explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

605: Extrapolating

2025-11-17T18:54:21Z

72.138.52.174: descriptive

{{comic
| number = 605
| date = July 3, 2009
| title = Extrapolating
| image = extrapolating.png
| titletext = By the third trimester, there will be hundreds of babies inside you.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a joke about the incorrect application of {{w|linear extrapolation}}. By connecting two points without any context, we can come up with incredibly funny and absurd results. Here, connecting a bride's number of spouses yesterday (zero) and today—her wedding day—(one) can result in a linear extrapolation to hundreds of spouses a year, which would thus require the bride to purchase many wedding cakes. Cueball presents the accumulation of husbands as though it were a phenomenon beyond the bride's ability to control. Using similar points for pregnancy (yesterday: no babies, today: one), we can get 200+ children inside a single person by the seventh month of pregnancy.

This is another comic in the infrequent [[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]] series. Extrapolation and interpolation, often absurd, are also [[:Category:Extrapolation|recurrent topics]] on xkcd.

==Transcript==
:My Hobby: Extrapolating

:[There is a graph. Time runs along the horizontal axis; Number of Husbands on the vertical graph. Yesterday and today are labeled in time, 0 and 1 in number of husbands. Points are plotted with 0 at yesterday, 1 at today. A straight line is fitted through them, and dotted lines joining perpendicularily the points to the axes.]
:[Cueball is holding a pointer to the graph, and looking at Megan wearing a bridal train and veil, who seems to be thinking.]
:Cueball: As you can see, by late next month you'll have over four dozen husbands.
:Cueball: Better get a bulk rate on wedding cake.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with babies]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Wedding]]
[[Category:Extrapolation]]
[[Category:Comics featuring children]]

142: Parody Week: Megatokyo

2025-10-08T15:43:23Z

72.138.52.174: replaced the soon-to-be deleted android link and replaced it with a more fitting one

{{comic
| number = 142
| date = August 15, 2006
| title = Parody Week: Megatokyo
| image = megaxkcd.png
| titletext = I just want to give him a hug or something.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a part of the [[:Category:Parody Week|Parody Week]], just joking about other {{w|webcomics}}. This series was released on five consecutive days (Monday-Friday), not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, and it comprises the following five {{w|parodies}}:
*[[141: Parody Week: Achewood]]
*[[142: Parody Week: Megatokyo]]
*[[143: Parody Week: TFD and Natalie Dee]]
*[[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
*[[145: Parody Week: Dinosaur Comics]]

{{w|Megatokyo}} is a webcomic by {{w|Fred Gallagher (cartoonist)|Fred Gallagher}}. Its art and storylines are heavily influenced by Japanese comics known as {{w|Manga}}.

The opening panel sets up a parody of Megatokyo here called '''megaxkcd'''. The girl is {{w|List_of_Megatokyo_characters#Ping|Ping}}, a robotic {{w|PlayStation 2|PS2}} accessory from the comic. The soft gray-scale art, hand-drawn "shadowed" panel borders, and vertical panel layout also mimic Megatokyo's design.

The joke begins with the main protagonist (probably {{w|Megatokyo#Piro|Piro}}) falling in love with Ping, a ''game console accessory'', and in today's comic, he is supposed to come to terms with this fact.

But then, the parody is apparently aborted when two characters from the normal xkcd, [[Cueball]] and [[Black Hat]], question the parody, as they are afraid of hurting artist Fred Gallagher's feelings. This itself is a dig at the sometimes maudlin and emotionally tender tone of Megatokyo, and in particular the self-conscious resemblance of anxious protagonist Piro to creator Gallagher, who based the character on a twenty-something version of himself.

This is one of the few comics where Black Hat is not his usual [[classhole]] self. So even he likes and approves of Fred and his comic! Actually, Black Hat is the one most concerned for Fred's feelings, and he suggests that they should go and cheer the poor guy up, now that he may have taken the parody kind of hard. Black Hat also yells to him that he should not cry, when he and Cueball arrive on his doorstep with a cake with lots of candles.

The title text reiterates the similarity between the style of the comic and the character of the artist behind it, which has been [https://web.archive.org/web/20141129071549/https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2004/04/23 noted elsewhere as well]. It also exclaims [[Randall]]'s feelings for Fred, his webcomic, and its style.

Falling in love with a robot (or using one for sex) was later investigated in the [[:Category:Android_Partner|Android series]]. And on [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]], love and robots are again investigated leading to a pregnant robot.

