https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=162.158.90.193&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T20:12:18ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2561:_Moonfall&diff=2232222561: Moonfall2021-12-29T16:26:17Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2561<br />
| date = December 29, 2021<br />
| title = Moonfall<br />
| image = moonfall.png<br />
| titletext = Novel ideas and cool explosions are both good, but what I really want from a movie is novel ideas ABOUT cool explosions.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
The comic seems to be referring to the new upcoming Roland Emmerich movie [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834426/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 Moonfall (2022)]; IMDB also lists a Moonfall (2006) by John Prescott. Director Roland Emmerich is know for blowing up things in his movies, as shown in [https://www.gq.com/video/watch/explosions-the-roland-emmerich-supercut the Roland Emmerich Supercut].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1655:_Doomsday_Clock&diff=1148571655: Doomsday Clock2016-03-14T04:56:39Z<p>162.158.90.193: correction and expansion</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1655<br />
| date = March 14, 2016<br />
| title = Doomsday Clock<br />
| image = doomsday_clock.png<br />
| titletext = After a power outage at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the new Digital Doomsday Clock is flashing 00:00 and mushroom clouds keep appearing and then retracting once a second.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{Incomplete|More detail on what is happening in the comic, and more history of the clock}}<br />
The comic shows the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock?wprov=sfla1 Doomsday Clock] which is a symbolic clock maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The clock is meant to show the theoretical probability of imminent catalysm where midnight is "Doomsday". The clock in the comic, however, turns out to work with reverse causality: when Cueball springs the clock forward an hour and past midnight, he causes the nuclear apocalypse.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript}}<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1631:_Longer_Than_Usual&diff=1094471631: Longer Than Usual2016-01-18T14:07:33Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Explanation */ some grammar brush-ups and a kind-hearted advice</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1631<br />
| date = January 18, 2016<br />
| title = Longer Than Usual<br />
| image = longer_than_usual.png<br />
| titletext = '--> [ Well, this is embarrassing. ] <--'<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The comic starts a minuscule flow chart with "This seems to be taking longer than usual".<br />
It then presents two alternative continuations of the sentence, which radically alter the interpretation of the starting sentence, resulting in humour.<br />
<br />
In the first continuation, "Try reloading Gmail if the problem persists", the comic references a common error message displayed by Gmail and some other software (for example [https://disqus.com/ disqus]) in case of slow or bad connections.<br />
In such cases, the webpage may be incompletely loaded and thus functioning incorrectly. Reloading, akin to "have you tried turning it off and on again", may fix these problems if the longer loading time was a transient problem.<br />
<br />
In the second continuation, "Maybe we should just go to bed", the opening instead refers to a person suffering from sexual performance anxiety, taking "longer than usual" to achieve orgasm, probably despite considerable efforts of their partner. Often such frustration then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that renders orgasm virtually impossible by ruining the mood.<br />
In such situations it is likely that one or the other partner becomes frustrated and gives up, suggesting "lets go to bed" instead of 'pointlessly' continuing the sexual activity.<br />
(Should this happen to you, there is nothing to be embarrassed about, it can happen to everyone, man or woman.)<br />
<br />
The title text ties both interpretations together by referencing an infamous [http://www.howtogeek.com/135351/how-to-troubleshoot-mozilla-firefox-crashes/ error message] given by the [https://getfirefox.com Firefox internet browser]. As an error message, it fits nicely with the gmail interpretation of the comic, though it is equally likely to be used as an apology or frustrated slight in the sexual interpretation, much like "this is taking longer than usual" itself.<br />
<br />
It could also simply be a jab to people who stay online late even when doing nothing, as when a lag occurs, and finally realising it might be better to switch off the computer and go to bed.<br />
<br />
This is not the first time Randall juxtaposes sex and more abstract topics, such as sex and math in [[487: Numerical Sex Positions]] or sex and engineering in [[592: Drama]]<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
"This seems to be taking longer than usual-"<br />
<br />
"-Try reloading Gmail if the problem persists."<br />
<br />
"-Maybe we should just go to bed."<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Flowcharts]]<br />
[[Category:Sex]]</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1631:_Longer_Than_Usual&diff=1094461631: Longer Than Usual2016-01-18T13:57:07Z<p>162.158.90.193: added flowchart and sex categories, crossreferenced some related comics</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1631<br />
| date = January 18, 2016<br />
| title = Longer Than Usual<br />
| image = longer_than_usual.png<br />
| titletext = '--> [ Well, this is embarrassing. ] <--'<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The comic starts a miniscule flow chart with "This seems to be taking longer than usual".<br />
It then presents two alternative continuations of the sentence, which radically alter the interpretation of the starting sentence, resulting in humour.<br />
<br />
In the first alternative, "Try reloading Gmail if the problem persists.", the comic references a common error message displayed by Gmail and some other software (for example [https://disqus.com/ disqus]) in case of slow or bad connections.<br />
In such cases, the webpage may be incompletely loaded and thus functioning incorrectly. Reloading may fix these problems<br />
<br />
In the second alternative, "Maybe we should just go to bed.", it refers to a person suffering from sexual performance anxiety, taking "longer than usual" to achieve orgasm, probably despite considerable efforts of their partner. Often such frustration then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that renders orgasm virtually impossible because the mood is ruined.<br />
In such situations it is likely that one or the other partner becomes frustrated and gives up, suggesting "lets go to bed" instead of 'pointlessly' continuing the sexual activity.<br />
<br />
The title text ties both interpretations together by referencing an infamous [http://www.howtogeek.com/135351/how-to-troubleshoot-mozilla-firefox-crashes/ error message] given by the [https://getfirefox.com Firefox internet browser]. As an error message, it fits nicely with the gmail-interpretation of the comic, though it is equally likely to be used as an apology in the sexual interpretation.<br />
<br />
It could also simply be a jab to people who stay connected late even when doing nothing, as when a lag occurs.<br />
