explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3262: Sports Commentary

2026-06-23T04:41:56Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3262
| date = June 22, 2026
| title = Sports Commentary
| image = sports_commentary_2x.png
| imagesize = 251x374px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The plural of anecdote may not be data, but the singular of data is anecdote.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created at a statistically insignificant time. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

{{w|''P''-hacking}} is the academically problematic practice of attempting to come up with a question for which the data offers a significant ''p''-value (probability value), as opposed to correct scientific analysis in which a question is formulated clearly and then answered with data. A common way of doing ''p''-hacking is analyzing subgroups to attempt to find significance when the full dataset does not yield statistically significant results; for instance, restricting the analysis of medical data to male subjects to derive a significant ''p''-value when including female subjects would make the ''p''-value insignificant, when the scientific question is largely gender-independent. Sports commentators do a form of ''p''-hacking in which they cite a fact that's made to sound more significant by restricting the situations it applies to. Randall satirizes this with an example in which the restriction uses very specific criteria largely irrelevant to gameplay patterns in order to narrow down the subgroup sample size to a measly two games. Obviously the 0-2 record reflects random noise much more than any significant insight.

This comic was published 11 days into the {{w|2026 FIFA World Cup}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Cueball and Ponytail are sitting at a table. On the wall behind them is a screen showing a soccer field with some unreadable score information above it.]
:Cueball: They could be in trouble. Over the last 36 years, they've gone 0 for 2 when they've scored in the 37th minute to lead 2-1 against a team whose country comes before theirs alphabetically.
:[Caption below comic:]
:I wish sports commentators hadn't discovered p-hacking.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Soccer]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

3262: Sports Commentary

2026-06-23T04:38:54Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

3262: Sports Commentary

2026-06-23T04:37:19Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3262
| date = June 22, 2026
| title = Sports Commentary
| image = sports_commentary_2x.png
| imagesize = 251x374px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The plural of anecdote may not be data, but the singular of data is anecdote.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created at a statistically insignificant time. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

{{w|''P''-hacking}} is the academically problematic practice of attempting to come up with a question for which the data offers a significant ''p''-value (probability value), as opposed to correct scientific analysis in which a question is formulated clearly and then answered with data. A common way of doing ''p''-hacking is analyzing subgroups to attempt to find significance when the full dataset does not yield statistically significant results; for instance, restricting the analysis of medical data to male subjects to derive a significant ''p''-value when including female subjects would make the ''p''-value insignificant, when the scientific question is largely gender-independent. Sports commentators do a form of ''p''-hacking in which they cite a fact that's made to sound more significant by restricting the situations it applies to. Randall satirizes this with an example in which the restriction uses very specific criteria largely irrelevant to gameplay patterns in order to narrow down the subgroup sample size to a measly two games. Obviously the 0-2 record reflects random noise much more than any significant insight.

This comic was published 11 days into the {{w|2026 FIFA World Cup}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Cueball and Ponytail are sitting at a table. On the wall behind them is a screen showing a soccer field with some unreadable score information above it.]
:Cueball: They could be in trouble. Over the last 36 years, they've gone 0 for 2 when they've scored in the 37th minute to lead 2-1 against a team whose country comes before theirs alphabetically.
:[Caption below comic:]
:I wish sports commentators hadn't discovered P-hacking.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Soccer]]

3262: Sports Commentary

2026-06-23T04:36:26Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3262
| date = June 22, 2026
| title = Sports Commentary
| image = sports_commentary_2x.png
| imagesize = 251x374px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The plural of anecdote may not be data, but the singular of data is anecdote.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created at a statistically insignificant time. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

P-Hacking is the academically problematic practice of attempting to come up with a question for which the data offers a significant p-value, as opposed to correct scientific analysis in which a question is formulated clearly and answered with data. A common way of doing p-hacking is analyzing subgroups to attempt to find significance when the full dataset does not yield statistically significant results: for instance, restricting the analysis of medical data to male subjects to derive a significant p-value when including female subjects would make the p-value insignificant, when the scientific question is largely gender-independent. In this case, Randall is imagining what would happen if sports commentators did this. The comic uses very specific criteria largely irrelevant to gameplay patterns in order to narrow down the subgroup sample size to a measly two games; obviously the 0-2 record reflects random noise much more than any significant insights.

This comic was published 11 days into the {{w|2026 FIFA World Cup}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Cueball and Ponytail are sitting at a table. On the wall behind them is a screen showing a soccer field with some unreadable score information above it.]
:Cueball: They could be in trouble. Over the last 36 years, they've gone 0 for 2 when they've scored in the 37th minute to lead 2-1 against a team whose country comes before theirs alphabetically.
:[Caption below comic:]
:I wish sports commentators hadn't discovered P-hacking.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

3261: Side Effect

2026-06-21T23:44:32Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */ add cats regarding gravitational waves

{{comic
| number = 3261
| date = June 19, 2026
| title = Side Effect
| image = side_effect_2x.png
| imagesize = 658x247px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Brace yourself--the chirp gets pretty weird.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by sensitive medication and HAS SIDE EFFECTS. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

This comic takes the concept of medication side-effects ''ad absurdum''. The side effect of sensitivity to sun exposure described by [[Beret Guy]] is [https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/sun-sensitizing-drugs entirely precedented], however, sensitivity to {{w|gravitational waves}} is far less normal.{{Citation needed}} Due to the entirely normal first side effect, [[Ponytail]] initially misses the gravitational wave side effect. She is about to find out what that is about.

Gravitational waves, to oversimplify, are waves of distortion in spacetime caused by fast-moving massive gravitational objects such as neutron stars or black holes orbiting each other. The waves travel at the speed of light and can be measured by precise instruments (e.g. {{w|interferometer}}s) which detect the ever-so-slight stretching and squishing caused by gravitational waves. As a side-effect of his medication, Beret Guy exhibits the stretching and squishing of a gravitational wave much stronger than normal, to the degree that it is visible to the naked eye. Beret Guy's hat also stretches and shrinks, indicating it could be a part of his body, which contradicts the idea from [[291: Dignified|an earlier comic]] that it is stapled to his head. Alternatively, it may be part of the [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange power]] the medicine makes him exhibit.

This is probably the most extreme example to date of Beret Guy being peculiarly sensitive to minuscule external forces. By way of comparison, the most sensitive current ground-based laser interferometer, {{w|LIGO}}, has light storage arms which are 4 km in length, and with strong gravitational waves, it experiences changes in the distance between the ends of the arms by at most roughly 10−18 meters, or 1 attometer. The relative change is thus about 2.5 × 10-22. If Beret Guy is experiencing distortions of about a quarter of his height, the relative change is 0.25, larger than LIGO's by a factor of about 1021. However, rather than showing concern for his body rapidly changing shape, he instead enjoys the feeling, saying 'Whee' in the last panel.

"{{w|chirp mass|The chirp}}" described in the title text refers to gravitational waves during the end-stages of the collision of two black holes or neutron stars, during which expansion and contraction of the waves increase in frequency to the point where they alternate extremely rapidly. When the gravitational wave is represented through [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWqhUANNFXw sound], it does indeed make a chirping sound. The chirp would also cause Beret Guy's body to change form repeatedly and rapidly. The final stages of the merger of two black holes have a rotation period on the order of a couple of ''milliseconds'', so if Beret Guy's sensitivity to the waves remained constant, a human observer would see only a blur.

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy is standing to the right of Ponytail.]
:Beret Guy: This new topical medication makes me extra sensitive to sun exposure and gravitational waves.

:[Beret Guy's arms are out.]
:Ponytail: Oh yeah, that's a common ...wait, what was that last part?
:Beret Guy: Here comes one now!

:[Ponytail stands facing Beret Guy, who is stretched out in height.]

:[Ponytail stands facing Beret Guy, who is now shorter and wider than he was originally.]

:[Ponytail stands facing Beret Guy, who is now stretched out in height again as he was in the third panel.]
:Beret Guy: ''WHEEE!''

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Medicine]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

3261: Side Effect

2026-06-20T17:18:09Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

3258: Plate Flip

2026-06-13T15:52:29Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3258
| date = June 12, 2026
| title = Plate Flip
| image = plate_flip_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's great for exfoliating your skin, bones, houses, cities, landscape, etc.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was FOUND ON THE UNDERSIDE OF THE CONTINENT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:Ponytail: These tectonic plates look pretty eroded. When did you last flip them?
:Cueball: Flip them?

:Ponytail: Yeah, to use the underside of the continent.
:Cueball: ...Never?
:Ponytail: Wow. Explains the eons of weathering, debris basins, and ... is this isostatic depression?
:Cueball: It's rebounding!

:Ponytail: You should really flip it. You'll get a whole new landscape!
:Cueball: But I like '''''this''''' landscape!

:Ponytail: Just think how warm and fresh the other side will feel.
:Cueball: A sea of molten rock?
:Ponytail: Good for the feet. Helps exfoliate.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Geology]]

3258: Plate Flip

2026-06-13T15:51:36Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

3257: Beam Pipe

2026-06-12T14:21:16Z

208.59.176.206: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3257
| date = June 10, 2026
| title = Beam Pipe
| image = beam_pipe_2x.png
| imagesize = 309x397px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'If you keep trying to spray your collaborators with the beam when they're not looking, I'm turning off the ion source and NO one will get to play with the beam!' --Physics's mom
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was found with a Physics Nobel Prize. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
With some water pipes you can make the water come out in a more powerful stream by covering up part of the exit nozzle with your finger (or anything, for that matter). This forces the water to come out of a smaller space, increasing the pressure. As the {{w|Large Hadron Collider}} (LHC) can be considered a sort of 'pipe' (a beam pipe, as pointed out in the comic title) this comic makes the ridiculous assumption that the same logic applies there, and its beam can be made stronger by partially covering the hole — something which obviously wouldn't work in real life{{citation needed}}. In reality, the relativistic particles would annihilate the thumb, and create a broad spray instead of narrowing the beam.

The title text expands the joke, once more treating the LHC as if it were a hosepipe. Making the hose pressure higher is a common thing for children to do — often to spray family and friends with the pressurized water. This applies the same logic to the LHC, imagining the mother of "Physics" (the science, as opposed to a person) telling off their (presumably adult) child for 'spraying their colleagues with the beam' — something very incomprehensible in real life.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[A picture shows a (partly obscured by the panel) particle accelerator (namely this one being the Large Hadron Collider at CERN). Megan is shown on a stepladder, covering the beam pipe with her thumb. Cueball is shown standing behind the ladder, watching.]
:[Caption below the panel:]
:This year's physics Nobel will go to the scientists who figured out that you could make the Large Hadron Collider more powerful by covering part of the beam pipe with your thumb.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Physics]]

3256: Nostalgia Content

2026-06-10T04:11:12Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3256
| date = June 8, 2026
| title = Nostalgia Content
| image = nostalgia_content_2x.png
| imagesize = 276x404px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Gen-Z got a chunk of the Carboniferous, and now all their memes are about how pathetic and small today's dragonflies are.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a Parataxtite. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic is a joke about nostalgia content. In it, a database for creating nostalgia content has accidentally included some {{w|Early Devonian}} features in it. These features, while certainly being old, are far too long ago for anyone to be alive at the time, let alone remember it, hence defying the purpose.

In the example in this comic, [[Cueball]] puts the more new creations of {{w|Pogs}} & {{w|Tamagotchi}}s (previously the subject of [[1546|another comic]]) with the Devonian Prototaxites and armoured fish - with the ridiculous age comparison between them part of the joke. (Pogs became a fad in the early 1990s, and Tamagotchis came into production in 1996, while the Devonian period ended 359 million years ago.) {{w|Prototaxites}} (here referred to as Parataxites) were huge fungi that lived during the Devonian. The armoured fish [[Cueball]] speaks of are from an ancient class known as {{w|Placodermi}}, which appeared during the {{w|Silurian}} and Devonian. Placoderms were among the first jawed fish, and the first fish clade to have pectoral fins. Devonian placoderms include Dunkleosteus, Titanichthys, Bothriolepis and Rhamphodopsis. Silurian placoderms include Xiushanosteus, Anglaspis, and Poraspis. There was also Sacabambaspis from the {{w|Ordovician}}.

The title text shows another example of nostalgia content warped by the accident, where Gen Z memes got a chunk of the {{w|Carboniferous}} in their nostalgia database. During the Late Carboniferous, species such as {{w|Meganeura}} were prolific, which resemble today's dragonflies, with the notable difference of having wingspans of up to 65 cm long, which would obviously dwarf modern dragonflies.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Cueball is standing, with his arms out, in front of a Prototaxite (incorrectly referred to in this comic as a "Parataxite") towering over a mossy landscape. To his right, a Tamagotchi and milk-caps (referred to in this comic as "pogs") appear.]
:Cueball: Who else remembers pogs? Tamagotchis? Vast forests of Parataxites towering over the mossy landscape as armored fish stir in the deep?
:[Caption below the panel:]
:Due to a database error, millennial nostalgia now includes a portion of the early Devonian.

==Trivia==
Cueball has incorrectly refered to the huge fungi as Parataxites. They are actually called prototaxites.
{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Comics to make one feel old]]

3256: Nostalgia Content

2026-06-10T04:10:04Z

208.59.176.206: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3256
| date = June 8, 2026
| title = Nostalgia Content
| image = nostalgia_content_2x.png
| imagesize = 276x404px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Gen-Z got a chunk of the Carboniferous, and now all their memes are about how pathetic and small today's dragonflies are.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a Parataxtite. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic is a joke about nostalgia content. In it, a database for creating nostalgia content has accidentally included some {{w|Early Devonian}} features in it. These features, while certainly being old, are far too long ago for anyone to be alive at the time, let alone remember it, hence defying the purpose.

In the example in this comic, [[Cueball]] puts the more new creations of {{w|Pogs}} & {{w|Tamagotchi}}s (previously the subject of [[1546|another comic]]) with the Devonian Prototaxites and armoured fish - with the ridiculous age comparison between them part of the joke. (Pogs became a fad in the early 1990s, and Tamagotchis came into production in 1996, while the Devonian period ended 359 million years ago.) {{w|Prototaxites}} (here referred to as Parataxites) were huge fungi that lived during the Devonian. The armoured fish [[Cueball]] speaks of are from an ancient class known as {{w|Placodermi}}, which appeared during the {{w|Silurian}} and Devonian. Placoderms were among the first jawed fish, and the first fish clade to have pectoral fins. Devonian placoderms include Dunkleosteus, Titanichthys, Bothriolepis and Rhamphodopsis. Silurian placoderms include Xiushanosteus, Anglaspis, and Poraspis. There was also Sacabambaspis from the {{w|Ordovician}}.

The title text shows another example of nostalgia content warped by the accident, where Gen Z memes got a chunk of the {{w|Carboniferous}} in their nostalgia database. During the Late Carboniferous, species such as {{w|Meganeura}} were prolific, which resemble today's dragonflies, with the notable difference of having wingspans of up to 65 cm long, which would obviously dwarf modern dragonflies.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Cueball is standing, with his arms out, in front of a Prototaxite (incorrectly referred to in this comic as a "Parataxite") towering over a mossy landscape. To his right, a Tamagotchi, and milk-caps (referred to in this comic as "pogs"), appear.]
:Cueball: Who else remembers pogs? Tamagotchis? Vast forests of Parataxites towering over the mossy landscape as armored fish stir in the deep?
:[Caption below the panel:]
:Due to a database error, millennial nostalgia now includes a portion of the early Devonian.
:

==Trivia==
Cueball has incorrectly refered to the huge fungi as Parataxites. They are actually called prototaxites.
{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Comics to make one feel old]]

3255: Planetary Science

2026-06-06T01:56:16Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3255
| date = June 5, 2026
| title = Planetary Science
| image = planetary_science_2x.png
| imagesize = 277x388px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The research was overseen by the Institutional Review Board, which is what I named my surfboard.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This comic was found on a planet with internet on it!}}
This comic is presented as a scientific article in which astronomers claim to have discovered "signs of liquid water on the surface of a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone" -- however, as the accompanying photos (four people on a beach, of whom two are sitting under an umbrella and one is making sand castles) show, the planet in question is Earth. This would not be considered a noteworthy discovery.{{cn}} Finding other planets that have liquid water is a notable result, as water is necessary to support life, so a planet with water could possibly have life on it. However, we already know about life on Earth existing, so this article is hardly useful or practical.

There is value in using Earth as an example of a planet in a habitable zone, such as [https://www.nasa.gov/universe/atacama-rover-astrobiology-drilling-studies-arads/ testing life-detection experiments in remote inhospitable environments] or [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-would-we-know-theres-life-on-earth-this-bold-experiment-found-out/ as a proxy for future astronomical observations], but not in-situ photographic investigation. Maybe the astronomers should have brought their {{w|spectrometer}} on vacation.

An {{w|institutional review board}} is a committee of researchers which ensures that research carried out at their institution is ethical. In the title text, this is referenced to be the literal name of a {{w|surfboard}}, which is a board used for the recreational activity of {{w|surfing}}, not serious academic activities. Presumably one of the researchers used this as an excuse to post their pictures of a surfing holiday. Of course, 'the Institutional Review Board' is a very strange name for a surfboard,{{Citation needed}} and its only purpose would be for this (somewhat bad) excuse.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[An article from a journal is shown.]
:[Title of journal article:] Evidence for Liquid Water on the Surface of a Terrestrial Planet in the Habitable Zone
:[Below the title are four lines of blurred text presumably representing the name of the author or authors and their affiliations. Below that, the text of the article is blurred, displayed in two columns. There are three sections of blurred text each with a blurred boldface heading. Two pictures are included amid the blurred text. The picture in the left column shows the sea running alongside a beach. The picture in the right column shows Jill and Kidball playing at the beach, with Jill running and Kidball building a sandcastle, while Cueball and Megan are sitting under a beach umbrella watching them.]
:[Caption below the article:]
:Planetary science journals have asked astronomers to please stop submitting their vacation photos.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring children]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Kidball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Jill]]
[[Category:Scientific research]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

3254: Detector

2026-06-04T01:49:47Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3254
| date = June 3, 2026
| title = Detector
| image = detector_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = No other experiment has a lower false negative rate.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was detected recently. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
[[Ponytail]] and [[Hairy]] are showing [[Cueball]] a machine, claiming it is their most sensitive detector. Normally, detectors have a designated detecting job, such as smoke detectors which detect smoke. Being more sensitive means that it can detect (and perhaps quantify) far lower quantities/magnitudes of the target of its detections.

In this case, "more sensitive" seems to mean that it is sensitive to more ''different'' things. To quote Ponytail, it detects "gas, dust, particles, light, radio waves, gamma rays, protons, neutrons, electrons, fields, forces, events, potentials, or states", which runs almost the entire gamut of things that ''might'' be detectable, and leaves little room for there being any situation in which none of the aforementioned items are there to be detected.

Cueball points this out and Hairy says that it ''has'' been continuously lit this way since they turned it on. And Ponytail is left shocked when Cueball asks what would happen if the light labeled "Not detected" were to shine. Hairy claims that such a thing would be pretty bad, the presumption being that, if that were to happen, there would have to be no matter, light, forces, etc. within the detector's range of detection. (With almost no reason for the "Not detected" light to shine, they could have simply provided continuous power to the "Detected" light, but the reactions of the experts present show that neither of them think that this has been done.)

The title text states that the machine has the lowest {{w|false-negative}} rate out of any other machine as the "Detected" light will always continue shining. If it never ''ever'' states a negative, then it can never be wrong about it being negative, even though it is not clear what circumstances would result in a negative state being required, nor whether the detector will then (correctly) state that, rather than just continue to provide a (now) false-positive.

Randall had recently talked about detectors in [[3249: Neutrino Project]].

==Transcript==
:[Hairy is standing to the right of a large machine labeled "Detector". The front of the machine has two lights, labeled "Detected" and "Not detected". The "detected" light is lit up in green. Ponytail and Cueball walk towards the machine from the left.]
:Ponytail: Over there are our electron microscope, XRF scanner, and mass spectrometer.
:Ponytail: And this is our most sensitive detector.
:Cueball: What does it detect?

:[The next panel zooms in on the detector. Ponytail's voice comes from the left of the panel.]
:Ponytail (off-panel): Lots of stuff.
:Ponytail (off-panel): Gas, dust, particles, light, radio waves, gamma rays, protons, neutrons, electrons, fields, forces, events, potentials, or states.

:[The next panel zooms out. Cueball and Ponytail are standing to the left of the machine, and Hairy on the right.]
:Cueball: I don't understand. Aren't most of those ''always'' present?
:Hairy: Yeah, it's been saying "detected" continuously since we turned it on.

:[Cueball and Ponytail still standing to the left of the machine, and Hairy on the right. Ponytail has her hand on her chin.]
:Cueball: What happens if it says "not detected"?
:Ponytail: Oh gosh.
:Hairy: That would be pretty bad, I think.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

Talk:3252: Ancestral Genomes

2026-06-01T05:53:02Z

208.59.176.206: comment

I'm expecting some reference to the revelation of Neandthalic/etc genes in various branches of our own population, along the way, but shall leave the actual writing to others. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 18:15, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
Sexis canon again! [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 18:31, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

This comic is an interesting contribution to discussion about how science and the public handle privacy issues. For instance a museums finds it okay to display a dead body [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ötzi] just because he died a very long time ago. --[[Special:Contributions/2001:4091:A241:81DC:350B:874D:E1AA:9FEE|2001:4091:A241:81DC:350B:874D:E1AA:9FEE]] 13:46, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
: We need more details about Ötzi to better understand how he is related to us. For example, did he play the Steirische Ziehharmonika, and if not, how did he fail to learn it? Was he killed because of Harmonikamusikhass--someone hated accordions and did not want them to perpetuate? His display in a museum would be much more exciting and appropriate with those details. [[Special:Contributions/173.188.194.118|173.188.194.118]] 15:18, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
:: Ötzi probably predates the Steirische Ziehharmonika, unless someone used their time machine to fix the temporal ordering requirements. --[[Special:Contributions/2A10:D586:3E93:0:907B:6DDD:C33E:4855|2A10:D586:3E93:0:907B:6DDD:C33E:4855]] 07:52, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

see also [[2268]] [[User:Treeplate|Treeplate]] ([[User talk:Treeplate|talk]]) 15:19, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

*This strip reminds me of [[830: Genetic Analysis]], where counselor Megan tells Cueball, "... we've analyzed genes on several of your chromosomes, and it's hard to avoid the conclusion: at some point, your parents had sex." --[[Special:Contributions/208.59.176.206|208.59.176.206]] 19:16, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Think about how uncomfortable it is to think about your grandparents having sex. It's exponentially worse with your great-great-great-great-great-great-etc-grandparents. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 14:34, 31 May 2026 (UTC)
*I disagree. I never met my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, and I don't even know what their names were or what they looked like. So I have no specific image of them with which to be discomforted by the idea of them having sex. It may be ''somewhat'' uncomfortable to think about them having sex, but considerably ''less'' uncomfortable than thinking about my grandparents having sex. --[[Special:Contributions/208.59.176.206|208.59.176.206]] 05:53, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

While I agree that, in general, the public doesn’t respect the privacy of people who died a long time ago, I think it should be pointed out that this is a real ethical discussion in history and in social sciences more generally. Ethnic studies has really broached the subject of what sources should be available to us, the importance of respecting the people/cultures behind those sources, etc. and historians have been taking note. Ari Kelman’s book Misplaced Massacre is a good example. I think saying that at a certain point privacy is just left to history is a bit reductive.
[[User:Salsmachev|Salsmachev]] ([[User talk:Salsmachev|talk]]) 15:30, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

802: Online Communities 2

2026-05-30T19:40:43Z

208.59.176.206: /* Forums Islands */

{{comic
| number = 802
| date = October 6, 2010
| title = Online Communities 2
| image = online_communities_2.png
| imagesize = 740x860px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Best trivia I learned while working on this: 'Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize it's the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the WORLD?' Then you wait for the listener to do a double-take.}}

{{TOC}}A [https://xkcd.com/802_large/ larger version] of this picture can be found by clicking the comic on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com].

==Explanation==
This comic shows a map of internet communities where the size of each region roughly corresponds to its size, and its proximity to other regions indicates similarities. This is the successor of [[256: Online Communities]]. It differs in that it is updated, and furthermore, instead of using the ''membership'' of whichever service to determine its size on the map, it uses its "daily social activity".

The map actually has two super−maps intended to show the relative usage of types of communication: the online community map is surrounded by the much larger "countries" of E−Mail, SMS ("Instant Messaging") and "Cell Phones," which in turn are surrounded by the even huger "Spoken Language." It is unclear whether "Cell Phones" is intended to represent an independent region, or whether it is meant to be a sub-region of "Spoken Language." The ambiguity is exacerbated by the fact that cell phones are the primary medium of SMS, and are also used to access email and online communities. It's also unclear why other forms of communication, such as handwritten letters, are not included.

