explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

User:Certified nqh

2026-03-15T16:40:09Z

SeaDragon1: /* Did you know... */

<div id="contentSub"><span class="mw-redirectedfrom">(Redirected from [[File:trollface.png|12px]])</span></div>
<noinclude>{{infobox
| bodyclass = vcard
| image = [[File:nqh_sit.png]]
| caption = ''"I am not an artist" - Me''
}}

{{Userbox | border-c = #255 | border-s = 1 | info-s = 20 | id = [[File:trollface120.png|trollface120.png|45px]] | info = [[User:Certified_nqh/userbox|This user is a user.]] | float = left }}

== The final word ==

Here is your designated space for creating the illusion that you have the final word:


i am a cow. moo. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'">[[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]<sup>([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]])</sup></span> 16:16, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

i think that you're awesome, nqh. i'm glad you and people like you exist. [[User:108.162.242.105|108.162.242.105]] 18:15, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

<strong>SRIMP</strong> [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]]<sup>[[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]]</sup> 20:54, 3 November 2023 (UTC)


weeeeeee! [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 18:55, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

chip

Well, now it is. [[User:RadiantRainwing|RadiantRainwing]] ([[User talk:RadiantRainwing|talk]]) 16:33, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

sina sona ala sona e toki pona???? {{unsigned|172.69.60.217|21:28, 22 February 2025}}
:<abbr title="My hovercraft is full of eels">tomo tawa mi pi tawa kepeken kon li jo e kala linja mute lon insa ali ona</abbr> [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.94|162.158.74.94]] 21:41, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
::ni li tan jan Misali anu seme? mi sona lili pi toki pona. [[Special:Contributions/2A00:801:7A8:EF7A:0:0:10ED:6551|2A00:801:7A8:EF7A:0:0:10ED:6551]] 12:53, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

o rly? --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al |<span style="font-family:Atomic Age;font-size:12pt;color:red;">DollarStoreBa'al</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al |'''''Converse''''']]</sup>[[DSBContribs |'''''My life choices''''']] 20:37, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

hi it's me i forgot my password but i'm just here to tell you you're all nerds bye forever [[Special:Contributions/129.15.64.228|129.15.64.228]] 19:35, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Ice-Spheroids Habit Model with Aspect-Ratio Evolution - [[User:LordOfFridges|LordOfFridges]], Jan 15, 2026 2237Z



Glad that's over with.

== Me ==

I'm a high school senior in programming 4.

CST (UTC-6) is my time zone.
<br /><span style="background-color: #0000 !important; position: absolute; transform: translateY(-100%)">CDT (UTC-5)</span>

NQH stands for NotQuiteHadouken, which is what I changed it to after I got tired of people making jokes about my last username. NotQuiteHadouken is a Joel reference.

[[File:nqh_pfp.jpg|32x32px]] is my pfp in most places

My playlist is at least 200 songs. I have written it like this because I keep adding to it.

I don't like...

* Country songs

* TV

* You<sup><i>[dubious]</i></sup>

* Myself

* Simon Cowell

* Turbulence

* Quantum mechanics

* The US

* The incentive to publish negative results

* How I must speak

* Things being hard

* Being a jack of all trades, but a master of none.<sup><i>[but a jack of all trades is better than a master of one]</i></sup>

* Game theory

* People who say that they don't like people with no other context

My favorite...

* Browser is firefox.

* Thing from McDonalds is the McDouble.

<ul style="list-style: circle;"><li> Thing from taco bell is Tacos Locos without sour cream.</li></ul>

* Thing from subway is footlong white bread toasted with turkey, bacon, provolone, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles.

* Soda is A&W cream soda.

* Mode of transportation is public transportation, second is walking. This will change.

* Mode of long-distance communication is Signal, second is Facebook Messenger.

* Circle of hell is wrath.

* Anime is JJBA, second is Parasyte.

The practical thing I am best at is coding. The impractical thing I am best at is sleeping.

I am 5'10". I think.

Cool things I own are...

* A weather radio that runs on a 9V battery

* Two rectangular prisms with 3D laser engravings in them of flowers

There are 4 computers that I use regularly and 2 broken in my closet.

I have an HP Pavilion with a broken screen that has Arch Linux installed on it.

It is entirely capable of hosting a website, but cox routers suck ass and block all the necessary ports.

I own a domain name, that being nqhlof.us. Don't try to go to it, it doesn't work.

I can read.

== My brain ==

Languages I know are English (native), Spanish (pretty good), and toki pona.

Languages I have tried to learn at some point are Russian, German, and Japanese.

As far as I can remember, my IQ is decent.

Scripts I can read are Latin, Cyrillic, Hindu-Arabic numerals, katakana, hiragana, and some kanji.

I can read.

== My code ==

I can code in {{w|C (programming language)|C}}, {{w|C Sharp (programming language)|C#}}, {{w|C++}}, {{w|YAML}}, {{w|Extensible Application Markup Language|XAML}}, {{w|Extensible Markup Language|XML}}, {{w|HTML}}, {{w|CSS}}, {{w|JavaScript}}, {{w|Lua}}, {{w|Luau (programming language)|Luau}}, {{w|Python (programming language)|Python}}, {{w|Brainfuck}}, {{w|Lisp}}, {{w|Vim (text editor)|Vim}} Keybindings, and {{w|Mindustry}} processor.

Anything related to scripting is done on whatever OS I feel like because I am indecisive.

My HTML magic happens when I feel like it.

I'm pretty good at HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

I am currently working on whatever I so damn please.

== XKCD ==

I have no idea how I found out about xkcd.

I have read every comic.

Favorite character is Black Hat.

== This site ==

I found out about explainxkcd because I googled something, this site popped up, and I wanted to look at it.

Here's my signature: {{User:Certified_nqh/signature.css}}

[[User:Certified_nqh/sandbox|Here's my sandbox.]]

Sometimes I end up reading the latest comic here instead of on XKCD.

[[User:Certified_nqh/common.css|This is my style sheet on this.]]

[[User:Certified_nqh/epicdarkmode.css|This is the dark mode I came up with. It's pretty good.]]

I've made {{#cscore:Certified_nqh|changes}} changes to {{#cscore:Certified_nqh|pages}} pages and have a score of {{#cscore:Certified_nqh|score}}.

I was trying to show up on the top 50 before I realized I wasn't actually getting anything out of it and stopped.

Because numbers redirect to comics, you can just go into the URL of an xkcd comic, put "explain" before xkcd.com, and get to the explanation.

By the way, </noinclude><includeonly><b><i style="font-size:20px !important; color: #F00 !important; background-color: #000 !important; font-family: Courier !important;">Stop trying to embed my user page into shit.</i></b></includeonly><noinclude>

=== Times I have accidentally mistyped the site URL ===

Since you can just put "explain" before "xkcd" in any of the comics, I usually use that to go to the explanation for that comic.

Sometimes I don't look.

* xkcd.explaincom

* explonkxkcd.com

* exokaubxkcd.com

* explinxkcd.com (redirected to some weird URL that i closed immediately)

=== Templates I have made ===

{{tl|soup}} (not shown due to divs sucking)

{{tl|wikidata}} {{wikidata|2|Earth}}

{{tl|Actual Citation Needed}} {{Actual Citation Needed}}

== People who are pretty cool ==

[[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]], [[User:Theusaf|theusaf]]

{{W|John Conway}}, {{W|Isaac Newton}}, {{W|Albert Einstein}}

[https://www.youtube.com/@standupmaths Matt Parker], [https://www.youtube.com/@SteveMould Steve Mould], [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY1kMZp36IQSyNx_9h4mpCg Mark Rober], [https://www.youtube.com/c/SebastianLague Sebastian Lague], [https://youtube.com/@CodeParade CodeParade], [https://www.youtube.com/@TomScottGo Tom Scott]

{{W|Mark Z. Danielewski}}, {{W|Suzanne Collins}}

And you, for deciding to read my user page. :).

== Did you know... ==

<ul style="list-style: circle;">
<li><span style="background: linear-gradient(45deg,red, blue); color: white;">Gradients are possible with spans?</span> </li>
<li><div style="color: red;">CSS is hard?</div>
<li>You can [https://patents.google.com/patent/US3689289A/en synthesise the flavor of chicken]?</li> 
<li>Most HTML tags work in {{w|Wikimedia Foundation|Wikimedia}} sites?</li>
</ul>

== log ==

23:30, 21 October 2023 (CDT): I just loaded in this page and the "I am not an artist" image decided to have some graphics glitch where the top half broke and I thought the world was ending for some reason.

:20:58, 21 November 2023 (CST): Bit late, but the image has glitched twice so far.

18:17, 22 October 2023 (CDT): i own a flask

21:29, 22 October 2023 (CDT): i'm tired

22:43, 22 October 2023 (CDT): decided to go and press random and on like my 4th click it sent me to the latest comic. 0.5% lookin a

23:26, 22 October 2023 (CDT): common is more dull now

09:07, 23 October 2023 (CDT): miracle tablets of screw you

09:50, 23 October 2023 (CDT): i am the only one in my entire math class who manages to find errors in the answer key

21:49, 23 October 2023 (CDT): my [https://github.com/space-wizards/space-station-14/pull/21183 best work] happens when i use the github editor

09:31, 24 October 2023 (CDT): i own a musket for home defense. <small>four ruffians break into my house "what the devil?" as i grab my powdered wig and kentucky rifle. <small>blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot, <small>draw my pistol on the second man, <small>miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbor's dog. <small>i have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with <i style="font-weight:bold;">G R A P E S H O T. TALLY HO LADS!</i><small> The grape shot shreds two men in the blast, <small>the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. <small>Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. <small>He bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. </small></small></small></small></small></small></small></small></small><big>Just as the founding fathers intended.</big>

11:14, 24 October 2023 (CDT): [deleted]

22:05, 24 October 2023 (CDT): stood up in the shower and fainted

09:30, 26 October 2023 (CDT): womp womp

20:22, 26 October 2023 (CDT): i am tilted at the towers :godo:

09:52, 28 October 2023 (CDT): raiiiiin

11:40, 31 October 2023 (CDT): i put water in a hip flask to confuse the people around me

09:22, 1 November 2023 (CDT): i don't comprehend halloween

10:38, 2 November 2023 (CDT): my father once told me there would be incredibly annoying people in my life and that i must do nothing but tolerate them

10:43, 2 November 2023 (CDT): i'm going to be putting these in my current time zone now.

16:02, 3 November 2023 (CDT): <i style="color: #F00 !important; font-family: Times;">Muss es sein?</i>

06:30, 5 November 2023 (CST): DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME IS OVER AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

21:23, 5 November 2023 (CST): My ass just had to spend <i>thirteen and a half fucking hours</i> doing nothing because my stepmother dragged me along because she had to sing for something at church at 6 pm. I hate this. I hate this.

23:12, 5 November 2023 (CST): my chromebook's screen just had a strok

11:35, 6 November 2023 (CST): my english teacher is monologuing about MLA citations

00:00, 1 January 1970 (CST): editsection10 

11:29, 7 November 2023 (CST): <sup><i>[citation not needed]</i></sup>

08:08, 8 November 2023 (CST): starting on the 10th i ride with one of my friends to school

:22:01, 29 February 2024 (CST): i lied. apparently it isn't guaranteed

11:54, 8 November 2023 (CST): I WAS going to make a joke about "hey guys!! what should my thousandth edit be???" until I realized that I already had 1003 edits. Darn you, me.