<br />
This is not the first time Randall juxtaposes sex and more abstract topics, such as sex and math in [[487: Numerical Sex Positions]] or sex and engineering in [[592: Drama]]<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
"This seems to be taking longer than usual-"<br />
<br />
"-Try reloading Gmail if the problem persists."<br />
<br />
"-Maybe we should just go to bed."<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Flowcharts]]<br />
[[Category:Sex]]</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1631:_Longer_Than_Usual&diff=1094451631: Longer Than Usual2016-01-18T13:48:45Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Explanation */ rewrote explanation for better text flow</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1631<br />
| date = January 18, 2016<br />
| title = Longer Than Usual<br />
| image = longer_than_usual.png<br />
| titletext = '--> [ Well, this is embarrassing. ] <--'<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The comic starts a flow chart with "This seems to be taking longer than usual".<br />
It then presents two alternative continuations of the sentence, which radically alter the interpretation of the starting sentence, resulting in humour.<br />
<br />
In the first alternative, "Try reloading Gmail if the problem persists.", the comic references a common error message displayed by Gmail and some other software (for example [https://disqus.com/ disqus]) in case of slow or bad connections.<br />
In such cases, the webpage may be incompletely loaded and thus functioning incorrectly. Reloading may fix these problems<br />
<br />
In the second alternative, "Maybe we should just go to bed.", it refers to a person suffering from sexual performance anxiety, taking "longer than usual" to achieve orgasm, probably despite considerable efforts of their partner. Often such frustration then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that renders orgasm virtually impossible because the mood is ruined.<br />
In such situations it is likely that one or the other partner becomes frustrated and gives up, suggesting "lets go to bed" instead of 'pointlessly' continuing the sexual activity.<br />
<br />
The title text ties both interpretations together by referencing an infamous [http://www.howtogeek.com/135351/how-to-troubleshoot-mozilla-firefox-crashes/ error message] given by the [https://getfirefox.com Firefox internet browser]. As an error message, it fits nicely with the gmail-interpretation of the comic, though it is equally likely to be used as an apology in the sexual interpretation.<br />
<br />
It could also simply be a jab to people who stay connected late even when doing nothing, as when a lag occurs.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
"This seems to be taking longer than usual-"<br />
<br />
"-Try reloading Gmail if the problem persists."<br />
<br />
"-Maybe we should just go to bed."<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1631:_Longer_Than_Usual&diff=1094421631: Longer Than Usual2016-01-18T13:36:49Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Explanation */ included title-text into "main" explanation.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1631<br />
| date = January 18, 2016<br />
| title = Longer Than Usual<br />
| image = longer_than_usual.png<br />
| titletext = '--> [ Well, this is embarrassing. ] <--'<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
"This seems to be taking longer than usual" is an error message displayed by Gmail and some other software (for example [https://disqus.com/ disqus]).<br />
In a different context, though, it might refer to a person taking "longer than usual" to achieve an orgasm, probably despite considerable efforts of their partner. Often this frustration itself gives such heavy performance anxiety that orgasm is no longer to be expected.<br />
In such situations it is likely that one or the other partner becomes frustrated and gives up, suggesting "lets go to bed" instead of continuing the sexual activity.<br />
<br />
The title text ties both interpretations together by referencing an infamous [http://www.howtogeek.com/135351/how-to-troubleshoot-mozilla-firefox-crashes/ error message] given by the Firefox internet browser. As an error message, it fits nicely with the gmail-interpretation of the comic, though it is also very likely to be used as an apology in the sexual interpretation.<br />
<br />
<br />
It could also simply be a jab to people who stay connected late even when doing nothing, as when a lag occurs.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
"This seems to be taking longer than usual-"<br />
<br />
"-Try reloading Gmail if the problem persists."<br />
<br />
"-Maybe we should just go to bed."<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1572:_xkcd_Survey&diff=1093401572: xkcd Survey2016-01-16T14:03:25Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Explanation */ Results still not released</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1572<br />
| date = September 2, 2015<br />
| title = xkcd Survey<br />
| image = xkcd_survey.png<br />
| titletext = The xkcd Survey: Big Data for a Big Planet<br />
}}<br />
*The comic links to [http://goo.gl/forms/B5RaBeZ6nw The xkcd survey] on Google.<br />
<br />
{{incomplete|This comic cannot be complete until Randall releases the raw and/or analysed data. The analysis needs to be mentioned here. Until then, this comic needs to be marked incomplete.}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
As the comic image states, it links to a survey created with [https://www.google.com/forms/about/ Google Forms], containing a series of questions. The questions range from mundane typical survey questions such as “Do you have any food allergies?”, to rather strange, such as “Fill this text box with random letters by randomly mashing keys on your keyboard.” (See [[1530: Keyboard Mash]]).<br />
<br />
The stated goal of the survey is to “create an interesting and unusual data set for people to play with”. A strange data set is a ripe opportunity for a sampling of readers. It's also supposed to be “a search for weird correlations” – presumably the goal is to be able to say things like “people who have been skydiving are (more/less) likely than average to dislike cilantro”. (See also [[882: Significant]] about finding presumably-spurious correlations between unrelated data.)<br />
<br />
This explanation will undoubtedly expand when the data comes in.<br />
<br />
{{w|Image_map#Client-side_image_map|HTML image maps}} is a technique for marking up areas of an image on a web page, such that each area can be a link without the whole image being a link. [[Randall]] could have used this type of image map to make only the “Click here to take the survey” button be a link, and none of the rest of the image. But he cannot get the hang of it (or knowing his skills, does not wish to take the time to learn it). Not getting the hang of HTML image maps was also referenced on [http://imgs.xkcd.com/store/tour-news.png the banner for his book tour] from [http://web.archive.org/web/20140901023821/http://xkcd.com/ September 2014]<br />
<br />
The title text is a joke off of {{w|Big Data}}, which is a name for analysis of a set of data that includes a huge amount of information. He also says "for a big planet" because the Earth is big.{{Citation needed}}<br />
<br />