In the title text, [[Randall]] explains that, using his definition of "most activity per day", Farmville is actually the ''second'' most popular social-network farming game. The Chinese game "Happy Farm" was more popular at the time. This strikes many English-speaking xkcd readers as odd, because Farmville is much more famous, leading one to wonder how it could not be the most played. The phrase "browser-based social-networking–centered farming game" is an example of an {{tvtropes|OverlyNarrowSuperlative|overly narrow superlative}}.

----

===Facebook Region===
The Facebook region deals with social networks, that is, websites oriented towards having people meet.

'''{{w|Facebook}}

: A social networking site that allows people to meet old real−life friends and make new friends that share similar interests. One of its most notable features is that a member can update a "status" or make normal posts about the happenings of the member's life, complete with pictures, other members "liking" these posts. The size of the Facebook region is not exaggerated, as most websites seem to allow "liking" their content or allow/require logging in the website with a Facebook account. There even are cell phones with a "Facebook" button!

; {{w|FarmVille}} and {{w|Farm Town}}

: These are Facebook games in which users manage farms. '''{{w|Happy Farm}},''' the Chinese game that inspired the other two, does not require Facebook integration, so it is separated by a solid line from Facebook. The "Unethical Bay" refers to how these games tend to addict players into constantly buying virtual items of questionable value.

; People You Can't Unfriend

: Refers to people whom, due to real-life expectations and relationships, unfriending them is difficult, no matter how you really feel about them.

; Blatherskite River

: Refers to the conversations on Facebook, which may be long yet devoid of general meaning or logic.

; Data Mines

: Refers to the data mining that Facebook does with the interests of its members. This fuels the profitable advertising business at the expense of customer trust.

; Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions

: Refers to how interactions with family members on Facebook suddenly become more awkward because everyone on Facebook (and sometimes ''off'' Facebook, given that you do not necessarily need to log in if you want to see someone's Facebook account) if you are discussing with your family through post comments.

; 524,287 Strong for Mersenne Primes

: Refers to the communities who gain followers for a cause. A {{w|Mersenne prime}} is a prime number that is 1 less than a power of 2

; 524287

: The 7th known Mersenne prime.

; Jungle-Bay Mountains of "It's Complicated"

: Refers to one of Facebook's options as to what a user's relationship status currently is. A Jungle-Bay Mountain is a complicated and undefined climate, hence the complication.

; "lamebook bay"

: Refers to the online website "lamebook", where users post photos of funny things that happen on Facebook (these can include statuses, "fails", put-downs and images.)

; "Old Facebook" Resistance

: Refers to Facebook's earlier users, who have often resisted (and resented) changes made to Facebook as it became more popular.

; Privacy Controls

: This is located on the map surrounded by a Lava Pool, which is a reference to how difficult it is to find the privacy controls within Facebook.

; Niche Market Mountains

: Refers to social networks aimed towards more niche markets are located. Similar to how mountains tend to be isolated from mainland, niche social networks tend to be just that: niche, without much interaction with the general populace.

; Charred Wasteland of Abandoned Social Networks

: Refers to the tons of websites wanting to take advantage of the success of websites like Facebook to compete or even overpower with them. Even so, these websites tend to not have the userbase or even the expertise towards the long-term, hence they become wastelands: environments devoid of life, except the few life forms that are from these wastelands (in this case, the ones who are loyal to the website or which are sadly few).

In the Charred Wasteland stands:

; {{w|Ozymandias}}

: The titular broken statue of Shelley's poem. In the poem, only "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and a "shattered visage" are all that remain of the once-great statue and both of these features are present in the comic. According to the poem, the pedestal before the broken statue reads "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings..." hence "friend of friends" below Ozymandias on the map.

In the north are:

; The Duckface Mountains and The Red Cup Mountains

: "Duckface" refers to [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duck-face this incredibly obnoxious facial expression], and "red cup pictures" are any pictures containing party-goers holding disposable red plastic beverage cups. Facebook is absolutely flooded with both types of pictures.

In the south is:

; Buzzword Bay

: {{w|Buzzword}}s are words and phrases that make you sound a lot more topical than you actually are, used to garner attention. Again, Facebook status updates are commonly filled with buzzwords.

While Facebook is the largest "country" of the Facebook Region, there are a lot of smaller "countries" that represent smaller social networks.

Below Facebook (and "Old Facebook' Resistance") are:

; {{w|Diaspora (social network)|Diaspora}}

: A fully open-source, decentralized, privacy-respecting-and-expecting alternative to Facebook. From what this map tells, Diaspora is little-known, even if Facebook is taken out of the context.

; {{w|StudiVZ}}

: A German-speaking social network similar if not a ripped-off version of Facebook.

; {{w|XING}}

: A German-speaking social platform similar to {{w|LinkedIn}}.

; {{w|Ning (website)|Ning}}

: A service to create custom social websites. Its free services shut down in 2010.

; {{w|Taringa!}}

: A Spanish-speaking social network that is based on a forums. Copyrighted material is frequently found there.

Next to the Euro(pean) Gulf are:

; {{w|Skyrock (social network site)}}

: A French-speaking social network.

; {{w|Wer-kennt-wen}}

: A German-social network somewhat like MySpace.

; {{w|Nasza-klasa.pl}}

: NK, misspelled on the map as nasa-klasza.pl, is a Polish-speaking social network based on school relationships.

; {{w|Badoo}}

: A social network primarily based on dating and picture-sharing.

; {{w|Classmates.com}}

: A service in which the user can meet classmates that came from the same high school. The website is probably best known by its memetic advertisement that said [https://dudemanphat.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-am-i-supposed-to-care-about-nick.html "She married him??!! And they've got 7 kids??"] (Incidentally, [https://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2003325519_adcouple27.html there is more to the coupled picture than what the advertisement says.])

; {{w|MySpace}}

: A social networking website that is a kind of proto-Facebook: users could customize their one-page websites with whatever they wanted, make their interests and daily lives public, and interact with other users. Back in the mid 2000s, MySpace was the largest social network. However, the surprisingly-less-customizable Facebook ended up taking the place of MySpace. The "bands" country of MySpace refers to how a lot of bands in the day advertised and interacted using the website. Indeed, the latest incarnation of MySpace (in terms of 2013) is more oriented towards band members.

; {{w|LinkedIn}}

: A social network aimed towards people in the workplace, which is why it is adjacent to Corporate Bay.

; {{w|Orkut}}

: This was one of Google's first social networks before Google made [https://plus.google.com/ Google+]. It shut down in 2014.

; {{w|Hi5}}

: A social network that is very popular among people in Latin America.

; {{w|Renren}}

: "People" in Chinese, this is "a Chinese copy of Facebook".

; {{w|Bebo}}

: A social network popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It went bankrupt in 2013 and will move away from social networking and into apps.

; {{w|Friendster}}

: One of the first major social networks, it has fallen way off in usage in recent years and was eclipsed by MySpace. It is still popular in Asia.

; {{w|VK (social networking website)|Vkontakte}}

: VK is the second largest social network service in Europe after Facebook. It is available in several languages, but particularly popular among Russian-speaking users around the world.

; {{w|Netlog}}

: A Belgian social networking website specifically targeted at the global youth demographic.

; {{w|Mixi}}

: This is an online Japanese social networking service.

; {{w|Qzone}}

: A social networking website, which is big in China. According to a report published by Tencent, possibly surpassing other social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace in China.

; {{w|Tuenti}}

: A Spain-based, social networking service, that has been referred to as the "Spanish Facebook."

; {{w|Cloob}}

: A Persian-language social networking website, mainly popular in Iran. After the locally (and internationally) popular social networking website Orkut was blocked by the Iranian government, a series of local sites and networks, including Cloob, emerged to fill the gap.

; {{w|Kaixin001}}

: A social networking website which ranks as the 13th most popular website in China and 67th overall.

; {{w|Piczo}}

: A privately held blog website for teens. In November 2012, Piczo.com shut down.

; {{w|Odnoklassniki}}

: A social network service for classmates and old friends. It is popular in Russia and former Soviet Republics.

; {{w|Adult FriendFinder}}

: A pornographic dating site.

; {{w|Match.com}}

: A dating site, mainly targeted at people looking for marriage.

; {{w|Ok Cupid}}

: Another dating site, however it has been owned by Match.com since 2011.

; {{w|PlentyofFish}}

: This is yet another dating site, also owned by Match.com since June 2015.

; {{w|Sulawesi}}

: A real-life island in the Indonesian archipelago. It also appears in 256: Online Communities.

----

===MMO Isle===
MMOs (short form of "Massive Multiplayer Online Game") are online games where multiple people take the role of a character and play in a setting hosted by the game.

; [https://www.habbo.com/ Habbo Hotel]

: A website where someone creates a human avatar an interacts in a virtual world that is not that different from the one in real life.

; {{w|Club Penguin}}

: This is [https://disney.com/ Disney's] former MMO where someone creates a penguin avatar and interacts with other in a more polar, cartoony setting. Club Penguin is aimed towards children. It has been shut down near the end of March 2017.

; [https://maplestory.nexon.net/ Maple Story]

: This is an MMO that has a more natural setting. The most distinguishing feature of Maple Story is its cartoony pixel art.

; [https://www.gamefaqs.com/ GameFAQs]

: While this is not an MMO, it is a website that has the largest repository of walkthoughs, that is, guides that help someone beat a game. GameFAQs is notable for not only its large repository of walkthroughs of games that are across an extreme variety of consoles, handhelds, and even computers (not all of them MMOs), but also the drama that is rumoured to happen in the GameFAQs forums.

; [https://www.ign.com/ IGN]

: While this is also not an MMO, it is the largest website that gives news on video games in general, not just MMOs. Each of the games mentioned in the site have pages that have summaries, reviews, screenshots, other art, videos, and links to news related to its games.

; [https://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml FFXI]

: Final Fantasy XI is an MMO from SquareEnix, being the first MMO of the popular ''Final Fantasy'' series.

; [https://www.runescape.com/community Runescape]

: This is an older MMO.

; [https://us.battle.net/sc2/en/ Starcraft II]

: A realtime strategy game with a science fiction setting that heavily involves space travel. While technically not an MMO, it has a significant online multiplayer component.

; [https://us.battle.net/wow/en/ WoW]

: World of Warcraft is the definitive MMO, being not only the most popular and one of the longest-running but also the most expansive (having its own spinoff games, comic books, novels, and even figurines), WOW giving the idea of how an MMO should be. A player can choose from a variety of races, each with its own heavy history.

; [https://secondlife.com/ Second Life]

: This is similar to Habbo, albeit with a bigger suspension of disbelief (one example being that the player does not need to be a human) and in a 3D setting.

; [https://www.nationstates.net/ NationStates]

: A text-based political simulation game. Notably, some of its traffic comes not from the actual game (which is optional), but the extensive set of political, roleplaying, and general forums attached.

; [https://www.urbandead.com/ Urban Dead]

: It described itself as "A Massively Multi-Player Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse", which sums it up pretty well. It was finally closed down on 2025-03-14, [https://urbandead.com/stats.html reportedly] with 7893 characters still actively playing until the end, 6087 of them still standing (and 29 Christmas Trees).

; [https://www.kingdomofloathing.com KoL]

: Kingdom of Loathing is a comedic browser-based MMO-ish RPG with minimalistic stick-figure art.

; {{w|CDC Games}}

: A Chinese company reputed to be the largest MMORPG distributor.

; {{w|Eve Online|EVE Online}}

: A science fiction MMO which is notable because of its virtual economy.

; {{w|Gaia Online|Gaia}}

: Gaia Online, while not an MMO, is a forum oriented towards pop culture, including video games and Japanese media. Its most notable feature is the heavy customization possible of a member's pixel-art avatar. Its members tend to roleplay a lot, albeit in a more written, story-based form. Gaia has gained a reputation with its members stealing art and causing drama. The ferry that links the gaia island with 4chan was most likely due to the "boxxy" row, where vlogger boxxy posted videos of her using gaia, which then were circulated on 4chan. This resulted in a division of the sites users, and many more hacking attacks, including a DDOS attack on 4chan itself.

; [https://www.everquest.com EverQuest]

: EverQuest is one of the first MMO's, it's still running and has a huge number of expansions.

; [https://www.uo.com UO]

: Ultima Online along with EverQuest this was one of the first and longest running MMO's.

; {{w|City of Heroes|CoH}}

: City of Heroes was a superhero-based MMORPG that was shut down November 2012.

; [https://atlantica.nexon.net/ Atlantica]

: Atlantica Online is a turn-based MMORPG.

; [https://lineage.plaync.com/ Lineage]

: A Korean MMORPG, its North American servers were closed 2011/06/29 due to being unprofitable.

; [https://www.lineage2.com/en/ Lineage II]

: A Korean MMORPG, mainly played in Asia along with its predecessor. It adopted a Free to Play model on 2011/11/30.

; {{w|SubSpace (video game)|SubSpace}}

: A 2D, topdown shooter released in 1997. The servers have been shut down, but it continues to operate through the work of fans. It's widely considered an early entry into the MMO genre due to its unprecedentedly high player count.

Other notable regions include:

; The Mountains of Steam

: Referring to the game distribution service [https://store.steampowered.com/ Steam] where people can buy and download video games in general, not just MMOs. There is also an extensive [https://steamcommunity.com/ community] where users can share content, and instant messaging chat by text, voice, or game streaming.

; River Grind

: Refers to "grinding". In most MMOs, the character is a fighter of some sorts, yet starts at a level 1, signifying the character's aptitude level in combat. The character can level up and gain more aptitude levels through earning experience, of which the most reliable and otherwise common way is the process of "grinding," that is, repeatedly fighting opposing monsters (sometimes of a level notably lower that your character's), gaining experience points from winning these battles until your character gains a level, that is, "levels up". While a practical necessity in strengthening the character, this process can be tiresome, hence the expression "grinding."

; Spawn Camp

: Refers to "spawn points", the places where AI-powered enemies and players who have died in-game respawn, and the act of "spawn camping", in which the player character simply stands behind or around the spawn points to fight the enemy creatures or respawning players as soon as they appear.

; Gulf of Lag

: Refers to how the MMO can be slowed down a considerable amount due to the large amount of players simultaneously using the same server, this congestion bogging down the server and frustrating the users.

; [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/final-boss-of-the-internet End Guy for the Internet]

: Refers to "end bosses," the last — and usually hardest to defeat — "bad guy" in a game (or a section of a game).

----

===YouTube Region===
The YouTube region refers to websites that are based on user-created content.

; [https://www.youtube.com/ YouTube]

: This is the definitive video website where people can upload videos with the purpose of public viewing, ranging from home movies through official music videos through Let's Plays of people playing video games to questionably-legal uploads of cartoons and films. Google had purchased YouTube.

Many of the sites on the map are just references to {{w|viral video}}s at {{w|YouTube}}:

; Viral Shores

: Refers to how viral videos (whether they be viral marketing or simply memes) tend to proliferate on YouTube.

; Britney

: This likely refers to pop singer {{w|Britney Spears}} and the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc‎ "Leave Britney Alone" guy].

; Maru Gulf

: Refers to Maru the Cat, a YouTube celebrity [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/676:_Abstraction also mentioned in xkcd].

; Prairie Dog Habitat

: This likely refers to the viral video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw Dramatic Chipmunk] (which is actually a Prairie Dog).

; Rick Rolling Hills

: References {{w|Rickrolling}}. More information [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ here]. The "deserted" note likely refers to how Rick Astley himself is tired of the meme, or again, how people tend to leave the video upon getting "Rick Roll'd," never actually going to the video with the express purpose of viewing the video. It could also refer to the lyric in the song, "Never gonna tell a lie and desert you".

; Lunar Landing Soundstage

: Reference to the {{w|Moon landing conspiracy theories}}, which Randall has railed on before.

; {{w|OK Go}} Bay

: Refers to the band "OK Go" who have multiple viral music videos on YouTube, most famously [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA "Here it goes again"] featuring treadmills.

; HTML5 swamp

: Refers to YouTube's spotty support of HTML 5 (an update on HTML that is frequently touting its media capabilities, making HTML 5 a viable alternative to Flash). Of course, by the time the comic was written, HTML 5 was still in its infancy. The Music Video Bay refers to the amount of music videos (official or otherwise) are present in YouTube.

Other counties of the YouTube region include:

; [https://vimeo.com/ Vimeo]

: A website where people tend to showcase artistic content that they made on their own, notably independent studios.

; [https://secure.flickr.com/ Flickr]

: A website where people can upload and share photographs they took.

; [https://fotolog.com Fotolog]

: A photo website very popular in South America in 2004-2008, which was used as a social network.

; [https://www.last.fm/ Last.fm]

: A music website that uses a music recommender system known as "Audioscrobbler". Last.fm creates a detailed profile of each user's musical preferences by recording the details of the tracks they listen to and transfers ("scrobbles") the information to Last.fm's database via the music player. The data is then displayed on the user's profile page and compiled to create reference pages for individual artists.

; [https://www.deviantart.com/ deviantArt]

: The largest art website, where people can upload, sell, and buy not only art itself, but also video, audio, Flash-work, and even skins (the original purpose of deviantArt). While many big-name/professional people and organizations have their works in deviantArt, the site is more infamous for the large amount of people who upload low-quality fan-art and fan-characters, most notably of media from Japan. Another point of infamy is the large amount of drama that can happen in the website.

; [https://www.newgrounds.com/ Newgrounds]

: A website that hosts art, (Flash-based) videos, audio, and (Flash-based) games to which other users can comment and rate. Even so, content from Newgrounds tends to be obscene, though there is a filtering system if a viewer does not wish to see obscene content.

; [https://www.chatroulette.com/ Chatroulette]

: A website where people are randomly paired up with each other and video/text chat.

; Brickshelf

: This is the online resource for {{w|LEGO}} fans.

; [https://tumblr.com/ Tumblr]

: A websie where people could make a blog and post text, pictures, video, audio, quotes, and links. The most distinguishing feature is the ability to "reblog" these posts from other's people's blogs into the user's own blog. Notable features of Tumblr include sketchblogs (where people upload their sketches), Ask blogs (where people answer questions other users ask, the moderators of these blogs usually pretending to be a character from a form of media), and the large amount of "social justice" (a highly controversial political movement). (See also [[1043: Ablogalypse]].)

; {{w|b3ta}}

: A popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by The Guardian.

; The Isle of teenagers who just discovered macroeconomics

: A joke about how teenagers tend to think that the world and the economy are a lot simpler than they actually are. Combined with the typical internet mindset, this leads to a lot of teenagers posting blogs and videos and comments on blogs and videos describing how idiotic the government and other red-tape-related adults are.

; The Snob Sound

: This could refer to the large amount of people who look down on others in the surrounding websites (one example being an original artist looking down on people who draw mainly fan-art).

; The Iraq

: A reference to Miss Teen USA 2007, in which Miss South Carolina Teen USA, Caitlin Upton, said "I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as...the US should help the US and should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we are able to build up our future." The usage of "the Iraq" has became a meme.

----

===Twitter Region===

; Bieber Bay

: A reference to {{w|Justin Bieber}}, a pop singer whose singing sprouted on YouTube and became very popular on Twitter and other social media. He is very much vilified because of his rather feminine appearance and his hordes of fans (called "Beliebers") that seem to support him to ridiculous extents. Lately, though, Justin Beiber has taken a "bad boy" attitude because of all the Beliebers who are willing to defend him no matter what, him partaking in a lot of questionable activities that include tattoos, questionably-legal substances, and buying prostitution, thus lowering his popularity in the general populace.

; {{w|Google Buzz}}

: A former social network attempted by Google. It has since been shut down.

; Bit.Ly Mountains

: A reference to the URL shortening service {{w|bit.ly}}.

; Kanye's Isle of Sadness

: A reference to the musician {{w|Kanye West}}, whose Twitter, at the time, was [https://www.buzzfeed.com/mlew15/25-of-kanye-wests-most-thought-provoking-tweets-h0se famously introspective and stream-of-consciousness].

; Sarah Palin USA

: This is the Twitter handle of former politician {{w|Sarah Palin}}.

; Clueless Politician Coast

: A reference to the number of politicians on Twitter and other social networks who repeatedly share clueless updates that more often create an uproar than help their election chances.

; Desert of Food Updates

: A reference to the number of pictures of food that are shared on social media (especially Twitter). There has even been some controversy on posting such pictures.

; Journalists Trying to Find the Cutting Edge

: This is referencing journalists on Twitter trying to keep up with the way that news is gathered and delivered now, despite usually working for a newspaper that publishes once a day.

; SHAQ

: A reference to the former NBA basketball player, {{w|Shaq}}.

; {{w|identi.ca}}

: This is an open source social networking and micro-blogging service, being an alternative to Twitter.

; Breaking! Waves

: A pun on the fact that so many people used the word "Breaking" at the beginning of tweets that do not warrant that tag that the word has lost most of its meaning and become a joke. It is a pun because waves "break" on the shore.

; Web 3.0

: Refers to the unofficial term {{w|Web 2.0}}. In this case, "Web 1.0" refers to websites that give information to users. Web 2.0 refers to websites where the users themselves create content. Web 3.0 has sometimes been used as a term for {{w|semantic web}}, a machine-readable version of the web, but this usage is far from universal.

; Hashtag games whose popularity confuses and depresses you

: Refers to the game where a user posts something under a particular hashtag and others respond with their own ideas, all tagged under the same phrase. This has been very popular for no clear reason, as Randall notes.

----

===Geotagged Bay===

; {{w|Yelp}}

: A website where people post reviews of real-life public locations (one example being restaurants).

; {{w|Geocaching}}

: A worldwide GPS scavenger hunt where users upload positions of caches and others will find them and log it online.

; {{w|Foursquare}}

: A location-based social network.

; Latitude

: Refers to {{w|Google Latitude}}.

----

===Troll Bay and the Sea of Memes===

; {{w|Reddit}}

: This is the self-described "front page of the Internet" in which users submit stories, photos and videos and the best are "up-voted" to the top of the page.

; {{w|Help:Using talk pages|Wikipedia Talk Pages}}

: Refer to the pages where Wikipedia editors ostensibly discuss how to improve articles.

; {{w|Wikia}}

: Later Fandom, is a website offering free-of-charge wiki hosting, using a variant of Wikimedia's MediaWiki, allowing users to create user-editable encyclopedias of just about any subject matter, although it has more recently introduced an entertainment blog named "Fandom powered by Wikia" and eventually adopted that branding for the wiki farm as well.

; {{w|StumbleUpon}}

: A website-sharing service, it shut down in 2018.

; {{w|Delicious (website)|Delicious}}

: A bookmarking and bookmark-sharing service.

; {{w|Digg}}

: A former competitor to Reddit in the social-news sphere, but now has been sold and restarted as an aggregator of news stories. The lifeboats refer to the mass exodus of users from Digg to rival news aggregator Reddit that occurred after Digg's glitchy and unpopular "v4" redesign in August 2010.

; {{w|Slashdot}}

: Labeled "/." on the map, is a technical news site.

; {{w|MetaFilter}}

: Labeled "MeFi" on the map, is a long-running community blog.

; {{w|Fark}}

: A community website that allows members to comment on news articles from other sites.

; {{w|YTMND}}

: This is an acronym for "You're The Man Now, Dog!" It's also a community in which users can create meme-type nonsense by playing music over an image (either static or animated).

; {{w|Free Republic}}

: A right-wing conservative activist forum.

----

===Skype Region===
The Skype Region refers to different IM, or Instant Messaging services, that enable almost-real-time text chatting between multiple people. These often allow services like voice chat and even video calls.

; {{w|Skype}}

: According to Randall, Skype is the most popular of these among the internet. It has many features to allow peer-to-peer voice chats, as well as allowing calls to be made at a price to actual phones.

; {{w|AIM}}

: AOL Instant Messenger is a chat client created by AOL.

; GG

: {{w|Gadu-Gadu}} is an instant messenger client popular in Poland.

; {{w|Yahoo Messenger}}

: This is an instant messenger client by Yahoo.

; {{w|Google Talk}}

: A voice/video chatting service from Google (that Google has been replacing with Hangouts). Google Talk also has an invasion fleet at its shores.

; {{w|ICQ}}

: This is an older messaging service, albeit with an 18+ requirement (despite pornography not being the point of ICQ).

; {{w|Windows Live Messenger}}

: "MSN", was the messaging service of Microsoft before Microsoft bought Skype. MSN was useful in that people could draw and send pictures to other chatters.

; {{w|Usenet}}

: This was one of the original ways to communicate on the internet, though people can download (copyrighted) files through the service. Since it is still in use by some, it gets the tag "Still Around!" on the map.

