd sound smarter if you didn't pronounce it like it rhymes with "douche".

:'''Germany'''
:[Cueball dropping food from an unorthodox high perch.]
:June 1948: In response to the Soviet blockade of East Germany, the western allies construct the Berlin Chairlift.
:Cueball on chairlift: Food!

:'''Israel'''
:[Person on phone.]
:Person (Translation from Hebrew): Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.

:'''Carnot Cycle'''
:[Ponytail on a motorcycle with a heat-entropy graph on the side.]
:Ponytail: Check out my new Carnot Cycle!
:Cueball: Neat - how fast does it go?
:Ponytail: Depends how cold it is outside.

:'''Great Britain'''
:[Illustration of the Atlantic ocean.]
:American person: Sorry I don't have a comic poking fun at the UK here. I only had time to get to the most ''important'' US states.
:British person: Hey - At least we have free health care and real ale.

:'''Earthquake-Blizzard'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Boston", "Chicago", "Dallas", "Georgia", "Halifax", "Illinois", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Missouri", "the Northeast", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", 'Pennsylvania", "Philadelphia", "Texas", "Toronto", "Tennessee", "New York", "Wisconsin"}! That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..
:[Both people are trudging through a massive blizzard.]
:Danish: In pictures, snow always looked so nice and sof - ''AAAA! MY NECK! How do people live here?!''
:Cueball: Come on - it's only three more miles.

:'''Earthquake-Tornado'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Dallas", "Illinois", "The Midwest", "Missouri", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", "Tennessee", "Texas"}!
:Cueball: That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..
:[Both people are in a shelter in a prairie with a rapidly-approaching tornado.]
:Danish: AAAA CLOSE THE SHELTER DOOR!
:Cueball: Say the magic words...
:Danish: THIS PLACE IS THE WORST!
:Cueball: Thank you.

:'''Earthquake-Hurricane'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "D.C", "Florida", "Houston", "Miami", "New Jersey", "North Carolina", "South Carolina", "Virgina"}! That was huge!
:Cueball: That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..

:[Both are in the middle of a hurricane. Danish is grabbing onto a signpost to avoid being swept away.]
:Danish: AAAAA WHAT THE SHIIIIT!
:Cueball: Calm down - this is barely a category 2.

:'''Lake Diver Killer'''
:[TV Field Reporter in front of a cordoned-off lake.]
:Reporter: Police divers searching the bay say they have recovered the body of another victim of the "Lake Diver Killer."
:Reporter: During the search, three more divers were reported missing.

:'''Washington'''
:[The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.]
:In this Marble Prison As in the nightmares of the nation they tried to devour
:The nanobots that constituted Abraham Lincoln
:Are entombed forever.

:'''Alaska'''
:[A person with a gun chasing a helicopter on the back of a wolf in a snowy Alaskan field.]
:Some people hunt wolves from helicopters. I hunt helicopters from a wolf.

:'''Life in lab'''
:[Newspaper headline.]
:Scientists/UMass Amherst students/RIT students create life in lab
:[Caption under picture of scientists.]
:"The trick was fuckin'"

:'''American Revolution'''
:Robot Paul Revere: Remember: Zero if by land, One if by sea.

:'''MIT'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: I see their admission standards have been slipping.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''MIT Course 15c'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: I *knew* we shouldn't have picked course 15s.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''Smith/Wellesley'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of Smith/Wellesley students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: We should've gone with Wellesley/Smith.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''CNU'''
:[Person unsuspectingly strolls under a giant box trap controlled by a Trible.]
:I worry that CNU only invited me back as a ruse because they realized I never turned in my final paper and want my diploma back. But if it turns out it's for real, I'll see you Wednesday at the Ferguson!

:'''Dana Farber'''
:[Cueball, pointing towards head.]
:Cueball: Check it out - In support of people going through chemo, I shaved my head.
:Lots of love to everyone reading this at Dana Farber. Cancer sucks. If you are new to DCFI, there's a great little garden on the third floor of the yawkey if you need somewhere quiet to just sit for a little bit and breathe.

:'''Reviews'''
:Shopping before online reviews:
:[Cueball and Megan stand in a store. Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. There is another lamp on the table behind them.]
:Cueball: This lamp is pretty.
:Megan: And affordable.
:Cueball: Let's get it.
:Megan Ok!

:Shopping now:
:[Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. Megan looks at her phone.]
:Cueball: This lamp is pretty.
:Megan: It's got 1 1/2 stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand.

:[Cueball and Megan are now both looking at their phones.]
:Cueball: This one has good reviews.
:Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf.
:Cueball: Eek. What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus.

:[Cueball is still looking at his phone, Megan has hers at her side.]
:Cueball: Ok, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift.
:Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark.

==Trivia==
*Reddit user [http://www.reddit.com/user/SomePostMan SomePostMan] created a [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/t6wmh/all_umwelt_1037_comics_in_two_imgur_albums/ post] that collected all of the Umwelt comics and added explanations. Much of his information is now included in this wiki.

*The transcript section for this comic also included a note alluding to its extreme length:
: [ [Two people...] ] ((..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all this))
: [Two people standing next to each other. One is holding the head end of a snake...

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Penis]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]
[[Category:Puns]]

1612: Colds

2015-12-09T06:08:23Z

199.27.129.107: Removing inclomplete tag. Explanation looks good to me.

{{comic
| number = 1612
| date = December 4, 2015
| title = Colds
| image = colds.png
| titletext = The contagious period ends right around when you start to sound sick over the phone, which is probably evidence of cold viruses evolving to spread optimally in the workplace.
}}

==Explanation==
The typical symptoms of a {{w|Common cold|cold}} are a sore throat, blocked or runny nose, sneezing, coughing and headache. Slightly less common symptoms can include a headache, aching muscles and an unpleasant sensation of temperature.

The earlier symptoms to occur following infection are generally the more unpleasant-feeling symptoms: headache, aching muscles, sneezing and feeling cold. However, these symptoms are also those which are least obvious to other people, and so elicit very little {{w|sympathy}}.

Within a few days, these symptoms start to subside, while a cough and runny nose start. These symptoms generally feel less unpleasant, but are much more noticeable to others, and so more sympathy may be given. The cough may lead to a hoarse voice, making the patient sound very ill; ironically, at this point, it may be easier for an employed person to phone in sick, but it is less desirable to stay off work.