The survey is closed, and the questions replaced with the text: "The xkcd survey is now closed. Thank you for all your answers! Response data is being collected and will be posted soon." As of 16 January 2016, the same caption is still there, with no indication of exactly how soon the data is intended to be posted.<br />
<br />
==The Survey==<br />
The Survey started off with the following statement:<br />
<br />
<nowiki>This is an anonymous survey. After it's done, a database of everyone's responses will be posted.<br />
There's no specific reason for any of the questions. The goal is to create an interesting and unusual data set for people to play with. This is obviously not going to be a real random sample of people, but in the interest of getting cooler data, if you're sharing this with friends, try sending it to some people who wouldn't normally see this kind of thing!<br />
<br />
WARNING: This survey is anonymous, but your answers WILL BE MADE PUBLIC. Depending what you write, it's possible that someone may be able to identify you by looking at your responses. None of these questions should ask about anything too private, but don't write anything that you don't want people to see. If you're not comfortable answering a question, just skip it.</nowiki><br />
<br />
'''Note:''' The order of the possible answers (the list of possibilities) was random, and changed every time the page is reloaded. So do not try to fix the order here below...<br />
<br />
===Plane===<br />
*Have you ever been in a plane?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Skydiving===<br />
*Have you ever been {{w|Parachuting|skydiving}}?<br />
**No, but I might someday<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===The Dress===<br />
*When you first saw {{w|The dress (viral phenomenon)|The Dress}}, what color was it? — (Also see [[1492: Dress Color]] and the [[Blag]] ENTRY [http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ Color Survey Results]).<br />
**White and gold<br />
**A color combination not listed here<br />
**I don't remember<br />
**Blue and black<br />
**What dress?<br />
<br />
===Popular food===<br />
*What's a really popular food that you don't like?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Floaters===<br />
*When you look at a blue sky, do you see those swirly {{w|floater|floaters}} in your vision?<br />
**Yes, constantly<br />
**I'm not sure what things you mean<br />
**Yes, occasionally<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Running out of gas===<br />
*Have you ever had a car run out of gas while you were driving it?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Animals===<br />
*Name the first five animals you can think of<br />
**''Multi line text box''<br />
<br />
===Weather===<br />
*What's the weather like where you are right now?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Activities===<br />
*Which of these can you do reasonably well?<br />
*(Check all that apply)<br />
**{{w|slam dunk|Dunk}} a basketball &mdash; A "slam dunk" or simply "dunk" is the act of jumping up and putting the ball through the net with a lot of force<br />
**Tie a {{w|sheet bend}} or {{w|bowline}} &mdash; A sheet bend is a knot that joins two ropes together; A bowline is a knot used to form a fixed loop at the end of a rope<br />
**Roller skate<br />
**[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/high-heel-race/ Run in high heels]<br />
**Drive a stick shift — See {{w|Manual transmission}} of a car<br />
**Solve a {{w|Rubik's cube}}<br />
**Dive headfirst off a diving board &mdash; See {{w|Springboard}} and {{w|Diving platform}}<br />
**Ice skate<br />
**{{w|Skateboarding|Skateboard}}<br />
**Walk on {{w|stilts}} — Stilts are poles, posts or pillars used to allow a person to walk at a height above the ground<br />
**Ski<br />
**Cut vegetables with a knife<br />
**Swim<br />
**Ride a horse<br />
**{{w|Unicycle}}<br />
**Change the oil on a car<br />
**Do a back {{w|Handspring (gymnastics)|handspring}} &mdash; A handspring is an exercise in gymnastics in which you jump through the air landing on your hands, then again landing on your feet<br />
**Juggle — {{w|Toss juggling}} (the most recognizable form of juggling) consists in throwing objects into the air and catching them.<br />
<br />
===Spelling===<br />
*What word can you never seem to spell on the first try?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Condiments===<br />
*Do you eat {{w|condiments}} directly out of the fridge as a snack?<br />
**No <br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Thermostat===<br />
*When you adjust a thermostat that was set by someone else, it's usually because you want the room to be...<br />
**Cooler<br />
**Warmer<br />
<br />
===Clothing===<br />
*What color is the shirt/dress/upper-body-clothing you're wearing right now, if any?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Colds===<br />
*Do you get {{w|Common cold|colds}} often?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Number===<br />
*Pick a number from 1 to 100<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Spelling===<br />
*On a scale of 1 to 10, how good at spelling are you? (Note that the question does not specify which end of the scale is good or bad.)<br />
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 10.''<br />
<br />
===Myers-Briggs===<br />
*Do you know your {{w|Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator|Myers-Briggs type}}?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Astrology===<br />
*Do you know your {{w|astrological sign}}?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Siblings===<br />
*How many older siblings do you have?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
*How many younger siblings do you have?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
*How many twin/etc siblings do you have?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Sleepiness===<br />
*Do you feel sleepy a lot?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Movie star===<br />
*Name a movie star<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Time in sun===<br />
*Do you spend a lot of time in the sun?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Broccoli===<br />
*Does {{w|broccoli}} taste bitter to you?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
**I've never had it<br />
<br />
===Wakefulness===<br />
*Do you regularly stay awake much later than you meant to?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Keyboard mashing===<br />
*Fill this text box with gibberish by mashing random keyboard keys (See [[1530: Keyboard Mash]]).<br />
**''Broad multi-line text box''<br />
<br />
===Driving===<br />
*On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is terrible and 3 is average, how good a driver do you think you are?<br />
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 5.''<br />
<br />
===Allergies===<br />
*Do you have any food allergies?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes <br />
<br />
===Thunder===<br />
*Have you heard thunder or seen lightning in the past year? — (The title-text of [[831: Weather Radar]] mentions the belief that thunderstorms seemed more common when one was a kid. Since the survey also asks for age this question is likely a test of that belief.)<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Flavor preference===<br />
*Which do you prefer? (It seems to be missing the ''neither'' option...)<br />
**Chocolate<br />
**Vanilla<br />
<br />
===Number (reprise)===<br />
*Pick another number from 1 to 100 (Supposedly is should not be the same as in the first pick a number box).<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Internet===<br />