; {{w|IRC}} Isles

: Refers to the ancestor of Internet-powered chatting. People would have connected to a server and spoke publicly. IRC is still in use (as of 2014), notably in getting help from other users. One of those isles is #xkcd which is an IRC community around [[xkcd]].

----

===Bay of Drama===

; {{w|FanFiction.net}}

: A website where people can submit their fanfiction (stories by fans written about other peoples' media, normally that about popular media). The website tends to have people that are not helpful to those who legitimately want critique of their own stories.

; {{w|Xanga}}

: A blogging service that, while popular at its time, lost out to...

; {{w|LiveJournal}}

: This was the most popular blogging service before Tumblr.

; ONYD

: Reference to {{w|Oh No You Didn't}}, which is explained in the Blogosphere region.

; {{w|Dreamwidth}}

: A LiveJournal fork emphasizing its open-source nature.

----

===Blogosphere===
The Blogosphere region contains several general {{w|blog}} topics.

; {{w|photo blog|Photo Blogs}}

: These are commonly used to chronicle the lives of the authors through photographs.

; Diary Blogs

: These are another popular use of blogs (and, in fact, the original use) where authors write commentary about their lives.

; Bay of Grammar Pedantry

: This deals with the fact that, whether due to a lack of proper education, a habit of using "chat-speak" in the text-limited SMS and MMS, or simply due to the (generally) more relaxed nature of the Internet, blog authors tend to write with horrible composition, a point of annoyment to a lot of other people due to the subsequent increased difficulty of reading the horribly-written material.

; Fandom Blogs

: These are blogs created by a "{{w|fandom}}" which is a community of fans. A fandom blog deals with the subject matter of the respective fandom.

; Sea of Zero (0) Comments

: Refers to blogs that get very little attention and therefore have no comments.

; SpamBlog Straits

: References spammers who use blogs to increase the number of links to their site to try to game search engines.

; OffTopic.com

: A general interest forum that refers to itself as "the largest general discussion forum on the internet."

; Blog Blogs

: These can refer to blogs that talk about the matter about blogging itself, though they can also refer to blogs which authors use in talking about blogging.

Many more straightforward blogs, including:

* Writing/Poetry

* Gossip Blogs

* Political Blogs

* Music Blogs

* Tech Blogs

* Business Blogs

* Corporate Blogs

* Religious Blogs

* Miscellaneous Blogs

----

===Blogosphere (Core Region)===
Gossip Blogs. Each blog below focuses on gossip surrounding celebrities and other well-known persons.

; {{w|Jezebel}}

: A liberally feminist blog, hosted by Gawker.

; {{w|deadline.com|Deadline}}

: This is an online entertainment news magazine.

; {{w|TMZ}}

: A celebrity news website.

; {{w|Gawker}}

: A blog that is the host of other blogs.

; LJ Oh No They Didn't

: LiveJournal {{w|Oh No They Didn't}} - Oh No They Didn't, also known as ONTD, is the largest community on LiveJournal with over 100,000 members. The community focuses on celebrity gossip and pop culture with most of its posts aggregated from other gossip blogs.

; Doucheblog

: Refers to blogs that were once insightful but that spiraled into long rants due to relationship changes of their authors.

; Isle of Mockery

: A reference to the fact that some of what these blogs do is mock celebrities or other for doing or saying stupid things on camera.

Liberal Blogs. Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "liberal" or "progressive" slant. These blogs tend to lean for the Democratic party.

; {{w|Huffington Post}}

: A news blog.

; {{w|Paul Krugman}}

: This is an American economist who considers himself a liberal.

; {{w|Daily Beast}}

: A news and opinion website focusing on politics and pop culture.

; {{w|Talking Points Memo|TPM}}

: A political journal run by Josh Marshall.

; {{w|Ezra Klein}}

: He used to have his own site at the Washington Post, but is now the editor of [Vox.com].

; {{w|Think Progress}}

: A political news blog.

; {{w|Daily Kos|Kos}}

: Another political blog.

Bay of Flame:

; {{w|Politics Daily}}

: A political journalism website launched by AOL.

; CNN Political Ticker

: This is CNN's political blog.

; {{w|Mediaite}}

: A news and opinion blog covering politics and entertainment in the media.

; {{w|NY Times}}

: This is one of the most famous newspapers, thus the comparatively large size of its island.

; {{w|The Talk}}

: A talk show on CBS that discusses the latest headlines "through the eyes of mothers."

; Libertarian Isle

: Shaped like a {{w|Nolan Chart}}.

Conservative Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "conservative" or Republican slant.

; {{w|Pajamas Media}}

: A media company and operator of conservative news.

; {{w|Michelle Malkin}}

: A conservative blogger, political commentator, and author.

; {{w|Hot Air}}

: A news blog founded by Michelle Malkin.

; {{w|RedState|Red State}}

: A political blog.

; {{w|American Thinker}}

: A daily online magazine focused on politics.

; {{w|Townhall}}

: A web publication and print magazine.

Tech blogs:

; {{w|Boy Genius Report}}

: A weblog that focuses on technology and consumer gadgets.

; {{w|Gizmodo}}

: A news and opinion blog, hosted by Gawker, that talks about life's more technological matters.

; {{w|Engadget}}

: Another technology-oriented, albeit independent, blog.

; Crunchgear

: A blog that reviews gadgets and other hardware.

; {{w|Techcrunch}}

: This is an online publisher of technology industry news.

; {{w|Joystiq}}

: A news and opinion blog that focuses on gaming.

; {{w|Kotaku}}

: Another gaming-oriented news/opinion blog, the main difference being that Kotaku is owned by Gawker.

Assorted:

; {{w|BoingBoing}}

: This is "i blog about wonderful things", the topics being quite random.

; {{w|Lifehacker}}

: Another Gawker blog, is a blog that teaches people how to simplify their lives through 'lifehacking', that is, using their resources in creative wayss. While the subject matter is life in general, there is a significant technological slant.

; {{w|Deadspin}}

: A sports and sports gossip blog founded by Will Leitch. It has since been acquired by Gawker

; Meatorama

: A blog that talks about cooking meat.

----

===QQ Region===

; Baidu Baike

: "Baidu Encyclopedia" and "Interactive Encyclopedia" are two Chinese online encyclopedias. Baidu Baike is powered by the same company as Baidu, the search engine popular in China.

; The Ma Le Ge Bi and The Grass Mud Horse Bay

: These refer to the {{w|Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures}}.

; The Location of Jia Junpeng

: This refers to the Internet meme of {{w|Jia Junpeng}} in 2009 in China.

; {{w|Tencent QQ}}

: A Chinese instant messaging program. In English communities "QQ" has several more common definitions. It can be an {{w|emoticon}}, representing a face with two large, crying eyes, or a synonym for "rage quit", in which a video game player quits the game out of sheer frustration. It originated in ''Warcraft II'' multiplayer, where pressing Ctrl+Q+Q would quit the game, and became more widely known in ''World of Warcraft''. These definitions are commonly combined, usually to mock the "rage quitter".

; River Crabs

: River Crabs is a {{w|Euphemisms for Internet censorship in China|euphemism for internet censorship in China}}. The Gulf of China refers to how sites in the region are based in People's Republic of China ("Red China").

; The Great Firewall

: Refers to {{w|The Great Firewall of China}}, a pun on {{w|The Great Wall of China}}. Similar to how The Great Wall of China was meant to keep intruding nations out of the then-capital of the city, The Great Firewall of China is meant to keep visitors from visiting censored websites. Oddly other Chinese websites (Qzone, Renren etc.) are not enclosed in this zone. It also resembles the {{w|Nine-Dash Line}} commonly drawn on Chinese maps that indicates a vague territorial claim.

----

===Forums Islands===
Forums are websites where one person posts a topic which other people can discuss. While the map has a zoomed in version, this article shall discuss the two bigger islands, first.

; [https://www.2ch.net 2channel]

: A Japanese imageboard that was actually the original inspiration for 4chan.

; [https://www.craigslist.org/about/sites Craigslist]

: A classified advertisement website with sections devoted to just about everything... which formerly included prostitution services, hence The Former Site of Adult Services

In the zoomed-in map, there is the following:

; [https://www.4chan.org/ 4chan.org]

: This is an {{w|imageboard}} in which people can upload pictures while others comment on them. The website is infamous for its loose/often non-existent rules, incredibly vulgar userbase, source of new memes, and spawning of trolls. 4chan's random board, known internally as '''/b/''', is almost constantly flooded with porn and image macros. This is why Randall's incarnation of 4chan is roughly shaped like a penis.

; 420chan and 7chan

: Other imageboards in the style of 4chan. Their relative lack of popularity and derivative nature leads a lot of 4chan users to mock them, hence, their position on Randall's map suggests that they're mere wads of semen.

; Encyclopedia Dramatica

: Labeled ED on the map, is a wiki site dedicated to chronicling internet memes and other noteworthy sites, events, people, and anything else that catches their attention, generally in a very satirical manner. The site is heavily populated by 4chan users. Many people are offended by the articles and talks that go on in the wiki and forum, which is perhaps the reason that it appears to be represented as a wad of sperm. The image of sperm also makes sense since ED is used as a messaging center for the group "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is represented in the map as part of the testicles of the 4chan island(see below at the gulf named Anonymous).

; Tunnel to Habbo

: A reference to [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pools-closed the 2006 Habbo Hotel Raids], in which hundreds of 4chan Anons simultaneously logged onto Habbo Hotel and proceeded to be as obnoxious as possible, standing in formations of swastikas and penises or body-blocking the swimming pools.

; {{w|Catbus}} Route

: This is likely a reference to {{w|Lolcat}}s in general.

; [https://www.ebaumsworld.com/ eBaum's World]

: A media-hosting website founded by Eric Bauman. The site has lost a lot of traffic after (quite valid) accusations of stolen content.

; The gulf labeled {{w|Anonymous (group)|Anonymous}}

: This is most likely a reference to the leaderless, anonymous international network called "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is composed of (mainly) anarchic activist hackers. Anonymous was created on the /b/ messaging board of 4chan, hence why the bay of Anonymous is on the coast of /b/. Also, the fact that the bay is in the "testicles"(/b/) of the 4chan island "penis" is referring to how Anonymous was created on 4chan, in the same way that sperm is created in the testicles of a penis, possibly a subtle jab at the group.

To the south and east is an archipelago of islands representing various regional and special-interest forums. Moving clockwise from 4chan island is

; Storm 2K

: This is an online website hosting information on tropical cyclones and tools for tracking them, and has a forum with multiple categories and threads for discussion on tropical cyclones, as well as multiple tropical cyclone models and reconnaissance information.

; Skyscraper city

: This is an internet forum website for skyscraper hobbyists and enthusiasts.

An island containing two websites related to women, namely

; Wizaz.pl

: A Polish website, presumably for women, with a forum filled with discussions mainly about beauty, health, women, hobbies, and fun.

; Baby and bump

: A self-described "pregnancy forum, baby and parenting community".

An island contaning:

; ForoCoches

: A very popular Spanish (as in from Spain) forum mainly about automobiles, but holds discussions on virtually any topic.

; Bodybuilding.com

: A website for bodybuilders. It contains a forum for general discussions on bodybuilding that includes topics such as supplements, exercises, and nutrition.

; Bokt.nl

: It calls itself the largest community on the topic of horses. A Dutch website, it holds topics about virtually anything involving horses.

; Cruise Critic

: A website with a large forum about cruises in general.

; Lay it low

: A website for discussing lowriding (changing a car so that its ground clearance goes lower than the clearance of the original design from the manufacturer).

; [https://www.twoplustwo.com/ Two plus two]

: A poker & gambling forum

An island containing:

; [https://www.facethejury.us/ Face the jury]

: This is an online forum, originally founded for users to upload pictures of themselves to be judged by other users

A smaller nearby island is Datalounge

An island containing gaming-related sites:

* D2JSP

* EA UK

* Gametrailers

Smaller islands next to the D2JSP island are

* Steam powered

* World of players

* Nedgaf

* Overclock

A smaller island of regional and special-interest forums:

; [https://digitalspy.com/ Digital Spy]

: A British media and entertainment news service

; [https://www.onliner.by/ onliner.by]

: A Belarusian digital technology forum

Zona Ford

; [https://lowyat.net/ lowyat]

: A large Malaysian technology forum

; [https://www.macrumors.com/ MacRumors]

: An Apple news and discussion site

Adjacent to this, an island labelled

; [https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ Whirlpool Forums]

: A large Australian broadband and technology forum. The drawing reflects Australia being an island continent separated from other countries.

An island made up of several European forums:

; [https://www.jlaforums.com/ JLA Forums]

: JLA Forums

; [https://www.fok.nl/ fok.nl]

: A Dutch forum site that is one of the largest internet communities in the Netherlands

; [https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ The Student Room]

: A British forum and wiki for secondary and tertiary students

; [https://www.boards.ie/ boards.ie]

: "Now Ye're talking", a popular Irish forum site

; [https://www.forum.hr/ forum.hr]

: A Croatian forum

; rus-chat

: Possibly a reference to [https://rus-chat.de/ rus-chat.de]

The largest single-site island is [https://www.somethingawful.com/ SomethingAwful], a website that is meant to showcase all things "awful". SomethingAwful also has a large trollbase, but they tend to be more honorable than the ones from Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan. One example is there being a spotty holding of the no-furries rule in the forums. The forums themselves are famous because of the holding of the Let's Plays of [https://lparchive.org/Dangan-Ronpa/ Dangan Ronpa] and [https://danganronpa2mirror.tumblr.com/ Super Dangan Ronpa 2], which had cooked up public interest to the point of there being an English-language release of the games. (Note that, due to these Let's Plays being in a forums that frequently hides behind a "paywall" that requires a paid account before accessing, the links provided go to their mirrors.)

==Transcript==
:'''Map of Online Communities'''
:Size on map represents volume of Daily Social activity (posts, chat, etc). Based on data gathered over the Spring and Summer of 2010.

:[Two insets on the upper left-hand corner shows that this map is a tiny portion of the huge continent of Spoken Language, encompassing portions of the Internet, Email, and Cell Phones (SMS).]

:[The largest landmass on the map by far, which takes up nearly the entire northern half of the map is "Facebook" - with large states in the south-east of the country labeled 'Farmville' and 'Happy Farm'. There is a much smaller state to the west of these called 'Farm Town'. To the north of these states is a large swath of unremarkable land entitled 'Northern Wasteland of Unread Updates.' This is directly north of the large Dopamine Sea.

:A peninsula on the south-west, just below the Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions, houses many tiny states, such as MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Bebo, & Hi5. It is bordered on the south by Buzzword Bay, which contains several islands of varying sizes. Among these are YouTube and Twitter (the largest), which are separated by the Social Media Consultant Channel. To the south-east of Twitter, across the Sea of Protocol Confusion, is another, equally large island. Most of it is Skype, with the north having two largish states called AIM and Windows Live Messenger. On the south-west part of the island are two smaller states called GG and Yahoo Messenger.

:The Island of Skype is extremely close to, but separated by the Great Firewall (a dashed line), the large landmass of QQ. It's north shore is the Gulf of China and Grass Mud Horse Bay. Outside of these bays, over the Great Firewall are two islands called Craigslist and 2Channel.

:In the Dopamine Sea, off the southern shores of Farmville and Happy Farm, is MMO Isle. Its largest state is WoW, with Runescape, Lineage, Maple Story, Habbo, and the Mountains of Steam among its notable landmarks. To the southeast of the island is the Gulf of Lag, in which sits the CDC Games island, with Eve Online.

:To the east of Twitter is Troll Bay, with such islands as Reddit and Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicio.us, and Wikipedia Talk Pages. To their south are the IRC isles, of which one is the tiny island of #xkcd.

:East of these islands, and north of Skype island, is the Sea of Memes. In this sea, to the north of Craigslist and 2Channel, is an archipelago of tiny islands. There is an inset, labeled 'Forums.' (See below.)

:To the southwest of Twitter island, in the Sea of Opinions, are the blog islands. These lie south of the islands in Buzzword Bay, as well. The northernmost islands in this group are centered around the Bay of Drama, on which can be found Diary Blogs, Gossip Blogs, and Livejournal. Gossip Blogs share an island with Political, Music, and Tech Blogs. To the north of this island is a smaller island called Photo Blogs. South of Diary Blogs, and off the southwest coast of Music blogs is a smaller island called Fandom Blogs. South of Tech Blogs, off of which sprouts the small peninsula of Business Blogs, is the Spamblog Straits. On the other side of the straits is a large island made up of Miscellaneous Blogs, with two states demarcated as Religious Blogs and Blog Blogs. Southwest of the Blog Islands is the Sea of Zero (0) Comments.]

:[An inset of a group of islands in the sea of memes located on the lower right corner of the map, labeled 'Forums'. The largest by far is 4chan and /b/. Also found here are D2JSP, JLA Frums, Fan Forum, Something Awful, and many smaller ones, too numerous to list here.]

:[The northeastern third of Gossip/Political/Tech Blogs island is another inset labeled 'Blogosphere (Core)'. This can be found on the lower left corner of the map. Two peninsulas in Political Blogs bookend the Bay of Flame -- these are Liberal Blogs and Conservative Blogs. Between them lie several tiny islands such as Politics Daily, CNN Politcal Ticker, and Mediaite. Off the coast of Liberal Blogs lies the island of NYTimes, off the coast of Conservative Blogs is Libertarian Isle. Between the two lies The Talk. The northern peninsula of Tech Blogs contains places such as Gizmodo, Engadget, Joystiq, and Kotaku.]

:[Text found between the two insets, which are directly below the main map.]
:ABOUT THIS MAP
:Communities rise and fall, and total membership numbers are no longer a good measure of a community's current size and health. This updated map uses size to represent total social activity in a community -- that is, how much talking, playing, sharing, or other socializing happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I did my best and tried to be consistent.

:Estimates are based on the numbers I could find, but involved a great deal of guesswork, statistical inference, random sampling, nonrandom sampling, a 20,000-cell spreadsheet, emailing, cajoling, tea-leaf reading, goat sacrifices, and gut instinct (i.e. making things up).

:Sources of data include Google and Bing, Wikipedia, Alexa, Big-Boards.com, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Akismet, every website statistics page I could find, press releases, news articles, and individual site employees. Thanks in particular to folks at Last.fm, LiveJournal, Reddit, and the New York Times, as well as sysadmins at a number of sites who shared statistics on condition of anonymity.

==Trivia==
This comic used to be [https://web.archive.org/web/20220125023117/https://store.xkcd.com/products/online-communities-poster available as a poster] in the xkcd store before it was [[Store|shut down]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics sharing name|Online Communities]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Rickrolling]]
[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]
[[Category:Sysadmins]]
[[Category:Disney]]
[[Category:Online Communities]]
[[Category:Comics with custom header texts]]

802: Online Communities 2

2026-05-30T19:38:23Z

208.59.176.206: /* YouTube Region */

{{comic
| number = 802
| date = October 6, 2010
| title = Online Communities 2
| image = online_communities_2.png
| imagesize = 740x860px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Best trivia I learned while working on this: 'Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize it's the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the WORLD?' Then you wait for the listener to do a double-take.}}

{{TOC}}A [https://xkcd.com/802_large/ larger version] of this picture can be found by clicking the comic on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com].

==Explanation==
This comic shows a map of internet communities where the size of each region roughly corresponds to its size, and its proximity to other regions indicates similarities. This is the successor of [[256: Online Communities]]. It differs in that it is updated, and furthermore, instead of using the ''membership'' of whichever service to determine its size on the map, it uses its "daily social activity".

The map actually has two super−maps intended to show the relative usage of types of communication: the online community map is surrounded by the much larger "countries" of E−Mail, SMS ("Instant Messaging") and "Cell Phones," which in turn are surrounded by the even huger "Spoken Language." It is unclear whether "Cell Phones" is intended to represent an independent region, or whether it is meant to be a sub-region of "Spoken Language." The ambiguity is exacerbated by the fact that cell phones are the primary medium of SMS, and are also used to access email and online communities. It's also unclear why other forms of communication, such as handwritten letters, are not included.

In the title text, [[Randall]] explains that, using his definition of "most activity per day", Farmville is actually the ''second'' most popular social-network farming game. The Chinese game "Happy Farm" was more popular at the time. This strikes many English-speaking xkcd readers as odd, because Farmville is much more famous, leading one to wonder how it could not be the most played. The phrase "browser-based social-networking–centered farming game" is an example of an {{tvtropes|OverlyNarrowSuperlative|overly narrow superlative}}.

----

===Facebook Region===
The Facebook region deals with social networks, that is, websites oriented towards having people meet.

'''{{w|Facebook}}

: A social networking site that allows people to meet old real−life friends and make new friends that share similar interests. One of its most notable features is that a member can update a "status" or make normal posts about the happenings of the member's life, complete with pictures, other members "liking" these posts. The size of the Facebook region is not exaggerated, as most websites seem to allow "liking" their content or allow/require logging in the website with a Facebook account. There even are cell phones with a "Facebook" button!

; {{w|FarmVille}} and {{w|Farm Town}}

: These are Facebook games in which users manage farms. '''{{w|Happy Farm}},''' the Chinese game that inspired the other two, does not require Facebook integration, so it is separated by a solid line from Facebook. The "Unethical Bay" refers to how these games tend to addict players into constantly buying virtual items of questionable value.

; People You Can't Unfriend

: Refers to people whom, due to real-life expectations and relationships, unfriending them is difficult, no matter how you really feel about them.

; Blatherskite River

: Refers to the conversations on Facebook, which may be long yet devoid of general meaning or logic.

; Data Mines

: Refers to the data mining that Facebook does with the interests of its members. This fuels the profitable advertising business at the expense of customer trust.

; Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions

: Refers to how interactions with family members on Facebook suddenly become more awkward because everyone on Facebook (and sometimes ''off'' Facebook, given that you do not necessarily need to log in if you want to see someone's Facebook account) if you are discussing with your family through post comments.

; 524,287 Strong for Mersenne Primes

: Refers to the communities who gain followers for a cause. A {{w|Mersenne prime}} is a prime number that is 1 less than a power of 2

; 524287

: The 7th known Mersenne prime.

; Jungle-Bay Mountains of "It's Complicated"

: Refers to one of Facebook's options as to what a user's relationship status currently is. A Jungle-Bay Mountain is a complicated and undefined climate, hence the complication.

; "lamebook bay"

: Refers to the online website "lamebook", where users post photos of funny things that happen on Facebook (these can include statuses, "fails", put-downs and images.)

; "Old Facebook" Resistance

: Refers to Facebook's earlier users, who have often resisted (and resented) changes made to Facebook as it became more popular.

; Privacy Controls

: This is located on the map surrounded by a Lava Pool, which is a reference to how difficult it is to find the privacy controls within Facebook.

; Niche Market Mountains

: Refers to social networks aimed towards more niche markets are located. Similar to how mountains tend to be isolated from mainland, niche social networks tend to be just that: niche, without much interaction with the general populace.

; Charred Wasteland of Abandoned Social Networks

: Refers to the tons of websites wanting to take advantage of the success of websites like Facebook to compete or even overpower with them. Even so, these websites tend to not have the userbase or even the expertise towards the long-term, hence they become wastelands: environments devoid of life, except the few life forms that are from these wastelands (in this case, the ones who are loyal to the website or which are sadly few).

In the Charred Wasteland stands:

; {{w|Ozymandias}}

: The titular broken statue of Shelley's poem. In the poem, only "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and a "shattered visage" are all that remain of the once-great statue and both of these features are present in the comic. According to the poem, the pedestal before the broken statue reads "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings..." hence "friend of friends" below Ozymandias on the map.

In the north are:

; The Duckface Mountains and The Red Cup Mountains

: "Duckface" refers to [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duck-face this incredibly obnoxious facial expression], and "red cup pictures" are any pictures containing party-goers holding disposable red plastic beverage cups. Facebook is absolutely flooded with both types of pictures.

In the south is:

; Buzzword Bay

: {{w|Buzzword}}s are words and phrases that make you sound a lot more topical than you actually are, used to garner attention. Again, Facebook status updates are commonly filled with buzzwords.

While Facebook is the largest "country" of the Facebook Region, there are a lot of smaller "countries" that represent smaller social networks.

Below Facebook (and "Old Facebook' Resistance") are:

; {{w|Diaspora (social network)|Diaspora}}

: A fully open-source, decentralized, privacy-respecting-and-expecting alternative to Facebook. From what this map tells, Diaspora is little-known, even if Facebook is taken out of the context.

; {{w|StudiVZ}}

: A German-speaking social network similar if not a ripped-off version of Facebook.

; {{w|XING}}

: A German-speaking social platform similar to {{w|LinkedIn}}.

; {{w|Ning (website)|Ning}}

: A service to create custom social websites. Its free services shut down in 2010.

; {{w|Taringa!}}

: A Spanish-speaking social network that is based on a forums. Copyrighted material is frequently found there.