But it is now when the patient sounds hoarse that others give the {{w|sympathy}} that was really needed when the patient was feeling awful during the first couple of days. And to [[Randall]] this is the worst about colds, that the patients first gets sympathy when it is no longer really needed.

The graph shows the above mentioned facts as two curves, one that indicates how bad the sickness is, really bad on day 2, but much better already on day 3. And the other curve how bad it sounds due to the hoarseness and the coughing. And this curve first peaks around day 4-6 when the sympathy from it is no longer needed.

The symptoms of the two periods are listed below the curves indicating which periods are affected by them.

In the title text Randall muses about the fact that contagiousness ends around the time when hoarseness begins. This is the time when employers ask sick employees to stay at home in bed when they call in to the office, because they sound so hoarse. And also the time when coworkers will stay clear of those who do come in. But then it is too late, since everyone is probably already infected by then. Randall thus suggests that this is evidence that the cold virus has evolved to spread optimally in a work place. Since the cold virus is much older than offices this is unlikely. But it will always spread better in places where many people are close together; and since we are more inside in the winter, this is the main reason why it spreads more during cold periods. However, viruses do evolve very quickly so it may not be unlikely that some of them has already adapted to our present way of living.

==Transcript==
:[A graph is shown with two curves. The Y-axis indicated how you feel, with three levels indicated with small ticks on the inside of the axis. These are labeled to the left of the Y–axis. The X-axis gives the time. The unit is given (days written in gray text) to the left and then the number of days are noted below the axis for each of the eight ticks on the inside of the axis). Both curves begin at the lowest level just off the Y-axis. One curve, indicating how bad you feel, rises rapidly, reaching it's maximum in less than two days only to fall off almost as rapidly, ending up on an even lower level than it began with before day 5. The other curve, indicating how bad you sound, start out by staying constantly low, first rising on day 3, when the first curve are drooping down. They cross between day 3 and 4, and first then does the second curve rise, reaching its max around day 5, not as high a maximum as the first curve, but it stays up longer, falling only moderately off even after day 8, where it reaches the middle level on the Y-axis. Above the two curves are two line intervals that indicated when you need sympathy and when you get it. This text is written on the broken line. All this is in gray text. Below the X-axis are the symptoms listed for the different time period. These are written in white inside gray rectangles. The rectangles are a different length depending on how many days they last. And they are in two layers.]

:[Y-axis:]
:The worst
:Bad
:Fine

:[The X-axis, with the unit written in gray just below ''Fine'' from the Y-axis:]
:Days: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

:[Labels for curves:]
:How bad you feel
:How bad you sound

:[Gray text on the two gray lines above:]
:Need sympathy
:Get sympathy

:[Text in white on gray below, first the three to the left (one above two below), then the two to the right one above the other:]
:Skin crawling
:Sore throat
:Aching
:Cough
:Hoarseness

:The worst part about colds

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]

1614: Kites

2015-12-09T06:04:22Z

199.27.129.107: incomplete tag added

{{comic
| number = 1614
| date = December 9, 2015
| title = Kites
| image = kites.png
| titletext = [Dog returns with the end of a string in its mouth] [Voice drifts down from the sky] Kites are fun!
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete|Comic needs to be described and referenced with recurring themes (megan loving kites, beret guy's weirdness, etc.) even though it's simple instead of the current passive-aggressive comments. Title text is a master-stroke. :) }}

If you didn't get it right away, and had to read this explanation, I would recommend finding a small dog and trying to fly it like a kite. 

==Transcript==

{Megan and Beret Guy are flying kites.} 

Megan: I love kites. 

Beret Guy: Hey, Me too! 

Beret Guy: I'll go get mine, once I finish walking my dog! 

Beret Guy: C'mon boy! {and starts tugging on the string going into the sky} 

Dog: Arf, Arf, Arf! {comes down from the sky}

{Megan looks curiously as Beret Guy walks away with Dog and string}

1572: xkcd Survey

2015-11-29T09:09:25Z

199.27.129.107: Adding incomplete tag since we do not have results yet

{{comic
| number = 1572
| date = September 2, 2015
| title = xkcd Survey
| image = xkcd_survey.png
| titletext = The xkcd Survey: Big Data for a Big Planet
}}
*The comic links to [http://goo.gl/forms/B5RaBeZ6nw The xkcd survey] on Google.

{{incomplete|This comic cannot be complete until Randall releases the raw and/or analysed data. The analysis needs to be mentioned here. Until then, this comic needs to be marked incomplete.}}

==Explanation==
As the comic image states, it links to a survey created with [https://www.google.com/forms/about/ Google Forms], containing a series of questions. The questions range from mundane typical survey questions such as “Do you have any food allergies?”, to rather strange, such as “Fill this text box with random letters by randomly mashing keys on your keyboard.” (See [[1530: Keyboard Mash]]).

The stated goal of the survey is to “create an interesting and unusual data set for people to play with”. A strange data set is a ripe opportunity for a sampling of readers. It's also supposed to be “a search for weird correlations” – presumably the goal is to be able to say things like “people who have been skydiving are (more/less) likely than average to dislike cilantro”. (See also [[882: Significant]] about finding presumably-spurious correlations between unrelated data.)

This explanation will undoubtedly expand when the data comes in.

{{w|Image_map#Client-side_image_map|HTML image maps}} is a technique for marking up areas of an image on a web page, such that each area can be a link without the whole image being a link. [[Randall]] could have used this type of image map to make only the “Click here to take the survey” button be a link, and none of the rest of the image. But he cannot get the hang of it (or knowing his skills, does not wish to take the time to learn it). Not getting the hang of HTML image maps was also referenced on [http://imgs.xkcd.com/store/tour-news.png the banner for his book tour] from [http://web.archive.org/web/20140901023821/http://xkcd.com/ September 2014]

The title text is a joke off of {{w|Big Data}}, which is a name for analysis of a set of data that includes a huge amount of information. He also says "for a big planet" because the Earth is big.{{Citation needed}}

The survey is closed, and the questions replaced with the text: "The xkcd survey is now closed. Thank you for all your answers! Response data is being collected and will be posted soon." As of 26 November 2015, the same caption is still there, with no indication of exactly how soon the data is intended to be posted.

==The Survey==
The Survey started off with the following statement:

<nowiki>This is an anonymous survey. After it's done, a database of everyone's responses will be posted.
There's no specific reason for any of the questions. The goal is to create an interesting and unusual data set for people to play with. This is obviously not going to be a real random sample of people, but in the interest of getting cooler data, if you're sharing this with friends, try sending it to some people who wouldn't normally see this kind of thing!

