explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3245: Results Age

2026-05-15T12:50:44Z

Gidklio: sucks when you wrote the old post!

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)
:Can we block this IP address? [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 08:33, 14 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)
:''Which'' sqrt(-1)? If it's imaginary i then you're in weird territory, but if it's quaternionic i, j, or k, you can interpret that as a spacelike separation, so it just means that you've found someone with an FTL drive i.e. the flowchart arrow also goes to TARDIS.[[Special:Contributions/185.146.232.73|185.146.232.73]] 10:03, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
:: Or if it is the engineer's j. Just realized that since if you restrict to the (1,i), (1,j) or (1,k) plane in the space of quaternians it's isomorphic to the complex numbers. So maybe the mathematician are just using the i quaternian and the engineers are using the j quaternian and they really are different.[[User:Lordpishky|Lord Pishky]] ([[User talk:Lordpishky|talk]]) 23:49, 14 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)

What about when the post is more than 13 years old and you see that the post is from yourself, you had just forgotten about it? [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 01:52, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
:Same vibe as googling early warning signs of alheizmers for the first time but all the links are purple.[[User:RG|RG]] ([[User talk:RG|talk]]) 02:08, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I once discovered a scanned magazine article from 1999 or so that briefly mentioned how to use a hidden Mathematica feature that a) still existed more than 20 years later and b) was in fact directly applicable to my problem. Sometimes things do work out![[Special:Contributions/185.146.232.73|185.146.232.73]] 10:03, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I actually made my first table on this one! It took a lot of trial-and-error. [[User:GSLikesCats307|GSLikesCats307]] ([[User talk:GSLikesCats307|talk]]) 11:10, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

What's wrong with this is that the first search result is irrelevant, since it will just tell OP to use Google because the question has been asked before. --[[Special:Contributions/80.187.113.212|80.187.113.212]] 13:07, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

The Internet is not over 50 years old. The Internet as we know it came online at the beginning of 2023, when Arpanet switched from the old NCP protocol to TCP/IP. So I changed that explanation to "over forty years old". Although as far as modern users are concerned, anything prior to the WWW is mostly irrelevant. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:07, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
: Really? I'm sure I remember using it way more than three years ago... [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 14:10, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
: Because of progressive interoperability over time, I'd say that you can't give a definite hard limit to the start of 'the Internet'. The TCP backbone itself was first implemented in 1974, and yet even in the early '90s I had to tunnel some 'internet' traffic through legacy systems that weren't using TCP/IP for the layer-3 OSI (that's alongside other 'similarly old' alternatives to TCP/IP like IPX/SPX). Battling with using ZMODEM (or ''one'' of the <FOO>MODEMs, maybe X or Y instead) over X.25 forms part of my early efforts (that I'd happily now forget) to learn how to do (as a 'new guy') what others around me were already perfectly at ease using. Even concentrating on layer-7 (user experience) or layer-1 (the physical infrastructure), the Internet-that-everyone-now-uses can be argued as to having started at different times (e.g. the arrival of Broadband, or perhaps even Mobile Data, as a mass-consumer product for a given territory, yet dial-up access existed before that, as well as permanent ISDN or T#-lines between institutions and businesses sufficiently invested in the need for interconnectivity).
:Did you mean 1983, instead of 2023? That makes more somewhat more sense, all these further caveats aside. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.212.205|82.132.212.205]] 17:20, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
::Yeah...''must'' mean 1983. Because, well, it happened in 1983! It would be weird to declare a date (and reference 40 years ago) and be that wildly wrong. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 22:35, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I thought for sure that the title text was gonna be about how AI makes solving some problems trivial, while sometimes it sends you off the deep end even worse than a UseNet thread from 1994. [[User:blagae|blagae]] ([[User talk:blagae|talk]]) 15:47, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

For me, the particular aspect of "13 years ago" (or more likely "7 years ago") is You're the only person with this problem" - "The only hit you found is from a thread you yourself started." I've had this happen at least twice: look for a specific combination and the only posts are one on reddit and one on stackoverflow, both of which match exactly because seven years later you used exactly the same terms in your search as you wrote in your post. Still no solutions! [[User:Gidklio|Gidklio]] ([[User talk:Gidklio|talk]]) 12:50, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