10:25, 9 November 2023 (CST): Put <nowiki>*::after {content:" This element has been claimed by NQH.";font-size:2em;}</nowiki> into your common.css file. (do not actually)

15:22, 9 November 2023 (CST): I decided to look through the blocked users list and...I...<b><i>what the fuck is quickbooks???</i></b>

17:56, 9 November 2023 (CST): I have just discovered [[Special:MyPage/common.js|common.js]]. You will not see me for a while.

18:08, 9 November 2023 (CST): It doesn't work.

11:12, 10 November 2023 (CST): For some ungodly reason my English teacher uses ChromeOS on a windows laptop.
:indeed... why move away from Microsoft closed-source system to a Google/Alphabet closed-source one. Find an actual proper Linix distro, would be my advice. If anybody were to ask. Which nobody does. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.51|172.70.85.51]] 18:35, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

14:07, 10 November 2023 (CST): I made Pelvis Presley in kahoot.

08:00, 15 November 2023 (CST): I can't wait for Christmas because it means I don't have to listen to what the god damn bell is right now at my school.

:10:30 (7:55), 27 November 2023 (CST): Oh my god they changed it early.

14:55, 15 November 2023 (CST): Do you ever get so angry at someone you physically dash out of your chair and scream directly into their face?

10:29, 27 November 2023 (CST): Fortnite actually runs on my computer without lagging violently now. This is a miracle.

08:48, 6 December 2023 (CST): They ruined it.

10:13, 14 December 2023 (CST): I think my chromebook is dying.

11:37, 15 December 2023 (CST): i am exempt from every single semester test at my school oh boy oh yeah oh boy oh yeah oh boy oh yeah oh b

14:49, 8 January 2024 (CST): was i supposed to say happy new year

10:16, 26 February 2024 (CST): I clicked random and got a 500 internal server error. Thanks, Randall.

20:24, 30 April 2024 (CST): It has been more than one month since I last updated the log. XKCD still randomly decides it doesn't support https or just dies entirely. This is a recent issue. Oh lord.

13:05, 26 August 2024 (CST): i had a job and then i didn't

14:40, 4 October 2024 (CST): i hadn't a job and then i did
</noinclude>

User:Certified nqh

2026-03-15T16:34:01Z

SeaDragon1: /* My code */

<div id="contentSub"><span class="mw-redirectedfrom">(Redirected from [[File:trollface.png|12px]])</span></div>
<noinclude>{{infobox
| bodyclass = vcard
| image = [[File:nqh_sit.png]]
| caption = ''"I am not an artist" - Me''
}}

{{Userbox | border-c = #255 | border-s = 1 | info-s = 20 | id = [[File:trollface120.png|trollface120.png|45px]] | info = [[User:Certified_nqh/userbox|This user is a user.]] | float = left }}

== The final word ==

Here is your designated space for creating the illusion that you have the final word:


i am a cow. moo. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'">[[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]<sup>([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]])</sup></span> 16:16, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

i think that you're awesome, nqh. i'm glad you and people like you exist. [[User:108.162.242.105|108.162.242.105]] 18:15, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

<strong>SRIMP</strong> [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]]<sup>[[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]]</sup> 20:54, 3 November 2023 (UTC)


weeeeeee! [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 18:55, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

chip

Well, now it is. [[User:RadiantRainwing|RadiantRainwing]] ([[User talk:RadiantRainwing|talk]]) 16:33, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

sina sona ala sona e toki pona???? {{unsigned|172.69.60.217|21:28, 22 February 2025}}
:<abbr title="My hovercraft is full of eels">tomo tawa mi pi tawa kepeken kon li jo e kala linja mute lon insa ali ona</abbr> [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.94|162.158.74.94]] 21:41, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
::ni li tan jan Misali anu seme? mi sona lili pi toki pona. [[Special:Contributions/2A00:801:7A8:EF7A:0:0:10ED:6551|2A00:801:7A8:EF7A:0:0:10ED:6551]] 12:53, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

o rly? --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al |<span style="font-family:Atomic Age;font-size:12pt;color:red;">DollarStoreBa'al</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al |'''''Converse''''']]</sup>[[DSBContribs |'''''My life choices''''']] 20:37, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

hi it's me i forgot my password but i'm just here to tell you you're all nerds bye forever [[Special:Contributions/129.15.64.228|129.15.64.228]] 19:35, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Ice-Spheroids Habit Model with Aspect-Ratio Evolution - [[User:LordOfFridges|LordOfFridges]], Jan 15, 2026 2237Z



Glad that's over with.

== Me ==

I'm a high school senior in programming 4.

CST (UTC-6) is my time zone.
<br /><span style="background-color: #0000 !important; position: absolute; transform: translateY(-100%)">CDT (UTC-5)</span>

NQH stands for NotQuiteHadouken, which is what I changed it to after I got tired of people making jokes about my last username. NotQuiteHadouken is a Joel reference.

[[File:nqh_pfp.jpg|32x32px]] is my pfp in most places

My playlist is at least 200 songs. I have written it like this because I keep adding to it.

I don't like...

* Country songs

* TV

* You<sup><i>[dubious]</i></sup>

* Myself

* Simon Cowell

* Turbulence

* Quantum mechanics

* The US

* The incentive to publish negative results

* How I must speak

* Things being hard

* Being a jack of all trades, but a master of none.<sup><i>[but a jack of all trades is better than a master of one]</i></sup>

* Game theory

* People who say that they don't like people with no other context

My favorite...

* Browser is firefox.

* Thing from McDonalds is the McDouble.

<ul style="list-style: circle;"><li> Thing from taco bell is Tacos Locos without sour cream.</li></ul>

* Thing from subway is footlong white bread toasted with turkey, bacon, provolone, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles.

* Soda is A&W cream soda.

* Mode of transportation is public transportation, second is walking. This will change.

* Mode of long-distance communication is Signal, second is Facebook Messenger.

* Circle of hell is wrath.

* Anime is JJBA, second is Parasyte.

The practical thing I am best at is coding. The impractical thing I am best at is sleeping.

I am 5'10". I think.

Cool things I own are...

* A weather radio that runs on a 9V battery

* Two rectangular prisms with 3D laser engravings in them of flowers

There are 4 computers that I use regularly and 2 broken in my closet.

I have an HP Pavilion with a broken screen that has Arch Linux installed on it.

It is entirely capable of hosting a website, but cox routers suck ass and block all the necessary ports.

I own a domain name, that being nqhlof.us. Don't try to go to it, it doesn't work.

I can read.

== My brain ==

Languages I know are English (native), Spanish (pretty good), and toki pona.

Languages I have tried to learn at some point are Russian, German, and Japanese.

As far as I can remember, my IQ is decent.

Scripts I can read are Latin, Cyrillic, Hindu-Arabic numerals, katakana, hiragana, and some kanji.

I can read.

== My code ==

I can code in {{w|C (programming language)|C}}, {{w|C Sharp (programming language)|C#}}, {{w|C++}}, {{w|YAML}}, {{w|Extensible Application Markup Language|XAML}}, {{w|Extensible Markup Language|XML}}, {{w|HTML}}, {{w|CSS}}, {{w|JavaScript}}, {{w|Lua}}, {{w|Luau (programming language)|Luau}}, {{w|Python (programming language)|Python}}, {{w|Brainfuck}}, {{w|Lisp}}, {{w|Vim (text editor)|Vim}} Keybindings, and {{w|Mindustry}} processor.

Anything related to scripting is done on whatever OS I feel like because I am indecisive.

My HTML magic happens when I feel like it.

I'm pretty good at HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

I am currently working on whatever I so damn please.

== XKCD ==

I have no idea how I found out about xkcd.

I have read every comic.

Favorite character is Black Hat.

== This site ==

I found out about explainxkcd because I googled something, this site popped up, and I wanted to look at it.

Here's my signature: {{User:Certified_nqh/signature.css}}

[[User:Certified_nqh/sandbox|Here's my sandbox.]]

Sometimes I end up reading the latest comic here instead of on XKCD.

[[User:Certified_nqh/common.css|This is my style sheet on this.]]

[[User:Certified_nqh/epicdarkmode.css|This is the dark mode I came up with. It's pretty good.]]

I've made {{#cscore:Certified_nqh|changes}} changes to {{#cscore:Certified_nqh|pages}} pages and have a score of {{#cscore:Certified_nqh|score}}.

I was trying to show up on the top 50 before I realized I wasn't actually getting anything out of it and stopped.

Because numbers redirect to comics, you can just go into the URL of an xkcd comic, put "explain" before xkcd.com, and get to the explanation.

By the way, </noinclude><includeonly><b><i style="font-size:20px !important; color: #F00 !important; background-color: #000 !important; font-family: Courier !important;">Stop trying to embed my user page into shit.</i></b></includeonly><noinclude>

=== Times I have accidentally mistyped the site URL ===

Since you can just put "explain" before "xkcd" in any of the comics, I usually use that to go to the explanation for that comic.

Sometimes I don't look.

* xkcd.explaincom

* explonkxkcd.com

* exokaubxkcd.com

* explinxkcd.com (redirected to some weird URL that i closed immediately)

=== Templates I have made ===

{{tl|soup}} (not shown due to divs sucking)

{{tl|wikidata}} {{wikidata|2|Earth}}

{{tl|Actual Citation Needed}} {{Actual Citation Needed}}

== People who are pretty cool ==

[[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]], [[User:Theusaf|theusaf]]

{{W|John Conway}}, {{W|Isaac Newton}}, {{W|Albert Einstein}}

[https://www.youtube.com/@standupmaths Matt Parker], [https://www.youtube.com/@SteveMould Steve Mould], [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY1kMZp36IQSyNx_9h4mpCg Mark Rober], [https://www.youtube.com/c/SebastianLague Sebastian Lague], [https://youtube.com/@CodeParade CodeParade], [https://www.youtube.com/@TomScottGo Tom Scott]

{{W|Mark Z. Danielewski}}, {{W|Suzanne Collins}}

And you, for deciding to read my user page. :).

== Did you know... ==

<ul style="list-style: circle;">
<li><span style="background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(left,#888,#CCC); color: blue !important;">Gradients are possible with spans?</span> </li>
<li><div style="background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(left,#888,#CCC); color: red !important;">CSS is hard?</div>
<li>You can [https://patents.google.com/patent/US3689289A/en synthesise the flavor of chicken]? </li>
<li>Most HTML tags work in wikimedia sites?</li>
</ul>

== log ==

23:30, 21 October 2023 (CDT): I just loaded in this page and the "I am not an artist" image decided to have some graphics glitch where the top half broke and I thought the world was ending for some reason.

:20:58, 21 November 2023 (CST): Bit late, but the image has glitched twice so far.

18:17, 22 October 2023 (CDT): i own a flask

21:29, 22 October 2023 (CDT): i'm tired

22:43, 22 October 2023 (CDT): decided to go and press random and on like my 4th click it sent me to the latest comic. 0.5% lookin a

23:26, 22 October 2023 (CDT): common is more dull now

09:07, 23 October 2023 (CDT): miracle tablets of screw you

09:50, 23 October 2023 (CDT): i am the only one in my entire math class who manages to find errors in the answer key

21:49, 23 October 2023 (CDT): my [https://github.com/space-wizards/space-station-14/pull/21183 best work] happens when i use the github editor

09:31, 24 October 2023 (CDT): i own a musket for home defense. <small>four ruffians break into my house "what the devil?" as i grab my powdered wig and kentucky rifle. <small>blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot, <small>draw my pistol on the second man, <small>miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbor's dog. <small>i have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with <i style="font-weight:bold;">G R A P E S H O T. TALLY HO LADS!</i><small> The grape shot shreds two men in the blast, <small>the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. <small>Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. <small>He bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. </small></small></small></small></small></small></small></small></small><big>Just as the founding fathers intended.</big>

11:14, 24 October 2023 (CDT): [deleted]

22:05, 24 October 2023 (CDT): stood up in the shower and fainted

09:30, 26 October 2023 (CDT): womp womp

20:22, 26 October 2023 (CDT): i am tilted at the towers :godo:

09:52, 28 October 2023 (CDT): raiiiiin

11:40, 31 October 2023 (CDT): i put water in a hip flask to confuse the people around me

09:22, 1 November 2023 (CDT): i don't comprehend halloween

10:38, 2 November 2023 (CDT): my father once told me there would be incredibly annoying people in my life and that i must do nothing but tolerate them

10:43, 2 November 2023 (CDT): i'm going to be putting these in my current time zone now.