WARNING: This survey is anonymous, but your answers WILL BE MADE PUBLIC. Depending what you write, it's possible that someone may be able to identify you by looking at your responses. None of these questions should ask about anything too private, but don't write anything that you don't want people to see. If you're not comfortable answering a question, just skip it.</nowiki>

'''Note:''' The order of the possible answers (the list of possibilities) was random, and changed every time the page is reloaded. So do not try to fix the order here below...

===Plane===
*Have you ever been in a plane?
**No
**Yes

===Skydiving===
*Have you ever been {{w|Parachuting|skydiving}}?
**No, but I might someday
**Yes
**No

===The Dress===
*When you first saw {{w|The dress (viral phenomenon)|The Dress}}, what color was it? — (Also see [[1492: Dress Color]] and the [[Blag]] ENTRY [http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ Color Survey Results]).
**White and gold
**A color combination not listed here
**I don't remember
**Blue and black
**What dress?

===Popular food===
*What's a really popular food that you don't like?
**''Text box''

===Floaters===
*When you look at a blue sky, do you see those swirly {{w|floater|floaters}} in your vision?
**Yes, constantly
**I'm not sure what things you mean
**Yes, occasionally
**No

===Running out of gas===
*Have you ever had a car run out of gas while you were driving it?
**Yes
**No

===Animals===
*Name the first five animals you can think of
**''Multi line text box''

===Weather===
*What's the weather like where you are right now?
**''Text box''

===Activities===
*Which of these can you do reasonably well?
*(Check all that apply)
**{{w|slam dunk|Dunk}} a basketball — A "slam dunk" or simply "dunk" is the act of jumping up and putting the ball through the net with a lot of force
**Tie a {{w|sheet bend}} or {{w|bowline}} — A sheet bend is a knot that joins two ropes together; A bowline is a knot used to form a fixed loop at the end of a rope
**Roller skate
**[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/high-heel-race/ Run in high heels]
**Drive a stick shift — See {{w|Manual transmission}} of a car
**Solve a {{w|Rubik's cube}}
**Dive headfirst off a diving board — See {{w|Springboard}} and {{w|Diving platform}}
**Ice skate
**{{w|Skateboarding|Skateboard}}
**Walk on {{w|stilts}} — Stilts are poles, posts or pillars used to allow a person to walk at a height above the ground
**Ski
**Cut vegetables with a knife
**Swim
**Ride a horse
**{{w|Unicycle}}
**Change the oil on a car
**Do a back {{w|Handspring (gymnastics)|handspring}} — A handspring is an exercise in gymnastics in which you jump through the air landing on your hands, then again landing on your feet
**Juggle — {{w|Toss juggling}} (the most recognizable form of juggling) consists in throwing objects into the air and catching them.

===Spelling===
*What word can you never seem to spell on the first try?
**''Text box''

===Condiments===
*Do you eat {{w|condiments}} directly out of the fridge as a snack?
**No
**Yes

===Thermostat===
*When you adjust a thermostat that was set by someone else, it's usually because you want the room to be...
**Cooler
**Warmer

===Clothing===
*What color is the shirt/dress/upper-body-clothing you're wearing right now, if any?
**''Text box''

===Colds===
*Do you get {{w|Common cold|colds}} often?
**No
**Yes

===Number===
*Pick a number from 1 to 100
**''Text box''

===Spelling===
*On a scale of 1 to 10, how good at spelling are you? (Note that the question does not specify which end of the scale is good or bad.)
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 10.''

===Myers-Briggs===
*Do you know your {{w|Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator|Myers-Briggs type}}?
**No
**Yes

===Astrology===
*Do you know your {{w|astrological sign}}?
**No
**Yes

===Siblings===
*How many older siblings do you have?
**''Text box''
*How many younger siblings do you have?
**''Text box''
*How many twin/etc siblings do you have?
**''Text box''

===Sleepiness===
*Do you feel sleepy a lot?
**Yes
**No

===Movie star===
*Name a movie star
**''Text box''

===Time in sun===
*Do you spend a lot of time in the sun?
**Yes
**No

===Broccoli===
*Does {{w|broccoli}} taste bitter to you?
**Yes
**No
**I've never had it

===Wakefulness===
*Do you regularly stay awake much later than you meant to?
**Yes
**No

===Keyboard mashing===
*Fill this text box with gibberish by mashing random keyboard keys (See [[1530: Keyboard Mash]]).
**''Broad multi-line text box''

===Driving===
*On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is terrible and 3 is average, how good a driver do you think you are?
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 5.''

===Allergies===
*Do you have any food allergies?
**No
**Yes

===Thunder===
*Have you heard thunder or seen lightning in the past year? — (The title-text of [[831: Weather Radar]] mentions the belief that thunderstorms seemed more common when one was a kid. Since the survey also asks for age this question is likely a test of that belief.)
**Yes
**No

===Flavor preference===
*Which do you prefer? (It seems to be missing the ''neither'' option...)
**Chocolate
**Vanilla

===Number (reprise)===
*Pick another number from 1 to 100 (Supposedly is should not be the same as in the first pick a number box).
**''Text box''

===Internet===
*When you think about stuff on the internet, where do you picture it being physically located? Even if you know it's not really how things work, is there a place you imagine websites and social media posts sitting before you look at them? If so, where is it?
**''Broad multi-line text box''

===Roll tongue===
*Can you {{w|Tongue rolling|roll your tongue}}?
**Yes
**No
**What?