1552: Rulebook

2015-10-21T14:36:22Z

Gidklio: /* Explanation */ reference #1593 for rulebooks

{{comic
| number = 1552
| date = July 17, 2015
| title = Rulebook
| image = rulebook.png
| titletext = It's definitely an intentional foul, but we've decided it's worth it.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a direct reference to the film ''{{w|Air Bud}}''. In the film, a golden retriever becomes the star player on a basketball team. The opposing team contests the legality of having a dog as a player, but the referee, having reviewed the rulebook, responds "Ain't no rule says a dog can't play basketball." Here, the opposing team turns the rulebook loophole against the first team. Because rulebooks are considered the final arbiter of decisions in most sports, [[Ponytail]] suggests that, since it isn't explicitly prohibited, her team is allowed to kill and eat the dog. Randall is using this logical fallacy to highlight the absurdity of the plot of ''Air Bud'' and other similar movies in which ordinary animals take on human roles. At the same time, Randall has created an absurd and anticlimactic premise for such a movie, and he may be making a more general commentary on Hollywood's habit of making movies by combining basic tropes that, by themselves, tend to do well in the box office.

The title text acknowledges that killing and eating the dog would result in a {{w|technical foul|foul}} (interfering inappropriately with other players), but the benefit of committing the foul (the star player being dead and out of the game) would be worth the resulting penalty (giving the other team a couple of free throws). This of course ignores any local laws that could cover the proposed killing, such as animal cruelty laws. Randall is poking fun at the common practice of intentional fouls, something that happens particularly often in basketball. Although a foul is by definition against the rules, a team may deliberately break those rules and accept the penalty in order to gain some perceived advantage. For example, in association football (soccer), a player may intentionally foul an opposing player with a strong attack to allow his team to regroup and increase its defensive position, starting with blocking the resulting free kick. In basketball, an intentional foul can stop the clock and turn over the ball, or may simply give the team time to rest and/or discuss strategy that it otherwise may not have had.

The dog in the comic is wearing a jersey with the number 9. In ''Air Bud'', the dog wore a jersey with "K" on one side and "9" on the other, forming "K-9", a popular shortening of the word "canine".

Randall previously parodied the "animal-as-player" loophole in [[115: Meerkat]]. Rule books are also mentioned in [[330: Indecision]], [[393: Ultimate Game]], and [[1593: Play-By-Play]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are standing with a dog wearing jersey number 9, Ponytail and Hairy are facing them holding a rulebook. The horizon is visible behind them.]
:Ponytail: There's nothing in the rulebook that says we can't kill and eat your dog.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1404: Quantum Vacuum Virtual Plasma

2014-08-06T05:13:16Z

Gidklio: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1404
| date = August 6, 2014
| title = Quantum Vacuum Virtual Plasma
| image = quantum_vacuum_virtual_plasma.png
| titletext = I don't understand the things you do, and you therefore may represent an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
[Cueball and Megan are walking together in the foreground.]
Cueball: Hear about that "impossible" microwave thruster?

[Still walking together.]
Megan: Yeah. Let me get this straight---they pumped 20 kilowatts into a box under ambient conditions...and it only twitched a ''little''?

Cueball: Yeah.

[Way zoomed out, but still walking together.]
Megan: ''That's'' surprising. If you pumped 20 kilowatts into ''me'', I'd twitch a ''lot''.

Cueball: But you're not pushing on the quantum vacuum.

Megan: I ''might'' be. I do a lot of things.

Cueball: I guess we can't be sure.

Alt Text: I don't understand the things you do, and you therefore may represent an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.

{{comic discussion}}

1404: Quantum Vacuum Virtual Plasma

2014-08-06T05:11:20Z

Gidklio: /* Transcript */ +italics

{{comic
| number = 1404
| date = August 6, 2014
| title = Quantum Vacuum Virtual Plasma
| image = quantum_vacuum_virtual_plasma.png
| titletext = I don't understand the things you do, and you therefore may represent an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
Cueball: Hear about that "impossible" microwave thruster?

Megan: Yeah. Let me get this straight---they pumped 20 kilowatts into a box under ambient conditions...and it only twitched a ''little''?

Cueball: Yeah.

Megan: ''That's'' surprising. If you pumped 20 kilowatts into ''me'', I'd twitch a ''lot''.

Cueball: But you're not pushing on the quantum vacuum.

Megan: I ''might'' be. I do a lot of things.

Cueball: I guess we can't be sure.

Alt Text: I don't understand the things you do, and you therefore may represent an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.