Next to the Euro(pean) Gulf are:

; {{w|Skyrock (social network site)}}

: A French-speaking social network.

; {{w|Wer-kennt-wen}}

: A German-social network somewhat like MySpace.

; {{w|Nasza-klasa.pl}}

: NK, misspelled on the map as nasa-klasza.pl, is a Polish-speaking social network based on school relationships.

; {{w|Badoo}}

: A social network primarily based on dating and picture-sharing.

; {{w|Classmates.com}}

: A service in which the user can meet classmates that came from the same high school. The website is probably best known by its memetic advertisement that said [https://dudemanphat.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-am-i-supposed-to-care-about-nick.html "She married him??!! And they've got 7 kids??"] (Incidentally, [https://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2003325519_adcouple27.html there is more to the coupled picture than what the advertisement says.])

; {{w|MySpace}}

: A social networking website that is a kind of proto-Facebook: users could customize their one-page websites with whatever they wanted, make their interests and daily lives public, and interact with other users. Back in the mid 2000s, MySpace was the largest social network. However, the surprisingly-less-customizable Facebook ended up taking the place of MySpace. The "bands" country of MySpace refers to how a lot of bands in the day advertised and interacted using the website. Indeed, the latest incarnation of MySpace (in terms of 2013) is more oriented towards band members.

; {{w|LinkedIn}}

: A social network aimed towards people in the workplace, which is why it is adjacent to Corporate Bay.

; {{w|Orkut}}

: This was one of Google's first social networks before Google made [https://plus.google.com/ Google+]. It shut down in 2014.

; {{w|Hi5}}

: A social network that is very popular among people in Latin America.

; {{w|Renren}}

: "People" in Chinese, this is "a Chinese copy of Facebook".

; {{w|Bebo}}

: A social network popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It went bankrupt in 2013 and will move away from social networking and into apps.

; {{w|Friendster}}

: One of the first major social networks, it has fallen way off in usage in recent years and was eclipsed by MySpace. It is still popular in Asia.

; {{w|VK (social networking website)|Vkontakte}}

: VK is the second largest social network service in Europe after Facebook. It is available in several languages, but particularly popular among Russian-speaking users around the world.

; {{w|Netlog}}

: A Belgian social networking website specifically targeted at the global youth demographic.

; {{w|Mixi}}

: This is an online Japanese social networking service.

; {{w|Qzone}}

: A social networking website, which is big in China. According to a report published by Tencent, possibly surpassing other social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace in China.

; {{w|Tuenti}}

: A Spain-based, social networking service, that has been referred to as the "Spanish Facebook."

; {{w|Cloob}}

: A Persian-language social networking website, mainly popular in Iran. After the locally (and internationally) popular social networking website Orkut was blocked by the Iranian government, a series of local sites and networks, including Cloob, emerged to fill the gap.

; {{w|Kaixin001}}

: A social networking website which ranks as the 13th most popular website in China and 67th overall.

; {{w|Piczo}}

: A privately held blog website for teens. In November 2012, Piczo.com shut down.

; {{w|Odnoklassniki}}

: A social network service for classmates and old friends. It is popular in Russia and former Soviet Republics.

; {{w|Adult FriendFinder}}

: A pornographic dating site.

; {{w|Match.com}}

: A dating site, mainly targeted at people looking for marriage.

; {{w|Ok Cupid}}

: Another dating site, however it has been owned by Match.com since 2011.

; {{w|PlentyofFish}}

: This is yet another dating site, also owned by Match.com since June 2015.

; {{w|Sulawesi}}

: A real-life island in the Indonesian archipelago. It also appears in 256: Online Communities.

----

===MMO Isle===
MMOs (short form of "Massive Multiplayer Online Game") are online games where multiple people take the role of a character and play in a setting hosted by the game.

; [https://www.habbo.com/ Habbo Hotel]

: A website where someone creates a human avatar an interacts in a virtual world that is not that different from the one in real life.

; {{w|Club Penguin}}

: This is [https://disney.com/ Disney's] former MMO where someone creates a penguin avatar and interacts with other in a more polar, cartoony setting. Club Penguin is aimed towards children. It has been shut down near the end of March 2017.

; [https://maplestory.nexon.net/ Maple Story]

: This is an MMO that has a more natural setting. The most distinguishing feature of Maple Story is its cartoony pixel art.

; [https://www.gamefaqs.com/ GameFAQs]

: While this is not an MMO, it is a website that has the largest repository of walkthoughs, that is, guides that help someone beat a game. GameFAQs is notable for not only its large repository of walkthroughs of games that are across an extreme variety of consoles, handhelds, and even computers (not all of them MMOs), but also the drama that is rumoured to happen in the GameFAQs forums.

; [https://www.ign.com/ IGN]

: While this is also not an MMO, it is the largest website that gives news on video games in general, not just MMOs. Each of the games mentioned in the site have pages that have summaries, reviews, screenshots, other art, videos, and links to news related to its games.

; [https://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml FFXI]

: Final Fantasy XI is an MMO from SquareEnix, being the first MMO of the popular ''Final Fantasy'' series.

; [https://www.runescape.com/community Runescape]

: This is an older MMO.

; [https://us.battle.net/sc2/en/ Starcraft II]

: A realtime strategy game with a science fiction setting that heavily involves space travel. While technically not an MMO, it has a significant online multiplayer component.

; [https://us.battle.net/wow/en/ WoW]

: World of Warcraft is the definitive MMO, being not only the most popular and one of the longest-running but also the most expansive (having its own spinoff games, comic books, novels, and even figurines), WOW giving the idea of how an MMO should be. A player can choose from a variety of races, each with its own heavy history.

; [https://secondlife.com/ Second Life]

: This is similar to Habbo, albeit with a bigger suspension of disbelief (one example being that the player does not need to be a human) and in a 3D setting.

; [https://www.nationstates.net/ NationStates]

: A text-based political simulation game. Notably, some of its traffic comes not from the actual game (which is optional), but the extensive set of political, roleplaying, and general forums attached.

; [https://www.urbandead.com/ Urban Dead]

: It described itself as "A Massively Multi-Player Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse", which sums it up pretty well. It was finally closed down on 2025-03-14, [https://urbandead.com/stats.html reportedly] with 7893 characters still actively playing until the end, 6087 of them still standing (and 29 Christmas Trees).

; [https://www.kingdomofloathing.com KoL]

: Kingdom of Loathing is a comedic browser-based MMO-ish RPG with minimalistic stick-figure art.

; {{w|CDC Games}}

: A Chinese company reputed to be the largest MMORPG distributor.

; {{w|Eve Online|EVE Online}}

: A science fiction MMO which is notable because of its virtual economy.

; {{w|Gaia Online|Gaia}}

: Gaia Online, while not an MMO, is a forum oriented towards pop culture, including video games and Japanese media. Its most notable feature is the heavy customization possible of a member's pixel-art avatar. Its members tend to roleplay a lot, albeit in a more written, story-based form. Gaia has gained a reputation with its members stealing art and causing drama. The ferry that links the gaia island with 4chan was most likely due to the "boxxy" row, where vlogger boxxy posted videos of her using gaia, which then were circulated on 4chan. This resulted in a division of the sites users, and many more hacking attacks, including a DDOS attack on 4chan itself.

; [https://www.everquest.com EverQuest]

: EverQuest is one of the first MMO's, it's still running and has a huge number of expansions.

; [https://www.uo.com UO]

: Ultima Online along with EverQuest this was one of the first and longest running MMO's.

; {{w|City of Heroes|CoH}}

: City of Heroes was a superhero-based MMORPG that was shut down November 2012.

; [https://atlantica.nexon.net/ Atlantica]

: Atlantica Online is a turn-based MMORPG.

; [https://lineage.plaync.com/ Lineage]

: A Korean MMORPG, its North American servers were closed 2011/06/29 due to being unprofitable.

; [https://www.lineage2.com/en/ Lineage II]

: A Korean MMORPG, mainly played in Asia along with its predecessor. It adopted a Free to Play model on 2011/11/30.

; {{w|SubSpace (video game)|SubSpace}}

: A 2D, topdown shooter released in 1997. The servers have been shut down, but it continues to operate through the work of fans. It's widely considered an early entry into the MMO genre due to its unprecedentedly high player count.

Other notable regions include:

; The Mountains of Steam

: Referring to the game distribution service [https://store.steampowered.com/ Steam] where people can buy and download video games in general, not just MMOs. There is also an extensive [https://steamcommunity.com/ community] where users can share content, and instant messaging chat by text, voice, or game streaming.

; River Grind

: Refers to "grinding". In most MMOs, the character is a fighter of some sorts, yet starts at a level 1, signifying the character's aptitude level in combat. The character can level up and gain more aptitude levels through earning experience, of which the most reliable and otherwise common way is the process of "grinding," that is, repeatedly fighting opposing monsters (sometimes of a level notably lower that your character's), gaining experience points from winning these battles until your character gains a level, that is, "levels up". While a practical necessity in strengthening the character, this process can be tiresome, hence the expression "grinding."

; Spawn Camp

: Refers to "spawn points", the places where AI-powered enemies and players who have died in-game respawn, and the act of "spawn camping", in which the player character simply stands behind or around the spawn points to fight the enemy creatures or respawning players as soon as they appear.

; Gulf of Lag

: Refers to how the MMO can be slowed down a considerable amount due to the large amount of players simultaneously using the same server, this congestion bogging down the server and frustrating the users.

; [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/final-boss-of-the-internet End Guy for the Internet]

: Refers to "end bosses," the last — and usually hardest to defeat — "bad guy" in a game (or a section of a game).

----

===YouTube Region===
The YouTube region refers to websites that are based on user-created content.

; [https://www.youtube.com/ YouTube]

: This is the definitive video website where people can upload videos with the purpose of public viewing, ranging from home movies through official music videos through Let's Plays of people playing video games to questionably-legal uploads of cartoons and films. Google had purchased YouTube.

Many of the sites on the map are just references to {{w|viral video}}s at {{w|YouTube}}:

; Viral Shores

: Refers to how viral videos (whether they be viral marketing or simply memes) tend to proliferate on YouTube.

; Britney

: This likely refers to pop singer {{w|Britney Spears}} and the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc‎ "Leave Britney Alone" guy].

; Maru Gulf

: Refers to Maru the Cat, a YouTube celebrity [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/676:_Abstraction also mentioned in xkcd].

; Prairie Dog Habitat

: This likely refers to the viral video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw Dramatic Chipmunk] (which is actually a Prairie Dog).

; Rick Rolling Hills

: References {{w|Rickrolling}}. More information [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ here]. The "deserted" note likely refers to how Rick Astley himself is tired of the meme, or again, how people tend to leave the video upon getting "Rick Roll'd," never actually going to the video with the express purpose of viewing the video. It could also refer to the lyric in the song, "Never gonna tell a lie and desert you".

; Lunar Landing Soundstage

: Reference to the {{w|Moon landing conspiracy theories}}, which Randall has railed on before.

; {{w|OK Go}} Bay

: Refers to the band "OK Go" who have multiple viral music videos on YouTube, most famously [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA "Here it goes again"] featuring treadmills.

; HTML5 swamp

: Refers to YouTube's spotty support of HTML 5 (an update on HTML that is frequently touting its media capabilities, making HTML 5 a viable alternative to Flash). Of course, by the time the comic was written, HTML 5 was still in its infancy. The Music Video Bay refers to the amount of music videos (official or otherwise) are present in YouTube.

Other counties of the YouTube region include:

; [https://vimeo.com/ Vimeo]

: A website where people tend to showcase artistic content that they made on their own, notably independent studios.

; [https://secure.flickr.com/ Flickr]

: A website where people can upload and share photographs they took.

; [https://fotolog.com Fotolog]

: A photo website very popular in South America in 2004-2008, which was used as a social network.

; [https://www.last.fm/ Last.fm]

: A music website that uses a music recommender system known as "Audioscrobbler". Last.fm creates a detailed profile of each user's musical preferences by recording the details of the tracks they listen to and transfers ("scrobbles") the information to Last.fm's database via the music player. The data is then displayed on the user's profile page and compiled to create reference pages for individual artists.

; [https://www.deviantart.com/ deviantArt]

: The largest art website, where people can upload, sell, and buy not only art itself, but also video, audio, Flash-work, and even skins (the original purpose of deviantArt). While many big-name/professional people and organizations have their works in deviantArt, the site is more infamous for the large amount of people who upload low-quality fan-art and fan-characters, most notably of media from Japan. Another point of infamy is the large amount of drama that can happen in the website.

; [https://www.newgrounds.com/ Newgrounds]

: A website that hosts art, (Flash-based) videos, audio, and (Flash-based) games to which other users can comment and rate. Even so, content from Newgrounds tends to be obscene, though there is a filtering system if a viewer does not wish to see obscene content.

; [https://www.chatroulette.com/ Chatroulette]

: A website where people are randomly paired up with each other and video/text chat.

; Brickshelf

: This is the online resource for {{w|LEGO}} fans.

; [https://tumblr.com/ Tumblr]

: A websie where people could make a blog and post text, pictures, video, audio, quotes, and links. The most distinguishing feature is the ability to "reblog" these posts from other's people's blogs into the user's own blog. Notable features of Tumblr include sketchblogs (where people upload their sketches), Ask blogs (where people answer questions other users ask, the moderators of these blogs usually pretending to be a character from a form of media), and the large amount of "social justice" (a highly controversial political movement). (See also [[1043: Ablogalypse]].)

; {{w|b3ta}}

: A popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by The Guardian.

; The Isle of teenagers who just discovered macroeconomics

: A joke about how teenagers tend to think that the world and the economy are a lot simpler than they actually are. Combined with the typical internet mindset, this leads to a lot of teenagers posting blogs and videos and comments on blogs and videos describing how idiotic the government and other red-tape-related adults are.

; The Snob Sound

: This could refer to the large amount of people who look down on others in the surrounding websites (one example being an original artist looking down on people who draw mainly fan-art).

; The Iraq

: A reference to Miss Teen USA 2007, in which Miss South Carolina Teen USA, Caitlin Upton, said "I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as...the US should help the US and should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we are able to build up our future." The usage of "the Iraq" has became a meme.

----

===Twitter Region===

; Bieber Bay

: A reference to {{w|Justin Bieber}}, a pop singer whose singing sprouted on YouTube and became very popular on Twitter and other social media. He is very much vilified because of his rather feminine appearance and his hordes of fans (called "Beliebers") that seem to support him to ridiculous extents. Lately, though, Justin Beiber has taken a "bad boy" attitude because of all the Beliebers who are willing to defend him no matter what, him partaking in a lot of questionable activities that include tattoos, questionably-legal substances, and buying prostitution, thus lowering his popularity in the general populace.

; {{w|Google Buzz}}

: A former social network attempted by Google. It has since been shut down.

; Bit.Ly Mountains

: A reference to the URL shortening service {{w|bit.ly}}.

; Kanye's Isle of Sadness

: A reference to the musician {{w|Kanye West}}, whose Twitter, at the time, was [https://www.buzzfeed.com/mlew15/25-of-kanye-wests-most-thought-provoking-tweets-h0se famously introspective and stream-of-consciousness].

; Sarah Palin USA

: This is the Twitter handle of former politician {{w|Sarah Palin}}.

; Clueless Politician Coast

: A reference to the number of politicians on Twitter and other social networks who repeatedly share clueless updates that more often create an uproar than help their election chances.

; Desert of Food Updates

: A reference to the number of pictures of food that are shared on social media (especially Twitter). There has even been some controversy on posting such pictures.

; Journalists Trying to Find the Cutting Edge

: This is referencing journalists on Twitter trying to keep up with the way that news is gathered and delivered now, despite usually working for a newspaper that publishes once a day.

; SHAQ

: A reference to the former NBA basketball player, {{w|Shaq}}.

; {{w|identi.ca}}

: This is an open source social networking and micro-blogging service, being an alternative to Twitter.

; Breaking! Waves

: A pun on the fact that so many people used the word "Breaking" at the beginning of tweets that do not warrant that tag that the word has lost most of its meaning and become a joke. It is a pun because waves "break" on the shore.

; Web 3.0

: Refers to the unofficial term {{w|Web 2.0}}. In this case, "Web 1.0" refers to websites that give information to users. Web 2.0 refers to websites where the users themselves create content. Web 3.0 has sometimes been used as a term for {{w|semantic web}}, a machine-readable version of the web, but this usage is far from universal.

; Hashtag games whose popularity confuses and depresses you

: Refers to the game where a user posts something under a particular hashtag and others respond with their own ideas, all tagged under the same phrase. This has been very popular for no clear reason, as Randall notes.

----

===Geotagged Bay===

; {{w|Yelp}}

: A website where people post reviews of real-life public locations (one example being restaurants).

; {{w|Geocaching}}

: A worldwide GPS scavenger hunt where users upload positions of caches and others will find them and log it online.

; {{w|Foursquare}}

: A location-based social network.

; Latitude

: Refers to {{w|Google Latitude}}.

----

===Troll Bay and the Sea of Memes===

; {{w|Reddit}}

: This is the self-described "front page of the Internet" in which users submit stories, photos and videos and the best are "up-voted" to the top of the page.

; {{w|Help:Using talk pages|Wikipedia Talk Pages}}

: Refer to the pages where Wikipedia editors ostensibly discuss how to improve articles.

; {{w|Wikia}}

: Later Fandom, is a website offering free-of-charge wiki hosting, using a variant of Wikimedia's MediaWiki, allowing users to create user-editable encyclopedias of just about any subject matter, although it has more recently introduced an entertainment blog named "Fandom powered by Wikia" and eventually adopted that branding for the wiki farm as well.

; {{w|StumbleUpon}}

: A website-sharing service, it shut down in 2018.

; {{w|Delicious (website)|Delicious}}

: A bookmarking and bookmark-sharing service.

; {{w|Digg}}

: A former competitor to Reddit in the social-news sphere, but now has been sold and restarted as an aggregator of news stories. The lifeboats refer to the mass exodus of users from Digg to rival news aggregator Reddit that occurred after Digg's glitchy and unpopular "v4" redesign in August 2010.

; {{w|Slashdot}}

: Labeled "/." on the map, is a technical news site.

; {{w|MetaFilter}}

: Labeled "MeFi" on the map, is a long-running community blog.

; {{w|Fark}}

: A community website that allows members to comment on news articles from other sites.

; {{w|YTMND}}

: This is an acronym for "You're The Man Now, Dog!" It's also a community in which users can create meme-type nonsense by playing music over an image (either static or animated).

; {{w|Free Republic}}

: A right-wing conservative activist forum.

----

===Skype Region===
The Skype Region refers to different IM, or Instant Messaging services, that enable almost-real-time text chatting between multiple people. These often allow services like voice chat and even video calls.

; {{w|Skype}}

: According to Randall, Skype is the most popular of these among the internet. It has many features to allow peer-to-peer voice chats, as well as allowing calls to be made at a price to actual phones.

; {{w|AIM}}

: AOL Instant Messenger is a chat client created by AOL.

; GG

: {{w|Gadu-Gadu}} is an instant messenger client popular in Poland.

; {{w|Yahoo Messenger}}

: This is an instant messenger client by Yahoo.

; {{w|Google Talk}}

: A voice/video chatting service from Google (that Google has been replacing with Hangouts). Google Talk also has an invasion fleet at its shores.

; {{w|ICQ}}

: This is an older messaging service, albeit with an 18+ requirement (despite pornography not being the point of ICQ).

; {{w|Windows Live Messenger}}

: "MSN", was the messaging service of Microsoft before Microsoft bought Skype. MSN was useful in that people could draw and send pictures to other chatters.

; {{w|Usenet}}

: This was one of the original ways to communicate on the internet, though people can download (copyrighted) files through the service. Since it is still in use by some, it gets the tag "Still Around!" on the map.

; {{w|IRC}} Isles

: Refers to the ancestor of Internet-powered chatting. People would have connected to a server and spoke publicly. IRC is still in use (as of 2014), notably in getting help from other users. One of those isles is #xkcd which is an IRC community around [[xkcd]].

----

===Bay of Drama===

; {{w|FanFiction.net}}

: A website where people can submit their fanfiction (stories by fans written about other peoples' media, normally that about popular media). The website tends to have people that are not helpful to those who legitimately want critique of their own stories.

; {{w|Xanga}}

: A blogging service that, while popular at its time, lost out to...

; {{w|LiveJournal}}

: This was the most popular blogging service before Tumblr.

; ONYD

: Reference to {{w|Oh No You Didn't}}, which is explained in the Blogosphere region.

; {{w|Dreamwidth}}

: A LiveJournal fork emphasizing its open-source nature.

----

===Blogosphere===
The Blogosphere region contains several general {{w|blog}} topics.

; {{w|photo blog|Photo Blogs}}

: These are commonly used to chronicle the lives of the authors through photographs.

; Diary Blogs

: These are another popular use of blogs (and, in fact, the original use) where authors write commentary about their lives.

; Bay of Grammar Pedantry

: This deals with the fact that, whether due to a lack of proper education, a habit of using "chat-speak" in the text-limited SMS and MMS, or simply due to the (generally) more relaxed nature of the Internet, blog authors tend to write with horrible composition, a point of annoyment to a lot of other people due to the subsequent increased difficulty of reading the horribly-written material.

; Fandom Blogs

: These are blogs created by a "{{w|fandom}}" which is a community of fans. A fandom blog deals with the subject matter of the respective fandom.

; Sea of Zero (0) Comments

: Refers to blogs that get very little attention and therefore have no comments.

; SpamBlog Straits

: References spammers who use blogs to increase the number of links to their site to try to game search engines.

; OffTopic.com

: A general interest forum that refers to itself as "the largest general discussion forum on the internet."

; Blog Blogs

: These can refer to blogs that talk about the matter about blogging itself, though they can also refer to blogs which authors use in talking about blogging.

Many more straightforward blogs, including:

* Writing/Poetry

* Gossip Blogs

* Political Blogs

* Music Blogs

* Tech Blogs

* Business Blogs

* Corporate Blogs

* Religious Blogs

* Miscellaneous Blogs

----

===Blogosphere (Core Region)===
Gossip Blogs. Each blog below focuses on gossip surrounding celebrities and other well-known persons.

; {{w|Jezebel}}

: A liberally feminist blog, hosted by Gawker.

; {{w|deadline.com|Deadline}}

: This is an online entertainment news magazine.

; {{w|TMZ}}

: A celebrity news website.

; {{w|Gawker}}

: A blog that is the host of other blogs.

; LJ Oh No They Didn't

: LiveJournal {{w|Oh No They Didn't}} - Oh No They Didn't, also known as ONTD, is the largest community on LiveJournal with over 100,000 members. The community focuses on celebrity gossip and pop culture with most of its posts aggregated from other gossip blogs.

; Doucheblog

: Refers to blogs that were once insightful but that spiraled into long rants due to relationship changes of their authors.

; Isle of Mockery

: A reference to the fact that some of what these blogs do is mock celebrities or other for doing or saying stupid things on camera.

Liberal Blogs. Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "liberal" or "progressive" slant. These blogs tend to lean for the Democratic party.

; {{w|Huffington Post}}

: A news blog.

; {{w|Paul Krugman}}

: This is an American economist who considers himself a liberal.

; {{w|Daily Beast}}

: A news and opinion website focusing on politics and pop culture.

; {{w|Talking Points Memo|TPM}}

: A political journal run by Josh Marshall.

; {{w|Ezra Klein}}

: He used to have his own site at the Washington Post, but is now the editor of [Vox.com].

; {{w|Think Progress}}

: A political news blog.

; {{w|Daily Kos|Kos}}

: Another political blog.

Bay of Flame:

; {{w|Politics Daily}}

: A political journalism website launched by AOL.

; CNN Political Ticker

: This is CNN's political blog.

; {{w|Mediaite}}

: A news and opinion blog covering politics and entertainment in the media.

; {{w|NY Times}}

: This is one of the most famous newspapers, thus the comparatively large size of its island.

; {{w|The Talk}}

: A talk show on CBS that discusses the latest headlines "through the eyes of mothers."

; Libertarian Isle

: Shaped like a {{w|Nolan Chart}}.

Conservative Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "conservative" or Republican slant.

; {{w|Pajamas Media}}

: A media company and operator of conservative news.

; {{w|Michelle Malkin}}

: A conservative blogger, political commentator, and author.

; {{w|Hot Air}}

: A news blog founded by Michelle Malkin.

; {{w|RedState|Red State}}

: A political blog.

; {{w|American Thinker}}

: A daily online magazine focused on politics.

; {{w|Townhall}}

: A web publication and print magazine.

Tech blogs:

; {{w|Boy Genius Report}}

: A weblog that focuses on technology and consumer gadgets.

; {{w|Gizmodo}}

: A news and opinion blog, hosted by Gawker, that talks about life's more technological matters.