*When you think about stuff on the internet, where do you picture it being physically located? Even if you know it's not really how things work, is there a place you imagine websites and social media posts sitting before you look at them? If so, where is it?<br />
**''Broad multi-line text box''<br />
<br />
===Roll tongue===<br />
*Can you {{w|Tongue rolling|roll your tongue}}?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
**What?<br />
<br />
===Toes===<br />
*Can you pick things up with your toes?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Age===<br />
*How old are you?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Walls===<br />
*What color are the walls around you right now?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Cell phone===<br />
*What kind of cell phone do you have?<br />
**{{w|iPhone}}<br />
**{{w|Android (operating system)|Android}}<br />
**Other smartphone<br />
**Non-smartphone<br />
**I don't have a cell phone<br />
<br />
===Eating===<br />
*What's the last thing you ate?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Difficult words===<br />
*Which of these words do you know the meaning of?<br />
*Some of these words don’t appear in any of the following dictionaries: the Oxford English Dictionary, the New Oxford American Dictionary, Wiktionary, or Dictionary.com. These words were probably made up by Randall. Perhaps the goal is to make people feel like they have a weak vocabulary because they don’t know many of the words, until they try look up the meanings and realize they have been tricked.<br />
*More likely, the inclusion of fictitious words is a validity check. Hidden tests of the validity of responses is a part of good questionnaire design. For example, long lists of questions with "Agree-Disagree" responses will often have one or more items which are "reverse-coded" (phrased in a direction opposite to the rest of the questions): if a respondent provides a response which contradicts the pattern presented by the rest of the responses, this casts doubt on the validity of the other responses - suggesting that the respondent is not actually reading the questions properly. In the instance of Randall's survey, claiming to know the meaning of fictitious words would cast doubt on the respondent's claims of a knowing the meaning of the other words in the list.<br />
*In addition, these false claims by respondents may themselves then be used as a source of data: for example, an analysis of the data could find that males (and/or skydivers) are more likely than females to over-represent their actual level of knowledge.<br />
*[http://dictionary.reference.com/ Dictionary.com] has an index of difficulty (measured in pixels, with class name <code>difficulty-indicator</code>). We add it at the right of the words that have it. N/A means that a word isn't present in Dictionary.com, or that it doesn't have an index.<br />
**Slickle – Not in any standard dictionary. However, it [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Slickle is in] the crowd-sourced in Urban Dictionary, as well as a suggested planet name in [[1253: Exoplanet Names]]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rife Rife] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rife 117]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/soliloquy Soliloquy] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/soliloquy 150]<br />
**Fination – not in any dictionary. Appears infrequently in Victorian texts (e.g., [http://books.google.com/books?id=ghNOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA245&dq=Fination 1889], [http://books.google.com/books?id=nwlCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA214&dq=Fination 1839])<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stipple Stipple] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stipple 144]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/peristeronic Peristeronic] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/peristeronic N/A]. Randall used it and defined it for readers in [[798: Adjectives]].<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/modicum Modicum] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/modicum 120]<br />
**Trephony – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete spelling of "{{w|Trephine}}" (especially when used as a verb for the process of {{w|Trepanning|trephination}}). Initially a transliteration of Greek [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=tru/panon τρυπάω] for the same.<br />
**Tribution – A regular construction from [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tribute#Verb Tribute (verb)] using "-tion" to transform into a noun. Using this regular formation, the term would mean the act of tribute, but no examples of actual use are available. It is worth noting that the use of "tribute" as a verb is generally considered obsolete and the few forms that persist in use relate primarily to the tributary and distibutary river systems<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/phoropter Phoropter] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/phoropter N/A] 1.An instrument used in eye examinations to determine an individual's prescription, the patient looking through various lenses at a chart on the other side.<br />
**Unitory – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete spelling of "Unitary," chiefly British. While long obsolete in normal usage, it persisted longer in mathematics that it did elsewhere (particularly for "Unitory Method" and "Unitory Matrixes"). Example of use: [https://books.google.com/books?id=Wl1BAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA5-PA27&lpg=RA5-PA27&dq=unitory+method&source=bl&ots=rfRKJXAJqV&sig=Wsr_gV7xG6Airah9Lx1M0hi-7Zc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBmoVChMInd_R9qTbxwIVChU-Ch36IAh_#v=onepage&q=unitory%20method&f=false (1)]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amiable Amiable] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/amiable 123]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/salient Salient] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/salient 69]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/regolith Regolith] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/regolith 162]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lithe Lithe] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lithe 105]<br />
**Revergent – technical word from {{w|fern}} biology, referring to the edges of fern leaves which curl back on themselves (see [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00985044 Schölch, 2000])<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hubris Hubris] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hubris 117]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fleek Fleek] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fleek N/A]<br />
**Cadine – A rare loan-word for [https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/cadine a sultan's wife or a noble ottoman woman] which comes to English through the French. Examples of Use: [https://books.google.com/books?id=4yz-Y-_OOO0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=cadine&f=false (1)]. Also the name of an [https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadine italian city]. <br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apricity Apricity] – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete word for the sun's heat in winter (e.g., [http://books.google.com/books?id=CFBGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT76&dq=apricity Bailey 1775]). According to the What If? book (page 80), this is Randall's single favourite word in the English language.<br />
<br />