{{comic discussion}}

1404: Quantum Vacuum Virtual Plasma

2014-08-06T05:10:18Z

Gidklio: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1404
| date = August 6, 2014
| title = Quantum Vacuum Virtual Plasma
| image = quantum_vacuum_virtual_plasma.png
| titletext = I don't understand the things you do, and you therefore may represent an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
Cueball: Hear about that "impossible" microwave thruster?

Megan: Yeah. Let me get this straight---they pumped 20 kilwatts into a box under ambient conditions...and it only twitched a little?
Cueball: Yeah.

Megan: That's surprising. If you pumped 20 kilwatts into me, I'd twitch a lot.
Cueball: But you're not pushing on the quantum vacuum.
Megan: I might be. I do a lot of things.
Cueball: I guess we can't be sure.

Alt Text: I don't understand the things you do, and you therefore may represent an internaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.

{{comic discussion}}

1400: D.B. Cooper

2014-07-29T04:33:16Z

Gidklio: removed "begs the question" in favor of "raises the question". See http://begthequestion.info/

{{comic
| number = 1400
| date = July 28, 2014
| title = D.B. Cooper
| image = d_b_cooper.png
| titletext = 'Why on Earth would someone commit air piracy just to finance a terrible movie decades later?' 'People are very strange these days.'
}}

==Explanation==

[[File:DBCooper.jpg|thumb|Cooper]]
In 1971, a man referred to by the media as {{w|D. B. Cooper}} hijacked a Boeing 727 and escaped with the current equivalent of over $1 million in ransom money. While the FBI maintains that Cooper was most likely killed when he parachuted from the plane, they have never determined his identity, and their agents still actively investigate the case, the United States' only unsolved plane hijacking.

[[File:Tommy Wiseau.jpg|thumb|Wiseau]]
In 2003, {{w|Tommy Wiseau}} released {{w|The Room (film)|''The Room''}}, considered by many the worst film ever made. In the decade since he has become something of an icon alongside his infamous movie, of which he was the producer, writer, director, and star. Surprisingly little, however, is known about him.

This comic points to similarities between several details of Cooper and Wiseau's stories:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Cooper
! Wiseau
|-
| "Vanished mysteriously with a large amount of money":Cooper escaped with $200,000 in 1971 dollars, equivalent to around $1.2M today. $5,800 of that money was recovered in 1980 in the vicinity of where Cooper jumped from the plane, but the rest was never found. Assuming Cooper survived, he would have had decades to turn the $200k into an even larger fortune.
| "Appeared myseriously with a large amount of money":''The Room'' cost $6 million to make, and initially grossed a mere $1,900—a loss of 99.97% of the investment. It is generally assumed that all or most of that money was Wiseau's own, which raises the question of how he obtained such wealth.
|-
| "Real age/name unknown":Cooper's real name remains unknown. While he was estimated to be in his mid-40s, his precise age is also unknown.
| "Colleague says he's much older than he claims":In 2010, Wiseau stated that he was 41. His friend and ''Room'' co-star {{w|Greg Sestero}}, however, says he was born in the 1950s.
|-
| "Ambiguous, possibly affected speaking style ('negotiable American currency')":Cooper's use of this unusual phrase has led to speculation about his origins, including as to whether he was perhaps not an American.
| "Ambiguous, possibly affected speaking style ('You are tearing me apart, Lisa!')":The most famously melodramatic line from ''The Room'', "You are tearing me apart, Lisa!" is one of several which highlights Wiseau's unusual accent and less-than-complete command of the English language. As with Cooper's "negotiable American currency," it is phrased in a way not typical of American English.
|-
| "Fate unknown":Cooper has not been seen since he jumped from the plane, though the FBI has investigated over a thousand "serious suspects." He either died trying to jump from the plane, or disappeared completely after touching down.
| "Background unknown":Despite Wiseau being a public figure for over a decade since the release of ''The Room'', little is definitively known about his background. Sestero says Wiseau was born somewhere in Eastern Europe. Wiseau has said he has moved back and forth between Europe and the U.S. throughout his life, spending significant time in France and Louisiana. His accent is clearly European, but is otherwise hard to place.His legal name, place of birth, date of birth, and nationality are all unknown, as are most of the details of how he's spent his life.
|-
|}

However, these are only a few cherry-picked aspects of their lives, and do not seriously suggest that they are the same person. For instance, even if we assume that Wiseau was born in 1950, and that Cooper was only 35 (probably the youngest age which can be mistaken for mid-40s) in 1971, that leaves a 14-year gap between their ages. Likewise, Cooper was said to have either an American or Canadian accent, while Wiseau's bizarre accent is certainly not North American. While [[Cueball]]'s theory in this comic is clearly a joke on [[Randall]]'s part, given Randall's [[258: Conspiracy Theories|known]] [[690: Semicontrolled Demolition|distaste]] [[966: Jet Fuel|for]] conspiracy theories, this may also be making fun of people who base theories off of minor details while ignoring contradictory ones and bigger-picture questions. The question in the title text, for instance, notes that Cooper would have gone through a huge amount of effort just to produce a movie; a similar rhetorical device is often used against convoluted conspiracy theories, where one points out how much more easily the supposed conspirators could have accomplished their goals.