; {{w|Engadget}}

: Another technology-oriented, albeit independent, blog.

; Crunchgear

: A blog that reviews gadgets and other hardware.

; {{w|Techcrunch}}

: This is an online publisher of technology industry news.

; {{w|Joystiq}}

: A news and opinion blog that focuses on gaming.

; {{w|Kotaku}}

: Another gaming-oriented news/opinion blog, the main difference being that Kotaku is owned by Gawker.

Assorted:

; {{w|BoingBoing}}

: This is "i blog about wonderful things", the topics being quite random.

; {{w|Lifehacker}}

: Another Gawker blog, is a blog that teaches people how to simplify their lives through 'lifehacking', that is, using their resources in creative wayss. While the subject matter is life in general, there is a significant technological slant.

; {{w|Deadspin}}

: A sports and sports gossip blog founded by Will Leitch. It has since been acquired by Gawker

; Meatorama

: A blog that talks about cooking meat.

----

===QQ Region===

; Baidu Baike

: "Baidu Encyclopedia" and "Interactive Encyclopedia" are two Chinese online encyclopedias. Baidu Baike is powered by the same company as Baidu, the search engine popular in China.

; The Ma Le Ge Bi and The Grass Mud Horse Bay

: These refer to the {{w|Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures}}.

; The Location of Jia Junpeng

: This refers to the Internet meme of {{w|Jia Junpeng}} in 2009 in China.

; {{w|Tencent QQ}}

: A Chinese instant messaging program. In English communities "QQ" has several more common definitions. It can be an {{w|emoticon}}, representing a face with two large, crying eyes, or a synonym for "rage quit", in which a video game player quits the game out of sheer frustration. It originated in ''Warcraft II'' multiplayer, where pressing Ctrl+Q+Q would quit the game, and became more widely known in ''World of Warcraft''. These definitions are commonly combined, usually to mock the "rage quitter".

; River Crabs

: River Crabs is a {{w|Euphemisms for Internet censorship in China|euphemism for internet censorship in China}}. The Gulf of China refers to how sites in the region are based in People's Republic of China ("Red China").

; The Great Firewall

: Refers to {{w|The Great Firewall of China}}, a pun on {{w|The Great Wall of China}}. Similar to how The Great Wall of China was meant to keep intruding nations out of the then-capital of the city, The Great Firewall of China is meant to keep visitors from visiting censored websites. Oddly other Chinese websites (Qzone, Renren etc.) are not enclosed in this zone. It also resembles the {{w|Nine-Dash Line}} commonly drawn on Chinese maps that indicates a vague territorial claim.

----

===Forums Islands===
Forums are websites where one person post a topic to which other people can discuss. While the map has a zoomed in version, this article shall discuss the two bigger islands, first.

; [https://www.2ch.net 2channel]

: A Japanese imageboard that was actually the original inspiration for 4chan.

; [https://www.craigslist.org/about/sites Craigslist]

: A classified advertisement website with sections devoted to just about everything... which formerly included prostitution services, hence The Former Site of Adult Services

In the zoomed-in map, there is the following:

; [https://www.4chan.org/ 4chan.org]

: This is an {{w|imageboard}} in which people can upload pictures while others comment on them. The website is infamous for its loose/often non-existent rules, incredibly vulgar userbase, source of new memes, and spawning of trolls. 4chan's random board, known internally as '''/b/''', is almost constantly flooded with porn and image macros. This is why Randall's incarnation of 4chan is roughly shaped like a penis.

; 420chan and 7chan

: Other imageboards in the style of 4chan. Their relative lack of popularity and derivative nature leads a lot of 4chan users to mock them, hence, their position on Randall's map suggests that they're mere wads of semen.

; Encyclopedia Dramatica

: Labeled ED on the map, is a wiki site dedicated to chronicling internet memes and other noteworthy sites, events, people, and anything else that catches their attention, generally in a very satirical manner. The site is heavily populated by 4chan users. Many people are offended by the articles and talks that go on in the wiki and forum, which is perhaps the reason that it appears to be represented as a wad of sperm. The image of sperm also makes sense since ED is used as a messaging center for the group "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is represented in the map as part of the testicles of the 4chan island(see below at the gulf named Anonymous).

; Tunnel to Habbo

: A reference to [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pools-closed the 2006 Habbo Hotel Raids], in which hundreds of 4chan Anons simultaneously logged onto Habbo Hotel and proceeded to be as obnoxious as possible, standing in formations of swastikas and penises or body-blocking the swimming pools.

; {{w|Catbus}} Route

: This is likely a reference to {{w|Lolcat}}s in general.

; [https://www.ebaumsworld.com/ eBaum's World]

: A media-hosting website founded by Eric Bauman. The site has lost a lot of traffic after (quite valid) accusations of stolen content.

; The gulf labeled {{w|Anonymous (group)|Anonymous}}

: This is most likely a reference to the leaderless, anonymous international network called "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is composed of (mainly) anarchic activist hackers. Anonymous was created on the /b/ messaging board of 4chan, hence why the bay of Anonymous is on the coast of /b/. Also, the fact that the bay is in the "testicles"(/b/) of the 4chan island "penis" is referring to how Anonymous was created on 4chan, in the same way that sperm is created in the testicles of a penis, possibly a subtle jab at the group.

To the south and east is an archipelago of islands representing various regional and special-interest forums. Moving clockwise from 4chan island is

; Storm 2K

: This is an online website hosting information on tropical cyclones and tools for tracking them, and has a forum with multiple categories and threads for discussion on tropical cyclones, as well as multiple tropical cyclone models and reconnaissance information.

; Skyscraper city

: This is an internet forum website for skyscraper hobbyists and enthusiasts.

An island containing two websites related to women, namely

; Wizaz.pl

: A Polish website, presumably for women, with a forum filled with discussions mainly about beauty, health, women, hobbies, and fun.

; Baby and bump

: A self-described "pregnancy forum, baby and parenting community".

An island contaning:

; ForoCoches

: A very popular Spanish (as in from Spain) forum mainly about automobiles, but holds discussions on virtually any topic.

; Bodybuilding.com

: A website for bodybuilders. It contains a forum for general discussions on bodybuilding that includes topics such as supplements, exercises, and nutrition.

; Bokt.nl

: It calls itself the largest community on the topic of horses. A Dutch website, it holds topics about virtually anything involving horses.

; Cruise Critic

: A website with a large forum about cruises in general.

; Lay it low

: A website for discussing lowriding(changing a car so that its ground clearance go lower than the clearance of the original design from the manufacturer.

; [https://www.twoplustwo.com/ Two plus two]

: A poker & gambling forum

An island containing:

; [https://www.facethejury.us/ Face the jury]

: This is an online forum, originally founded for users to upload pictures of themselves to be judged by other users

A smaller nearby island is Datalounge

An island containing gaming-related sites:

* D2JSP

* EA UK

* Gametrailers

Smaller islands next to the D2JSP island are

* Steam powered

* World of players

* Nedgaf

* Overclock

A smaller island of regional and special-interest forums:

; [https://digitalspy.com/ Digital Spy]

: A British media and entertainment news service

; [https://www.onliner.by/ onliner.by]

: A Belarusian digital technology forum

Zona Ford

; [https://lowyat.net/ lowyat]

: A large Malaysian technology forum

; [https://www.macrumors.com/ MacRumors]

: An Apple news and discussion site

Adjacent to this, an island labelled

; [https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ Whirlpool Forums]

: A large Australian broadband and technology forum. The drawing reflects Australia being an island continent separated from other countries.

An island made up of several European forums:

; [https://www.jlaforums.com/ JLA Forums]

: JLA Forums

; [https://www.fok.nl/ fok.nl]

: A Dutch forum site that is one of the largest internet communities in the Netherlands

; [https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ The Student Room]

: A British forum and wiki for secondary and tertiary students

; [https://www.boards.ie/ boards.ie]

: "Now Ye're talking", a popular Irish forum site

; [https://www.forum.hr/ forum.hr]

: A Croatian forum

; rus-chat

: Possibly a reference to [https://rus-chat.de/ rus-chat.de]

The largest single-site island is [https://www.somethingawful.com/ SomethingAwful], a website that is meant to showcase all things "awful". SomethingAwful also has a large trollbase, but they tend to be more honorable than the ones from Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan. One example is there being a spotty holding of the no-furries rule in the forums. The forums themselves are famous because of the holding of the Let's Plays of [https://lparchive.org/Dangan-Ronpa/ Dangan Ronpa] and [https://danganronpa2mirror.tumblr.com/ Super Dangan Ronpa 2], which had cooked up public interest to the point of there being an English-language release of the games. (Note that, due to these Let's Plays being in a forums that frequently hides behind a "paywall" that requires a paid account before accessing, the links provided go to their mirrors.)

==Transcript==
:'''Map of Online Communities'''
:Size on map represents volume of Daily Social activity (posts, chat, etc). Based on data gathered over the Spring and Summer of 2010.

:[Two insets on the upper left-hand corner shows that this map is a tiny portion of the huge continent of Spoken Language, encompassing portions of the Internet, Email, and Cell Phones (SMS).]

:[The largest landmass on the map by far, which takes up nearly the entire northern half of the map is "Facebook" - with large states in the south-east of the country labeled 'Farmville' and 'Happy Farm'. There is a much smaller state to the west of these called 'Farm Town'. To the north of these states is a large swath of unremarkable land entitled 'Northern Wasteland of Unread Updates.' This is directly north of the large Dopamine Sea.

:A peninsula on the south-west, just below the Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions, houses many tiny states, such as MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Bebo, & Hi5. It is bordered on the south by Buzzword Bay, which contains several islands of varying sizes. Among these are YouTube and Twitter (the largest), which are separated by the Social Media Consultant Channel. To the south-east of Twitter, across the Sea of Protocol Confusion, is another, equally large island. Most of it is Skype, with the north having two largish states called AIM and Windows Live Messenger. On the south-west part of the island are two smaller states called GG and Yahoo Messenger.

:The Island of Skype is extremely close to, but separated by the Great Firewall (a dashed line), the large landmass of QQ. It's north shore is the Gulf of China and Grass Mud Horse Bay. Outside of these bays, over the Great Firewall are two islands called Craigslist and 2Channel.

:In the Dopamine Sea, off the southern shores of Farmville and Happy Farm, is MMO Isle. Its largest state is WoW, with Runescape, Lineage, Maple Story, Habbo, and the Mountains of Steam among its notable landmarks. To the southeast of the island is the Gulf of Lag, in which sits the CDC Games island, with Eve Online.

:To the east of Twitter is Troll Bay, with such islands as Reddit and Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicio.us, and Wikipedia Talk Pages. To their south are the IRC isles, of which one is the tiny island of #xkcd.

:East of these islands, and north of Skype island, is the Sea of Memes. In this sea, to the north of Craigslist and 2Channel, is an archipelago of tiny islands. There is an inset, labeled 'Forums.' (See below.)

:To the southwest of Twitter island, in the Sea of Opinions, are the blog islands. These lie south of the islands in Buzzword Bay, as well. The northernmost islands in this group are centered around the Bay of Drama, on which can be found Diary Blogs, Gossip Blogs, and Livejournal. Gossip Blogs share an island with Political, Music, and Tech Blogs. To the north of this island is a smaller island called Photo Blogs. South of Diary Blogs, and off the southwest coast of Music blogs is a smaller island called Fandom Blogs. South of Tech Blogs, off of which sprouts the small peninsula of Business Blogs, is the Spamblog Straits. On the other side of the straits is a large island made up of Miscellaneous Blogs, with two states demarcated as Religious Blogs and Blog Blogs. Southwest of the Blog Islands is the Sea of Zero (0) Comments.]

:[An inset of a group of islands in the sea of memes located on the lower right corner of the map, labeled 'Forums'. The largest by far is 4chan and /b/. Also found here are D2JSP, JLA Frums, Fan Forum, Something Awful, and many smaller ones, too numerous to list here.]

:[The northeastern third of Gossip/Political/Tech Blogs island is another inset labeled 'Blogosphere (Core)'. This can be found on the lower left corner of the map. Two peninsulas in Political Blogs bookend the Bay of Flame -- these are Liberal Blogs and Conservative Blogs. Between them lie several tiny islands such as Politics Daily, CNN Politcal Ticker, and Mediaite. Off the coast of Liberal Blogs lies the island of NYTimes, off the coast of Conservative Blogs is Libertarian Isle. Between the two lies The Talk. The northern peninsula of Tech Blogs contains places such as Gizmodo, Engadget, Joystiq, and Kotaku.]

:[Text found between the two insets, which are directly below the main map.]
:ABOUT THIS MAP
:Communities rise and fall, and total membership numbers are no longer a good measure of a community's current size and health. This updated map uses size to represent total social activity in a community -- that is, how much talking, playing, sharing, or other socializing happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I did my best and tried to be consistent.

:Estimates are based on the numbers I could find, but involved a great deal of guesswork, statistical inference, random sampling, nonrandom sampling, a 20,000-cell spreadsheet, emailing, cajoling, tea-leaf reading, goat sacrifices, and gut instinct (i.e. making things up).

:Sources of data include Google and Bing, Wikipedia, Alexa, Big-Boards.com, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Akismet, every website statistics page I could find, press releases, news articles, and individual site employees. Thanks in particular to folks at Last.fm, LiveJournal, Reddit, and the New York Times, as well as sysadmins at a number of sites who shared statistics on condition of anonymity.

==Trivia==
This comic used to be [https://web.archive.org/web/20220125023117/https://store.xkcd.com/products/online-communities-poster available as a poster] in the xkcd store before it was [[Store|shut down]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics sharing name|Online Communities]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Rickrolling]]
[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]
[[Category:Sysadmins]]
[[Category:Disney]]
[[Category:Online Communities]]
[[Category:Comics with custom header texts]]

744: Walkthrough

2026-05-30T19:18:19Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 744
| date = May 24, 2010
| title = Walkthrough
| image = walkthrough.png
| titletext = There's nothing hotter than porn dubbed over with a poorly-mic'd teenager's voice explaining each step in a droning monotone. 'okay, we're almost at the spawn point... separate the labia, but watch out, there are more inside them...
}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|Video game walkthrough|walkthrough video}} is a recorded explanation of how to accomplish a certain task, usually beating a video game (or a particular level of one). A {{w|speedrun}} is an attempt to complete a level or game as fast as possible. The man is implying that because he followed the speedrun video, intercourse didn't last long enough to satisfy his partner — who now probably doesn't want to date him again as a result.

The title text (humorously) shows what the narration on such a video might be like, based on typical video game walkthroughs. In a video game, a {{w|Spawning (video games)|spawn point}} is a place where enemies, items, or players will appear; here, {{w|Spawn (biology)|spawn}} is also being used in the biological sense of mating and reproduction. The "separate... more inside" part is similar to typical instructions about how to get past certain enemies or traps, while it could also refer to the labia majora and minora. Separating the labia majora would reveal the labia minora.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits at a computer. His friend, also drawn as Cueball, enters the room.]
:Cueball: How did the date go?
:Friend: I wanted to be prepared, so I looked up a sex walkthrough video.

:[The two men silently contemplate the words of the previous panel.]

:[Cueball turns his head around. His friend looks down.]
:Cueball: ...and?
:Friend: It turns out it was a speed run.
:Cueball: Ouch.

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

Talk:3252: Ancestral Genomes

2026-05-30T19:16:06Z

208.59.176.206:

3251: Time Machine Conversation

2026-05-29T03:48:38Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */ no need to number the panels in transcript

{{comic
| number = 3251
| date = May 27, 2026
| title = Time Machine Conversation
| image = time_machine_conversation_2x.png
| imagesize = 691x344px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's possible to do sea navigation without a compass, but you'll have to get some spoilers from the Polynesians.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Spoiler alert! This page was created in the past.{{citation needed}} Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic plays on the problem of the potential for the creation of {{w|temporal paradox}}es in scenarios where {{w|time travel}} is possible. [[Cueball]] has used a time machine to travel to the {{w|Iron Age}} and has a conversation with an ancient-times version of [[Hairbun]] (who seems to be a farmer, since she's holding a pretty modern-looking {{w|Hoe (tool)|hoe}} and seems to be particularly knowledgable of the 'latest' {{w|plow}} developments). In his surprise at {{w|compass}}es not having been invented yet, he inadvertently starts explaining them to her. Though initially only becoming aware that [[2540: TTSLTSWBD|the very idea seems odd]], he then starts to worry about the impact his words might have. According to common {{tvtropes|TimeTravel|time travel tropes}}, this interaction might cause a chain of events that will lead to {{w|grandfather paradox|Cueball not existing}}, or {{tvtropes|butterflyofdoom|worse}}, which would create a paradox (if it isn't already already a different kind of paradox through being {{w|Novikov self-consistency principle|a pre-existing component of Cueball's original timeline}}). However, rather than the potential radical impact he might have on history by introducing this concept earlier than should have happened, he appears to be concerned that he may have given her a {{w|Spoiler (media)|spoiler}} for upcoming history[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg4mcdhIsvU]. Presumably he feels he has deprived her (or humankind more generally) of the joy that would have come with its eventual discovery.

The comic also points out how though many things are seen as perfectly normal and standard today could seem very strange before their creation. The magnetic compass was first invented in China around 200 BCE, well after the end of the Iron Age, and it wasn't used for navigation until the 11th century AD. For an Iron Age farmer the concept of a 'weird rock that always points north', as Cueball puts it, would seem quite ridiculous, and the inherent dangers of sea travel might well seem to be insurmountable ones. That subject has been covered before in xkcd.

He is then also concerned that he has managed to 'spoilerise' the concept of 'the spoiler'. The modern meaning of "spoiler" didn't arise until the 1970s, which post-date the Iron Age.{{Citation needed}} Spoiler warnings became common on {{w|Usenet newsgroups}} in the late 1980s. Cueball may have created a temporal paradox by introducing the concept thousands of years earlier, although any such 'change' made to that time might easily have been forgotten again in the two or three thousand years since this encounter. In any event, while telling people thousands of years ago that there was a way to make a compass might have changed history significantly, telling them that there are stories that they would enjoy less if they knew the ending before hearing the story seems less likely to have made a significant impact. It's also likely that, even if the term 'spoiler' was adopted by these Iron Age people, it would long have fallen out of use by the time it came to be invented in the late twentieth century.

Whether or not this was an intentional connection, the stars known by some as "{{w|the Plough}}" (''Ursa Major'', perhaps more popularly as "the Big Dipper" in the US) are also useful in finding the northern {{w|pole star}} (not the same star then as now but still in the same constellation), hence potentially linking both of the farmer's initial remarks.

The title text has Cueball about to unleash another spoiler on how to navigate without a compass, but he stops himself before saying it. However, he does still end up accidentally revealing that {{w|Polynesians}} know about it, though whether this was another unintentional slip or a deliberate clue left for Hairbun is unclear. It is thought that so-called '{{w|Polynesian navigation}}' used other methods of marine navigation ({{w|celestial navigation}}, observation of birds, ocean swells, and wind patterns). However, as the Polynesians lived in the Pacific, which would be difficult to reach from Hairbun's location, and probably unknown to her, the clue is useless. It is unclear where Hairbun is, but it is likely that she is in {{w|Europe}} or the area around the {{w|Arabian Peninsula}}, where the term 'Iron Age' is most relevant, and which are quite far from the Pacific.

The comic is based on shaky ground, as it's not clear how they're able to communicate so easily, unless it's {{tvtropes|TranslatorMicrobes|part of the function}} of the time-travel technology. While humans did have language for thousands of years by this time, it would be very far removed from modern English, yet somehow they understand each other's speech. It also appears that the ''very existence of time travel'' is not considered a spoiler for an Iron Age person, or even in any way remarkable to them — this might imply that the farmer is already very well aware of such phenomena (or even that Cueball {{tvtropes|TimeTravelTenseTrouble|will later have already}} visited the same society/farmer at an earlier date), which may be one way to explain apparently fluent conversational American English being spoken.

Time travel is a [[:Category:Time travel|recurring theme]] on xkcd.

==Transcript==

:[Cueball is on the left with a ghostly halo around him. Hairbun is on the right, holding a hoe vertically.]
:Cueball: Oh hi! Guess my time machine works. How's life in the Iron Age?
:Hairbun: Not bad. Developing new kinds of plows.
:Cueball: Cool.
:Hairbun: And my brother was just lost at sea.

:[Only Cueball is shown, with Hairbun out of the panel.]
:Cueball: I'm sorry.
:Hairbun [from outside the right side]: It's OK. I think sea navigation is probably impossible.

:[Cueball and Hairbun are both shown again.]
:Cueball: Oh yeah, you don't have the compass, right?
:Hairbun: The what?
:Cueball: The weird rock that always points north?
:Hairbun: What are you '''talking''' about?

:[Cueball and Hairbun are both shown. Cueball holds his hand to his chin.]
:Cueball: It '''does''' sound ridiculous when I say it out loud. Anyway, spoilers for the magnetic compass. Sorry.
:Hairbun: What's a spoiler?
:Cueball: ...Spoilers for the concept of a spoiler, too.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Time travel]]

3251: Time Machine Conversation

2026-05-28T01:09:35Z

208.59.176.206: /* Explanation */

3251: Time Machine Conversation

2026-05-28T01:01:57Z

208.59.176.206: /* Explanation */

3251: Time Machine Conversation

2026-05-28T01:00:04Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

3250: Flag Design

2026-05-27T00:29:35Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3250
| date = May 25, 2026
| title = Flag Design
| image = flag_design_2x.png
| imagesize = 678x428px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Every place has a local cryptid; more places need a local Pictish Beast, a creature in historical art that's drawn so weirdly that no one can tell what animal it's supposed to be.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a recursive flag. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

This comic is a parody of normal flag designs, but with comically exaggerated features to the point of ridicule. For example, animals are commonly used on flags, and stars are also occasionally on flags. However normal flags don't feature smaller versions of themselves as part of the design, are mostly flat rectancles, and lack interactive elements like buttons.{{Citation needed}} It is designed similarly to the [[xkcd Phone]] series, with a number of improbable, labeled features making the flag resemble a combination of a graphic arts doodle, financial instrument, paper flyer, and webpage. The caption of "I think our flag design committee really knocked it out of the park" references the common problem of {{w|design by committee}}, where a design made without a unifying vision, but rather many compromises between competing visions, results in overcomplexity, banality and internal contradictions, all of which are present on this flag.

The title text references the animal on the flag, with [[Randall]] expressing his opinion that more places should use hard-to-distinguish cryptids like on the flag. A {{w|cryptid}} is an animal, such as the {{w|Loch Ness Monster}}, whose existence is disputed or unproven by science. The title text may refer to the fact that many places in the world have a local cryptid, and also to creatures like the Egyptian god {{w|Set (deity)|Set}} for which the original animal isn't 100% known.

Various daft and improbable flags have also been the subject of [[1815: Flag]] and [[2528: Flag Map Sabotage]].