===Toes===
*Can you pick things up with your toes?
**No
**Yes

===Age===
*How old are you?
**''Text box''

===Walls===
*What color are the walls around you right now?
**''Text box''

===Cell phone===
*What kind of cell phone do you have?
**{{w|iPhone}}
**{{w|Android (operating system)|Android}}
**Other smartphone
**Non-smartphone
**I don't have a cell phone

===Eating===
*What's the last thing you ate?
**''Text box''

===Difficult words===
*Which of these words do you know the meaning of?
*Some of these words don’t appear in any of the following dictionaries: the Oxford English Dictionary, the New Oxford American Dictionary, Wiktionary, or Dictionary.com. These words were probably made up by Randall. Perhaps the goal is to make people feel like they have a weak vocabulary because they don’t know many of the words, until they try look up the meanings and realize they have been tricked.
*More likely, the inclusion of fictitious words is a validity check. Hidden tests of the validity of responses is a part of good questionnaire design. For example, long lists of questions with "Agree-Disagree" responses will often have one or more items which are "reverse-coded" (phrased in a direction opposite to the rest of the questions): if a respondent provides a response which contradicts the pattern presented by the rest of the responses, this casts doubt on the validity of the other responses - suggesting that the respondent is not actually reading the questions properly. In the instance of Randall's survey, claiming to know the meaning of fictitious words would cast doubt on the respondent's claims of a knowing the meaning of the other words in the list.
*In addition, these false claims by respondents may themselves then be used as a source of data: for example, an analysis of the data could find that males (and/or skydivers) are more likely than females to over-represent their actual level of knowledge.
*[http://dictionary.reference.com/ Dictionary.com] has an index of difficulty (measured in pixels, with class name <code>difficulty-indicator</code>). We add it at the right of the words that have it. N/A means that a word isn't present in Dictionary.com, or that it doesn't have an index.
**Slickle – Not in any standard dictionary. However, it [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Slickle is in] the crowd-sourced in Urban Dictionary, as well as a suggested planet name in [[1253: Exoplanet Names]]
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rife Rife] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rife 117]
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/soliloquy Soliloquy] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/soliloquy 150]
**Fination – not in any dictionary. Appears infrequently in Victorian texts (e.g., [http://books.google.com/books?id=ghNOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA245&dq=Fination 1889], [http://books.google.com/books?id=nwlCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA214&dq=Fination 1839])
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stipple Stipple] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stipple 144]
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/peristeronic Peristeronic] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/peristeronic N/A]. Randall used it and defined it for readers in [[798: Adjectives]].
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/modicum Modicum] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/modicum 120]
**Trephony – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete spelling of "{{w|Trephine}}" (especially when used as a verb for the process of {{w|Trepanning|trephination}}). Initially a transliteration of Greek [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=tru/panon τρυπάω] for the same.
**Tribution – A regular construction from [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tribute#Verb Tribute (verb)] using "-tion" to transform into a noun. Using this regular formation, the term would mean the act of tribute, but no examples of actual use are available. It is worth noting that the use of "tribute" as a verb is generally considered obsolete and the few forms that persist in use relate primarily to the tributary and distibutary river systems
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/phoropter Phoropter] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/phoropter N/A] 1.An instrument used in eye examinations to determine an individual's prescription, the patient looking through various lenses at a chart on the other side.
**Unitory – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete spelling of "Unitary," chiefly British. While long obsolete in normal usage, it persisted longer in mathematics that it did elsewhere (particularly for "Unitory Method" and "Unitory Matrixes"). Example of use: [https://books.google.com/books?id=Wl1BAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA5-PA27&lpg=RA5-PA27&dq=unitory+method&source=bl&ots=rfRKJXAJqV&sig=Wsr_gV7xG6Airah9Lx1M0hi-7Zc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBmoVChMInd_R9qTbxwIVChU-Ch36IAh_#v=onepage&q=unitory%20method&f=false (1)]
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amiable Amiable] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/amiable 123]
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/salient Salient] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/salient 69]
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/regolith Regolith] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/regolith 162]
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lithe Lithe] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lithe 105]
**Revergent – technical word from {{w|fern}} biology, referring to the edges of fern leaves which curl back on themselves (see [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00985044 Schölch, 2000])
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hubris Hubris] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hubris 117]
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fleek Fleek] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fleek N/A]
**Cadine – A rare loan-word for [https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/cadine a sultan's wife or a noble ottoman woman] which comes to English through the French. Examples of Use: [https://books.google.com/books?id=4yz-Y-_OOO0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=cadine&f=false (1)]. Also the name of an [https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadine italian city].
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apricity Apricity] – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete word for the sun's heat in winter (e.g., [http://books.google.com/books?id=CFBGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT76&dq=apricity Bailey 1775]). According to the What If? book (page 80), this is Randall's single favourite word in the English language.

===cat===
*Please type "cat" here:
**''Text box''

===Dreams===
*Do you usually remember your dreams?
**No
**Yes

===Text editors===
*Do you have strong opinions about text editors? (See {{w|Editor war}})
**Yes
**No

===Emoji===
*How do you feel about {{w|emoji}}?
**Negative 😠 (Unicode 1f620 - Angry face)
**Positive 😊 (Unicode 263a - Smiling face)
**Neutral 😐 (Unicode 1F610 - Neutral face)

===Snow===
*Does it ever snow where you live?
**No
**Yes

===Taste of food===
*Do you strongly dislike the taste or texture of any of these things?
**Eggs
**Chocolate ice cream
**Beer
**White wine
**{{w|Carbonation}} (or Fizz)
**Red wine
**{{w|Cilantro}}
**Coffee
**Tomatoes
**Yogurt

===Beverages===
*Which of these do you regularly drink?
**Caffeinated soda (e.g. Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper)
**Noncaffeinated soda
**Coffee
**Fruit juice
**Milk
**Beer
**Wine
**Tea
**{{w|Maple syrup}}
**Water

===Random words===
*Type five random words
**''Broad multi-line text box''

===Flying===
*Are you nervous about flying?
**Yes
**No
**A little

===Favorite number===
*On a scale of 1 to 5, which number is your favorite?
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 5.''

===Sandwich===
*Which of these would you consider a {{w|sandwich}}?
*(Check all that apply)
**{{w|Taco}}
**{{w|Quesadilla}}
**{{w|Submarine sandwich|Sub/Hoagie}}
**{{w|Cheesesteak}}
**{{w|Hamburger}}
**{{w|Open-faced sandwich}}
**{{w|Calzone}}

===Animal affinity===
*Which of these describes you?
*(Check all that apply)
**Dog person
**Cat person
**Half-cat half-person
**Part of a subterranean race of dog people
**Literally named "Catherine Person"

===Sense of direction===
*Would you say you have a good sense of direction?
**Yes
**No

===Socks or underwear===
*Have you ever thrown out all your different pairs of socks/underwear, bought a bunch of replacements that were all one kind, and then told all your friends how great it was and how they should do it too?
**Yes
**No
**I did the throwing out thing, but didn't talk to everyone about it
**No, but I'm totally doing that now

==Transcript==
:[A simple comic with text only. The ''click here'' part is inside a black frame.]
:Introducing
:'''The xkcd Survey'''
:A search for weird correlations
:Note: This survey is anonymous, but
: all responses will be posted publicly 
:so people can play with the data.
:'''Click here to'''
:'''take the survey'''
:Or click here, or here.
:The whole comic is a link,
:because I still haven't gotten
:the hang of HTML imagemaps.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]