The title text goes on to attribute such a weird motive for hijacking to the impression that "people are very strange these days," which is another quote from ''The Room''.

<references/>

==Transcript==
===Panel 1===
D.B. Cooper
("Dan Cooper")

Hijacked a plane in the 1970s.
On landing, demanded money and
parachutes. Jumped from plane
mid-flight and was never found.

-----

* Vanished mysteriously with
large amount of money
* Real age/name unknown
* Ambiguous, possibly
affected speaking style
("negotiable American currency")
* Fate unknown

===Panel 2===
Tommy Wiseau
("Johnny")

Wrote, directed, and starred in
''The Room'', a film widely hailed as
"The ''Citizen Kane'' of bad movies."

-----

* Appeared mysteriously
with large amount of money
* Colleague says he's much
older than he claims.
* Ambiguous, possibly
affected speaking style
("You are tearing me apart, Lisa!")
*Background unknown

===Panel 3===

:[Images captioned Cooper (FBI sketch) and Wiseau (Flickr photo by Al Pavangkanan)]

:Offscreen: This is the dumbest theory I've ever heard.
:Cueball: But it explains ''everything!!''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]

Talk:1400: D.B. Cooper

2014-07-29T04:31:56Z

Gidklio: beg the question comment

Feels like a conspiracy(?) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.227.35|108.162.227.35]] 12:15, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Isn't it a reference to the Malaysia Airlines conspiracy theory? http://humansarefree.com/2014/07/busted-mh-17-was-in-fact-lost-flight-mh.html?m=0
- Renee [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.75|108.162.245.75]] 00:44, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Oh, this is a hilarious comic! --[[User:Dangerkeith3000|Dangerkeith3000]] ([[User talk:Dangerkeith3000|talk]]) 15:14, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Could someone explain what "the Citizen Kane of ____" is all about? --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 17:05, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

: "Citizen Kane" is regarded as a masterpiece landmark film, and other films are often compared to it as a highly favorable compliment. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.211|173.245.52.211]] 18:08, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

This is really just a curiosity, but what is unusual about the phrasing "You are tearing me apart"? (I'm obviously not a native speaker) [[User:Ly mar|Ly mar]] ([[User talk:Ly mar|talk]]) 17:12, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
* Beyond using "You are" instead of "You're", not much. The oddness of the line is mostly through the delivery in the film, not the grammar. [[User:ImVeryAngryItsNotButter|ImVeryAngryItsNotButter]] ([[User talk:ImVeryAngryItsNotButter|talk]]) 17:14, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

;photograph

Is this the first xkcd to feature a full color photograph of a person? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.52|108.162.216.52]] 17:38, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

;con·tem·po·rar·y

adjective: contemporary

1.
living or occurring at the same time.
"the event was recorded by a contemporary historian"
dating from the same time.
"this series of paintings is contemporary with other works in an early style"
synonyms: of the time, of the day, contemporaneous, concurrent, coeval, coexisting, coexistent More
"contemporary sources"
2.
belonging to or occurring in the present.
"the tension and complexities of our contemporary society"

"In 1971, a man referred to by the media as D. B. Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 and escaped with the '''contemporary''' equivalent of over $1 million in ransom money."

So that can be either 1971 dollars (contemporary to D. B. Cooper's time) or 2014 dollars (contemporary to the present time).

(A lot of people think definition no. 2 is the only definition, but it isn't.)

--[[User:RenniePet|RenniePet]] ([[User talk:RenniePet|talk]]) 00:49, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

:I appreciate your work to improve the explanations here. But, such theatrics over a one word edit are unnecessary. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 02:14, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I created an account solely so I could remove the anomalous use of "beg the question". [http://begthequestion.info/] [[User:Gidklio|Gidklio]] ([[User talk:Gidklio|talk]]) 04:31, 29 July 2014 (UTC)