===cat===<br />
*Please type "cat" here: <br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Dreams===<br />
*Do you usually remember your dreams?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Text editors===<br />
*Do you have strong opinions about text editors? (See {{w|Editor war}})<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Emoji===<br />
*How do you feel about {{w|emoji}}?<br />
**Negative 😠 (Unicode 1f620 - Angry face)<br />
**Positive 😊 (Unicode 263a - Smiling face)<br />
**Neutral 😐 (Unicode 1F610 - Neutral face)<br />
<br />
===Snow===<br />
*Does it ever snow where you live?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Taste of food===<br />
*Do you strongly dislike the taste or texture of any of these things?<br />
**Eggs<br />
**Chocolate ice cream<br />
**Beer<br />
**White wine<br />
**{{w|Carbonation}} (or Fizz)<br />
**Red wine<br />
**{{w|Cilantro}}<br />
**Coffee<br />
**Tomatoes<br />
**Yogurt<br />
<br />
===Beverages===<br />
*Which of these do you regularly drink?<br />
**Caffeinated soda (e.g. Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper)<br />
**Noncaffeinated soda<br />
**Coffee<br />
**Fruit juice<br />
**Milk<br />
**Beer<br />
**Wine<br />
**Tea<br />
**{{w|Maple syrup}}<br />
**Water<br />
<br />
===Random words===<br />
*Type five random words<br />
**''Broad multi-line text box''<br />
<br />
===Flying===<br />
*Are you nervous about flying?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
**A little<br />
<br />
===Favorite number===<br />
*On a scale of 1 to 5, which number is your favorite?<br />
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 5.''<br />
<br />
===Sandwich===<br />
*Which of these would you consider a {{w|sandwich}}?<br />
*(Check all that apply)<br />
**{{w|Taco}}<br />
**{{w|Quesadilla}}<br />
**{{w|Submarine sandwich|Sub/Hoagie}}<br />
**{{w|Cheesesteak}}<br />
**{{w|Hamburger}}<br />
**{{w|Open-faced sandwich}}<br />
**{{w|Calzone}}<br />
<br />
===Animal affinity===<br />
*Which of these describes you?<br />
*(Check all that apply)<br />
**Dog person<br />
**Cat person<br />
**Half-cat half-person<br />
**Part of a subterranean race of dog people<br />
**Literally named "Catherine Person"<br />
<br />
===Sense of direction===<br />
*Would you say you have a good sense of direction?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Socks or underwear===<br />
*Have you ever thrown out all your different pairs of socks/underwear, bought a bunch of replacements that were all one kind, and then told all your friends how great it was and how they should do it too?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
**I did the throwing out thing, but didn't talk to everyone about it<br />
**No, but I'm totally doing that now<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A simple comic with text only. The ''click here'' part is inside a black frame.]<br />
:Introducing <br />
:'''The xkcd Survey'''<br />
:A search for weird correlations<br />
:Note: This survey is anonymous, but<br />
:<font color="red"> all responses will be posted publicly </font><br />
:so people can play with the data.<br />
:'''Click here to'''<br />
:'''take the survey'''<br />
:Or click here, or here.<br />
:The whole comic is a link,<br />
:because I still haven't gotten<br />
:the hang of HTML imagemaps.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1572:_xkcd_Survey&diff=1086701572: xkcd Survey2016-01-05T18:22:42Z<p>162.158.90.193: Still nope</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1572<br />
| date = September 2, 2015<br />
| title = xkcd Survey<br />
| image = xkcd_survey.png<br />
| titletext = The xkcd Survey: Big Data for a Big Planet<br />
}}<br />
*The comic links to [http://goo.gl/forms/B5RaBeZ6nw The xkcd survey] on Google.<br />
<br />
{{incomplete|This comic cannot be complete until Randall releases the raw and/or analysed data. The analysis needs to be mentioned here. Until then, this comic needs to be marked incomplete.}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
As the comic image states, it links to a survey created with [https://www.google.com/forms/about/ Google Forms], containing a series of questions. The questions range from mundane typical survey questions such as “Do you have any food allergies?”, to rather strange, such as “Fill this text box with random letters by randomly mashing keys on your keyboard.” (See [[1530: Keyboard Mash]]).<br />
<br />
The stated goal of the survey is to “create an interesting and unusual data set for people to play with”. A strange data set is a ripe opportunity for a sampling of readers. It's also supposed to be “a search for weird correlations” – presumably the goal is to be able to say things like “people who have been skydiving are (more/less) likely than average to dislike cilantro”. (See also [[882: Significant]] about finding presumably-spurious correlations between unrelated data.)<br />
<br />
This explanation will undoubtedly expand when the data comes in.<br />
<br />
{{w|Image_map#Client-side_image_map|HTML image maps}} is a technique for marking up areas of an image on a web page, such that each area can be a link without the whole image being a link. [[Randall]] could have used this type of image map to make only the “Click here to take the survey” button be a link, and none of the rest of the image. But he cannot get the hang of it (or knowing his skills, does not wish to take the time to learn it). Not getting the hang of HTML image maps was also referenced on [http://imgs.xkcd.com/store/tour-news.png the banner for his book tour] from [http://web.archive.org/web/20140901023821/http://xkcd.com/ September 2014]<br />
<br />
The title text is a joke off of {{w|Big Data}}, which is a name for analysis of a set of data that includes a huge amount of information. He also says "for a big planet" because the Earth is big.{{Citation needed}}<br />
<br />
The survey is closed, and the questions replaced with the text: "The xkcd survey is now closed. Thank you for all your answers! Response data is being collected and will be posted soon." As of 5 January 2016, the same caption is still there, with no indication of exactly how soon the data is intended to be posted.<br />
<br />
==The Survey==<br />
The Survey started off with the following statement:<br />
<br />
<nowiki>This is an anonymous survey. After it's done, a database of everyone's responses will be posted.<br />
There's no specific reason for any of the questions. The goal is to create an interesting and unusual data set for people to play with. This is obviously not going to be a real random sample of people, but in the interest of getting cooler data, if you're sharing this with friends, try sending it to some people who wouldn't normally see this kind of thing!<br />
<br />
WARNING: This survey is anonymous, but your answers WILL BE MADE PUBLIC. Depending what you write, it's possible that someone may be able to identify you by looking at your responses. None of these questions should ask about anything too private, but don't write anything that you don't want people to see. If you're not comfortable answering a question, just skip it.</nowiki><br />
<br />
'''Note:''' The order of the possible answers (the list of possibilities) was random, and changed every time the page is reloaded. So do not try to fix the order here below...<br />