=== Flag features ===

{| class="wikitable"
|+ From the top, going clockwise
|-
! Feature !! Description !! What this has to do with flags
|-
| A rough drawing of an unusual, and possible chimeric, creature in grey. || In the title text, [[Randall]] relates it to the {{w|Pictish Beast}}, an animal that appears frequently in the {{w|early medieval}} culture of the {{w|Picts}} of Scotland, and about which there has been much debate about what animal it is meant to represent. Randall has flipped this around, taking an animal whose identity is disputed and incorporating it into a cultural artefact in an attempt to get assistance with identifying it.
Another possible candidate for the creature is the {{w|Questing Beast}}, which has some versions of its legendary description that could relate to the drawn form of the flag's representation.
| Several flags, and even more so many coats of arms, have animals on them, often one native to, or heraldically representative of, the polity the flag belongs to. Some are quite abstract, making it difficult for the uninformed to identify the original animal (though not so much so as in this flag).{{Citation needed}}
|-
| National flag || Incorporating a flag into another flag is not uncommon, such as with the {{w|Union Jack#Use in other flags|Union Jack}} found in the flags of many current and former British colonies and territories, or with national flags being included in naval ensigns, but a flag that includes a smaller version of itself as a detail is a novelty. Typically, such inclusions are to indicate a link to the entity whose flag is included, but in this case it would be self-referential and meaningless. This could also cause an issue by leading to a {{w|Droste effect|recursive loop}} of nested flags, but thankfully this feature is omitted in the smaller, included flag.|| Several flags, in particular in some variants, show a relevant coat of arms on the flag, while other flags are very similar to the corresponding coat of arms. The flag-on-the-flag concept is a nonsensical extension of the combination of both concepts.
|-
| Island (not a specific island, just a tribute to islands in general) || A map showing an island and two small islets. || Elements on flags often have hidden meanings that aren't obvious at first glance, such as a hidden map of the country on it. This is an example of an element with a near-complete lack of meaning whatsoever: an outline of an island that doesn't refer to a specific island. It is also one of the many random and strange tributes on this flag.
|-
| Tap here to pay taxes || This is the icon often used on payment cards to indicate the availability of contactless payment. Besides the inherent ridiculousness of adding such a feature to a flag, flags are generally flown very high so that they can easily be seen, making RFID-activated features, which typically require relatively close proximity, difficult to use.{{cn}} || This may be riffing on the {{w|flag of South Korea}}, which includes four trigrams which could (if you squint) be considered to look somewhat like this logo.
|-
| Tribute to topology || {{w|Topology}} is the study of the underlying geometric form of things. Most flags have a very simple topology, being a single sheet of material. This side of this flag appears to have been separated and twisted by one half-turn to turn the flag into a {{w|Möbius strip}}. This would be difficult to do in real life without disconnecting and gluing, sewing or otherwise affixing parts of the flag together. || A few flags are known among {{w|vexillologists}} for having {{w|List of flags with reverses that differ from the obverse|different front and back sides}}. Talking about the “front and back sides” of a Möbius strip flag is conceptually difficult. Also many flags include notable {{w|topography|topo''graphic''}} features, such as mountains, rivers, etc., and Randall may have deliberately confused the two terms.
|-
| GDPR consent || Text about your personal information, with buttons to choose what you wish to do. GDPR refers to the European Union's {{w|General Data Protection Regulation}}, a law about privacy of personal information that seems mostly to result in a complicated (and iffy) methods of disabling unwanted data-gathering if you do not just 'accept everything'. It implies the flag somehow collects data about people who view (or touch) it. This may be related to the "Tap here to pay taxes" feature. Of note is the "customize" option, implying that the flag can somehow present a range of data processing options for the 'user' to select from. The technology or design features it uses to do this are unknown. Alternatively, this flag could be designed to be embedded as a webpage online, where this and the "Tap here to pay taxes" features would make some sense, and the version on the physical flag could be purely cosmetic. Note that the "Customize" button appears to be disabled, as if you couldn't do anything but "Accept" the default choice (or ignore the option, which might produce the same effect) even if it is an actual interactive feature. || The possibility that merely looking at a flag would commit you to some sharing of excessive personal data is a troublesome concept (even more so than with web-pages, where it is already a known but seemingly inevitable issue). The apparent provision of the ability to customize this would ''seem'' to be better than given no option, but it may well be impossible or impractical to do so.
Raw text is also rare [https://www.countryflags.com/tags/text/ but not unknown] in national flags, and in those cases is still intended to represent the respective nation's identity and not serve as a typically non-flaglike function, like this element or the Citizenship one.
|-
| Interested in citizenship? Take one! || This is a rather unorthodox method of gaining new citizens, which mimics a form of advertising that typically provides contact details on each strip and allows people to take them away and contact the advertiser at their own convenience with an expression of interest. This has the same accessibility problems as the previous two interactive features, in that it would be difficult to reach the strips to tear them off when the flag is flown high. Additionally flags are generally designed to be hard to tear. The design of the flag within the flag implies that the strips that have been torn off are part of the flag design rather than due to use - probably using another common advertising method, to make it look like a product is popular to encourage people to 'follow the others'. Alternatively, the central flag may automatically update to reflect the removed strips, using the same unknown fabric-screen technology as the GDPR interface. || There are some flags (such as the {{w|flag of the Republic of Venice|that of the Republic of Venice}}) which have a fringed design similar to this. However, none have pull-off strips!{{Citation needed}}
|-
| Rounded corners || Rounded corners are a way to display {{w|graphical widget}}s in computer interfaces for purely aesthetic reasons (as progressively happened to the [https://cdn.geekzone.co.nz/images/blog/startevolution.JPG Start Button] from Windows XP onwards). It isn't unlikely that this flag-feature is being used to parody the trend of making virtual objects (often inherently rectangular) look more like smooth-edged physical objects.
|| Unusual, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary, as some flags do have {{w|List of non-rectangular flags|unorthodox shapes}}. Could be a reference to how many everyday objects have rounded corners to reduce risk of injury or make them more pleasant to use, although this is a moot point with flags since they are generally constructed using cloth that are based upon perpendicular warp and weft and are edge cut (then edge-seamed) in line with the respective thread-directions. Molded, cast or otherwise machined physical objects with rounded corners may be more durable, as stresses no longer concentrate at sharp corners, nor are those corners the natural first points of any impact, although whether this logic applies to a flag highly depends upon whether the halyard is attached to the flag via a heading or by sewn-in grommets, which is usually accounted for by further stitching used at and around the hoist-side's attachment points.
|-
| EURion anti-counterfeit mark || The "{{w|EURion constellation}}" is a pattern of symbols used as an anti-counterfeiting measure often incorporated in design of a number of secure documents, such as banknotes, checks, and ownership title certificates. Flags are not secure documents and therefore do not require anti-counterfeiting measures. || The purpose of flags is to be seen, and it is usually desirable for them to be easy to replicate - quite unlike this flag! Artistically enough, the anti-counterfeit marks enhance it's difficulty to be copied.
|-
| Jaunty angle || Implies that the flag is NOT being viewed at an angle, but rather that the flag is, in fact, a slanted parallelogram in shape (or would be if not for the rounded corners, moebius band feature and removed strips). This could have some unintended consequences when flown on a pole although, as a flag is rarely seen perfectly straight (under the varying effects of wind and/or gravity, when raised on a flagpole), this might not be particularly noticable. || A few flags are known among vexillologists for having a non-rectangular shape. Most of them are square, though {{w|Flag of Nepal|Nepal's}} is a notable exception. A slightly off-rectangular flag makes things awkward for people drawing or otherwise trying to represent it, without having any particular meaning beyond its 'jauntiness'.
|-
| Tan and white stars on a beige field || Deliberate obfuscation through bad color contrast. It also uses very dull colors, which would be hard to distinguish from far off, defying the point of a flag as an easy-to-recognize symbol of something. This may be a deliberate attempt to avoid offending anyone by inadvertently including colors that have some political or otherwise contested connotation. || Most flags have bold, contrasting colors for easy visibility and replicability. In traditional heraldic use, there were two categories of “{{w|Tincture_(heraldry)|tinctures}}”, namely “metals” yellow/gold and white/silver and “colors” red, blue, green and black, and metal-metal or color-color contrasts were to be avoided.
|-
| CIE 1931 chromaticity diagram, to ensure flag color fidelity || A {{w|CIE 1931 color space}} diagram defines the relationship between the visible light spectrum and human color vision. This is probably included as a reference to help address color issues arising from reproducing the flag in a given medium. However, given that all the other items on the flag are tan, white, beige, black or grey, it's unclear how much of a difference this could possibly make.

It may also be referencing the {{w|rainbow flag}} or its many variants known as {{w|pride flag}}s. The original concept was to convey diversity by featuring many stripes of different colors, the most common variant having six of them. On the other hand, it can be criticized as suggesting there are only six options. It sparked creation of many multi-colored pride flags to more thoroughly convey diversity. Including every possible visible color takes this concept to the extreme.
|| Gradients are rare on flags, as they are difficult to replicate, and most flags have only a few colors (though less so now that printing is common), and often are not considered to look good on flags, especially when flying rather than represented digitally.

Even more so, many flags were traditionally described verbally and only acquired exact legal or conventional decisions on the exact colours used for print and screen display in the last 30 years and would not need to ensure colour fidelity.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[A flag with many things on it.]
:[From left to right, top to bottom, in order labels:]
:[Label:] CIE 1931 Chromaticity Diagram, to ensure flag color fidelity [Icon]
:
:[Label:] We can't agree what animal this is, so we put it on our flag to spark national debate [Icon:] A stylised and basically-drawn outline of a quarupedal creature of some sort; appearing to have a reptilian-like head, a possible hairy back, a tail that that may be feathered and its four otherwise featureless 'legs' being akin to a plesiosaur's flippers.
:
:[Label:] National flag [Icon:] A miniature version of the flag, however it is missing a miniature version of itself.
:
:[Label:] Island (not a specific island, just a tribute to islands in general) [Icon:] A nondescript island shaped blob.
:
:[Label:] Tap here to pay taxes [Icon:] 4 sequential curves, a shape commonly used on NFC scanners to read a credit or debit card to encat payment.
:
:[Label:] Tan and white stars on beige field [Icon:] 32 stars in a rectangle surrounding all the previously mentioned icons, save for the tax payment NFC scanner.
:
:[Label:] Jaunty angle [Icon] Instead of an icon on the flag, the label notes the fact that the flag's left edge is not at a 90 degree angle with the top and bottom edges.
:
:[Label:] Tribute to topology [Icon:] Instead of an icon on the flag, the label notes the fact that the right edge of the flag is separated from the rest of the flag in the middle and twisted one half turn to make the flag into a Möbius strip.
:
:[Label:] Eurion anti-counterfeit mark [Icon:] A set of EURion dots, in the shape of the constellation Orion, commonly used on currency to prevent the use of printers to copy and mass produce counterfeit money.
:
:[Label:] Rounded corners [Icon:] Instead of an icon on the flag, the label notes the fact that the flags corners are rounded.
:
:[Label:] Interested in citizenship? Take one! [Icon:] Instead of a icon on the flag, the label notes the fact that one who wishes to sign up for citizenship of this fictional nation, can tear off a strip and contact the person on it, referencing posters one can find around a residential areas in a similar format. There are 10 strips with illegible printing on them, with empty spaces between the third and fourth, seventh and eighth, and ninth and tenth strips.
:
:[Label:] GDPR consent [Icon:] A menu saying "you have a choice in how we manage your data" with hypothetically intractable buttons saying "ACCEPT" and "CUSTOMIZE" reminiscent of similar menus that appear when you visit a website for the first time, or after you clear your cache.
:
:[Caption below flag:]
:I think our flag design committee really knocked it out of the park.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Graphic designers]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

3250: Flag Design

2026-05-27T00:24:59Z

208.59.176.206: /* Flag features */

{{comic
| number = 3250
| date = May 25, 2026
| title = Flag Design
| image = flag_design_2x.png
| imagesize = 678x428px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Every place has a local cryptid; more places need a local Pictish Beast, a creature in historical art that's drawn so weirdly that no one can tell what animal it's supposed to be.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a recursive flag. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

This comic is a parody of normal flag designs, but with comically exaggerated features to the point of ridicule. For example, animals are commonly used on flags, and stars are also occasionally on flags. However normal flags don't feature smaller versions of themselves as part of the design, are mostly flat rectancles, and lack interactive elements like buttons.{{Citation needed}} It is designed similarly to the [[xkcd Phone]] series, with a number of improbable, labeled features making the flag resemble a combination of a graphic arts doodle, financial instrument, paper flyer, and webpage. The caption of "I think our flag design committee really knocked it out of the park" references the common problem of {{w|design by committee}}, where a design made without a unifying vision, but rather many compromises between competing visions, results in overcomplexity, banality and internal contradictions, all of which are present on this flag.

The title text references the animal on the flag, with [[Randall]] expressing his opinion that more places should use hard-to-distinguish cryptids like on the flag. A {{w|cryptid}} is an animal, such as the {{w|Loch Ness Monster}}, whose existence is disputed or unproven by science. The title text may refer to the fact that many places in the world have a local cryptid, and also to creatures like the Egyptian god {{w|Set (deity)|Set}} for which the original animal isn't 100% known.

Various daft and improbable flags have also been the subject of [[1815: Flag]] and [[2528: Flag Map Sabotage]].

=== Flag features ===

{| class="wikitable"
|+ From the top, going clockwise
|-
! Feature !! Description !! What this has to do with flags
|-
| A rough drawing of an unusual, and possible chimeric, creature in grey. || In the title text, [[Randall]] relates it to the {{w|Pictish Beast}}, an animal that appears frequently in the {{w|early medieval}} culture of the {{w|Picts}} of Scotland, and about which there has been much debate about what animal it is meant to represent. Randall has flipped this around, taking an animal whose identity is disputed and incorporating it into a cultural artefact in an attempt to get assistance with identifying it.
Another possible candidate for the creature is the {{w|Questing Beast}}, which has some versions of its legendary description that could relate to the drawn form of the flag's representation.
| Several flags, and even more so many coats of arms, have animals on them, often one native to, or heraldically representative of, the polity the flag belongs to. Some are quite abstract, making it difficult for the uninformed to identify the original animal (though not so much so as in this flag).{{Citation needed}}
|-
| National flag || Incorporating a flag into another flag is not uncommon, such as with the {{w|Union Jack#Use in other flags|Union Jack}} found in the flags of many current and former British colonies and territories, or with national flags being included in naval ensigns, but a flag that includes a smaller version of itself as a detail is a novelty. Typically, such inclusions are to indicate a link to the entity whose flag is included, but in this case it would be self-referential and meaningless. This could also cause an issue by leading to a {{w|Droste effect|recursive loop}} of nested flags, but thankfully this feature is omitted in the smaller, included flag.|| Several flags, in particular in some variants, show a relevant coat of arms on the flag, while other flags are very similar to the corresponding coat of arms. The flag-on-the-flag concept is a nonsensical extension of the combination of both concepts.
|-
| Island (not a specific island, just a tribute to islands in general) || A map showing an island and two small islets. || Elements on flags often have hidden meanings that aren't obvious at first glance, such as a hidden map of the country on it. This is an example of an element with a near-complete lack of meaning whatsoever: an outline of an island that doesn't refer to a specific island. It is also one of the many random and strange tributes on this flag.
|-
| Tap here to pay taxes || This is the icon often used on payment cards to indicate the availability of contactless payment. Besides the inherent ridiculousness of adding such a feature to a flag, flags are generally flown very high so that they can easily be seen, making RFID-activated features, which typically require relatively close proximity, difficult to use.{{cn}} || This may be riffing on the {{w|flag of South Korea}}, which includes four trigrams which could (if you squint) be considered to look somewhat like this logo.
|-
| Tribute to topology || {{w|Topology}} is the study of the underlying geometric form of things. Most flags have a very simple topology, being a single sheet of material. This side of this flag appears to have been separated and twisted by one half-turn to turn the flag into a {{w|Möbius strip}}. This would be difficult to do in real life without disconnecting and gluing, sewing or otherwise affixing parts of the flag together. || A few flags are known among {{w|vexillologists}} for having {{w|List of flags with reverses that differ from the obverse|different front and back sides}}. Talking about the “front and back sides” of a Möbius strip flag is conceptually difficult. Also many flags include notable {{w|topography|topo''graphic''}} features, such as mountains, rivers, etc., and Randall may have deliberately confused the two terms.
|-
| GDPR consent || Text about your personal information, with buttons to choose what you wish to do. GDPR refers to the European Union's {{w|General Data Protection Regulation}}, a law about privacy of personal information that seems mostly to result in a complicated (and iffy) methods of disabling unwanted data-gathering if you do not just 'accept everything'. It implies the flag somehow collects data about people who view (or touch) it. This may be related to the "Tap here to pay taxes" feature. Of note is the "customize" option, implying that the flag can somehow present a range of data processing options for the 'user' to select from. The technology or design features it uses to do this are unknown. Alternatively, this flag could be designed to be embedded as a webpage online, where this and the "Tap here to pay taxes" features would make some sense, and the version on the physical flag could be purely cosmetic. Note that the "Customize" button appears to be disabled, as if you couldn't do anything but "Accept" the default choice (or ignore the option, which might produce the same effect) even if it is an actual interactive feature. || The possibility that merely looking at a flag would commit you to some sharing of excessive personal data is a troublesome concept (even more so than with web-pages, where it is already a known but seemingly inevitable issue). The apparent provision of the ability to customize this would ''seem'' to be better than given no option, but it may well be impossible or impractical to do so.
Raw text is also rare [https://www.countryflags.com/tags/text/ but not unknown] in national flags, and in those cases is still intended to represent the respective nation's identity and not serve as a typically non-flaglike function, like this element or the Citizenship one.
|-
| Interested in citizenship? Take one! || This is a rather unorthodox method of gaining new citizens, which mimics a form of advertising that typically provides contact details on each strip and allows people to take them away and contact the advertiser at their own convenience with an expression of interest. This has the same accessibility problems as the previous two interactive features, in that it would be difficult to reach the strips to tear them off when the flag is flown high. Additionally flags are generally designed to be hard to tear. The design of the flag within the flag implies that the strips that have been torn off are part of the flag design rather than due to use - probably using another common advertising method, to make it look like a product is popular to encourage people to 'follow the others'. Alternatively, the central flag may automatically update to reflect the removed strips, using the same unknown fabric-screen technology as the GDPR interface. || There are some flags (such as the {{w|flag of the Republic of Venice|that of the Republic of Venice}}) which have a fringed design similar to this. However, none have pull-off strips!{{Citation needed}}
|-
| Rounded corners || Rounded corners are a way to display {{w|graphical widget}}s in computer interfaces for purely aesthetic reasons (as progressively happened to the [https://cdn.geekzone.co.nz/images/blog/startevolution.JPG Start Button] from Windows XP onwards). It isn't unlikely that this flag-feature is being used to parody the trend of making virtual objects (often inherently rectangular) look more like smooth-edged physical objects.
|| Unusual, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary, as some flags do have {{w|List of non-rectangular flags|unorthodox shapes}}. Could be a reference to how many everyday objects have rounded corners to reduce risk of injury or make them more pleasant to use, although this is a moot point with flags since they are generally constructed using cloth that are based upon perpendicular warp and weft and are edge cut (then edge-seamed) in line with the respective thread-directions. Molded, cast or otherwise machined physical objects with rounded corners may be more durable, as stresses no longer concentrate at sharp corners, nor are those corners the natural first points of any impact, although whether this logic applies to a flag highly depends upon whether the halyard is attached to the flag via a heading or by sewn-in grommets, which is usually accounted for by further stitching used at and around the hoist-side's attachment points.
|-
| EURion anti-counterfeit mark || The "{{w|EURion constellation}}" is a pattern of symbols used as an anti-counterfeiting measure often incorporated in design of a number of secure documents, such as banknotes, checks, and ownership title certificates. Flags are not secure documents and therefore do not require anti-counterfeiting measures. || The purpose of flags is to be seen, and it is usually desirable for them to be easy to replicate - quite unlike this flag! Artistically enough, the anti-counterfeit marks enhance it's difficulty to be copied.
|-
| Jaunty angle || Implies that the flag is NOT being viewed at an angle, but rather that the flag is, in fact, a slanted parallelogram in shape (or would be if not for the rounded corners, moebius band feature and removed strips). This could have some unintended consequences when flown on a pole although, as a flag is rarely seen perfectly straight (under the varying effects of wind and/or gravity, when raised on a flagpole), this might not be particularly noticable. || A few flags are known among vexillologists for having a non-rectangular shape. Most of them are square, though {{w|Flag of Nepal|Nepal's}} is a notable exception. A slightly off-rectangular flag makes things awkward for people drawing or otherwise trying to represent it, without having any particular meaning beyond its 'jauntiness'.
|-
| Tan and white stars on a beige field || Deliberate obfuscation through bad color contrast. It also uses very dull colors, which would be hard to distinguish from far off, defying the point of a flag as an easy-to-recognize symbol of something. This may be a deliberate attempt to avoid offending anyone by inadvertently including colors that have some political or otherwise contested connotation. || Most flags have bold, contrasting colors for easy visibility and replicability. In traditional heraldic use, there were two categories of “{{w|Tincture_(heraldry)|tinctures}}”, namely “metals” yellow/gold and white/silver and “colors” red, blue, green and black, and metal-metal or color-color contrasts were to be avoided.
|-
| CIE 1931 chromaticity diagram, to ensure flag color fidelity || A {{w|CIE 1931 color space}} diagram defines the relationship between the visible light spectrum and human color vision. This is probably included as a reference to help address color issues arising from reproducing the flag in a given medium. However, given that all the other items on the flag are tan, white, beige, black or grey, it's unclear how much of a difference this could possibly make.

It may also be referencing the {{w|rainbow flag}} or its many variants known as {{w|pride flag}}s. The original concept was to convey diversity by featuring many stripes of different colors, the most common variant having six of them. On the other hand, it can be criticized as suggesting there are only six options. It sparked creation of many multi-colored pride flags to more thoroughly convey diversity. Including every possible visible color takes this concept to the extreme.
|| Gradients are rare on flags, as they are difficult to replicate, and most flags have only a few colors (though less so now that printing is common), and often are not considered to look good on flags, especially when flying rather than represented digitally.

Even more so, many flags were traditionally described verbally and only acquired exact legal or conventional decisions on the exact colours used for print and screen display in the last 30 years and would not need to ensure colour fidelity.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[A flag with many things on it.]
:[From left to right, top to bottom, in order labels:]
:[Label:]CIE 1931 Chromaticity Diagram, to ensure flag color fidelity. [Icon]
:
:[Label:] We can't agree what animal this is, so we put it on our flag to spark national debate. [Icon:] A stylised and basically-drawn outline of a quarupedal creature of some sort; appearing to have a reptilian-like head, a possible hairy back, a tail that that may be feathered and its four otherwise featureless 'legs' being akin to a plesiosaur's flippers.
:
:[Label:] National Flag. [Icon:] A miniature version of the flag, however it is missing a miniature version of itself.
:
:[Label:] Island (not a specific island, just a tribute to islands in general) [Icon:] A nondescript island shaped blob.
:
:[Label:] Tap here to pay taxes. [Icon:] 4 sequential curves, a shape commonly used on NFC scanners to read a credit or debit card to encat payment.
:
:[Label:] Tan and white stars on beige field. [Icon:] 32 stars in a rectangle surrounding all the previously mentioned icons, save for the tax payment NFC scanner.
:
:[Label:] Jaunty angle. [Icon] Instead of a icon on the flag, the label notes the fact that the flags left edge is not at a 90 degree angle with the top and bottom edges.
:
:[Label:] Tribute to topology [Icon:] Instead of a icon on the flag, the label notes the fact that the right edge of the flag is separated from the rest of the flag in the middle and twisted one half turn to make the flag into a Möbius strip.
:
:[Label:] Eurion Anti-counterfeit mark. [Icon:] A set of EURion dots, in the shape of the constellation Orion, commonly used on currency to prevent the use of printers to copy and mass produce counterfeit money.
:
:[Label:] Rounded corners. [Icon:] Instead of a icon on the flag, the label notes the fact that the flags corners are rounded.
:
:[Label:] Interested in citizenship? Take one! [Icon:] Instead of a icon on the flag, the label notes the fact that one who wishes to sign up for citizenship of this fictional nation, can tear off a strip and contact the person on it, referencing posters one can find around a residential areas in a similar format.
:
:[Label:] GDPR consent [Icon:] A menu saying "you have a choice in how we manage your data" with hypothetically intractable buttons saying "ACCEPT" and "CUSTOMIZE" reminiscent of similar menus that appear when you visit a website for the first time, or after you clear your cache.
:
:[Caption below flag:]
:I think our flag design committee really knocked it out of the park

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Graphic designers]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

3250: Flag Design

2026-05-25T22:51:01Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

3250: Flag Design

2026-05-25T22:49:06Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

3248: 182.8 Meters

2026-05-21T06:00:56Z

208.59.176.206: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3248
| date = May 20, 2026
| title = 182.8 Meters
| image = 182_8_meters_2x.png
| imagesize = 265x345px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They rounded down to 182.8 instead of rounding up to 182.9 because 182.9 might make the statement incorrect.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created recently by a 1.8288 meter high individual. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This is a comic in the [[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]] series, this time the hobby of reverse-engineering original units from oddly specific measurements in another unit. Unlike in many of the My Hobby cartoons, where Cueball's hobby is something eccentric or prankish, in this situation he uses his hobby simply to understand the origin of someone else's unusual phrasing.

100 fathoms is actually 182.88 meters, however as the title text explains, they rounded down in order to prevent a possibly incorrect statement.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[Hairbun stands at a podium to the left, gesturing toward a sign. Four visitors stand nearby observing: Ponytail, Cueball, Megan, and White Hat. Cueball has a thought bubble.]
:Cueball: (thinking) '''"''More than''"?''' Why would they use that for such a precise...
:Cueball: (thinking) ...Aha! 100 fathoms!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My Hobby: Reverse-engineering original units

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

3248: 182.8 Meters

2026-05-21T05:56:51Z

208.59.176.206: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3248
| date = May 20, 2026
| title = 182.8 Meters
| image = 182_8_meters_2x.png
| imagesize = 265x345px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They rounded down to 182.8 instead of rounding up to 182.9 because 182.9 might make the statement incorrect.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created recently by a 1.8288 meter high individual. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This is a comic in the [[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]] series, this time the hobby of reverse-engineering original units from oddly specific measurements in another unit.