==Transcript==
:[At the top of the panel is the title of the comic inside Japanese quote characters. Beneath this is a text, and to the right of this is a drawing on an anime girl in shirt and skirt, who has blonde hair with very long pigtails, long rectangular earrings, and a blank expression looking slightly down while standing with her arms at her sides. The gray-scale drawing is far from the normal xkcd style.]
:<big>'''megaxkcd'''</big>
:In today's megaxkcd, our protagonist comes to terms with his romantic love for a girl who is a video game console accessory.

:[Cueball and Black Hat, drawn in standard xkcd style, talk.]
:Cueball: Wait, I'm not sure we should parody megatokyo.
:Black Hat: Fred Gallagher does seem like he might take it kind of hard.
:Cueball: He really does.
:Black Hat: Poor guy. We should try to cheer him up.

:[Cueball and Black Hat stand in front of a profile shot of a house with at least two stories. On the left is a mailbox at the curb of the road to the very left. Black Hat stands on the path to the house past the mailbox, while Cueball is holding a big cake with at least three lit candles on top. He holds it up in both hands in front of him presenting it to the closed door in front of him as he stands on the top of a two-step staircase to the front door. There are two flowers beneath him at the base of the stair, and two windows on the side wall of the house, one in each of the two visible stories. The house continues above the panel.]
:Black Hat: Fred? Fred, please come out. It's OK. Don't cry, Fred.
:Cueball: We... We baked you a cake.

==Trivia==
*This was the [http://megatokyo.com/strip/893 Megatokyo strip] released the day before this comic.
*Since the parody week had a comic five days in a row, there would for many other webcomics not be a release on this Tuesday, as many comics use the same M, W, F release as xkcd also does normally.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Parody Week]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

Talk:1358: NRO

2025-10-01T17:58:17Z

72.138.52.174: wheres page

Could what if #32 be valid here? https://what-if.xkcd.com/32/ --[[User:Mralext20|Mralext20]] ([[User talk:Mralext20|talk]]) 07:30, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

: Nah. Spy satellites are usually on geosynced orbits, so they always hover over the same area of the ground, meaning no blur. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 14:17, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

:: Spy satellites are not usually in geosynchronous orbits, as this would be much too far away from earth to be of much use, Spy satelites are normally in very low polar orbits to maximize the areas they can spy on. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.65|108.162.216.65]] 22:52, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Not only he is using the satellites, he is also using the software - probably something which will highlight recognized target on photo. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:28, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I always thought this was a reference to the Governments Facial Recognition software they're working on. Combine that with the NSA's spy satellites and you can locate anyone anywhere. Maybe the NRO is a combination of such organizations and technologies (very very deadly) and they're testing it out using a Where's Waldo book. Not only testing the cameras on the satellite's resolution but the facial recognition software's ability to pick out a specific person in a crowd. [[User:Glitch|Glitch]] ([[User talk:Glitch|talk]]) 14:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

The sentence "He usually is quite hard to find, which makes it challenging." is really bothering me. I'm not sure what to do with it. I considered deleting it or shortening it, but none of those feel right. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 18:02, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

What was bothering you about it? It was a quick and dirty explanation at the time, so it doesn't matter. [[User:Fizzle|Fizzle]] ([[User talk:Fizzle|talk]]) 21:36, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
:Redundancy. "The hard thing is challenging." "The big thing was huge." [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 09:42, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Would "Government Facial Recognition" work at all via satellite? Wouldn't they do better with Governments Scalp Recognition? {{unsigned ip|108.162.245.117}}

Possible reference to xkcd.com/970? -CyanLights [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.223|108.162.238.223]] 17:46, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
:I don't see that. [[970: The Important Field]] is about private guns, but this comic is about real military items. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:53, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

similar to http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3222#comic but SMBC goes much deeper and darker. {{unsigned ip|173.245.63.174}}

The USA murdering children from the sky is not a fit subject for humour. I find this comic repugnant. [[User:The Cat Lady|-- The Cat Lady]] ([[User talk:The Cat Lady|talk]]) 11:51, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
:Well...while there ''is'' an [https://www.nro.gov/NRO-Kids/ NRO Kids] section at the NRO's website, no child labor is mentioned in [https://xkcd.com/1358/info.0.json xkcd's official transcript]. This estimation is a bit blunt to me, considering that I've found Randall's humor to be fine and precise (I mean...it's why we have explainxkcd)...and it seems rather important to the joke to take these as adult employees of the org, with their expanded adult capabilities. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]]) 00:22, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Would the description of the NRO's location map to any sort of actual Wheres Waldo image? [[Special:Contributions/72.138.52.174|72.138.52.174]] 17:58, 1 October 2025 (UTC)