<br />
===Plane===<br />
*Have you ever been in a plane?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Skydiving===<br />
*Have you ever been {{w|Parachuting|skydiving}}?<br />
**No, but I might someday<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===The Dress===<br />
*When you first saw {{w|The dress (viral phenomenon)|The Dress}}, what color was it? — (Also see [[1492: Dress Color]] and the [[Blag]] ENTRY [http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ Color Survey Results]).<br />
**White and gold<br />
**A color combination not listed here<br />
**I don't remember<br />
**Blue and black<br />
**What dress?<br />
<br />
===Popular food===<br />
*What's a really popular food that you don't like?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Floaters===<br />
*When you look at a blue sky, do you see those swirly {{w|floater|floaters}} in your vision?<br />
**Yes, constantly<br />
**I'm not sure what things you mean<br />
**Yes, occasionally<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Running out of gas===<br />
*Have you ever had a car run out of gas while you were driving it?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Animals===<br />
*Name the first five animals you can think of<br />
**''Multi line text box''<br />
<br />
===Weather===<br />
*What's the weather like where you are right now?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Activities===<br />
*Which of these can you do reasonably well?<br />
*(Check all that apply)<br />
**{{w|slam dunk|Dunk}} a basketball &mdash; A "slam dunk" or simply "dunk" is the act of jumping up and putting the ball through the net with a lot of force<br />
**Tie a {{w|sheet bend}} or {{w|bowline}} &mdash; A sheet bend is a knot that joins two ropes together; A bowline is a knot used to form a fixed loop at the end of a rope<br />
**Roller skate<br />
**[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/high-heel-race/ Run in high heels]<br />
**Drive a stick shift — See {{w|Manual transmission}} of a car<br />
**Solve a {{w|Rubik's cube}}<br />
**Dive headfirst off a diving board &mdash; See {{w|Springboard}} and {{w|Diving platform}}<br />
**Ice skate<br />
**{{w|Skateboarding|Skateboard}}<br />
**Walk on {{w|stilts}} — Stilts are poles, posts or pillars used to allow a person to walk at a height above the ground<br />
**Ski<br />
**Cut vegetables with a knife<br />
**Swim<br />
**Ride a horse<br />
**{{w|Unicycle}}<br />
**Change the oil on a car<br />
**Do a back {{w|Handspring (gymnastics)|handspring}} &mdash; A handspring is an exercise in gymnastics in which you jump through the air landing on your hands, then again landing on your feet<br />
**Juggle — {{w|Toss juggling}} (the most recognizable form of juggling) consists in throwing objects into the air and catching them.<br />
<br />
===Spelling===<br />
*What word can you never seem to spell on the first try?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Condiments===<br />
*Do you eat {{w|condiments}} directly out of the fridge as a snack?<br />
**No <br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Thermostat===<br />
*When you adjust a thermostat that was set by someone else, it's usually because you want the room to be...<br />
**Cooler<br />
**Warmer<br />
<br />
===Clothing===<br />
*What color is the shirt/dress/upper-body-clothing you're wearing right now, if any?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Colds===<br />
*Do you get {{w|Common cold|colds}} often?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Number===<br />
*Pick a number from 1 to 100<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Spelling===<br />
*On a scale of 1 to 10, how good at spelling are you? (Note that the question does not specify which end of the scale is good or bad.)<br />
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 10.''<br />
<br />
===Myers-Briggs===<br />
*Do you know your {{w|Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator|Myers-Briggs type}}?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Astrology===<br />
*Do you know your {{w|astrological sign}}?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Siblings===<br />
*How many older siblings do you have?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
*How many younger siblings do you have?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
*How many twin/etc siblings do you have?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Sleepiness===<br />
*Do you feel sleepy a lot?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Movie star===<br />
*Name a movie star<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Time in sun===<br />
*Do you spend a lot of time in the sun?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Broccoli===<br />
*Does {{w|broccoli}} taste bitter to you?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
**I've never had it<br />
<br />
===Wakefulness===<br />
*Do you regularly stay awake much later than you meant to?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Keyboard mashing===<br />
*Fill this text box with gibberish by mashing random keyboard keys (See [[1530: Keyboard Mash]]).<br />
**''Broad multi-line text box''<br />
<br />
===Driving===<br />
*On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is terrible and 3 is average, how good a driver do you think you are?<br />
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 5.''<br />
<br />
===Allergies===<br />
*Do you have any food allergies?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes <br />
<br />
===Thunder===<br />
*Have you heard thunder or seen lightning in the past year? — (The title-text of [[831: Weather Radar]] mentions the belief that thunderstorms seemed more common when one was a kid. Since the survey also asks for age this question is likely a test of that belief.)<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Flavor preference===<br />
*Which do you prefer? (It seems to be missing the ''neither'' option...)<br />
**Chocolate<br />
**Vanilla<br />
<br />
===Number (reprise)===<br />
*Pick another number from 1 to 100 (Supposedly is should not be the same as in the first pick a number box).<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Internet===<br />
*When you think about stuff on the internet, where do you picture it being physically located? Even if you know it's not really how things work, is there a place you imagine websites and social media posts sitting before you look at them? If so, where is it?<br />
**''Broad multi-line text box''<br />
<br />
===Roll tongue===<br />
*Can you {{w|Tongue rolling|roll your tongue}}?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
**What?<br />
<br />
===Toes===<br />
*Can you pick things up with your toes?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Age===<br />
*How old are you?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Walls===<br />
*What color are the walls around you right now?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Cell phone===<br />
*What kind of cell phone do you have?<br />
**{{w|iPhone}}<br />
**{{w|Android (operating system)|Android}}<br />
**Other smartphone<br />
**Non-smartphone<br />
**I don't have a cell phone<br />
<br />
===Eating===<br />
*What's the last thing you ate?<br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Difficult words===<br />
*Which of these words do you know the meaning of?<br />