1608: Hoverboard

2015-11-25T07:42:14Z

199.27.129.107: /* Areas */

{{comic
| number = 1608
| date = November 24, 2015
| title = Hoverboard
| image = hoverboard.png
| titletext = Return to the play area
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|It's possible not all of the game's secrets have been unearthed yet.}}
The comic features a game made to celebrate the release of Randall's his new book, "Thing Explainer". The game was made by [http://chromakode.com Max Goodman] who has previously worked on [[1416: Pixels]]. The source code for the game (in a obfuscated form) can be found [https://xkcd.com/1608/tigl.min.js here]. The game features [[Cueball]] on a hover board in an arena filled with coins, initially it appears the aim of the game is to collect all the coins. However, a seemingly intentional bug in the game means that the player can jump and keep jumping forever without needing to land (As is usual for platform games like these). This allows the character to go out of bounds of the "Play Area" prompting multiple warnings insisting the player returns to said "Play Area". Exiting this area reveals a hidden world similar in style to the previous comic [[1110: Click and Drag]], which can be explored by navigating through various obstacles and hidden areas.

There are 17 coins in the "Play Area" and a grand total of 169 in the entire game.

Escaping from the starting area is quite simple, the character simply has to navigate through one of the multiple holes in the area and them simply jump over the wall on the left or the right of the starting area, this can be done by repeatedly tapping the jump key. The player can then explore. The game is physically bounded in the left and the right direction, but is technically unbounded upwards and downwards, however, past a certain point there appears to be nothing interesting in the up or down direction. It could be possible that some unexplored hole leads deeper into the map than has been found so far, it is also possible that jumping for a considerable amount of time would allow the player to reach some additional content above the map.

As previously noted, the comic bears considerable resembelance to [[1110: Click and Drag]]. The comic is made in much the same way, with 'drawn' images "glued" together to form a large "map", with the illusion of infinite bounds made possible through space saving techniques where blank tiles are not stored and are instead painted white. The boundary between blank squares and 'drawn' squares is made clear as any white space in the normal images has a very slight grey tint. Thus, seams between images and blank spaces can be discerned.

The tiles for the map are stored as simple PNG files in the naming scheme: X:Y+s.png. An example can be seen here: http://xkcd.com/1608/1013:-1096+s.png Each file is 513x513 pixels in size, one pixel is reserved as overlap to ensure seamless joining of images.
So far, through experimentation, tiles in the range 928 to 1108 X and -1112 to -928 Y have been discovered, internally, the position of the player is divided by 512 and rounded down to give the position of the tile.

===Areas===
There are many different areas beyond the initial starting area, exploration has found so far:

Notable features include a number of large ships in the sky, with various interiors which can be entered from several places. To find them, follow the strings which several characters are holding near the first ground area.

West:
Washington Monument -
Parachuting spacecraft -
Volcano -
Lava pools -
LOTR Eagles -
Elon Musk's Volcano Lair -
Landing re-entry capsule -
Giant spaceship / Floating rock island in the sky (x: 507163, y: -567537)
Hat underground
A hole which traps(?) the player unless noclip mode is used

East:
Wedding -
Giant bird nest -
Desert -
Ocean Yelper -
Graveyard -
Talking Rogue Wave -
People holding anchor lines to a Star Destroyer, among other ships.
Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems (inside ship, go down a shaft from the surface.)

[http://codepen.io/KyleDavidE/full/605dc87b614ff6b2bd716f4c6f640203/ Quickly hacked overview] - courtesy of [https://www.reddit.com/user/kyledavide kyledavide] on [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxbyn86 reddit].

===Controls===
The controls are as follows:

* '''Go Left''' - Left arrow key, a or h
* '''Go Right''' - Right arrow key, d or l
* '''Go Up (jump or hover)''' - Up arrow key, w, or k

Through inspection of the game's source code, it can be derived that down, j and s are also accepted keystrokes, but it is unclear if the game actually uses these or not.

This control scheme covers the three commonly used directional key sets: WASD a set of keys commonly used by modern games; HJKL a set of movement keys used by vi and applications which attempt to mimic vi key controls (vim); and the arrow keys, the most generic set of keys which is usually accepted by most applications which take movement as input, these were commonly used in older games.

On a tablet (e.g. iPad) changing the orientation of the tablet will control the left and right motion, while tapping the image produced jumps.

===Cheats and Exploits===
Aside from the obvious ability to move out of bounds in the game, there are some more obscure hidden features which can't be enabled through normal gameplay, the ones found so far are as follows:

'''Modes''' are activated by opening the Javascript Console (F12 to open Developer Tools, then Console tab) and writing corresponding commands:

* '''Gandalf Mode: ''' ''window.i.am.gandalf = true'' - jumps and runs further
* '''Speedhack: ''' ''explorer.opts.speed= *Value*'' - Speed hacking, with 1 = normal speed
* '''Jump Hack: ''' '' explorer.opts.jumpForce= -*Value*'' - Jump hacking, with -1 = normal jump (positive values cause the hoverboard guy to move down when jumping)
* '''Mewtwo mode: ''' ''window.mewtwo = true'' - disables gravity
* '''Noclip mode: ''' ''window.noclip = true'' - player is able to move around the map without collision. Combine with Gandalf and Mewtwo modes for free easy map traversal.
* '''Goggles mode: ''' ''window.ze.goggles()'' - displays a small window showing area around the player in a pixelated manner
* '''Position Tracking: ''' ''window.explorer.pos'' - Returns the player location to the console. Can be used to track position and test to ensure you are still moving. Must be re-entered to compare positioning.
* '''Position Setting: ''' ''window.explorer.pos.x = *Value* or window.explorer.pos.y = *Value*'' - Can be used to manually set a position within the world. The start is at x: 512106, y: -549612. The left terrain bound is at x: 475210, y: -553711. The right terrain bound is at x: 567281, y: -549712. Mewtwo and Noclip modes are a must for exploring in this way.
* '''All the above: ''' ''window.explorer.opts'' - Contains all the game's parameters. You can directly mess with ''gravity'', collision (''disableCollision''), jump force (''jumpForce'') and speed (''maxSpeed''), among others. Run ''Object.keys(window.explorer.opts)'' to list all available parameters you can tweak.
* '''List all coins: ''' ''window.explorer.objects'' - Array containing the position of the 169 coins of the game.
* ""Disable tilt input:"" "getEventListeners(window)['deviceorientation'][0].remove()" - on Macs with motion sensor, disables tilt input which causes problems controlling the avatar