16:02, 3 November 2023 (CDT): <i style="color: #F00 !important; font-family: Times;">Muss es sein?</i>

06:30, 5 November 2023 (CST): DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME IS OVER AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

21:23, 5 November 2023 (CST): My ass just had to spend <i>thirteen and a half fucking hours</i> doing nothing because my stepmother dragged me along because she had to sing for something at church at 6 pm. I hate this. I hate this.

23:12, 5 November 2023 (CST): my chromebook's screen just had a strok

11:35, 6 November 2023 (CST): my english teacher is monologuing about MLA citations

00:00, 1 January 1970 (CST): editsection10 

11:29, 7 November 2023 (CST): <sup><i>[citation not needed]</i></sup>

08:08, 8 November 2023 (CST): starting on the 10th i ride with one of my friends to school

:22:01, 29 February 2024 (CST): i lied. apparently it isn't guaranteed

11:54, 8 November 2023 (CST): I WAS going to make a joke about "hey guys!! what should my thousandth edit be???" until I realized that I already had 1003 edits. Darn you, me.

10:25, 9 November 2023 (CST): Put <nowiki>*::after {content:" This element has been claimed by NQH.";font-size:2em;}</nowiki> into your common.css file. (do not actually)

15:22, 9 November 2023 (CST): I decided to look through the blocked users list and...I...<b><i>what the fuck is quickbooks???</i></b>

17:56, 9 November 2023 (CST): I have just discovered [[Special:MyPage/common.js|common.js]]. You will not see me for a while.

18:08, 9 November 2023 (CST): It doesn't work.

11:12, 10 November 2023 (CST): For some ungodly reason my English teacher uses ChromeOS on a windows laptop.
:indeed... why move away from Microsoft closed-source system to a Google/Alphabet closed-source one. Find an actual proper Linix distro, would be my advice. If anybody were to ask. Which nobody does. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.51|172.70.85.51]] 18:35, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

14:07, 10 November 2023 (CST): I made Pelvis Presley in kahoot.

08:00, 15 November 2023 (CST): I can't wait for Christmas because it means I don't have to listen to what the god damn bell is right now at my school.

:10:30 (7:55), 27 November 2023 (CST): Oh my god they changed it early.

14:55, 15 November 2023 (CST): Do you ever get so angry at someone you physically dash out of your chair and scream directly into their face?

10:29, 27 November 2023 (CST): Fortnite actually runs on my computer without lagging violently now. This is a miracle.

08:48, 6 December 2023 (CST): They ruined it.

10:13, 14 December 2023 (CST): I think my chromebook is dying.

11:37, 15 December 2023 (CST): i am exempt from every single semester test at my school oh boy oh yeah oh boy oh yeah oh boy oh yeah oh b

14:49, 8 January 2024 (CST): was i supposed to say happy new year

10:16, 26 February 2024 (CST): I clicked random and got a 500 internal server error. Thanks, Randall.

20:24, 30 April 2024 (CST): It has been more than one month since I last updated the log. XKCD still randomly decides it doesn't support https or just dies entirely. This is a recent issue. Oh lord.

13:05, 26 August 2024 (CST): i had a job and then i didn't

14:40, 4 October 2024 (CST): i hadn't a job and then i did
</noinclude>

Talk:1537: Types

2026-02-13T23:19:50Z

SeaDragon1:

Relevant: WAT talk https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat {{unsigned ip|‎108.162.254.108}}

Are (6) and (7) about completing sequences?

If the sequence was [1, 2, 3, ?] we would expect the ? to be a placeholder for 4. So [1, 2, 3]+2 is wrong := FALSE. But [1, 2, 3]+4 is correct := TRUE. {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.22}}

"+2 appears to be applying a unary + to the number 2" : or it adds the number of the line, 10, to 2 => 12. Also, the eleventh line, "2+2" may add 2 to all the following 2, explaining line 12. (that theory is from a friend of mine) [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 12:17, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
: Also, for the lines 6 and 7, the operation "[1,2,3]+x" may add x to the set [1,2,3] and return true if the operation succeeded or false if not. Adding 2 to the set [1,2,3] returns false because 2 is already in [1,2,3]. [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 12:23, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
:: I thought it was doing element-wise addition and then comparing "[6] > [3,4,5]" (using the line number in the joke, like in line 10). The problem here is that line 6 should return true and line 7 should return false. [[User:Rand|Rand]] ([[User talk:Rand|talk]]) 15:46, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Yellowish Blue: http://www.livescience.com/17948-red-green-blue-yellow-stunning-colors.html is NaN! {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.129}}

''"The ironic thing is that fractions with 2 in the nominator are not the kind of numbers that typically suffer from floating point impreciseness."''
- This is not technically correct. Should read "fractions with 'power of 2' in the '''de'''nominator. However, the 3/2 would cause precision errors. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.129}}
: I don't know proper English wording for things, but 3/2=3*2^-1, so it would be represented exactly under IEEE-754 too. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.217|141.101.89.217]] 13:58, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Is there more to this comic, a fixed set of rules that can tie all the examples together, or does each line make its own joke independently? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.5|108.162.219.5]] 12:54, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

;"normally"

<blockquote>This would make sense if it was <code>[] + 2</code></blockquote>

It really wouldn't. Javascript returns <code>"2"</code> (god knows why) and Python gives an error. Don't really feel like testing many other languages, but I also think it's not really a logical assumption to make at all. Can't think of a reason for <code>[] + 2</code> to return <code>[2]</code>... ever. It ''might'' make a little bit of sense in Randall's oddly typed language, but not in any sane one. --[[User:TotempaaltJ|TotempaaltJ]] ([[User talk:TotempaaltJ|talk]]) 12:35, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

: Javascript first converts <code>[]</code> (the empty array) to the empty string (using the rule "stringify each element and join with a comma"), then treats the operation as <code>"" + 2</code>, which results in conversion of the other operand to string and then concatenation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.97.214|141.101.97.214]] 12:46, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

line 4: asci code of N + 2 = asci code of P [[User:SirKitKat|sirKitKat]] ([[User talk:SirKitKat|talk]]) 13:07, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

My favourite xkcd in a while. =8o) Of the list I got a good laugh out of numbers 8 and 13. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 13:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I think a lot of this is his joke about programming languages loving the number 4. 2 + "2" = "4", [1,2,3] + 4 = true, 2+2 = DONE, and the range one all seem to support this. Also reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/221/ {{unsigned ip|173.245.52.112}}

Why isn't yellowish blue just green? [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 16:18, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
:Because yellow and blue don't make green. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.158|108.162.237.158]] 23:33, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
::It does with my paint kit. Isn't that subtractive mixing. I feel like I've just traveled to a version of [[1268: Alternate Universe]], except I'm the only one here who went to kindergarten. What am I missing? [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 02:28, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
:::Since this is a Programming language, it must be talking about RGB colors, where green is a base color and yellow is mixed using red and green. So a "yellowish blue" would contain all base colors, resulting in white – and that's propably why Randall's language returns NaN.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.92.42|141.101.92.42]] 08:39, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
::The only {{w|color wheel}} I know has purple (not blue) opposite yellow and orange (not yellow) opposite blue. If that is incorrect, then wikipedia needs some serious editing. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 02:31, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

:::You're talking about the {{w|RYB color model}}, whereas most programming languages work in the {{w|RGB color model}}, where yellowish blue is undefined. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.151|188.114.97.151]] 23:30, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

:It's a lot simpler than that. Perceptually there is no yellowish-blue, one would never describe a blue as being yellowish. If you add yellow to blue you get greenish-blue, add more and you get green, then yellowish-green, then greenish-yellow. At no point would you describe the colour as either yellowish-blue or bluish-yellow. This is why it's the equivalent of NaN, you can use the language to tell the machine you want the result of "2/0", or you want the result of "blue with a yellowish tinge", but in either case it is not possible to represent the result. {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.154}}

line 4: I read NaP as Not a Problem. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.12|141.101.104.12]] 17:00, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
: So did I. [[User:Xynariz|Xynariz]] ([[User talk:Xynariz|talk]]) 23:12, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
: To me, the (2/0) looks like a person curled up on bed with the +2 as the Z's indicating sleeping which I believe was the intention on top of 'P' being 2 chars more than 'N'

Line 3 is missing its prompt. There does not appear to be any relevance to the joke, nor has anyone yet explained why it should be missing. Typo? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.183|108.162.221.183]] 17:10, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

:I haven't noticed it until I saw your comment. It seems deliberate to me. Hard not to notice that when writing the fourth line. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.48|108.162.221.48]] 19:24, 13 June 2015 (UTC)BK201

::Although I agree the context makes the mistake a hard one to have failed to be spotted, [http://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/915 I still think there's not much sense in it being deliberate]. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.151|188.114.97.151]] 23:30, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Note that some programming languages avoid the problem of overloaded '+' operator between operands of vividly different types by using other symbols for string concatenation (be it "a"~"b" or "a"."b") and numerical addition. The real WTF is abusing '+' for string concatenation, which has very different properties from numerical addition, not being symmetrical for example: concat("aa", "bb") == "aabb", while concat("bb", "aa") == "bbaa" != "aabb". --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 17:38, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Series of comics? I don't recall any others about Randall's new programming language... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.29|141.101.98.29]] 19:13, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

;+2
I think this is a japanese language joke. The + sign can also refer to the kanji 十, which is 10 in japanese. This would explain the result being twelve. 十二, or 10 2, is twelve in japanese. {{unsigned|Rafaeladson}}

I think number 5 is an escaped quote (two consecutive double quotes yields one double quote), a plus sign, and another escaped quote. The result is shown with an alternate form of escaped quotes (the apostrophe and double quote can both be used to show a string). NSIS scripting language uses this notation.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.180|108.162.221.180]] 20:19, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Clearly this is what the xkcd phone's OS is written in (with some help from StackOverflow) {{unsigned ip|162.158.68.113}}

Great job at explaining the outputs. I clearly would have missed some interpretations without your insights. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.146|108.162.254.146]] 21:10, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

The joke on line [10] really doesn't seem to be a Chinese/Japanese language joke. We can see that the language interacts much more directly with line numbers from the inter-line joke between lines [11] and [14], where line [12] becomes [14] because the value of 2 has become 4. This is provable by observing that the line after [14] is [13], showing that the previous line really is still line [12], it simply displays as [14] because the value of 2 has changed. This absurdly direct interaction between the code and its line number makes the joke on line [10] make a lot more sense, as a Chinese/Japanese language joke here seems much too contrived and out-of-place considering the nature of the other jokes in the comic. Not to mention, if the joke on line [10] was really concerning the code's interaction with its line number, it would set up nicely for introducing the inter-line joke between lines [11] and [14].[[Special:Contributions/188.114.106.89|188.114.106.89]] 03:35, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

:Mostly agreed, but still it's an amusing coincidence. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.151|188.114.97.151]] 23:30, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