100 fathoms is actually 182.88 meters, however as the title text explains, they rounded down in order to prevent a possibly incorrect statement.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[Hairbun stands at a podium to the left, gesturing toward a sign. Four visitors stand nearby observing: Ponytail, Cueball, Megan, and White Hat. Cueball has a thought bubble.]
:Cueball: (thinking) '''"''More than''"?''' Why would they use that for such a precise...
:Cueball: (thinking) ...Aha! 100 fathoms!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My Hobby: Reverse-engineering original units

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

3248: 182.8 Meters

2026-05-21T05:56:32Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3248
| date = May 20, 2026
| title = 182.8 Meters
| image = 182_8_meters_2x.png
| imagesize = 265x345px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They rounded down to 182.8 instead of rounding up to 182.9 because 182.9 might make the statement incorrect.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created recently by a 1.8288 meter high individual. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This is a comic in the [[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]] series, this time the hobby of reverse-engineering original units from oddly specific measurements in another unit.

100 Fathoms is actually 182.88 meters, however as the title text explains, they rounded down in order to prevent a possibly incorrect statement.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[Hairbun stands at a podium to the left, gesturing toward a sign. Four visitors stand nearby observing: Ponytail, Cueball, Megan, and White Hat. Cueball has a thought bubble.]
:Cueball: (thinking) '''"''More than''"?''' Why would they use that for such a precise...
:Cueball: (thinking) ...Aha! 100 fathoms!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My Hobby: Reverse-engineering original units

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

3247: Particle Census

2026-05-19T04:26:28Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3247
| date = May 18, 2026
| title = Particle Census
| image = particle_census_2x.png
| imagesize = 651x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Remember, your answers to the physics census are confidential; we will not be issuing Pauli exclusion principle citations.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created at an INDETERMINITE TIME. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

This comic references the {{w|Heisenberg uncertainty principle}} of quantum mechanics. Put simply, it states that there's a limit to how precisely we can know both the position and momentum of a particle — the more precisely we know one, the less we know the other. [[Megan]] says they're taking a census of the positions of all particles in the universe, so they'll be known precisely; therefore, all their momenta will be unknowable. And by the time we use the census results, we won't know where any of the particles are, we'll just know where they were at the instant their positions were recorded by the census.

In the United States, the Constitution mandates that a population census of people living in all the states be taken every ten years. This is primarily for the purpose of apportioning representatives to Congress, but it has come to be used for many other demographic purposes. There's no legal requirement for a decennial physics census; if physicists want to do this, it's their own decision. However, it's not really possible to measure the positions of ''all'' particles in the universe, as there are a lot of particles in the universe, and many are quite far away.{{citation needed}} And unless the particles happen to be at absolute zero, they will be moving, potentially quite fast. So it would be a needlessly difficult census.

In the third panel, someone speaks up and is worried about what they will do with the particles in the potential “disruption”. Randomly taking someone’s particles and relocating them would be considered unpleasant,{{citation needed}} even if you tell them where the particles are going.

The title text refers to the {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}}, which states that no two {{w|fermions}} — types of particles that include all ordinary matter — can occupy the same quantum state. As the results of the census are confidential, physics officials will not use it to determine whether to issue citations for particles that violate the exclusion principle. This confuses physical laws, which describe how the universe works and by their nature cannot be violated, with societal laws, which declare what is allowed or required by the government.

==Trivia==
When this comic was uploaded the normal sized image [https://web.archive.org/web/20260518185623/https://xkcd.com/3247/ was incorrectly 2x size]. It still shows up at 2x size on [[unixkcd]].

Additionally, "indeterminate" is spelt "indeterminite" in the second panel text.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Megan is standing at a lectern, presumably talking to an audience.]
:Megan: Remember, Tuesday is the decennial particle census.
:Megan: Physicists will be recording the location of all particles in the universe.

:[Zoom out to show the stage Megan is on.]
:Megan: Of course, this will cause their momenta to become indeterminite, so please plan for some disruption.

:[The same scene. A voice comes from off-panel at the left.]
:Audience member [off-panel]: Wait, disruption? Where will my particles go?
:Megan: No one can say, but you'll know ''exactly'' where they were.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

3246: Speedrun

2026-05-16T01:21:40Z

208.59.176.206: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3246
| date = May 15, 2026
| title = Speedrun
| image = speedrun_2x.png
| imagesize = 288x343px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Usain Bolt holds the world record in the 100 meter speedrun.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a SPEEDRUNNING BOT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic shows Cueball sitting at a desk complaining that his {{w|Speedrunning|speedrun}} got deleted off of [https://www.speedrun.com/ Speedrun.com], which is a popular leaderboard aggregator for speedruns.

A {{w|tool-assisted speedrun}} (or TAS for short) is a speedrun that uses software tools to make certain hard or even humanly impossible inputs easily. However, ''{{w|Lateralus}}'' and ''{{w|Ænima}}'' are albums by the band {{w|Tool (band)|Tool}}. This comic makes use of a pun, where rather than using third party tools to assist him in beating a video game as quickly as possible, Cueball is getting "assistance" from the rock band Tool in the form of background music to help him concentrate. In real life, a speedrun would be unlikely to be removed based on the music one is listening to while completing it. Using music to help you speedrun would in some cases be similar to using a {{w|metronome}}, which is allowed for many games, but is a [https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/s/ODqJcAWcKg controversial topic].

The title text is a joke about how {{w|Usain Bolt}}'s 100-meter dash record is also a world-record speedrun.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[Cueball is sitting at a desk with a laptop. Megan is standing behind him.]
:Cueball: Aw man, Speedrun.com removed my world record just because I listened to Lateralus and Ænima to get in the flow.
:Megan: Oh, a copyright thing?
:Cueball: No, they don't allow Tool-assisted speedruns.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Puns]]

3246: Speedrun

2026-05-16T01:17:25Z

208.59.176.206: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3246
| date = May 15, 2026
| title = Speedrun
| image = speedrun_2x.png
| imagesize = 288x343px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Usain Bolt holds the world record in the 100 meter speedrun.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a SPEEDRUNNING BOT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic shows Cueball sitting at a desk complaining that his {{w|Speedrunning|speedrun}} got deleted off of [https://www.speedrun.com/ Speedrun.com], which is a popular leaderboard aggregator for speedruns.

A {{w|tool-assisted speedrun}} (or TAS for short) is a speedrun that uses software tools to make certain hard or even humanly impossible inputs easily. However, ''{{w|Lateralus}}'' and ''{{w|Ænima}}'' are albums by the band {{w|Tool (band)|Tool}}, thus making Cueball's speedrun "Tool-assisted".

The title text is a joke about how {{w|Usain Bolt}}'s 100-meter dash record is also a world-record speedrun.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[Cueball is sitting at a desk with a laptop. Megan is standing behind him.]
:Cueball: Aw man, Speedrun.com removed my world record just because I listened to Lateralus and Ænima to get in the flow.
:Megan: Oh, a copyright thing?
:Cueball: No, they don't allow Tool-assisted speedruns.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Puns]]

3246: Speedrun

2026-05-16T01:14:00Z

208.59.176.206: /* Explanation */ see https://www.speedrun.com/about ; the website refers to itself with a capital letter

{{comic
| number = 3246
| date = May 15, 2026
| title = Speedrun
| image = speedrun_2x.png
| imagesize = 288x343px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Usain Bolt holds the world record in the 100 meter speedrun.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a SPEEDRUNNING BOT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic shows Cueball sitting at a desk complaining that his {{w|Speedrunning|speedrun}} got deleted off of [https://www.speedrun.com/ Speedrun.com], which is a popular leaderboard aggregator for speedruns.

{{w|Tool-assisted speedrun}} (or TAS for short) is when person uses tools to make certain hard or even humanly impossible inputs easily. Usually it involves frame by frame inputs, but there are other types of TASes. In this specific case if Cueball used certain beats in the music from outside the game to time his inputs it could be considered a tool assistance and disqualify him.

The title text is a joke about how {{w|Usain Bolt}}'s 100-meter dash record is also a world-record speedrun.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[Cueball is sitting at a desk with a laptop. Megan is standing behind him.]
:Cueball: Aw man, Speedrun.com removed my world record just because I listened to Lateralus and Ænima to get in the flow.
:Megan: Oh, a copyright thing?
:Cueball: No, they don't allow Tool-assisted speedruns.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Puns]]

3246: Speedrun

2026-05-16T01:12:11Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

3246: Speedrun

2026-05-16T01:10:25Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

3245: Results Age

2026-05-14T00:50:24Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3245
| date = May 13, 2026
| title = Results Age
| image = results_age_2x.png
| imagesize = 478x669px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Please, we need your help. Our research suggests you're the last living descendant of the person who knew how to format this config file.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created BY AN INTERNET GRANDPA. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic shows how likely it is that a bug reported will be fixed, based on the age of some past post that matches your search for details of the problem.

A table is shown below of the explanations of each table row:
{| class="wikitable"
!Age of post !! Explanation given !! Full Explanation
|-
|2 hours ago || A service outage. Not very long to fix - Just wait. ||The recentness of the information implies that it has just happened, and other people have noticed it and started to post about the issue. Large-scale problems like a service outage are obvious priorities, and will (hopefully!) be fixed quickly.
|-
|5 days ago || A new update just broke something big. High chance to be fixed, but you might have to wait for a patch || Similar to before, a large breakage would be very high priority to be fixed. However, as it's been five days since reporting it, the bug is likely taking a while to be found, so - as pointed out in the comic - you could have to wait a bit longer for this one to be resolved.
|-
|3 months ago ||A new product isn't working for some users. Decent chance of finding a solution in replies || This problem is clearly not going to be fixed by the creators, judging by how long it's been there, and it possibly isn't am issue affecting everyone, or even a large propotion of users. However, people are innovative, and no doubt will someone have found their own fix, patch or kludge to get around the product limitations.
|-
|2 years ago||You've ran into an edge case. Low chance to be fixed, but there could be help in troubleshooting||An edge case is a rare situation that the developers did not think to account for, usually causing a logic error, where the program works, but outputs something unexpected which might cause an error down the line. Very few people will suffer from this precise problem, although others may have encountered similar issues on similar software, and noting how they solved ''their'' problem might lead you towards how to solve your own problem.
|-
|13 years ago||You're the only one with this problem. Very Low chance to be fixed, and the post is likely irrelevant||Given how long this 'problem' has been around without being fixed, it is likely the problem is a problem the user has specifically. Possibly through the tech being corrupted through use, or not being compatable with the thing itself. More than that, it suggests that your search has only found an old post that just happens to match your search-query, because there are no more definite answers to your precise question and the enquiry results in nothing more relevant to show you.
|-
|24 years ago||Oh god how is the Internet so old. Maybe whoever posted the message's children can help you out. || This is another comic [[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|where Randall makes people feel old]]. In this case by pointing out that the Internet is very old, and people posting comments in the early period of the Internet are now grown up with kids. Something [[Randall]] has repeatedly shown that he is uncomfortable with. It is also (presumably) rare enough to be a [[979: Wisdom of the Ancients|DenverCoder9 situation]], and 13 years is longer than the time in that comic, so 13 years might be such a situation too.
The Internet is in fact significantly older than 24 years old, being over fifty years old. The World Wide Web (to many, synonymous with the Internet) hails from the early 1990s, and Google (one of the more commonly used search engines, through which this error search might have been made) started working in the late 1990s. The biggest surprise might be that some information found on a web-page in 2002 (and still relevant to your search) survives on some still live web server (or as an archive of that original information on some successor site). For example, anything hosted on a {{w|GeoCities}} site would have normally been made inaccessible in 2014.

Title text seems to be describing what a conversation with the child of that person could look like, it is phrased in a way a dramatic fiction would do it.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:Implications of the age of the posts you see when you Google an error message

:[A search engine prompt field is shown, containing part of an error code message (beginning with E-21 & what looks like a 9 & 3 next to it). Below this are search results shown as obscured text, except for a the phrase '3 years ago' in the first heading. This is expanded into an ellipse that obscures the rest of the search field.]
:[A table, with 3 columns, labelled "Age of post", "What it means", and "Probability of a fix"]

:[Row 1: Age of post:] 2 hours ago
:[What it means:] There's an infrastructure outage
:[Probability of a fix:] Very high -- just wait

:[Row 2: Age of post:] 5 days ago
:[What it means:] A recent update broke something big
:[Probability of a fix:] High, but you might have to wait for a patch

:[Row 3: Age of post:] 3 months ago
:[What it means:] A new product isn't working for some users
:[Probability of a fix:] Decent chance of a solution in the replies

:[Row 4: Age of post:] 2 years ago
:[What it means:] You've run into an edge case
:[Probability of a fix:] Low, but maybe the replies can help with troubleshooting

:[Row 5: Age of post:] 13 years ago
:[What it means:] You're the only person with this problem
:[Probability of a fix:] Very low -- post is likely not relevant

:[Row 6: Age of post:] 24 years ago
:[What it means:] Oh God how is the Internet this old
:[Probability of a fix:] Maybe whoever posted this message has kids who can help you

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics to make one feel old]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]

Talk:3245: Results Age

2026-05-14T00:49:01Z

208.59.176.206: comment

oh god these are uncomfortably accurate...though sometimes the post age is the next time rung down. i hit an issue recently which sent me to mozilla forum posts from 2008, migrated twice, where the people having the problem seem to have stopped caring about it a decade ago - '''[[User:Vaedez|Vaedez]]''' ([[User talk:Vaedez|talk]]) 18:43, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

Man, I’m not even 24 ''years old'' [[Special:Contributions/2A02:6B6F:E226:B00:803D:CE4C:ED8:DED4|2A02:6B6F:E226:B00:803D:CE4C:ED8:DED4]] 18:45, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

I guess once we finish the table in the explanation we can convert that to a similar table in the transcript, rather than doing them independently. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:13, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
:No. [[explain xkcd:Editor FAQ#What is the format of the transcript section?|Tables do not belong in the Transcript.]] It serves a different purpose. And it'll just be the text that's there, so would be far simpler (and more likely to be 'finished' any time soon) than the Explanation table which will get tweaked to add or clarify explanatory descriptions.
:You ''could'' copy an Explanation table (having the comic text, in various rows and columns) to the Transcript then 'de-Table' it (remove the table-formatting) and 'en-Transcript' what remains (add the ":[This bit looks like..]" stuff). But that's not much less effort than rewriting such a relatively small comic's from scratch.
:It can also go the other way, though... Someone gets the Transcript done, and then ''from that'' the base text of the Table is 'en-Tabled'. It'd depend on who visits the newly-created Comic page and what they decide to concentrate on to start up the otherwise blank page that the BOT put together. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 20:56, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
::I added the content of the table to the transcript based on the format of [[3120: Geologic Periods]] which also has a table. --[[Special:Contributions/208.59.176.206|208.59.176.206]] 00:49, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I will add an explanation of an edge case [[User:SomebodyElse|SomebodyElse]] ([[User talk:SomebodyElse|talk]]) 19:40, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

If it's negative time old you are in a Tardis. If it's sqrt(-1) time old, give me some of whatever it is you are smoking. [[Special:Contributions/64.201.132.210|64.201.132.210]] 22:02, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

Yeah it's even better when there's no god damn results at all.[[User:RG|RG]] ([[User talk:RG|talk]]) 00:29, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

3245: Results Age

2026-05-14T00:47:28Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3245
| date = May 13, 2026
| title = Results Age
| image = results_age_2x.png
| imagesize = 478x669px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Please, we need your help. Our research suggests you're the last living descendant of the person who knew how to format this config file.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created BY AN INTERNET GRANDPA. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic shows how likely it is that a bug reported will be fixed, based on the age of some past post that matches your search for details of the problem.

A table is shown below of the explanations of each table row:
{| class="wikitable"
!Age of post !! Explanation given !! Full Explanation
|-
|2 hours ago || A service outage. Not very long to fix - Just wait. ||The recentness of the information implies that it has just happened, and other people have noticed it and started to post about the issue. Large-scale problems like a service outage are obvious priorities, and will (hopefully!) be fixed quickly.
|-
|5 days ago || A new update just broke something big. High chance to be fixed, but you might have to wait for a patch || Similar to before, a large breakage would be very high priority to be fixed. However, as it's been five days since reporting it, the bug is likely taking a while to be found, so - as pointed out in the comic - you could have to wait a bit longer for this one to be resolved.
|-
|3 months ago ||A new product isn't working for some users. Decent chance of finding a solution in replies || This problem is clearly not going to be fixed by the creators, judging by how long it's been there, and it possibly isn't am issue affecting everyone, or even a large propotion of users. However, people are innovative, and no doubt will someone have found their own fix, patch or kludge to get around the product limitations.
|-
|2 years ago||You've ran into an edge case. Low chance to be fixed, but there could be help in troubleshooting||An edge case is a rare situation that the developers did not think to account for, usually causing a logic error, where the program works, but outputs something unexpected which might cause an error down the line. Very few people will suffer from this precise problem, although others may have encountered similar issues on similar software, and noting how they solved ''their'' problem might lead you towards how to solve your own problem.
|-
|13 years ago||You're the only one with this problem. Very Low chance to be fixed, and the post is likely irrelevant||Given how long this 'problem' has been around without being fixed, it is likely the problem is a problem the user has specifically. Possibly through the tech being corrupted through use, or not being compatable with the thing itself. More than that, it suggests that your search has only found an old post that just happens to match your search-query, because there are no more definite answers to your precise question and the enquiry results in nothing more relevant to show you.
|-
|24 years ago||Oh god how is the Internet so old. Maybe whoever posted the message's children can help you out. || This is another comic [[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|where Randall makes people feel old]]. In this case by pointing out that the Internet is very old, and people posting comments in the early period of the Internet are now grown up with kids. Something [[Randall]] has repeatedly shown that he is uncomfortable with. It is also (presumably) rare enough to be a [[979: Wisdom of the Ancients|DenverCoder9 situation]], and 13 years is longer than the time in that comic, so 13 years might be such a situation too.
The Internet is in fact significantly older than 24 years old, being over fifty years old. The World Wide Web (to many, synonymous with the Internet) hails from the early 1990s, and Google (one of the more commonly used search engines, through which this error search might have been made) started working in the late 1990s. The biggest surprise might be that some information found on a web-page in 2002 (and still relevant to your search) survives on some still live web server (or as an archive of that original information on some successor site). For example, anything hosted on a {{w|GeoCities}} site would have normally been made inaccessible in 2014.

Title text seems to be describing what a conversation with the child of that person could look like, it is phrased in a way a dramatic fiction would do it.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:Implications of the age of the posts you see when you Google an error message

:[A search engine prompt field is shown, containing part of an error code message (beginning with E-21 & what looks like a 9 & 3 next to it). Below this are search results shown as obscured text, except for a the phrase '3 years ago' in the first heading. This is expanded into an ellipse that obscures the rest of the search field.]
:[A table, with 3 columns, labelled "Age of post", "What it means", and "Probability of a fix"]

:[Row 1: Age of post]: 2 hours ago
:[What it means]: There's an infrastructure outage
:[Probability of a fix]: Very high -- just wait

:[Row 2: Age of post]: 5 days ago
:[What it means]: A recent update broke something big
:[Probability of a fix]: High, but you might have to wait for a patch

:[Row 3: Age of post]: 3 months ago
:[What it means]: A new product isn't working for some users
:[Probability of a fix]: Decent chance of a solution in the replies

:[Row 4: Age of post]: 2 years ago
:[What it means]: You've run into an edge case
:[Probability of a fix]: Low, but maybe the replies can help with troubleshooting

:[Row 5: Age of post]: 13 years ago
:[What it means]: You're the only person with this problem
:[Probability of a fix]: Very low -- post is likely not relevant

:[Row 6: Age of post]: 24 years ago
:[What it means]: Oh God how is the Internet this old
:[Probability of a fix]: Maybe whoever posted this message has kids who can help you

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics to make one feel old]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]

3245: Results Age

2026-05-14T00:47:07Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3245
| date = May 13, 2026
| title = Results Age
| image = results_age_2x.png
| imagesize = 478x669px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Please, we need your help. Our research suggests you're the last living descendant of the person who knew how to format this config file.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created BY AN INTERNET GRANDPA. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic shows how likely it is that a bug reported will be fixed, based on the age of some past post that matches your search for details of the problem.

A table is shown below of the explanations of each table row:
{| class="wikitable"
!Age of post !! Explanation given !! Full Explanation
|-
|2 hours ago || A service outage. Not very long to fix - Just wait. ||The recentness of the information implies that it has just happened, and other people have noticed it and started to post about the issue. Large-scale problems like a service outage are obvious priorities, and will (hopefully!) be fixed quickly.
|-
|5 days ago || A new update just broke something big. High chance to be fixed, but you might have to wait for a patch || Similar to before, a large breakage would be very high priority to be fixed. However, as it's been five days since reporting it, the bug is likely taking a while to be found, so - as pointed out in the comic - you could have to wait a bit longer for this one to be resolved.
|-
|3 months ago ||A new product isn't working for some users. Decent chance of finding a solution in replies || This problem is clearly not going to be fixed by the creators, judging by how long it's been there, and it possibly isn't am issue affecting everyone, or even a large propotion of users. However, people are innovative, and no doubt will someone have found their own fix, patch or kludge to get around the product limitations.
|-
|2 years ago||You've ran into an edge case. Low chance to be fixed, but there could be help in troubleshooting||An edge case is a rare situation that the developers did not think to account for, usually causing a logic error, where the program works, but outputs something unexpected which might cause an error down the line. Very few people will suffer from this precise problem, although others may have encountered similar issues on similar software, and noting how they solved ''their'' problem might lead you towards how to solve your own problem.
|-
|13 years ago||You're the only one with this problem. Very Low chance to be fixed, and the post is likely irrelevant||Given how long this 'problem' has been around without being fixed, it is likely the problem is a problem the user has specifically. Possibly through the tech being corrupted through use, or not being compatable with the thing itself. More than that, it suggests that your search has only found an old post that just happens to match your search-query, because there are no more definite answers to your precise question and the enquiry results in nothing more relevant to show you.
|-
|24 years ago||Oh god how is the Internet so old. Maybe whoever posted the message's children can help you out. || This is another comic [[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|where Randall makes people feel old]]. In this case by pointing out that the Internet is very old, and people posting comments in the early period of the Internet are now grown up with kids. Something [[Randall]] has repeatedly shown that he is uncomfortable with. It is also (presumably) rare enough to be a [[979: Wisdom of the Ancients|DenverCoder9 situation]], and 13 years is longer than the time in that comic, so 13 years might be such a situation too.
The Internet is in fact significantly older than 24 years old, being over fifty years old. The World Wide Web (to many, synonymous with the Internet) hails from the early 1990s, and Google (one of the more commonly used search engines, through which this error search might have been made) started working in the late 1990s. The biggest surprise might be that some information found on a web-page in 2002 (and still relevant to your search) survives on some still live web server (or as an archive of that original information on some successor site). For example, anything hosted on a {{w|GeoCities}} site would have normally been made inaccessible in 2014.

Title text seems to be describing what a conversation with the child of that person could look like, it is phrased in a way a dramatic fiction would do it.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:Implications of the age of the posts you see when you Google an error message:
:[A search engine prompt field is shown, containing part of an error code message (beginning with E-21 & what looks like a 9 & 3 next to it). Below this are search results shown as obscured text, except for a the phrase '3 years ago' in the first heading. This is expanded into an ellipse that obscures the rest of the search field.]
:[A table, with 3 columns, labelled "Age of post", "What it means", and "Probability of a fix"]

:[Row 1: Age of post]: 2 hours ago
:[What it means]: There's an infrastructure outage
:[Probability of a fix]: Very high -- just wait

:[Row 2: Age of post]: 5 days ago
:[What it means]: A recent update broke something big
:[Probability of a fix]: High, but you might have to wait for a patch

:[Row 3: Age of post]: 3 months ago
:[What it means]: A new product isn't working for some users
:[Probability of a fix]: Decent chance of a solution in the replies

:[Row 4: Age of post]: 2 years ago
:[What it means]: You've run into an edge case
:[Probability of a fix]: Low, but maybe the replies can help with troubleshooting

:[Row 5: Age of post]: 13 years ago
:[What it means]: You're the only person with this problem
:[Probability of a fix]: Very low -- post is likely not relevant

:[Row 6: Age of post]: 24 years ago
:[What it means]: Oh God how is the Internet this old
:[Probability of a fix]: Maybe whoever posted this message has kids who can help you

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics to make one feel old]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]

3244: Pullback Drive

2026-05-13T03:30:16Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3244
| date = May 11, 2026
| title = Pullback Drive
| image = pullback_drive_2x.png
| imagesize = 303x292px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = "How does the spring not run out almost immediately?" "We pull it back REALLY far."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by A STOMP ROCKET POWERED CAR. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

This comic is a reference to toy cars with {{w|pullback motor}}s. Normally used for small toy cars, a spring motor stores potential energy when the car is pulled backwards, and the potential energy (including the final energy used in holding the car against its spring) is suddenly released as kinetic energy when the car is released.