'''Getting All Coins: ''' To instantly get all coins, input the below into the console window. Does not use standard formatting of [i] to avoid conflicts with window.i.am.gandalf

for (var T = 0; T < explorer.objects.length; T++) {
explorer.objects[T].got = true
}

To teleport to the next coin every time you press the left or right arrow:

var T = 0;
document.onkeydown = function(event){
if (event.keyCode == 37) { T = T-1 }
else if (event.keyCode == 39) { T = T+1 }
else { return }
T = T % explorer.objects.length;
var coin = explorer.objects[T];
explorer.pos.x = coin.x1; explorer.pos.y = coin.y1;
}

For a quick tour of all the coins:

var delayInMilliseconds = 1000; // 1 second delay between each teleport. feel free to change this.
var index = 0;
explorer.objects.forEach(function(x){
setTimeout(function(){
explorer.pos.x = x.x1;
explorer.pos.y = x.y1;
x.got = true;
explorer.frame(); // forces a redraw
},
(index + 1) * delayInMilliseconds);
index++;
});

To see a list of coin coordinates you have not yet collected:

var L = 0;
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {
var I = explorer.objects[S];
if (I.got) {
L++;
} else {
console.log(I.x1.toString() + ", " + I.y1.toString());
}
}
console.log("You've found " + L.toString() + " of 169 coins");

===Functionality===
By observing page code while playing, the game grabs and displays images based on location, and subsequently clears all non-visible images. The game uses what seems to be a position syntax to retrieve the intended images live, and returns an error if such an image does not exist, such as a blank area. This technically means things could be added to the world and updated live. If the player is moving sufficiently fast or if the internet connection is slow, this means that the player can get stuck in a black area that does not load in time.

This also means that the game does not have coded top or bottom limits, so any attempt to find the ''ceiling'' of the game will be futile unless the game is tweaked. The game does however have side limits.

When you deposit a certain number of coins, you will get one of the following messages:
* 0 coins : You got 0 coins in (n) seconds/ You successfully avoided all the coins.
* 1 coin : You got a single coin in (n) seconds/ It's a start.
* 2-4 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Not bad!
* 5-9 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Terrific!
* 17 coins : You got 17 coins in (n) seconds/ You found all the coins! Great job!
* 42 coins : You got 42 coins in (n) seconds/ No answers here.
* 169 coins : You got 169 coins in (n) seconds/ Are you Gandalf?
* All others: You got (n) coins in (n) seconds

Opening the console will display the text: what? hoverboard not enough for you!? in the log. Activating goggles mode will cause the text 'B-)' to appear in the log.

Leaving the play area will cause the red text 'RETURN TO THE PLAY AREA' to rapidly blink 3 times (150 msec duration), followed by a pause, and this will repeat 5 times for a total of 15 blinks. This will also reoccur if the player passes through the play area on their way back from exploring one side.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete|Something similar to 1110: [[Click and Drag]]}}
The game features Cueball on a hoverboard in a simple map. On the map are coins which Cueball has to collect.
It appears Cueball can jump multiple times without needing to land, this means that Cueball is able to escape the designated "Play Area".
This prompts a warning which soon disappears allowing Cueball to discover the world.

[THIS ONLY COVERS THE PERMANENT TEXT, NOT THE DIFFERENT WIN STATES] 
MY NEW BOOK 
''THE THINGS EXPLAINER'', 
COMES OUT TODAY! 

TO CELEBRATE, HERE'S 
A SMALL GAME. 

[TO THE SIDE, BELOW AN ARROW] 
DEPOSIT COINS HERE 
{{comic discussion}}

643: Ohm

2015-11-18T23:32:51Z

199.27.129.107: added incomplete tag due to general messiness

{{comic
| number = 643
| date = September 30, 2009
| title = Ohm
| image = ohm.png
| titletext = More generally, with great power comes great dEnergy/dt
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This explanation is very messy. Punctuation is all over the place, capitalization is very strange, and much of it is redundant, especially with the two subheadings. I'd fix it, but I don't understand anything about electricity or Ohm's law, so I'm worried I'd screw it up further.}}

This comic deliberately conflates the origin story of the comic-book superhero of Spider-Man with the origin of {{w|Ohm's law}}, as both the origin story of spider-man and Ohm's law deal with power, though the power is of different types.

In Spider-man Peter Parker (who would become Spider-man) is advised by his father figure, his Uncle, that "with great power comes great responsibility," where power is defined as the capacity to take action. Not following this advice later leads to his Uncle's death. In contrast, in the XKCD comic Ohm's law is delivered to {{w|Georg Ohm}} in the form of relating current and resistance to power in the unit of (in {{w|Watt}}s), where power is defined as energy per unit time.

The humor lies in the improbability of this scenario, the comparison with Spider-man, as well as the play on the different definitions of power

The title text defines power in terms of a simple {{w|differential equation}}. Read literally it says that with great power comes a great absorption of energy (dE) per unit time (1/dt), but taken as a definition it says that "power = energy per unit time". In many engineering and physics books the equations are provided in algebraic form as well as differential form as the differential form is more adaptable to special cases, and therefore more general.

===Spiderman===
The uncle's advice references the origin story of the comic-book superhero Spider-Man. In various versions of Spider-Man's origin story, a teenage Peter Parker is brought up by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. Uncle Ben cautions Peter that "with great power comes great responsibility," referring to "power" as "capacity to take action". Through an incident involving a spider and some cutting-edge technology, Peter Parker acquires spider-like powers — great strength and the ability to adhere to walls and ceilings. Parker fails to use his new powers to stop a criminal, who then mugs and fatally shoots Uncle Ben. This failure to save his uncle haunts Parker and drives him to use his new powers for heroic purposes. Visually, this comic looks like the dying Uncle Ben counseling his nephew to use his power responsibly.

===Georg Ohm and Ohm's Law===
The unit, Ohm, is named for physicist {{w|Georg Ohm}} who determined experimentally that (within a reasonable range of values) a given resistor would pass double the current when the electrical pressure ({{w|voltage}}) was also doubled. Current flowing through a resistor dissipates power, mostly in the form of heat or light.