As a speaker of Japanese, the explanation "[In the Japanese number system] the plus sign is instead the symbol 十" sounds even more absurd than if someone said that English speakers use the small letter "t" as an addition symbol. "十" (ten) and "＋" (full-width plus) are different glyphs and using them interchangeably would certainly not be useful. Although depending on language skill and display font they may visually seem more equal than they're supposed to. 08:28, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

* #5—I'm surprised we've missed the obvious joke: quotations within quotations. the double-quatation "I think so." gets single-quoted within another quotation: "He said, 'I think so.'"
* The word is "complements", not "opposites", on the colour wheel. I think the joke is likely that most people think of "yellowish blue" as "green"—as it would be on an artists' colour wheel. Regardless, complements on an RGB colour wheel should not result in NaN—it would result in a mix of yellow (255, 255, 0) and blue (0, 0, 255), which is white (255, 255, 255).
* [[Special:Contributions/108.162.226.174|108.162.226.174]] 12:23, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Is it bad that all I understood at first was the last one?{{unsigned|LuigiBrick}}

"yellowish blue" is actually parsed in HTML to be a red colour: #e00000 which is between pure red and "chucknorris". See here: http://randomstringtocsscolor.com/ [[Special:Contributions/162.158.3.12|162.158.3.12]] 00:55, 15 June 2015 (UTC)Martin

In response to the comment above that a mix of yellow (255, 255, 0) and blue (0, 0, 255) would be white (255, 255, 255): you could just as easily claim that the result would be black (0, 0, 0) ;-) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.3.12|162.158.3.12]] 00:59, 15 June 2015 (UTC)Martin

And now I just wait for an implementation of this language to show up on GitHub. /grab popcorn [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 06:16, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

hmm i was thinking NaP could be Not a Problem? what do u guys think [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.47|172.70.134.47]] 22:31, 13 September 2021 (UTC)Bumpf

I'm just going to leave this one here: https://javascriptwtf.com/wtf/append-string-to-null - other entries on that site reminded me of this comic, but that one was almost spot-on. Apparently this isn't a new language, it's a hybrid of Python and JavaScript. [[Special:Contributions/128.4.142.85|128.4.142.85]] 21:18, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

This comic just made me say "No. No! No!" so many times. THIS IS NOT HOW PROGRAMMING SHOULD WORK! [[User:SeaDragon1|SeaDragon1]] ([[User talk:SeaDragon1|talk]]) 23:19, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Talk:1275: int(pi)

2026-02-13T22:42:30Z

SeaDragon1:

The math part of it went way over my head (Thank you Explain xkcd for clarifying.) The only thing I really laughed at was "floor pie". Although I didn't think of Homer Simpson.[[Special:Contributions/72.193.171.120|72.193.171.120]] 14:55, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, I get the int(Pi) thing, but what's with avoiding 3's? [[Special:Contributions/95.35.58.168|95.35.58.168]] 05:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

What is "''floor pie''"? --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 05:31, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
: reminds me of weebl‘s „hmm pie!“, but I think the homer-thing is correct. --[[User:Quoti|Quoti]] ([[User talk:Quoti|talk]]) 18:42, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I thought this was a reference to [http://www.strangehorizons.com/2000/20001120/secret_number.shtml Bleem] and reminds me of comic [[899]]. <span style="color:green;">Saibot84</span> 06:17, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

:So is bleem related to (the same as) ''umpt''? Umpt being a number between 3 and 4, found by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bursar#Bursar The Bursar] in ''Science of the Discworld'', it is much more frequently used in the form where ten is added to the number, i.e. umpteen. [[Special:Contributions/64.40.54.39|64.40.54.39]] 18:11, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Prudent mathematicians just refer to it as "The Scottish Number". [[User:Dr Pepper|Dr Pepper]] ([[User talk:Dr Pepper|talk]]) 06:58, 9 October 2013 (UTC) Dr Pepper
: Ha! Now I understand the ''real'' reason for the subtitle to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_%28Mendelssohn%29 Mendelssohn's third symphony.] [[User:Opusthepenguin|Opusthepenguin]] ([[User talk:Opusthepenguin|talk]]) 16:30, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I can give you one '''rational''' reason for spelling out things like INT(PI) in programming. Back in the ancient times, there was a piece of electronics dubbed then a ''personal computer'' with an NSA code name of ZXSPECTRUM. It had a built-in interpreter of the ancient language codenamed BASIC. Memory was very precious in those times, every single byte counted. The creators of the interpreter did a (somewhat) clever thing - all keywords of this particular dialect of the BASIC language were stored in memory as single-byte codes, and were only spelled out by text display routines. On the other hand, CPU cycles were precious, too, so they did another (not so) clever thing by storing number constants (like the cursed number mentioned above) twofold - both in an ASCII decimal form for display purposes and in a 6-byte internal binary form for computing purposes. Therefore each number occupied the space of six bytes plus the number of digits (or other characters like sign, decimal point, etc.) BASIC hackers exploited this (mis)features to save a few bytes on some commonly-used constants by saying INT PI (parentheses were not needed), NOT PI (to get 0) or SGN PI (to get 1), thus using only 2 bytes of memory instead of 7 if the numbers were used directly. Another trick to use with larger numbers was VAL "12345", which saved 3 bytes for each number spelled this way (number of digits plus three bytes for the VAL keyword and two quote marks instead of number of digits plus six bytes of internal representation). [[Special:Contributions/89.174.214.74|89.174.214.74]] 08:43, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
: Actually the internal binary form of the number was 5 bytes, but there was a special prefix byte used for two purposes, a) when listing the program the text display routines would simply skip the six bytes b) when a digit character was encountered at run time, the prefix byte was located instead of parsing the number again. It was even possible to patch the source code to replace all the digits with a single decimal point because the syntax wasn't checked at runtime. Also the trick was originally used with the ZX81 as it was slower and had less memory. I don't think the sign was stored with the number though, as that would have caused confusion with the unary minus operator. (All of the space-saving tricks mentioned above would slow the program down, of course. Even PI had to be calculated as internally the ZX81/Spectrum only knew the value of π/2.) --[[Special:Contributions/81.138.95.57|81.138.95.57]] 10:43, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
: Actual line of code from a commercially released ZX Spectrum game: (''Cricket Captain'', D&H Games, 1988)

1426 PRINT AT VAL "21",NOT PI;"Your bid has been accepted": LET YP=YP+SGN PI: LET Y$(YP)=P$(SC,N(M(SC,KK))): LET RZ=N(M(SC,KK)): FOR Z=SGN PI TO INT PI: GO SUB VAL "9002"+Z:LET Y(YP,Z)=BZ: NEXT Z: FOR Z=VAL "4" TO VAL "6": GO SUB VAL "8996"+Z: LET Y(YP,Z)=BZ: NEXT Z: LET MO=MO-VAL Z$: GO SUB VAL "995"

: '''shudder''' [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.202|141.101.98.202]] 21:28, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I suspect in many languages 4/INT(pi) is 1 (as it does integer division) [[Special:Contributions/193.34.186.165|193.34.186.165]] 08:51, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
:This is true in C and python and many others. I think it is standard.[[Special:Contributions/96.251.85.48|96.251.85.48]] 18:18, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
::It's not true in Python. If you want integer division, you have to use //. With just a single slash, you get float division in 3.0 and later, and whether you get integer or float division in 2.7 depends on the state of a __future__ flag. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 17:34, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Why is the number 3 cursed? [[Special:Contributions/109.90.202.41|109.90.202.41]] 18:15, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
:I don't remember all the details, but it involves Alan Turing and an ancient vampire.[[Special:Contributions/96.251.85.48|96.251.85.48]] 18:18, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
::Randall is just joking about the rule that values used often should be defined as a constant. So he just shows us how to use the constant Pi. In general you would define a constant THREE=3 instead of this Pi calculations.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:44, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
:::Instead of adding a constant you could just redifine Pi. [[Special:Contributions/46.122.128.93|46.122.128.93]] 00:03, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm surprised the equation doesn't use getRandomNumber(), since it is guaranteed to be 4 in comic #[[221]] [[Special:Contributions/108.252.249.9|108.252.249.9]] 19:24, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone identify the programming language? It appears to be a function, but in programming, integers divide with integer division, which would make the 4/3 a 1. Also, the ^ character often doesn't usually do exponents. Usually it's the XOR command.[[Special:Contributions/75.69.96.225|75.69.96.225]] 21:29, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
: That's also how I understood the joke. The (newbie) programmer noticed that the code didn't work when 4/3 was used in the code (because that returns an integer division), so he/she tried replacing it by floor(PI) which returns a double and generates slightly better solutions. He doesn't understand why it would make a difference, so he concludes the number 3 must be cursed or something. Since the code still doesn't work, he desperately tries changing 4 by ceil(PI) as well, but the real problem is ^ which doesn't mean power but xor. The code he or she is working on is most likely C++ or Java. Frankly, I don't think magic numbers have anything to do with the joke. [[Special:Contributions/213.251.189.203|213.251.189.203]] 22:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
:(Edit conflict? But the conflicted code's timestamp indicates ''somebody's'' clock is wrong. Anyhoo...) It's one of those programming languages from the XKCD universe, where reserved words and functions are overwhelmingly defined in ALLCAPS rather than alllower (or possibly one or other camelCase variations) that we'd expect to see almost anywhere in code or pseudo-code, this side of the hay-day for either BASIC or COBOL.
:(Actually... oooh, it's been a while, but add a "DEFFN" in front of it and maybe it ''could'' actually be one or other flavour of BASIC, from the early eighties, what with the function-name and "one parameter, which is 'R'" feature to the code-snippet. I'm sure "^" was used for power (rather than "**" or a "POWER(x%,y%)" function) and "XOR" for both actual bitwise and logical 'xor'ing, in BBC BASIC... BICBW.) [[Special:Contributions/178.98.212.190|178.98.212.190]] 22:26, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Anybody want to clarify the "because it is used more than one time" bit? There needn't be a reason for 3 to be cursed, nor the 4, and a few lines later we are told that new programmers are told to do things without being told the reason. [[User:Gardnertoo|Gardnertoo]] ([[User talk:Gardnertoo|talk]]) 12:29, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
:I did some rework, and I think "without being told the reason" rules belong to many other parts in education.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:15, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Are we sure that explanation is correct? I think the reason is because 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 does not equal 1 thanks to the poor implementation of programming languages. Thus using 3 in math operations usually ends with different results that expected. {{unsigned ip|173.245.53.145}}

:1/9=0.111... -> so 9x1/9=9x0.111... -> and finally we have 1=0.999... See more here: {{w|0.999...}}--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I've rewritten and hacked about quite a large part of the explanation, for the following reasons:
*Grammar and sentence readability was lacking
*Claiming that the number 3 was cursed "because it is used more than one time at the original equation", when there is no reason given for the number 3 being cursed
*Said that instead there "should be a constant defined like "THREE=3"", which isn't the workaround used in the comic (And violates the 'don't use 3' rule at least once)
I hope the resulting explanation is a little more closely linked to the actual comic, and makes a bit more sense --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 11:18, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I have heard that in several placed the number three is unlucky. Firstly, the number of the beast - 666 - is three sixes and a multiple of three. Secondly the superstition of [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_on_a_match_%28superstition%29 Three on a Match]. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.237|141.101.98.237]] 18:34, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Could have something to do with 0,1,n... though i suppose that would make the forbidden number '2'. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.172|108.162.216.172]] 06:19, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

In CLC-INTERCAL, if you use the default/example library, 3 is the only constant you can't overload (unless you first redefine or abstain various seemingly unrelated things). Also, the slat operator is for operand overloading, and the sharkfin operator is for unary add without carry; I don't know why anyone would think they're for division and power or xor. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 17:59, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