*Some of these words don’t appear in any of the following dictionaries: the Oxford English Dictionary, the New Oxford American Dictionary, Wiktionary, or Dictionary.com. These words were probably made up by Randall. Perhaps the goal is to make people feel like they have a weak vocabulary because they don’t know many of the words, until they try look up the meanings and realize they have been tricked.<br />
*More likely, the inclusion of fictitious words is a validity check. Hidden tests of the validity of responses is a part of good questionnaire design. For example, long lists of questions with "Agree-Disagree" responses will often have one or more items which are "reverse-coded" (phrased in a direction opposite to the rest of the questions): if a respondent provides a response which contradicts the pattern presented by the rest of the responses, this casts doubt on the validity of the other responses - suggesting that the respondent is not actually reading the questions properly. In the instance of Randall's survey, claiming to know the meaning of fictitious words would cast doubt on the respondent's claims of a knowing the meaning of the other words in the list.<br />
*In addition, these false claims by respondents may themselves then be used as a source of data: for example, an analysis of the data could find that males (and/or skydivers) are more likely than females to over-represent their actual level of knowledge.<br />
*[http://dictionary.reference.com/ Dictionary.com] has an index of difficulty (measured in pixels, with class name <code>difficulty-indicator</code>). We add it at the right of the words that have it. N/A means that a word isn't present in Dictionary.com, or that it doesn't have an index.<br />
**Slickle – Not in any standard dictionary. However, it [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Slickle is in] the crowd-sourced in Urban Dictionary, as well as a suggested planet name in [[1253: Exoplanet Names]]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rife Rife] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rife 117]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/soliloquy Soliloquy] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/soliloquy 150]<br />
**Fination – not in any dictionary. Appears infrequently in Victorian texts (e.g., [http://books.google.com/books?id=ghNOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA245&dq=Fination 1889], [http://books.google.com/books?id=nwlCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA214&dq=Fination 1839])<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stipple Stipple] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stipple 144]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/peristeronic Peristeronic] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/peristeronic N/A]. Randall used it and defined it for readers in [[798: Adjectives]].<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/modicum Modicum] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/modicum 120]<br />
**Trephony – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete spelling of "{{w|Trephine}}" (especially when used as a verb for the process of {{w|Trepanning|trephination}}). Initially a transliteration of Greek [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=tru/panon τρυπάω] for the same.<br />
**Tribution – A regular construction from [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tribute#Verb Tribute (verb)] using "-tion" to transform into a noun. Using this regular formation, the term would mean the act of tribute, but no examples of actual use are available. It is worth noting that the use of "tribute" as a verb is generally considered obsolete and the few forms that persist in use relate primarily to the tributary and distibutary river systems<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/phoropter Phoropter] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/phoropter N/A] 1.An instrument used in eye examinations to determine an individual's prescription, the patient looking through various lenses at a chart on the other side.<br />
**Unitory – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete spelling of "Unitary," chiefly British. While long obsolete in normal usage, it persisted longer in mathematics that it did elsewhere (particularly for "Unitory Method" and "Unitory Matrixes"). Example of use: [https://books.google.com/books?id=Wl1BAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA5-PA27&lpg=RA5-PA27&dq=unitory+method&source=bl&ots=rfRKJXAJqV&sig=Wsr_gV7xG6Airah9Lx1M0hi-7Zc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBmoVChMInd_R9qTbxwIVChU-Ch36IAh_#v=onepage&q=unitory%20method&f=false (1)]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amiable Amiable] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/amiable 123]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/salient Salient] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/salient 69]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/regolith Regolith] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/regolith 162]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lithe Lithe] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lithe 105]<br />
**Revergent – technical word from {{w|fern}} biology, referring to the edges of fern leaves which curl back on themselves (see [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00985044 Schölch, 2000])<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hubris Hubris] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hubris 117]<br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fleek Fleek] – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fleek N/A]<br />
**Cadine – A rare loan-word for [https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/cadine a sultan's wife or a noble ottoman woman] which comes to English through the French. Examples of Use: [https://books.google.com/books?id=4yz-Y-_OOO0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=cadine&f=false (1)]. Also the name of an [https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadine italian city]. <br />
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apricity Apricity] – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete word for the sun's heat in winter (e.g., [http://books.google.com/books?id=CFBGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT76&dq=apricity Bailey 1775]). According to the What If? book (page 80), this is Randall's single favourite word in the English language.<br />
<br />
===cat===<br />
*Please type "cat" here: <br />
**''Text box''<br />
<br />
===Dreams===<br />
*Do you usually remember your dreams?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Text editors===<br />
*Do you have strong opinions about text editors? (See {{w|Editor war}})<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Emoji===<br />
*How do you feel about {{w|emoji}}?<br />
**Negative 😠 (Unicode 1f620 - Angry face)<br />
**Positive 😊 (Unicode 263a - Smiling face)<br />
**Neutral 😐 (Unicode 1F610 - Neutral face)<br />
<br />
===Snow===<br />
*Does it ever snow where you live?<br />
**No<br />
**Yes<br />
<br />
===Taste of food===<br />
*Do you strongly dislike the taste or texture of any of these things?<br />
**Eggs<br />
**Chocolate ice cream<br />
**Beer<br />
**White wine<br />
**{{w|Carbonation}} (or Fizz)<br />
**Red wine<br />
**{{w|Cilantro}}<br />
**Coffee<br />
**Tomatoes<br />
**Yogurt<br />
<br />
===Beverages===<br />
*Which of these do you regularly drink?<br />