This relationship is summarized by {{w|Ohm's law}}:
:Current = Voltage / Resistance (I=V/R)
:Voltage = Current x Resistance (V=IR)
:Resistance = Voltage / Current (R=V/I)

{{w|Atomic power}} is defined as:
:Power = Current x Voltage (P=IV - {{w|Joule heating|Joule's first law}})
:or by replacing "Voltage" with "(Current x Resistance)" (from Ohm's law):
:Power = Current x (Current x Resistance) = Current² x Resistance

==Transcript==
:[Ohm is holding his uncle by the shoulders.]
:Uncle: Remember: With great power comes great current squared times resistance.
:Ohm never forgot his dying uncle's advice.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Math]]

Talk:1597: Git

2015-11-02T18:46:03Z

199.27.129.107: cmdline sucks, but underlying architecture is great.

If someone is interested, the best book I've read on it is [http://www.git-scm.com/book/en/v2 Pro Git]. The chapters 2 and 3 explain pretty well this mess of branching and merging. But it's true that it takes a bit of patience to go over it all. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.228.35|108.162.228.35]] 08:47, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Also take a look at [http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/ GitFlow: A Successful Git Branching Model]. Though Randall is correct there usually comes a time when it is easier to give up and "start again". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.147|162.158.34.147]] 08:53, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I never liked the name of this piece of software; in British English, the name "git" is mildly rude :-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(slang) . [[User:Gearoid|Gearóid]] ([[User talk:Gearoid|talk]]) 09:20, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
:According to word of god it was on purpose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(software)#History [[Special:Contributions/162.158.22.46|162.158.22.46]] 11:41, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

'Internally, Git works by saving the differences between various versions of the files, rather than creating a new copy each time the user "commits" the current version of the code.' - It is exactly the opposite. It stores whole files, or rather all committed pieces of data (blobs). See http://gitready.com/beginner/2009/02/17/how-git-stores-your-data.html [[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.202|141.101.88.202]] 09:38, 30 October 2015 (UTC)TK

: It is stored as diffs in pack file. Whole file (loose object) are packed automatically by default.
:
: See https://schacon.github.io/gitbook/7_the_packfile.html and https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-pack-objects.html

I think you guys need to differentiate between the underlying data scheme, and the command line. The way git stores underlying data is indeed beautiful, but the command-line is the worst UI ever. You know how you switch to working on a different branch? "git checkout". You know how you revert the changes you've made to a file? "git checkout". You know how you make a new branch? "git checkout -b". If you're used to other systems, you'll find nearly every operations - even common ones - counterintuitively named. I work at Google and even here, every week someone near me screws up their respository enough that they have to save their work, nuke their repo, reapply their changes, and try moving forward again. I don't know why anyone puts up with this! (Actually I do - it's because if you're collaborating between companies, git does it better than anything else.) [[Special:Contributions/199.27.129.107|199.27.129.107]] 18:46, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.177.59|162.158.177.59]] 10:15, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

::Not sure what pack files are used for, but data is stored as is and named by the SHA-1 of its contents. See [https://schacon.github.io/gitbook/1_the_git_object_model.html object model] in the same reference. [[User:Walenc|Walenc]] ([[User talk:Walenc|talk]]) 16:02, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I feel like this article should end with a quick guide to git commands. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.27}}

Well, I feel this article focuses on explaning git too much that it loses the point of the joke. We have Wikipedia to refer readers to ... The thing is, not just users who are unable to use git beyond a few basic commands, but also those who understand git often use some sort of "start over" method because an action looking perfectly legit got the repository into unusable state, where recovery is much more difficult than reapplying patches. For one of the most common, search for "detached head", for example - especially funny when git insists on falling into that state after checking out master which is in direct contradiction to what docs say when it happens. But I don't feel like rewriting that, sorry :-/ --kavol, [[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.206|141.101.96.206]] 16:04, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I feel you've all been nerd-sniped. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.8|108.162.216.8]] 19:33, 30 October 2015 (UTC)Pat

The problem is not about the working copy and about the branching tree structure and some git internals that is quite confusing.
This 4 years old reddit post can be used as a funny reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/embdf/git_complicated_of_course_not_commits_map_to/

http://tartley.com/?p=1267
"One of the things that tripped me up as a novice user was the way Git handles branches. Unlike more primitive version control systems, git repositories are not linear, they support branching, and are thus best visualised as trees, upon the nodes of which your current commit may add new leaf nodes. To visualise this, it’s simplest to think of the state of your repository as a point in a high-dimensional ‘code-space’, in which branches are represented as n-dimensional membranes, mapping the spatial loci of successive commits onto the projected manifold of each cloned repository." {{unsigned ip|108.162.210.212}}

Should someone mention how git is by default used through a terminal - which is often more confusing than a GUI for most people - and that while there are graphical shells for git, some people refuse to use them because they're not fully-featured? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.36|108.162.221.36]] 11:43, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Shit. I use git for almost a year and I delete my repos more often than I'd like to admit. I'm going to read [https://www.git-scm.com/book/en/v2] and (hopefully) fix this once and for all. [[User:Kripmo|Kripmo]] ([[User talk:Kripmo|talk]]) 02:04, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
:It was way easier than I thought. This is what I needed: git reset --hard <commit before fuck up>. Its alias will be fu. [[User:Kripmo|Kripmo]] ([[User talk:Kripmo|talk]]) 08:10, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

The really sad part of all this is that if you work in a multi-dev environment and anyone on the team is doing what Cueball suggests, it negates every other user's ability to use the main trunk properly. [[User:Ericm301|Ericm301]] ([[User talk:Ericm301|talk]]) 02:26, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Hasn't it got too extensive about git? I've never used git but quite understood the comedy. I just visited this page to know about git.txt and there's nothing about it but just long text that doesn't help whatsoever to understand the comic. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.84.125|141.101.84.125]] 08:45, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

:I agree completely! I've stripped out the overlong discussion of git's features. --[[User:Slashme|Slashme]] ([[User talk:Slashme|talk]]) 00:12, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

AFAIK, the git.txt is not the part of the Git itself. I just added it to explanation. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.231|162.158.114.231]] 20:21, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

:"This comic is a play on how git, a popular version control system, is misused by people who have a very poor understanding of its inner workings."