What programming language is it? {{unsigned ip|172.71.158.230|00:53, 15 March 2023}}
:Might be pseudocode. But I imagine there are a number of possible 'real' codings it could be.
:Ignore case restraints, it being xkcd all-uppercase (whether Caps or SmallCaps). Much of the statement is typical of most languages with 'normal' mathematical operands (rule out LISP and Forth, for Polish/Reverse Polish notation). There are many computer languages that assign values with "=" (as opposed to ":=", e.g. those in the Pascal family), so only partly helps. Though it looks a bit like a function-definition such as found in BASIC (should have DEFFN keyword, in the version I used), perhaps it's assigning the calculation to array-item 'R' in a language that uses ()s for array-indexing. Or it ''could'' even be a Fortran-dialect masked array on the LHS of the assignment.
:Easier to say what it isn't, I suspect. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 03:42, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

One reason the program might not work is that ^ is the bitwise or operator. So x^y isn't x to y, it's x bitor y. To use powers, do x**y. [[User:SeaDragon1|SeaDragon1]] ([[User talk:SeaDragon1|talk]]) 22:42, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Talk:1144: Tags

2026-02-13T21:58:27Z

SeaDragon1:

I literally grimaced when I saw the comic, and then I read the title text and my stomach churned, and then I saw the non-breaking space and I wanted to crawl up in a ball and die. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:01, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

:Most people curl up into a ball to die. Well not most people... [[Special:Contributions/192.104.231.235|192.104.231.235]] 17:50, 8 May 2013 (UTC)skrame

I'm a web developer and I didn't find this annoying, although I did roll my eyes. Then I came here to see if there was anything I missed that SHOULD annoy me. No, to annoy a web developer you have to use table tags, blink tags(not supported on most browsers for good reason, annoys anybody when it works), and have a stray !-- inside a tag where it doesn't belong. Also, use any html inside your css file. And have it where it only works in IE. [[User:Ferretwilliams|Ferretwilliams]] ([[User talk:Ferretwilliams|talk]]) 06:11, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

:That's okay, it's easy to implement blink with javascript and changing the display value from hidden to inline every half second. And lots of news sites these days re-implement the marquee tag with a bit of javascript too. What Randall really missed here was an opportunity for the center and font tags. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

:I'm sure Randall didn't want us to die, that's why he didn't go further. :-p [[User:Ctxppc|Ctxppc]] ([[User talk:Ctxppc|talk]]) 18:16, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Argh. Almost as bad as unclosed left parentheses.(Y'know, like this. [[User:DreamingDaemon|DreamingDaemon]] ([[User talk:DreamingDaemon|talk]]) 10:21, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

:You mean like comic [[859]]?
::That's exactly what I meant... People do that to me in emails because they know it presses my buttons! [[User:DreamingDaemon|DreamingDaemon]] ([[User talk:DreamingDaemon|talk]]) 16:56, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
:::I understand your pain.) {{unsigned ip|108.162.249.189}}
It's been a long while since I coded html (I quit about the time style sheets appeared) but I think the annoying part of <code>&nbsp;</code> is the fact that it appears as the 6 characters instead of a space, not just that it's at the end and could push the text to another line. Doesn't this typically mean that someone copied some code but didn't look carefully at the results when they pasted it into an editor? --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 14:27, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

:Either the title text has been parsed - in which case it's actually <code><nowiki>&lt;A&gt;: Like&lt;/a&gt; this&amp;nbsp;</nowiki></code> (and, yes, probably copy/pasted) - or it hasn't (which seems more likely to me), in which case the <code>&nbsp;</code> will show up as a non-breaking space when it is parsed. [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 00:40, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

::The title text is copy/pasted from xkcd, where he escapes the ampersand so that the non-breaking space escape will show up in the title text. He might just be toying with those of us who know about the non-breaking space, as most people (the kind of people that would mis-match div and span and change the case of their tags) don't even know what a non-breaking space would be used for. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 03:37, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

::: I know. :) I was answering Dan's question. Assuming the title text is going into a webpage, either the whole thing is already parsed, in which case the tags will also appear as they currently do, or it's not parsed yet and the <code>&nbsp;</code> will appear properly in the rendered page. :) [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 01:53, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if the "answer" in the title text is yet another joke? It goes <A>: Like</A> this  — but A used in this way means Anchor, not Answer. Such a line would appear in the browser as "Like this" (with the word Like blue and underlined), making it a clickable "Like" link. {{unsigned|69.158.169.14}}

: I think there is another joke hidden there: It goes »<A>: Like </A>this« instead of »: <A>Like</A> this« which turns not only »Like« but also the surrounding whitespace and punctuation into a link/anchor. That points to WYSIWYG HTML editors, as it's easy there to select a little bit more than the intended word when creating a link/marking text as bold, etc. [[Special:Contributions/178.201.95.76|178.201.95.76]] 01:03, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

::Actually, the Like wouldn't be blue and underlined BECAUSE it lacks the href. At least in firefox. The <a name> and <a href> are so different that browser apparently don't do either when neither are present. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:48, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Similarly, it would be nice to address whether you can close a <code><nowiki><div></nowiki></code> with a <code><nowiki></span></nowiki></code>. Obviously you're not supposed to, but would it work? – ''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' <sup>[[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]]</sup> 20:57, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

:Opening but not closing a div tag, depends on how a browser's quirks mode interprets that; I'd expect the browser to have everything fall into that div until it encounters a close tag of an element outside (that the div is nested inside). I'd also expect that encountering a close span without having first pushed an open span tag onto the DOM would simply not be recognized as markup and treated as improperly escaped page content. But, I don't write code for any of the major browsers so this is ''wild'' speculation. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 21:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

::You can't close a DIV with a SPAN; they're syntactically different and browsers treat them as such. If you try the code above, the major browsers do exactly as Lcarsos suggests with the open DIV (continue until they find a matching /DIV or until /BODY) and completely ignore the /SPAN (Chrome goes so far as to expunge it from the DOM entirely). The DIV behavior exposes a subtler aspect to the comic, actually - because DIV isn't a semantic element, if a /DIV is missing, it can get very, very difficult to track down where the appropriate /DIV is supposed to go, especially when multiple coders are working on a single long (and, in the worst-case scenario, improperly-nested, multi-file) page. [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 00:39, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

:::Note that "multi-file" is common when it's application output and not static page. Even if the files are supposed to be correctly nested, it may be hard to find which of them isn't, especially taking into account "if"s of template engine. The template engine may not really help you, similarly to some interprets or compilers of programming language which tells you they are missing some closing symbol near the end of file even when the place they are actually missing from is somewhere in the middle, because they paired them incorrectly. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:48, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

There needs to be a little more explanation of what <div> and <span> tags are. I come here to have the jokes I don't get explained, and after a sentence like "Usage of <span> and <div> tags should be kept low, for they have no intrinsic semantic value," I need a site called "explainexplainxkcd.com." [[Special:Contributions/24.224.110.93|24.224.110.93]] 01:17, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

: I clarified in the explanation. Does that look better? [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 01:53, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

::Yes, thanks. I'm afraid I still don't have much idea what <div> and <span> are, but it looks like that's because it would to hard to absolutely fully explain. Thanks! [[Special:Contributions/98.122.166.235|98.122.166.235]] 04:07, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

:::It would, but I'll give it a shot! First, let's establish that DIV and SPAN are HTML elements that surround text or other elements on the page. You generally don't see <code><div></code> by itself; you see <code><div>Some stuff</div></code>. The forward slash in the second tag tells the browser to close the DIV element. (That's the difference between a tag and an element; <code><div></code> and <code></div></code> are both tags, but we refer to <code><div>contents</div></code> as a page element.)

:::Now, to extend the metaphor into the real world, you can think of <code><div></code> as meaning "container" and <code><span></code> as meaning "effect". "Container" doesn't mean very much by itself; it's just "a thing into which you can put other things". Likewise, "effect" just means "a way in which you can change how other things look". ("Effect" isn't necessarily the best term here, but I can't think of a better one.) "Container" provides no clues as to what kind of container it is or what you might find inside; "effect" doesn't really tell you what kind of visual change you're getting.

:::Imagine, then, a Christmas tree. You can put the Christmas tree in a tree stand (<code><div class="tree-stand">Christmas tree</div></code>) or inside a big box (<code><div class="big-box">Christmas tree</div></code>), or both at once if you're feeling saucy (<code><div class="big-box"><div class="tree-stand">Christmas tree</div></div></code>). Note that the closing tag will backtrack through the code and close the first DIV it finds, so that you could put other things inside the big box too: <code><div class="big-box"><div class="tree-stand">Christmas tree</div>Christmas cookies</div></code>. Likewise, you can attach ornaments and tinsel to the tree. Since they're effects that you're adding to the tree, rather than containers into which you're putting the tree, you'd use SPAN: <code><span class="ornaments">Christmas tree</span></code> and/or <code><span class="tinsel">Christmas tree</span></code>.

:::You can even have a Christmas tree with ornaments on the left and tinsel on the right, in a tree stand, inside a big box, with some cookies in the box with it:
:::<code><div class="big-box"></code>
::::<code><div class="tree-stand"></code>
:::::<code><span class="ornaments">Christmas</span> <span class="tinsel">tree</span></code>
::::<code></div></code>
::::<code>Christmas <span class="frosting">cookies</span></code>
:::<code></div></code>
:::(I decided to frost half of the cookies while I was putting them in the box.)

:::There's an important distinction to make here, by the way: the ornaments and tinsel can't help you ''move'' or ''position'' the Christmas tree, and they don't tell you anything about where the tree is, which is why we're using SPAN for them. The big box and tree stand, on the other hand, can be used to move or position the tree, which is why we're using DIV.

:::Meanwhile, HTML5 wants us to use <code><bigtreebox></code> and <code><treestand></code> for the containers, and <code><ornaments></code>, <code><tinsel></code>, and <code><frosting></code> for the effects.