The very simple version of pull-back car will only go as far forward as it is drawn backwards in the first place. More complicated versions can use a change in effective gearing (through the use of a 'flappy' gear that meshes differently depending upon the relative direction of movement of the cogs it is meshed with) between 'charging' the spring by back-pulling, and then letting it 'expend' in the forward direction. This can allow it to store a lot of torque from a little pre-pulled distance and then expend it to give far more effective speed/distance to the very light toy. Through a free-wheel gearing at the end of its 'powered' phase, the car may run on 'unpowered' for a significant further distance. However, since there is a finite amount of energy that can be stored in the spring, they may hit a hard limit where the spring cannot be wound any further, or commonly a slip-gear will simply click as the mechanism no longer tries to convert pull-back movement into sprung potential (letting the child know that their toy is at maximum readiness).

In this comic, [[Hairy]] suggests a full-scale version of a pullback car, including the mechanism that clicks as it hits the limit of its spring-winding. Making this type of energy store work on the scale of a full-size car would be extremely impractical, due to the {{w|Energy density#In material deformation|low power}} and the requirement to pull it back far enough to then go anywhere meaningful, even assuming a multiplying effect on forward travel compared to the initial backwards travel. Hairy tries to sell the car by saying that [[Cueball]] won't need to worry about gas or electricity prices. This is [[technically]] true, but cars that run on petroleum or electricity have the advantage of their energy supply being refillable, while this pullback car seemingly does not (without another factory-style 'pull back' facility).

A car which is powered by such a simple spring mechanism would have the significant disadvantage of not being able to have a "Reverse" gear setting.

The worries about electricity and gas prices may be a reference to the closure of the {{w|Strait of Hormuz}} due to the {{w|2026 Iran war}}. The strait was a very common waterway used for the international trade of natural gas and petroleum from the Middle East, but the Iranian government is currently not allowing any foreign ships to pass through it. If this type of propulsion works, this would negate the need to fuel the car, making it a good energy-efficient alternative if it could be practically implemented. But hopefully they don’t give the car too {{What If|61|much energy.}}

It would be possible to "recharge" such a car by repeating the process of pulling it backwards, or perhaps by placing it on a treadmill-style arrangement and running this forward relative to the car, while holding the vehicle stationary. However, the energy being stored in the spring motor would have to come from somewhere. No clue is even given to what form of mechanical device is used to pull the car back at the factory and if/when it needs to be retensioned again, but the means used to power ''that'' might entirely defeat the main purpose of the pullback car (that that it doesn't rely on various fuels to keep it going) if it relies on such fuels itself.

A flywheel connected to the motor could occasionally be lowered onto the road when the car is under braking and then automatically raised, which might work as a form of charging if the released kinetic energy could be diverted to the main wheels. However, the automatic lowering and raising of the flywheel would require an external energy source, and it would be much simpler to just use an electric car at that point. Plus, this would produce diminishing returns and the car would need to be "recharged" every so often.

Also the power relies on the car 'being pulled back', which would present challenges and, as Cueball points out in the title text, such a motor would store very little energy and (in a vehicle the size of an actual car) would run out almost immediately compared to a traditional combustion or electric engine. Hairy responds that they "pull it back '''''REALLY''''' far", which would not actually solve the practical problems of it being an incredibly inefficient energy source, or the various other difficulties, particularly as it is bound by the inbuilt 'clicking-limit' that already is implied to have been reached.

To some extent, the spring-powered car is a direct analogue to electric cars (whether pre-charged at the factory or not), where forms of externally-generated power are transfered to a 'potential' held within the vehicle to be re-expended (with acceptable losses in conversion efficiencies) as movement. By contrast, fuel-powered cars provide the energy in the form of potential-holding material (LPG, fuel-oils, or even solid fuel like coal or wood, depending upon the vehicle), which is expelled after use and refilled with new supplies. The advantages of electrical power are that it can be relatively easily generated by means ''other'' than burning fossil fuels, and (while not currently at energy densities comparable to common engine fuels), the weight of batteries required to power a car over a given distance isn't anything like as problematic as the equivalent spring-based system would be.

==Transcript==

:[Hairy and Cueball are standing to the right of a medium-size car. Hairy has raised one hand slightly to point to the car.]
:Hairy: You won't have to worry about gas prices '''''or''''' electricity prices with our new pullback drive model.
:Hairy: At the factory, we put the car on the ground and tow it all the way backward until it starts clicking.
:Hairy: To drive forward, you just release the brake and it goes.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Physics]]

3243: Crystal Gazing

2026-05-09T01:20:39Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3243
| date = May 8, 2026
| title = Crystal Gazing
| image = crystal_gazing_2x.png
| imagesize = 281x397px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Beyond that lies a vale of fire through which my vision cannot penetrate' is the kind of fun thing geologists, heliophysicists, and early universe cosmologists have a lot of opportunities to say.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created over 4.54 billion nanoseconds ago. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

A geologist dressed up as a wizard (assuming that isn't how they normally dress{{citation needed}}) announces — in archaic language befitting his costume — that he has determined the {{w|age of the Earth}} by analyzing {{w|zircon}}. Zircon is a crystal with the formula ZrSiO4. During its formation it can incorporate uranium instead of zirconium in its crystal lattice, but cannot incorporate lead. The uranium then decays (via several intermediates) into lead. Thus a sufficiently old zircon crystal will contain some lead, allowing geologists to calculate its age. This method is especially reliable since uranium-238 decays into lead-208 with a half-life of 4.5 billion years, while uranium-235 decays into lead-207 with a half-life of 0.7 billion years, allowing geologists to determine the age even if some lead was lost from the crystal.

A prophet of doom is someone who predicts impending disasters, especially the end of the world. The joke in the caption is that someone who can determine when the world began is just doing this in reverse, and that's what geochronologists are doing when they calculate the age of the Earth.

The title text points out, in similar flowery language (in keeping with the character being a Tolkienesque portrayal of a wizard, where [https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Vales_of_Anduin vales] are part of the geographical language), that many areas of physical sciences are limited in how far back they can describe the world or universe. {{w|Geologists}} are limited by the age of the Earth (and maybe even to some time after that, as we have little evidence of its original molten form), {{w|heliophysicists}} can't determine the early nature of the Sun, and early universe {{w|cosmologists}} don't know what was happening during and before the {{w|big bang}}. The Earth, stars, and the early Universe each passed through a state of extreme heat and chaos that makes it impossible or extremely difficult to accurately predict its earliest state based on its current state: a somewhat literal "vale of fire."

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[A character in wizard garb with long beard and hair talks to Cueball. To the left of the wizard is a poster with illegible text over a graph with two lines intersecting.]

:Wizard: By gazing into my crystals of zircon, I have divined the date of the hour of fire marking the limit of this world's existence.
:Wizard: 4.54 billion years ago, the beginning was nigh!

:[Caption below comic:]
:Geochronologists are just reverse prophets of doom.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

3242: Aperiodic Table

2026-05-07T01:29:47Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3242
| date = May 6, 2026
| title = Aperiodic Table
| image = aperiodic_table_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x464px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Scientists occasionally invent alternative periodic table layouts, which is usually a sign that they don't have enough enrichment in their enclosures.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created APERIODICALLY. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
The {{w|Periodic Table of the Elements}} is a diagram often used to show the properties of the elements that make up the world. Its structure represents several properties of the elements- for example, all elements in a single column will have similar chemical properties, and increase in size going top to bottom. Elements in a given row decrease in size going left to right, with only a few exceptions, and there are similar trends in their tendency to gain or lose electrons, and other properties. Elements in a given row increase in the charge of their nuclei going left to right, but that's essentially by definition: they're ordered by atomic number, which is the same as their nuclear charge.

Randall spoofs this concept by creating a similar diagram that is much less useful. The original table is "periodic" because it has consistent, repeating patterns that are represented by the horizontal position of the elements. Randall's table is "aperiodic", meaning it has no consistent, repeating patterns. Instead, it is just a line in order by {{w|atomic number}}. To fit in the same space as a normal periodic table, the sequence snakes back and forth and down the page in a space-filling manner. The diagram is not actually helpful, since it contains next-to-no information other than the atomic number of each element, plus faint colouring on each box to show its category, though due to the dull colours that is also quite inconvenient to use, and it depicts this information in an unnecessarily unhelpful and hard-to-read format.

Chemistry and the periodic table is a periodic theme on xkcd, with there being many comics featuring humorous variations and "fixes" of it, such as [[2639: Periodic Table Changes]] and [[2975: Classical Periodic Table]].

The title text might be a reference to [[3052: Archive Request]], or maybe some real attempts at inventing actual 'non-grid' linear versions of the periodic table, such as the {{w|File:Elementspiral_(polyatomic).svg|'periodic snail'}} that was created by {{w|Otto Theodor Benfey}}. It is also likely joking by relating scientists to zoo animals, from the reference to not having enough enrichment in their enclosures.

Thallium’s symbol is incorrectly given as Ti in this comic; its actual symbol is Tl.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:The Aperiodic Table of the Elements
:[Rectangles showing the atomic symbols and atomic numbers from H (1) through Og (118) are arranged in a serpentine chain. Each rectangle has the atomic number in small numerals at the upper left and the atomic symbol in large letters. The color of each rectangle matches the the pattern of a standard periodic table. For example, the noble elements all have a red background.]

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Periodic table]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

3242: Aperiodic Table

2026-05-07T01:28:49Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

3241: Horizontal Stabilizers

2026-05-06T16:11:33Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3241
| date = May 5, 2026
| title = Horizontal Stabilizers
| image = horizontal_stabilizers_2x.png
| imagesize = 436x341px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It started as a mistake that everyone was afraid to admit to, and then it stuck because removing it 'looks silly.'.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created HORIZONTALLY, so just make it BIGGER. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

A {{w|Stabilizer (aircraft)#Horizontal stabilizers|horizonal stabilizer}} (also often described as a {{w|tailplane}}) is part of an aircraft which typically provides extra longitudinal balance, with the tailplane maintaining balance and control of the aircraft. Although some alternate types of airframe work without them (e.g. by making use of more complex main wing control surfaces), most (and the most common) aircraft use {{w|Tailplane#Tailplane types|some version or other}} of a tailplane. The structure of aircraft varies based on what they {{What If|30|have to do}}.

This comic claims that horizontal stabilizers are a mistake in the design process, and not at all necessary. The original construction of some particular plane only had small wings and the mere stub of fusalage to which they were attached, but neither wings nor body were big enough to be useful. Rather than spending time and resources rebuilding from scratch, they just added more fuselage, with much bigger wings, and continued to use the original insufficient fuselage and 'wings' in the manner of a tailplane.

The title text takes this even further, stating that people deliberately ignored the superfluousness of this new part, and later, whenever they decided to remove the feature (perhaps to save weight, or just 'complexity') people were already so used to them being there that it "looked silly", so they put them back on to satisfy expectations. This may be referencing the use of 'spoilers' on everyday passenger cars, which are often included purely for cosmetic reasons, because it makes the vehicle look 'fast' or 'sporty' while having little or no effect in producing the desired downforce (for extreme cornering or acceleration), and may instead just add drag to the car to make it ultimately ''slower'' in a straight line speed-test.

There are some {{w|tailless aircraft}}, often designed as such precisely to minimise the latent drag from the tailplane surfaces (another possible reason being to create a {{w|Radar cross section|more 'stealthy' aircraft}}), and many people do consider them unusual-looking. Some aircraft, including the original {{w|Wright Flyer}}, have the horizontal stabilizers in the front rather than the tail section due to design assumptions made at the time (later superseded by the 'normal' and typically more stable configuration), with some more modern planes again using {{w|Canard (aeronautics)|canard}} 'forward control surfaces' instead of (or {{w|three-surface aircraft|in addition to}}) the rear-mounted ones using a more modern understanding of the actuve aerodynamic needs of a plane in flight.

The comic does not address the need for any {{w|vertical stabilizer}} and rudder, often integrated in some way with the (horizontal) tailplane or at least being rooted in the same section of fuselage. (Some may describe the {{w|empennage|whole assembly}} of horizontal and vertical rear surfaces (both static and actuated) as the "tailplane", due to it being all together in the same place.) The comic's original 'stabilizer only' plane ''also'' lacked any such vertical control surfaces. By the same logic, of course, a true 'tailless' aircraft like a Flying Wing ''can'' also fly without a tailfin-like structure, usually controlling its yaw through differential power and/or drag across its two remaining wings. Although 'half-tail' airframes exist that still use one ''or'' the other of horizontal and vertical control surfaces, where the main wing controls the other, and there are also tail designs that integrate both control and stabilization functions into {{w|V-tail|the same hybrid tail-structure}}.

At some point before the scene in the factory and the conversation about the airplane in flight, the evolving design seems to have gained the vertical stabiliser as well, for unstated in-comic reasons perhaps just as superfluous as that for which it has retained the horizontal version. But, then again, as well as gaining more fuselage (which may necessarily have completed the stated design expectation of it being 'bigger', by increasing its potential cargo capacity) it has also managed to gain such useful features as a cockpit/nosecone ''and also engines'', the ultimate superfluity of which is far less likely to (even reluctantly) justify.

==Trivia==
*This is a rare [[:Category:Tuesday comics|Tuesday comic]]. There was no [[:Category:Monday comics|Monday comic]] this week.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[Cueball and Ponytail are standing, looking up at an airplane in the sky. Cueball is pointing at the airplane.]
:Cueball: What's with the little wings on the tails of the airplanes? Do they really need them?
:Ponytail: They're horizontal stabilizers. They serve a crucial aerodynamic role.

:[Hairy, another Cueball, and Megan are standing in a room, with Hairy on the left of a small fuselage segment with small wings attached to the sides of it, while Cueball and Megan are standing on the right of it. Hairy has his arms raised. There is a caption in a box at the top of the panel.]
:Caption: Previously, at the airplane factory...
:Hairy: These wings you made are way too small! The plane is supposed to be much bigger!
:Other Cueball: Sorry! We'll start over.
:Hairy: No, there's no time. Just make it longer and put the bigger wings on the new section.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Aviation]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

3241: Horizontal Stabilizers

2026-05-06T03:22:41Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

3241: Horizontal Stabilizers

2026-05-06T03:22:22Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

3241: Horizontal Stabilizers

2026-05-06T03:21:40Z

208.59.176.206: /* Trivia */

3240: Bottle

2026-05-02T22:29:03Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3240
| date = May 1, 2026
| title = Bottle
| image = bottle_2x.png
| imagesize = 581x235px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = "I know it seems impossible, but the trick is that I sailed in here when I was very young."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was BOTtled recently. Don't remove the cork too soon. }}
This comic shows a life sized ship in a bottle sailing along with other sail boats in the sea. The humor comes from the surreality of the situation.

In this comic, [[Beret Guy]] is inside a {{w|Impossible bottle#Ship in a bottle|ship in a bottle}}. [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are in a sail boat to his left, while [[Ponytail]] is alone in a [[3193:_Sailing_Rigs|gaff rig]] to his right. A common question regarding a ship-in-a-bottle is ''how'' the model ship was put inside the bottle, due to the small size of the opening in the bottle compared to the ship. The answer is often that the ship was assembled (or at least partially unfolded, from more compact original components assembled outside) within the bottle. The components are small enough to pass through the neck of the bottle, and the final assembly is likewise done through the neck, usually the most awkward task. Of course, toy boat assembly is not comparable to real or life-sized ship construction, and bottles are almost never big enough to stand up in, with necks large enough to climb in and out through if required.

The title text alludes to this, by saying that Beret Guy, when he was smaller, sailed the boat inside the bottle while he was still able to fit through the entrance. This is similar to the way some brands of pear brandy are sold in {{w|Impossible bottle#Small objects that expand naturally|bottles containing entire pears}}. These are produced by attaching the bottle to a young fruit and letting it grow to full size inside. This explanation fails to address that Beret Guy would fit through the neck of such a bottle relatively easy, on his own; but the boat, being made from non-living materials, would '''not''' have grown inside the bottle, and it is unlikely to have ever been a smaller boat carrying a smaller Beret Guy, and in a manner that both together could have sailed into the bottle. On the other hand, it would probably be easier for someone inside the bottle to have assembled components of a ship there than for that assembly to be done from outside. This would especially be true of a seaworthy vessel of a size to carry a passenger, rather than a mere model. But it’s possible that he used one of his many [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers…]] Also, given the definition of boat explained in the earlier comic [[2043: Boathouses and Houseboats]] ("a ship, by most definitions, carries boats"), Beret Guy's vessel is merely a boat.

The water level in the free-floating bottle is lower than the water outside. This is because the bottle will sink until the weight of the bottle and its contents (the water, the boat, and [[Beret Guy]]) equals the weight of the water displaced by the bottle. The weight of the 'missing' water in the bottle (the layer of air between the two surface levels, including the corresponding volume of air displaced by the boat) is consequently equal to the weight of the whole glass bottle. If you added water to the bottle in an attempt to make the inside and outside water levels the same, the bottle would contain less buoyant air and just sink deeper to misalign the surfaces again. Keep repeating this, and the buoyancy becomes less than zero (unless the inherent buoyancy of Beret Guy and his boat, now forced into the bottle's 'ceiling', still possess enough intrinsic support) at which point the bottle would sink.

As well as the question as to how on earth [[Beret Guy]] and the boat got in the bottle, there's another oddity. The bottle appears to be keeping pace with the boats on either side, impliying it is somehow propelling itself long despite lacking an engine, a sail, or any other method of propulsion. This could mean the bottle shares one of [[Beret Guy]]'s [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]]. Possibly though, as [[Beret Guy]] seems to also be sailing within the bottle (which is also impossible, as it would lack airflow within there, unless it has it's own wind system. This is very likely, as the cork would prevent all airflow anyway, meaning [[Beret Guy]] would quickly die without his own source of airflow) he could be somehow powering the boat through that. He has [[1486|powered up random objects in strange ways]] before, after all.

In practice, the bottle is horizontally unstable. The weight of the bottle is not equal along its length (it appears heavier at the neck), and the buoyancy at each point will not equal the weight at that point. This is also true of the boats in the cartoon; the difference is that in the bottle much of the weight is the water which is free to move. If the neck of the bottle goes down (to increase the displacement to balance the weight), the water will move to the front of the bottle. This increases the weight at the front which will force the front even deeper. This will continue until the bottle is floating vertically. [[Beret Guy]]'s boat would appear to fit in the width of the bottle so everything will be fine. This effect (known as the 'free surface effect') has real implications for ships with open decks, such as car ferries, and has been implicated in several disasters such as the 'Herald of Free Enterprise', the 'Princess Victoria', and the 'Estonia'. So the bottle is ridiculously impractical and the only thing it would do would be {{What If|103|protecting}} the people riding the ship - though not very much there either, as the bottle is likely made of glass, as giant boat-carrying bottles normally are. And in fact if it was to break then the hole made would make a bottleneck for the way out ([[559|pun not intended]]), so any attackers would have the advantage there as well.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[Three small single-masted sailboats are shown (the right one in a gaff rig), all sailing towards the right. The ones on the left and right are on the ocean, while the one in the middle is contained completely by a large bottle. On the left, Cueball and Megan are in one boat; Cueball is sitting near the stern, possibly holding the tiller, while Megan is before the mast. In the middle, Beret Guy is before the mast in the boat that's inside the giant bottle, with a cork plugging the screw top bottleneck. On the right, Ponytail is directly aft of the mast of the third boat. All the boats are sitting on the water with ripples on the surface, but the water level in the bottle is lower than the rest.]

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]

3239: Simple Machines

2026-04-30T00:09:44Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3239
| date = April 29, 2026
| title = Simple Machines
| image = simple_machines_2x.png
| imagesize = 250x255px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's hard to decide which simple machine system to invest in. DeWalt makes a great lever and inclined plane, but I hear Milwaukee's wheel-and-axles are really good.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was recently purchased from DeWalt, and we're still reading the manual. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
There are a lot of simple tools used to give a {{w|mechanical advantage}} in various things. The 6 most common ones are called {{w|simple machines}}: a {{w|lever}}, {{w|wheel and axle}}, {{w|pulley}}, {{w|inclined plane}}, {{w|wedge}} and {{w|Screw (simple machine)|screw}}. Additionally, there are all-in-one tools that are made with multiple features, such as classic {{w|Swiss Army Knife}} that combines various different forms of blade (which in part act as levers and/or wedges, depending upon use) along with some non-bladed tools (such as the corkscrew, which naturally embodies the same forces as the 'simple screw' itself). This comic combines both ideas, suggesting the existence of an all-in-one instrument with all six simple tools. The tool shown merges them by mounting multiple components (no longer being quite so a 'simple' machine), some of them with multiple purposes depending upon application. For example the lever and the inclined plane are both present via the same core rod.

Having one of these "all-in-one" devices does not mean it does everything you can do with different combinations — the choice of components and how they interact (or don't get in each others' way) is important for the function of a particular device.

There are obvious drawbacks to having this 'all-in-one' tool. The tools all have varying uses, some very different from one other, and you would find it unlikely to find many devices in need of all the tools together in a spot. So such a tool would be largely useless compared to its singular variants. As well as that, the tools come in many different sizes as well, meaning unless it has special adjustable sizes (which could well be impossible, to account for all the different sizes){{Citation needed}} the tool would be unlikely to be the right size to fit many features! As well as that, though [[Randall]] claims he can stop buying simple tools thanks to his all-in-one, in reality you often need more than one of the various tools for projects- particularly screws, of which there can be hundreds in a single project. So a thoroughly useless innovation.

The title text is a joke about what brands to choose. {{w|Milwaukee Tool}} and {{w|DeWalt}} are two common tool companies. The text points out that as both companies have advantages in certain simple tools, then deciding which to use for an all-in-one tool would be difficult. This is also likely a reference to the problem of choosing which tool company to use. As for battery powered tools, the batteries are not usually interchangeable, so once you buy a few tools from one company, you are stuck using only that company, as you already have "spare" batteries for all of the tools.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[A rod with a square cross-section is shown sloping from top-left to bottom-right. At the bottom-right, it has a wedge tip. At the top-left, it is threaded and has a long nut on it. The nut has an eyelet where a rope is connected. The rope travels taut around a wheel on an axle connected near the wedge-end and then lies loose with a hook on the free end.]

:[Caption below comic:]
:I can finally stop buying simple machines now that I got an all-in-one tool with all six of them.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

3238: Soniferous Aether

2026-04-28T16:26:08Z

208.59.176.206: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3238
| date = April 27, 2026
| title = Soniferous Aether
| image = soniferous_aether_2x.png
| imagesize = 290x466px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Imagine you could ride alongside a sound wave. It would probably be pretty cool, right? We're putting in a departmental budget request to buy a really fast plane so we can check it out.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created recently by a BOT THAT BREATHES SONIFEROUS AETHER. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

Beginning in the late 1690s, scientists posited a {{w|luminiferous aether}} to explain properties of light (especially its ability to travel in a vacuum) which should not be possible for a wave. The 1887 {{w|Michelson–Morley experiment}} disproved its existence, by demonstrating that the {{w|speed of light}} was constant, regardless of relative movement through the supposed aether.

In this comic, [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] have noticed that the {{w|speed of sound}} is ''not'' constant, and so present their new theory, by analogy, of a 'soniferous aether' to explain the properties of sound. However, we already have a name for this 'aether', which is 'matter'. In most cases we encounter, this means air. Air surrounds us so ubiquitously that we often tend to treat it as if it were empty space. Although of course that is untrue, and if it were actually empty space, life on Earth would not fare too well{{citation needed}}.

The title text references {{w|Albert Einstein|Albert Einstein's}} thought experiment where he imagined riding alongside a light particle/wave (which was referenced in [[2959: Beam of Light]]), but with a sound wave instead. Travelling at the speed of sound can be accomplished with a fast airplane. Usually these would be military aircraft, though the {{w|Tu-144}}, {{w|Concorde}}, and (briefly) [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/i-was-there-when-the-dc-8-went-supersonic-27846699/ a DC-8] were commercial aircraft that did achieve supersonic flight.

Reinventing things from first principles has previously [[2834|been discussed]] [[2724|multiple times]] on [[xkcd]].

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail is addressing an unseen audience in front of her while she holds her hand out towards them. She is standing on a podium with Cueball behind her. Cueball holds an arm out behind him indicating a screen behind him showing a graph with three sine waves with different wavelengths. The top has two cycles, the middle four cycles and the bottom one cycle.]
:Ponytail: We all know the speed of light is constant for all observers.
:Ponytail: But our experiments show that the speed of sound '''''changes''''' based on the observer's motion.
:Ponytail: Thus, we posit the existence of the '''''soniferous aether''''', a medium that fills the space between us and carries sound waves.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Sometimes physicists forget that air exists and rediscover it from first principles.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Physics]]