Comically missing the point. That is NOT what the comic is about, that is a poor excuse from a fanboy. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.159|162.158.90.159]] 12:00, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
: I agree the verbose "explanation" misses the point. The reality is that git is a confusing mess from a user's point of view. It's a very nice and powerful design from a technical point of view yet one that will mostly confuse anyone who encounters it at first; most people are afraid of admitting it because they don't want to look dumb. There's beauty in a design that is user-friendly at its core, and git misses that mark. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 17:38, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

: The same can be said of Linux. It seems to be a common theme in Linus Torvalds' work. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.163|108.162.249.163]] 23:52, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

In pretty much every team I've worked I found there ends up being one "git expert" that raises above the rest and people continuously go see that person with "I don't know how to do X", to which the expert will often reply with a magic unheard-of-before git command line that looks pretty much like perl line noise. [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 17:38, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

In what world are telephones not an electronic mean of communication ? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.75.245|141.101.75.245]] 10:56, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

ExplainXKCD is usually amazing, but the explanation above is really "comically missing the point".

:Git has a very cool distributed architecture, but the user experience is much more complex than other revision control systems. TFS and subversion can be taught to junior developers in about 20 minutes, but it takes much longer to learn how to use Git’s basic features. It is very easy for Git to become deadlocked, which requires some obscure commands to fix. Unless you are an expert at Git, it is sometimes easier to delete your project and try again.

:There are things that Git does that other RCS don’t do. (I am not entirely sure what they are, to be totally honest. When the question is asked, the responses usually just talk about the architecture.) Git experts tend to like that the software is more powerful than other RCS systems, and some tend to be dismissive of how difficult other people find it to use. Many people (such as myself and Cueball) find the architecture cool, but are not Git experts.

:So this is the joke. There is a conflict between how experts typically TALK about Git, and how most users actually USE Git. The humor comes from having a character say things that many people think, but wouldn’t say out loud for fear of looking stupid.

Would it be worth polishing the above and adding it to the description, or would that just be flamebait?
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.86|108.162.246.86]] 16:08, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

1598: Salvage

2015-11-02T16:34:38Z

199.27.129.107: /* Explanation */ added incomplete tag due to lack of rice explanation

{{comic
| number = 1598
| date = November 2, 2015
| title = Salvage
| image = salvage.png
| titletext = My hobby: Taking advantage of the rice myth by posting articles on "how to save your wet phone" which are actually just elaborate recipes for rice pilaf.
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete|What is the "rice method" of saving electronics? That's why I came here, but no one seems to have mentioned it.}}

The {{w|RMS Titanic|RMS ''Titanic''}} was a large ocean liner which, when it was completed in 1912, was the largest ship afloat. The ship famously hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank, killing two-thirds of its compliment (approximately 1,500 people) in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters ever.

As it sank, the ''Titanic'' broke into two pieces. The ship was lost for decades until the wreck site was discovered in 1985. A number of proposals have been made to salvage the wreck of the ''Titanic'' both before and since the wreck's discovery. The general consensus at this time is that the wreck is too fragile to be salvaged intact. Numerous expeditions have been made to the wreck site since its discovery, with several parties (without any outside authorization) taking various artifacts from the site. A popular view is that the wreck is effectively a mass grave and that plundering the site for profitable artifacts is akin to grave-robbing. Most believe the wreck should be left where it is, intact. That said, explorers have already done notable damage to the wreck.

This comic shows a fictional attempt to salvage the two main pieces of the ''Titanic'' wreck, which, as it likely would in real life, garners media coverage as a 'historic salvage'. The salvage seems to consist of several ships raising the hull via cables attacked to some sort of buoyant sled placed under the hull (as might actually happen). This is followed by even more helicopters carrying the hull in unison, again via cables to the cradle (a much less practical operation). The hull halves are then dropped into a giant tub of rice. The entire salvage attempt is increasingly cartoonish and unrealistic, but the tub of rice takes this to another level.

The punchline to the comic references a popularly disseminated method of salvaging consumer electronics (usually cell phones) which have been submerged in water. This suggests that the wreck of the Titanic would benefit from being dried as quickly as possible - something that might not be of any benefit to a large ocean wreck.

Surviving non-metalic material on board the ship may not benefit at all from drying. Far more ancient shipwrecks are best preserved by keeping the recovered timbers ''wet'' (but progressively desalinated, where applicable), cool and as anoxic, at least while conserving chemicals such as {{w|Polyethylene glycol}} are infused into the wood to allow safe and gradual drying without causing further damage. Leather, cloth and other organic remains may have variations on this regime.

Thus the rice might benefit an electronic device briefly exposed to water, but not likely to ultimately benefit a ship that has been immersed for over a century, where the interest is in more than merely stabilising the remaining metal hull and infrastructure.

This comic may play on the dual meaning of the word "salvage" in respect of electronics and maritime wrecks.

The title text indicates that Randall considers the 'rice' method of electronic salvage to be a myth. There are numerous online discussions of the technique with mixed levels of success. Critically, where rice is tested against other methods, rice appears to perform worse than other methods. Controlled experiments on this topic tend to show that silica gel (aka "Do Not Eat" packets) is the most effective drying agent, with mixed results for rice.<ref>[http://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2013/november/researchshowsriceistheanswerforawetmobile.php Research Shows Rice is the Answer for a Wet Mobile]</ref><ref>[http://smartphones.wonderhowto.com/how-to/myth-debunked-uncooked-rice-isnt-best-way-save-your-water-damaged-phone-0154799/ Myth Debunked: Uncooked Rice Isn't the Best Way to Save Your Water-Damaged Phone]</ref>

==Transcript==
:[Megan is shown standing at the rail of a ship with a microphone reporting the event shown in the background. A small helicopter and a larger two rotor model, lowering a rope with hook, are hovering over a crane ship with it's hook down line going down in the water. It is depicted like a new screen as seen on TV. Below Megan are two headings. The first in a white insert with double frame, and the other written in white over the gray ocean water.]
:Historic Salvage
:Live

:[Four crane ships are shown lifting the bow part of the RMS Titanic. There are pontoons beneath the ship to help it float up. The name of the ship can be seen.]
:RMS Titanic

:[Both parts of the Titanic are now flown by helicopters, four for the stern and five for the bow. One helicopter for each part is a two rotor model. Ropes go from the helicopters down on each side of the ship parts to pontoons below them. Below in the ocean there are two crane ships.]

:[The two parts of the ship is now lowered in to a huge bowl of rice (labeled) standing at the coast just out of the ocean, which can be seen to the left. One of the five helicopters for the bow is missing. For scale there are drawn two trees to the left, and something is parked to the right, maybe a truck.]
:Rice

<references/>

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]