:::Does that make sense? [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 12:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

While I'm thinking about it - DIV and SPAN remain very important tags in web development, because even though they're structural and not semantic, the fact remains that there isn't going to be a pre-defined semantic tag for everything you want to do, and not every browser supports making up your own tags (even though they're supposed to). Until HTML5 is finalized (which is currently projected to happen in 2016, if I'm remembering correctly) and everybody starts supporting arbitrary tag definitions (which may be "never"), DIV and SPAN will remain useful as generic "container"/"effect" tags. [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 12:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

As an intelligent human, it irks me when other humans are lazy, sloppy, or otherwise stupid. As a developer, I sometimes deal with all three. My annoyance factor is amplified by the fact that developers are (supposedly) educated and should be held to a higher standard. So the question is not "what can you get away with in most browsers", but "what is the established standard." As Mike Holmes would say, "Do it right the first time." - Ixalmida --[[Special:Contributions/208.95.30.82|208.95.30.82]] 18:10, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

:[http://xkcd.com/129/ My personal feelings] aside, this isn't an appropriate forum to debate the worthiness of contemporary use of HTML5. [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 22:12, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

[http://i.imgur.com/T9UM3.png How to '''really''' annoy a web developer.] (Including the &nbsp; joke, along with another mangling of <A>!) [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 03:19, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that this explanation is missing part of the joke in the title text. The Anchor tags are excluding the word "this", while it is VERY common to make a link ONLY the word "this", such as "It should look like <A>this</A>". I wouldn't be surprised if I saw something declare that the word "this" is the most hyperlinked word in the English language, LOL! I cannot believe that excluding the word was accidental. - NiceGuy1 [[Special:Contributions/198.41.235.209|198.41.235.209]] 09:02, 23 January 2016 (UTC) I finally signed up! This comment is mine. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:03, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I used to develop web pages. Now I'm a plain surfer. This comic has the wrong text. It should be "How do you annoy a web surfer?" I cannot count how many sites are ruined by sloppy coding Just Like Randall Illustrated. And people expect all browsers to cover up their slovenly laziness. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.3.127|172.68.3.127]] 05:23, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

"Using a non-breaking space at the end of a line, without another word on its trailing end, is only useful in extremely rare and limited circumstances, and does not generally have a purpose." A dating site I use allows you to use linebreaks on your profile, but any updates get pushed to the "news feed" without linebreaks, resulting in sentences or lists running together. Excess spaces are removed, so a non-breaking space (while invisible on the profile) will render the text readable in the feed. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.196|108.162.210.196]] 20:17, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

''"Before HTML 4.01, all tags were uppercase (technically elements were uppercase and attributes were lowercase "to improve readability" [1]) to make it easier on the browser to parse what was markup and what was content on the page."'' This is simply wrong. HTML tags have never been case-sensitive (XHTML was). The linked page in no way bears out this assertion. My source is having worked on HTML before HTML 4. I will edit this in 24 hours unless someone objects. That will give me time to find better sources. [[User:AmbroseChapel|AmbroseChapel]] ([[User talk:AmbroseChapel|talk]]) 01:46, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Sources for HTML not ever being case sensitive, either before or after version 4:

* https://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Wilbur/
* http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/wilbur/quickref.html
* https://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/HTML3.2/3.6.html
* http://werbach.com/barebones/intro.html
* http://www.daneverard.co.uk/dan/HTML_Book_1.pdf

Those first three are linked from the official W3C spec. I really think someone made a huge mess of trying to understand HTML's relationship with XHTML? Anyway, as that stuff about case and HTML is simply wrong, I will now edit it out. [[User:AmbroseChapel|AmbroseChapel]] ([[User talk:AmbroseChapel|talk]]) 23:36, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

<div> How do you break a website? </span>
<A>: Like </a>this.  [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 03:14, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
I saw this comic and now I want to fix it. Help. [[User:SeaDragon1|SeaDragon1]] ([[User talk:SeaDragon1|talk]]) 21:58, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Talk:2696: Precision vs Accuracy

2025-12-30T15:28:22Z

SeaDragon1:

87.532% of all statistics are just made up. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.220|172.70.178.220]] 11:10, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Why is 'Barack Obama is 6'1"' and 'Barack Obama has 4 legs' medium precision? It seems to give exact value, so high precision. [[User:Tkopec|Tkopec]] ([[User talk:Tkopec|talk]]) 11:44, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
: OK, I get it. 6'1" means something between 6'0.50" and 6'1.49". For height it's OK, but when counting legs, it seems like a stretch. [[User:Tkopec|Tkopec]] ([[User talk:Tkopec|talk]]) 12:30, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
:: The four legs are probably considered to be only medium precise, not because of the number but because of the imprecise term "leg". While humans can walk on all four extremities, thereby using them as legs, the upper two are commonly referred to as arms. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 14:54, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
:: (ECed by Bischoff) Plus a person's height (excluding differences to footwear and perhaps hairstyle) varies by an inch or so over the course of a day, as the spine compresses whilst mostly upright (would depend a bit upon your daily activities, but "an inch" or 2-3cm is the typical quoted value, with all the questions about precision ''as well as'' accuracy). Within an inch of such a foot-and-inch value is basically between slightly over a percentage point of drift across a continuum of ultimately non-integer values.
:: The number of legs is ''generally'' a whole number (perhaps lower-limb amputees could claim "half a leg", but is that for above the knee or below or... that's beyond my wish to define, I would leave it up to the individual amputee to finesse to their own liking) and assigning decimals, even .000(recurring), would be ''over-''precise. A definite plain figure (however inaccurate) being the happy and acceptable medium between that and the vague imprecision (never mind inaccuracy) of the kind in the cell below. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.137|172.71.178.137]] 15:00, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
:::The medium is because it says most, and not all! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:08, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
::::It says "most cats", indeed, but the above was about Obama, singular. Though I think it's covered anyway... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.25|172.70.85.25]] 09:44, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
:::::All the statements about 'Barack Obama' ought to be medium precision at best, because there could be more than one Barack Obama, and it doesn't give any further contextualisation to identify, for example 'the Barack Obama who was president of the United States of America'. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.157|141.101.107.157]] 09:29, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
: Compare with 6'1"1/50 or 4.0000 legs, both of which would imply a higher degree of certainty.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.204|162.158.126.204]] 08:58, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Someone should add an explanation of the difference between precision and accuracy. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 13:13, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
:Tried it myself. Maybe made it too compact, but I often go on too long so I tried made it as brief and snappy as I felt I could. Over to other editors to rewrite or replace. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.137|172.71.178.137]] 15:00, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
::That there is confusion over this was a bit of a surprise to me, about 20 years ago, when I worked (as I did for many years) in the outdoor pursuits trade. GPS units would give a 12-character grid reference (1m<sup>2</sup>), but couldn't be relied upon to that level. I would tell people they're more precise than they are accurate, until it became apparent that they were waiting for me to complete the joke they thought I'd begun, as I was so clearly contradicting myself, what with the two words meaning identical things.
::Having gone on to explain the difference between the words, the neat brevity I'd sought was lost.
::Obviously they can be used sort of interchangeably in casual conversation, but I thought the difference was well enough known that, when talking about a navigational instrument, it would be obvious what was meant.
::Nope. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 20:18, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
:::I deal with OS Grid References a lot, in a similar context, and a number of people who give 10-digits or more (2x5, for 1m res) from devices that typically don't ever settle down to less than 3m, and provably can be tens of metres off if there happens to be a small tree or shrub nearby.
:::(In fact, the other day I was geohashing myself, and my device was insisting I was in a totally different bit of the open field, 50m or so, no matter how much I sat it down at the provably correct point and wandered away so that even ''I'' wasn't obscuring its view of the sky. But it was good enough for me, which was all I do it for, so after giving it 5 minutes I counted it as done.)
:::And, in yet another activity, the publicised information for an event included a 12ish-DP reference for the starting area (vaguer than that), but just the ''postcode'' for the HQ (a very definite building that you could bullseye on a map), in a rural area where it covered half the valley! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.12|172.70.86.12]] 22:19, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

How is 17.082 palindromic? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:54, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
:My error, I meant an anagram! (Was going for "anagramic", and my brain clearly rebelled.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.137|172.71.178.137]] 15:00, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

High Precision High accuracy, Randall Munroe misses when Obama was president. Low precision Medium-rare accuracy, so do we, Randall, so do we. {{unsigned ip|172.70.130.154 }}

It is so annoying that the US uses . and , to mean the opposite of what most European countries (including Denmark where I live). So when I read this it states that Obama was president less than 3 days (70 hours) but it more than 70000 feet tall. :-) Of course I now the difference but I have to think about it more than if everyone used the same standard. Also height should use SI units as everyone should ;-) (weight given in number of cats is the new SI unit as far as I know, but don't use inches and feet ;-D ) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:17, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
:Well, as a UKian, I was happy enough. Tell you what, though, let's develop a [[927: Standards|new and mutually-acceptable standard notation]]... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.25|172.70.85.25]] 09:44, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
::Good idea. Lets meet on [[2562|11/12/22]] to discuss the details. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:41, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
:::Using {{w|ISO 8601}} to convey the actual date: In American time, the time would be 2022-11-12. In European time, it would be 2022-12-11. In ISO 8601, it would be 2011-12-22. [[User:SeaDragon1|SeaDragon1]] ([[User talk:SeaDragon1|talk]]) 15:28, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

I think Randall missed an opportunity to clarify how high precision can make something inaccurate. He could have said that Obama is 6’ 1.02173” tall, which would clearly be very precise, and also clearly inaccurate, simply because of the excessive precision. [[User:John|John]] ([[User talk:John|talk]]) 15:22, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
:Saying 6'1.0278 would have been more in theme, there. And it would be not really more inaccurate (might even be closer to the truth...) but would convey a false precision.
:Interstingly, when Andrew Waugh measured Mount Everest (before it was so named) he got a diffraction-adjusted figure of 29,000 feet, but decided to announced that it was 29,002 so that it didn't just like a rough figure rounded to the nearest hundred or even thousand feet. This made him the first person to put two feet on the top of Everest!
:(...The actual error was not bad, given his measurements had to be made from hundreds of miles away. Current official measurements with on-the-spot modern GPS say 29,031.7 feet (for the snow-peak, which is all that Waugh could mention), after 170ish years of (by some estimates, but contested) about a foot of extra height per decade through the continuing techtonic raising of the Himalaya. And any unknown differences in snow-depth. Certainly it was within tens of feet, i.e. a dozen or so metres. With a bit of an error-bar, but not really that big when you consider it...)
: So, arguably, that case was a deliberately false accuracy to help convey the true precision. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.3|172.70.90.3]] 16:15, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
:I don't get your point? Unless you just made up everything after the decimal point: How would it be less acurate? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 09:37, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
::The only thing I can imagine is, that these kinds of numbers happen due to conversions. E.g. 6ft1in would be 185.42cm (according to the first calculator I found), but it is unlikely that 6ft1in was as precise as a cm-value with 2 digits after the decimal point would be. And in the other direction 185cm (which would be the usual precision of a height in m or cm - while 186cm could still be correct as it would be 6ft1in in the "usual precision") would calculate as 6ft and 0.83in --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 10:18, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
::If Obama's height is provided with this much precision, you can assume that the numbers are made up. 0.0278 inches are - in real measure units ;-) - 0.07mm. That's the diameter of a strain of hair. Nobody's height gets measured to that kind of precision. [[User:Kimmerin|Kimmerin]] ([[User talk:Kimmerin|talk]]) 08:10, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure the current explanation's claim that 'being too precise usually decreases accuracy' is, er, accurate (or perhaps it's just imprecise). It might be reasonable to claim that increasing precision tends to decrease accuracy relative to the level of precision, but not so much in absolute terms, or even necessarily relative to the size of the thing being measured.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.156|141.101.107.156]] 09:38, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
:I think it's badly phrased. The assumed accuracy can be degraded and disadvantageous.
:For example, to use someone's figures from just above, looking for an individual with a height of 185.42cm might seem to rule out the one that you find is 185.57cm tall, though they are indeed the one initially measured/estimated at 6'1" and would definitely be within an inch or so in this latest attempt to match them.
:An old phrase that I grew up with is "don't try to be accurate over inaccurate details" (courtesy of a chemistry teacher, where we frequently used mmol-like measurements in analyses like titrations). The number of articles that say "the probe flew past the asteroid at a distance of about 20 miles (32.187 kilometres) ...", where clearly the accuracy is misleading, especially if the conversion ends up being back-converted by someone else with no idea ("...which is 20.0000746 miles"), and may have come from an ''original'' figure actually deliberately pegged at 35km (21.748 miles!), within a few metres or less.
:Really, you should be taking the level of precision/accuracy inherent in the initial values, preserving the awkward fractions throughout the intermediate steps ''and'' converting the inherent ranges by the same process then clearly presenting the final figure to no more exactitude than the initial smudge of "all actual values that would be given by this type of input value", and maybe less. The write-up might be then be realistically "...of around 21¾ miles (35km)", if using a better primary source, or "20 miles (~30km)" in a case of the detail already being likely lost by intermediate chinese-whispers.
:But this is what confuses people. And how even those that are not confused can confuse others... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.10|172.70.86.10]] 12:16, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
::It gets even better when different units also use different 0s. So for a persons height we can assume that as 0ft0in and 0cm is the same, 185cm is one order of magnitude more precise than 6ft1in, as it is 3 significant digits vs 2 at the same height. However a persons body temperature in 38°C with 2 significant digits and 311K with 3 is the same level of precision and only .15°C (Or .15K) apart, while 100°F (37.77...°C) is also very close but a bit more precise. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 14:10, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
:::One of many reasons that Celsius and Fahrenheit are not considered as true units - their connection to kelvins is affine, not linear. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.75|172.71.142.75]] 05:49, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
::::Acknowledging that Celsius degrees equal Kelvin degrees, which remains a useful equivalence, even though degrees Celsius does not equal degrees Kelvin. (Ditto with Fahrenheit and Rankine.)
::::...and I'm partial to Delisle, anyway. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.134|172.70.162.134]] 11:28, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I was expecting maybe a reference to Schrödinger's President when I first read the comic - but later realized that this could have been misconstrued as a threat. Oops!

As far as I recall, isn't the transcript supposed to avoid tables? I understand blind people with text reading programs use the transcripts to follow this comic, and thus it should avoid visual elements wherever possible? [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:49, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
:Generally, yes, though some useful additional description went in before I might have 'flattened' the description again, and there are ther extant table-transcripts
:Best practice would be to not rely on screen-readers to say nice informative things about tabulation and instead say it all explicitly (like they can't be relied on parsing MathML stuff), but there's good manual description and bad, too. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.25|172.70.85.25]] 13:13, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

In the fewer-legs-than-your-cat category, any interest in adding a link to the "How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?" riddle often attributed to Lincoln? The best link I found is https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/11/15/legs/ which makes it clear the riddle was already in circulation by 1825, well before Lincoln's usage. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.163|108.162.246.163]] 05:30, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

If you only look at the squares that mention cats, the resulting shape resembles a basic glider from Conway's Game of Life. I don't know how much this has to do with the comic but it feels like the sort of nerd shit that is worth mentioning. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.60|108.162.221.60]] 13:03, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
:I came to this page to mention the fact only to find that I already did. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.79|141.101.104.79]] 13:07, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

most obamas have hundreds of legs in their cat [[User:Squishmallow fan|Squishmallow fan]] ([[User talk:Squishmallow fan|talk]]) 21:48, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
:'''INSANELY LOW PRECISION'''/'''UNFATHOMABLY LOW ACCURACY''' [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 21:40, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
:: cat leg is hundreds of obama [[User:Squishmallow fan|Squishmallow fan]] ([[User talk:Squishmallow fan|talk]]) 19:03, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

A little aside: In information science, "precision" has a very different meaning. So if you hear precision and accuracy for example with regards to some kind of medical test, precision is the fraction of true positives among predicted positives. Together with recall, which measures true positives among real positives, precision and recall are two aspects of accuracy, where accuracy is then the fraction of correct predictions (positive or negative) among all predictions. In terms of an example: Precision is the chance that when you get a positive pregnancy test you are actually pregnant. Recall is the chance that when you are actually pregnant and take a test, the test will show positive. Accuracy is the chance that the result you see on your test (whether it's positive or negative) is correct.--[[Special:Contributions/176.199.209.149|176.199.209.149]] 16:17, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Talk:327: Exploits of a Mom

2025-10-26T19:31:07Z

SeaDragon1:

What about the daughter's name?[[User:Guru-45|Guru-45]] ([[User talk:Guru-45|talk]]) 14:57, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

:I think that's embellished upon later in a series called l33t. [[User:Davidy22|<span title="I want you."><u><font color="purple" size="2px">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><sup><font color="indigo" size="1px">22</font></sup></span>]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 15:42, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
:It's for novelty license plates with people's names on them (like "Bort" for example). [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.67|199.27.128.67]] 18:15, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

I finally made an account here and I think I chose a good username. [[User:ElaineHelpImTrappedInADriversLicenceFactoryRoberts|ElaineHelpImTrappedInADriversLicenceFactoryRoberts]] ([[User talk:ElaineHelpImTrappedInADriversLicenceFactoryRoberts|talk]]) 00:47, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

After fixing my stupid undo I think this comic is still incomplete: What is the "driver's license factory" at the title text? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:17, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

:The common tale is that someone purchases some item or other with writing on it (or somewhere where writing can appear, on closer examination) and finds that this writing reads "Help, I'm trapped in a <item> factory", or similar, as appropriate to the object concerned. This suggests that someone is trapped (or perhaps even enslaved to work) within such a place and their only hope of escape is to make 'messages in a bottle' out of the product that leaves the facility. This is often extended to various fantastical situations, like the (British only?) joke about the stick of {{w|Rock_(confectionery)|sea-side rock}}.
:(Of course, the writing in sticks of rock generally starts to become unreadable (for normal-sized sticks) for any name larger than "Bridlington", although with care I suppose they've made them with a semi-legible "Western-super-Mare" set through them. But one aspect of this version of the joke could definitely well be that the theoretical SOS message wouldn't legibly fit.)
:So, anyway, Mrs Roberts (who waited for a number of years for Little Bobby Tables to grow up to school-age, for the illustrated exploit) is patiently waiting for her daughter to get to somewhere in her mid-teens, or later, all the while intending that she will get to spoof such a message from the local DMV's license-printing facility at some point. (Turns out that could be as 'soon' as her reaching 14-16 years of age for her first Learner license, depending on state.) Momma Roberts likes playing the long-game, it appears. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 16:02, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

:She can already can get a passport with her name in it, which would look kind of weird. If she needs/wants to have a photo ID for use within the US (e.g., air travel), what would that be? [[User:Tessarakt|Tessarakt]] ([[User talk:Tessarakt|talk]]) 20:12, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

:The mouseover text might also be a reference to an easter egg in classic Mac OS, in which the text "Help! Help! We're being held prisoner in a system software factory!" was embedded in the {{w|system suitcase}}. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.90|173.245.50.90]] 20:02, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

::Someone should probably put something like this on the actual page instead of just the discussion... [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.178|173.245.56.178]] 02:23, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Wasn't there another comic that had the digits of pi with "Help I'm trapped in a universe factory!" included in it? {{unsigned ip|108.162.249.205}}
:Yes, the earlier [[10: Pi Equals]]. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.83|108.162.216.83]] 20:32, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

The example talks about a SELECT query (for looking up information in a database), but I think an INSERT query (for inserting new information in the database) makes more sense, because of the closing bracket. A SELECT query is usually of the following form: SELECT column1, coulm2 FROM table WHERE username='somethingsomething'.
An INSERT query is usually of the following form: INSERT INTO table (column1, columns2) VALUES (value1, value2)
In the case of the comic, I think it's reasonable to assume it's the start of the school year and someone is adding the name of a new student (Bobby) to the database, which triggers the exploit.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.228.5|108.162.228.5]] 21:23, 23 March 2015 (UTC) David

I've made an explanation for the title text, if anyone wants to change it to make it less ambiguous or anything, edits are welcome. [[User:StairwayToHenry|StairwayToHenry]] ([[User talk:StairwayToHenry|talk]]) 15:35, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that Bobby doesn't necessarily share her technical savvy or sense of humour, but caused the incident simply through having the name she gave him. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.203|141.101.98.203]] 23:47, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Anyone want to comment on the missing outline from panel 2? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.165|108.162.238.165]] 23:48, 27 July 2015 (UTC)someGuy

The explanation says that Bobby Tables got his technical savvy from his mom, however we have no reason to believe that he has any technical savvy at all- this prank was entirely his parents'. He is most likely having his first day of kindergarten, and has no technical savvy at all. [[User:Bbruzzo|Bbruzzo]] ([[User talk:Bbruzzo|talk]]) 13:15, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Is no one going to notice that his name is Robert Roberts? [[User:Abbyclem|Abbyclem]] ([[User talk:Abbyclem|talk]]) 22:04, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

:... I read all the way down here waiting to see someone mention that, only to find you did it ... about a month ago. On what is now a very old strip. Weird o_O [[Special:Contributions/162.158.39.209|162.158.39.209]] 18:56, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

; Real Life
It might be worth adding under "trivia" that situations similar to the one in the comic actually seem to [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4456438/how-do-i-correctly-pass-the-string-null-an-employees-proper-surname-to-a-so happen in real life].--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.138|162.158.114.138]] 17:50, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

And possibly a warning not to try this on a live system.. a colleague just got fired after XKCD inspired stupidity. ~100% his own fault, but might be worth mentioning. [[User:Xseo|Xseo]] ([[User talk:Xseo|talk]]) 09:49, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

The point of this comic is to make fun of automated systems that input without searching for exploits, not for anyone to see if this would happen in real life(I hope). [[User:Dontknow|Dontknow]] ([[User talk:Dontknow|talk]]) 23:54, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

;Incomplete
The explanation is incorrect. It keeps putting single quotes around the variable $name when it is the input stored in $name which will have the single quotes. It even mentions how the single quotes around $name are the reason for the exploit as opposed to the single quotes in the input stored in the variable $name.

On another note, the explanation seems to indicate that Bobby is responsible for the SQL injection and later suggests instead the mother is responsible. My interpretation was that this is entirely attributed to the mother since it is called "Exploits of a Mom". I do not believe she actually named her son with an SQL injection, but rather input that as his first name in the school's online registration form.

[[User:Flewk|Flewk]] ([[User talk:Flewk|talk]]) 17:15, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

;Importance of the space after double dash.
In order for the double dash to properly instruct the database to ignore the rest of the line as a comment, it is necessary for at least one space to follow it. This is indicated explicitly in the MySQL documentation [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/comments.html], and it is clearly included in the XKCD sketch (I'm imagining a person on the other end of the phone reading every character. "capital ess tee yew dee ee en tee ess semicolon dash dash space"). This space is not included in the code examples. I believe we at Explain XKCD should strive to provide valid code, so I am adding the spaces in the article.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.72|108.162.246.72]] 02:51, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

;Driver's license

An important aspect here is that driver's licenses are the preferred form of photo ID in the US (up to the point where you can even get a driver's license which does not allow you to drive ...), where other countries have identity cards. [[User:Tessarakt|Tessarakt]] ([[User talk:Tessarakt|talk]]) 20:09, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

An active user with a similar name had just came out. He just edited the Air Handler page. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.230|162.158.166.230]] 06:57, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Python — the safer way! [[User:SeaDragon1|SeaDragon1]] ([[User talk:SeaDragon1|talk]]) 19:31, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

234: Escape Artist

2025-10-26T04:22:59Z

SeaDragon1: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 234
| date = March 12, 2007
| title = Escape Artist
| image = escape_artist.png
| titletext = Easier to escape: n-layered nested quotes or an iron maiden?
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Harry Houdini}} (born Erik Weisz/Ehrich Weiss) was a famous escape artist, whose more famous routines included escaping straitjackets and switching places with an assistant while locked inside a box.

The word "escape" also has a meaning {{w|Escape character|in computer science}}. To "escape" something in programming means to replace a character or character sequence that would usually have a special meaning with another character sequence that doesn't have this special meaning. One common way of escaping is to have a special escape character that removes the special meaning from whatever character follows it. For instance, many programming languages enclose text strings in quotation marks (e.g. <code>"this is a string"</code>). If you tried to directly put a quotation mark inside the string, the compiler would interpret it as the end of the string. To avoid this, the quotation mark is ''escaped'' with a backslash: <code>"He said, \"Goodbye!\", and went away."</code>

The problem [[Cueball]] is having is related to the fact that {{w|Bash (Unix shell)|the Bash shell}} interprets spaces as a special syntactic marker, when he actually just wants the spaces to be literal space characters. In this case, escaping the spaces with \ would force Bash to interpret his script in this way.

(There is one other way the escape character is sometimes used, but we'll ignore it for the sake of explaining the comic.)

The person talking to Cueball is having a separate conversation about Houdini as Cueball thinks aloud about his script issue, which results in diverging conversations. This eventually leads Cueball to suggest that Houdini might have "escaped" (freed himself from) handcuffs by "escaping" (removing the special meaning from) them with backslashes.

Sometimes, escape characters need to be "nested" - the backslash character itself can be escaped as \\ to produce a literal backslash, so if, for example, one needs to produce a literal quotation mark to output to a script file, and that script file ''also'' needs to have the quotation mark escaped, one would need to type it out as \\\", which would be output as \". If I needed to actually output that \\\", one would need to type it as \\\\\\\". The number of backslashes needed grows, and can be very hard to keep track of (see [[1638: Backslashes]]). This behavior is a type of n-level nested quotation mentioned in the title text. This could, in practice, be very easy with syntax highlighting showing where the parser sees the string as ending, making it trivial to escape out the characters that should be escaped, e.g.:
<code>"And then he said \"Hi\"."</code>
In this example, the nested quotes could be escaped until the editor shows the uniform color of strings.

An {{w|iron maiden (torture device)|iron maiden}} is supposedly a medieval torture device, currently believed to have been invented for tourism purposes much later than the time period when it was said to have been used.
Harry Houdini's escapes include an escape from a purported "iron maiden," although it only vaguely resembles the "medieval" torture device.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits before a computer on a desk while another man stands behind him.]
:Man: I was fascinated by locks as a kid. I loved how they turned information and patterns into physical strength.
:Cueball: Why does my script keep dying?

:[Closeup on Cueball sitting at the computer.]
:Man: And a lock invites you to try and open it. It's the hacker instinct. Only your ignorance stands in the way.
:Cueball: Wait, it's passing bad strings.

:[Returns to the two shot of both men.]
:Man: I admired Harry Houdini, how he could open any lock and free himself from any restraint.
:Cueball: Ah - Bash is parsing the spaces.

:Man: Sure some of it was fakery and showmanship. But I still wonder how he so consistently escaped handcuffs.
:Cueball: Backslashes?
:Man: Huh?
:Cueball: Never mind.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Puns]]

3081: PhD Timeline

2025-10-24T03:33:29Z

SeaDragon1: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3081
| date = April 25, 2025
| title = PhD Timeline
| image = phd_timeline_2x.png
| imagesize = 382x516px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Rümeysa Öztürk was grabbed off the street in my town one month ago.
}}
Clicking on the image on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] takes you to ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyypeEEOklM Surveillance video shows Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk apprehended in Somerville, MA]'' on YouTube.

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|You might want to {{w|Detention of Rümeysa Öztürk|copy text over from the Wikipedia page}}, but keep in mind this wiki's main goal is to explain the comic. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

This comic presents a typical {{w|Doctor of Philosophy}} (Ph.D.) timeline, with a twist. Typically a Ph.D. is broken into a number of steps, from enrollment through to thesis defense. However, in this case, the timeline takes an unexpected turn when, instead of publishing the thesis, the candidate is detained by masked government agents. While this may seem like an unlikely event, it {{w|detention of Rümeysa Öztürk|happened to Rümeysa Öztürk}}, a Turkish Ph.D. student at Tufts University (see this [https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2025/04/tufts-democrats-and-tufts-republicans-release-joint-statement-condemning-detainment-of-rumeysa-ozutrk statement]) who was abruptly detained by six masked {{w|U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement}} (ICE) agents in Somerville, MA while walking to an {{w|iftar}} dinner. Subsequently, she was transported to Vermont and then to a detention facility in Louisiana before an [https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2025/04/louisiana-judge-denies-bond-to-rumeysa-ozturk-while-vermont-judge-considers-jurisdiction accessed court ordered] that she not be removed from Massachusetts

The reason given for her detention was that her {{w|F visa|F-1 student visa}} was revoked due to, according to a Department of Homeland Security [https://www.salon.com/2025/03/26/dhs-detains-grad-student-advocated-for-palestine-and-the-humanity-of-all-people/ spokeswoman], her alleged activities in support of the foreign terrorist organization {{w|Hamas}} on the campus of Tufts. Aside from her being co-author of an [https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj article in a student newspaper] which was critical of her university's response towards protests against the ongoing {{w|Gaza genocide}}, no evidence of support for Hamas has been provided. Ordinarily, revocation of a visa is not, of itself, [https://oiss.washu.edu/visa-status-stamps/ grounds for detention]; that would merely prevent one from reentering the country if one left.

At the time of this comic's publication, the US government had recently canceled the visas of over 1,000 foreign students and scholars. This was done with minimal or no explanation and no warning, however the U.S. government claims that it can cancel a visa if the subject's activities are harmful to U.S. foreign policy interests.

The title text specifically refers to Rümeysa Öztürk, and that all this happened in Somerville, Massachusetts, where [[Randall Munroe]] lives.

==Transcript==
:[A chart shows the typical events in a research program. At the top there is a dotted line. There is a title above the line and the line is labeled with text in the middle breaking the line:]
:US PH.D. PROGRAM TIMELINE
:–––––––ENROLLMENT–––––––––

:[The dotted line aligns with the top of an Y-axis with 7 ticks, the top tick on level with the dotted line. There are seven labels from top towards the bottom, not written near specifik ticks, and with uneven distance. Between each of the labels there is an arrow from the one above pointing the the next. To the right of the first five labels there is a split up rectangle, that are closed at the top , but open at the bottom. Down through the middle part it is split up in two along a kind of S-shape going a bit up from left to right. There is a gab between the top and bottom part of this figure along this s-shape. Both top and bottom part has a label. All text and other parts of the comic has been in black until this. But the last two labels near the Y-axis beneath where the rectangular figure stops, which are still written in black, have been crossed out with red squiggly lines, both the two small arrows and the text. From the label above those crossed out, there goes a red arrow down and then to the right. This point to another red label next to and right of the first of the two that has been crossed out. From beneath this another red arrow point to a second red label, next to the the last of the two that was crossed out. A third red arrow goes beneath this to a final red label.]
:Meet with Advisor
:Research Proposal
:Qualifying Exams
:Purpose Dissertation
:Research and Write dissertation

:[The above is the labels near the rectangular figure to the right with the following labels:]
:Coursework
:Research

:[The final two labels that have been crossed out with red lines:]
:Submit dissertation
:Defend dissertation

:[The new labels written to the right with red:]
:<font color="red">Get grabbed off the sidewalk outside of your home by masked government agents
:Be whisked out of the state before a judge has time to intervene
:????</font>

==Trivia==
This is the second comic referring to what is happening in the US after [[Donald Trump]] became president. The first comic was [[3073: Tariffs]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with red annotations]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Politics]]

1541: Voice

2025-03-10T17:42:47Z

SeaDragon1: Deleted extra word

{{comic
| number = 1541
| date = June 22, 2015
| title = Voice
| image = voice.png
| titletext = Anyway, we should totally go watch a video story or put some food in our normal mouths!
}}

==Explanation==
During a casual talk with [[Megan]], [[Ponytail]] suddenly interrupts her normal speech stating that she is for some reason only capable of controlling her own voice once every six years. Apparently only for a very brief time since she immediately returns to the casual talk, continuing her previous sentence mid-word before being able to tell Megan how she could help her. Upon Megan's confused request, she denies knowledge of the occurrence, although in a somewhat suspicious way, using possibly fake laughter.

It could be this was just a prank by Ponytail, to tease Megan, but given her fake laughter reply to Megan's inquiry and the continuing comment in the title text it seems most likely that Ponytail is indeed possessed by some sort of entity that prevents her from expressing her own thoughts, except for a very short time every six years. Of course this may just be her way of continuing with the prank; see a previous case of such a prank [[#Voice hijacking|below]].

In case it is not a prank it would thus appear that Ponytail's usual "self" is indeed this possessing entity. Whether this entity is actually aware that the "real" Ponytail did speak, or if it actually does not know that it was interrupted (since it continued mid-word) is not clear from the last response to Megan.

The title text suggests that Ponytail {{tvtropes|BodySnatcher|is possessed by some sort of inhuman entity}} (most likely an alien or {{w|AI}}, or possibly a [[1530: Keyboard Mash|small but intelligent creature]] living in her head) unfamiliar with movies and eating. See below for [[#Related comics|related comics]].

===Related comics===
====Non-human entity trying to behave like a human====
The comic, [[1530: Keyboard Mash]], also revolves around the same theme of a non-human entity trying to convince other humans that it is in fact a human. This is most clearly referenced in the title text of this comic. In Keyboard Mash, it is a spider that tries to chat like it was a human, making statements that are true if you are human, but which humans would never utter in a conversation like here - ''put some food in our normal mouths!'' However, the pretended 'human' being (the spider) is not seen by the other person in this comic. As opposed to this one where Megan speaks directly with Ponytail.

====Voice hijacking====
It has already been established recently, in [[1528: Vodka]], that Ponytail's voice can be hijacked by non-human entities. That time it was the vodka she was drinking that took over. It is possible that this is continuing or caused by the same openness to possession as shown here. It is also possible that she simply thinks possession jokes are funny and once again jokes with Megan.

====Six years ago====
Six years to the day before this one, which according to this comic was the last time Ponytail had control of her own voice, this comic [[600: Android Boyfriend]] was posted. Ponytail acquired an android boyfriend. It seems unlikely that this older comic has any relation with this particular episode - except that this comic mentions a six-year period and Ponytail is also in that comic.

====Note on Ponytail====
''Ponytail is mainly a filler character, showing up when two females are needed or when a large group of people are present.''

It is important to note that [[Ponytail]], like most xkcd [[stick figure|stick figures]], usually does not represent the same character in each comic. This Ponytail is likely unrelated to other instances of Ponytail.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Ponytail are walking.]
:Megan: Are you doing anything later?
:Ponytail: I was th- ''I can only control my voice once every six years. Please, you have to'' -inking of going out, but no real plans.
:Megan: ...What was that?
:Ponytail: Haha, what?

==Trivia==
*{{w|Demonic possession|Possession}} stories are common in films and books. Some recent examples that could have inspired this comic could be one of these (beware of '''spoilers'''):
**In the film {{w|The Host (2013 film)|The Host}} the human race has been taken over by small parasitic aliens called "Souls" that inserts themselves individually into a host body where they are then able to access the host's memories. In the story the main character is the host that controls a body, and then the personality of that body, which is then no longer able to control her body, but can speak to the host. And in a few situations can take over her body for a short period. Very similar to what happens in this comic.
**The Yeerks from the ''Animorphs'' {{w|Animorphs|books}} and {{w|Animorphs (TV series)|TV series}} take humans as a host by entering and merging with their brain through the ear canal. The host can fight to temporarily take back control, but this is very painful. However how many times human can fight back is not as specific as in this comic. Animorphs is referenced in [[:Category:Animorphs|a few other comics]].
**In the movie {{w|Being John Malkovich}} the main character possesses Malkovich, but Malkovich is occasionally able to communicate through the possession.
**In {{w|Warlord (Star Trek: Voyager)|an episode}} of {{w|Star Trek: Voyager}}, Kes is taken over by a warlord who has discovered a means of immortality by using technology to transfer his consciousness to another body. The warlord enters a mental struggle with Kes's latent mind, and as he begins to lose the battle, Kes's personality resurfaces on several occasions.

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