**Caffeinated soda (e.g. Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper)<br />
**Noncaffeinated soda<br />
**Coffee<br />
**Fruit juice<br />
**Milk<br />
**Beer<br />
**Wine<br />
**Tea<br />
**{{w|Maple syrup}}<br />
**Water<br />
<br />
===Random words===<br />
*Type five random words<br />
**''Broad multi-line text box''<br />
<br />
===Flying===<br />
*Are you nervous about flying?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
**A little<br />
<br />
===Favorite number===<br />
*On a scale of 1 to 5, which number is your favorite?<br />
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 5.''<br />
<br />
===Sandwich===<br />
*Which of these would you consider a {{w|sandwich}}?<br />
*(Check all that apply)<br />
**{{w|Taco}}<br />
**{{w|Quesadilla}}<br />
**{{w|Submarine sandwich|Sub/Hoagie}}<br />
**{{w|Cheesesteak}}<br />
**{{w|Hamburger}}<br />
**{{w|Open-faced sandwich}}<br />
**{{w|Calzone}}<br />
<br />
===Animal affinity===<br />
*Which of these describes you?<br />
*(Check all that apply)<br />
**Dog person<br />
**Cat person<br />
**Half-cat half-person<br />
**Part of a subterranean race of dog people<br />
**Literally named "Catherine Person"<br />
<br />
===Sense of direction===<br />
*Would you say you have a good sense of direction?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
<br />
===Socks or underwear===<br />
*Have you ever thrown out all your different pairs of socks/underwear, bought a bunch of replacements that were all one kind, and then told all your friends how great it was and how they should do it too?<br />
**Yes<br />
**No<br />
**I did the throwing out thing, but didn't talk to everyone about it<br />
**No, but I'm totally doing that now<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A simple comic with text only. The ''click here'' part is inside a black frame.]<br />
:Introducing <br />
:'''The xkcd Survey'''<br />
:A search for weird correlations<br />
:Note: This survey is anonymous, but<br />
:<font color="red"> all responses will be posted publicly </font><br />
:so people can play with the data.<br />
:'''Click here to'''<br />
:'''take the survey'''<br />
:Or click here, or here.<br />
:The whole comic is a link,<br />
:because I still haven't gotten<br />
:the hang of HTML imagemaps.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1611:_Baking_Soda_and_Vinegar&diff=1062611611: Baking Soda and Vinegar2015-12-02T12:06:55Z<p>162.158.90.193: included category references for Megan and Ponytail</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1611<br />
| date = December 2, 2015<br />
| title = Baking Soda and Vinegar<br />
| image = baking_soda_and_vinegar.png<br />
| titletext = Sure, it may not meet science fair standards, but I want credit for getting my baking soda and vinegar mountain added to the Decade Volcanoes list.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|First go at an explanation, but from a transatlantic perspective...}}<br />
In popular fiction (and maybe in part in fact) the "Baking Soda And Vinegar" volcano is often a staple image of the science nerd at the science fair, unless all the science nerds are doing ''real'' imaginative science and the student(s) with the volcano exhibit are dragging out the old hackneyed stereotype. It may also be age-dependent, this being something that is relatively advanced science for the lower grades but rather a childish experiment in the hands of older students.<br />
<br />
As the adult is probably about to point out, the 'volcano' exhibit doesn't (usually) actually demonstrate anything about volcanic activity, it is just simple chemistry - such as you usually conduct in a simple test-tube - dressed up to look more impressive, often with dye or other additives to make the 'lava' look realistic for the model, but unrelated to the geology it is being represented as.<br />
<br />
''This'' volcano, however, seems to go beyond simple chemistry. The model replicates many of the dangers (aside from the pure lava) of a volcano, and appears to have been given scaled-down vehicles trying (and failing) to escape the dangers of the resultant mud-flows (a.k.a. {{w|lahar|lahars}} in professional terminology) being modelled.<br />
<br />
Even more, this is not an isolated 'model volcano' but a vinegar-powered representation of a geological 'hot spot', such as with the islands of Hawaii, in which the spot moves with respect to the Earth's crust (or vice-versa) and generates a new volcano some way off. Despite this model being supported on a table, it appears that the 'project' extends some way beyond that and has somehow contrived further eruptions away from the table, the room and probably even the building.<br />
<br />
The 'project' seems to be turning into a very thorough model of a much larger geological process and destined to produce a ''very real'' volcanic winter. Where a magma-powered volcano could produce vast clouds of dust, preventing the sun's energy from warming the Earth, in this case it's the airborne salt (probably sodium acetate) from the chemical reaction that appears to be in danger of causing crop failure. There's no mention of the corresponding environmental effects of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide (and/or aqueous carbonic acid) necessarily released in proportion to the ejected salt (presumably itself not left in solution).<br />
<br />
It is especially troubling the child mentions her model volcano is an offshoot of a bakingsoda ''super''volcano. {{w|Supervolcano|Supervolcanoes}} are massive volcano's, far larger than even the Decade-list volcanoes, whose eruption would likely trigger species-level extinction events comparable to the dinosaur extinction. Humanity can only hope the child is exaggerating in her description, but the symptoms witnessed by the adult looking out the window suggest otherwise.<br />
Randall has mentioned supervolcanoes before in [[1053|1053: Ten Thousand]] (title text) and [[1159|1159: Countdown]], making it a recurring interest of his.<br />
<br />
=== Title Text ===<br />
In the title text the student expects extra credit for getting her model volcano added to the {{w|Decade Volcanoes}} list, a list maintained by {{w|International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior}} of the worlds most dangerous volcanoes (currently 16). It is either an absurd notion or a very troubling achievement that a science fair project could achieve the threatlevel posed by the likes of {{w|Mount Vesuvius}} (which destroyed ancient Pompeii in italy, and threatens modern-day Pompei in the same manner), {{w|Mount Rainier}} (whose lahars could potentially destroy parts of Seattle) or {{w|Mauna Loa}} (which threatens all of Hawaii).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
===== Panel 1 =====<br />
Girl: My science project is a baking soda and vinegar volcano!<br />
<br />
===== Panel 2 =====<br />
Ponytail: Why do people make these? It isn't really even a science project. It doesn't teach anything about -<br />
''Volcano makes ''FOOM!''<br />
<br />
===== Panel 3 =====<br />
Girl: See how the baking soda and vinegar mix with mud and ice to form deadly flowing lahars?<br />
<br />
===== Panel 4 =====<br />
Girl: You can see the tiny cars trying to flee. Whoops! Too Slow<br />
<br />
===== Panel 5 =====<br />
Ponytail: Um. This is a bit Grim.<br />
Girl: (interrupts Ponytail) Learning!<br />
<br />
===== Panel 6 =====<br />
Background sound effect: <Rumble><br />
<br />
===== Panel 7 =====<br />
Girl: And now we're learning that this volcano is an offshoot of a vinegar hotspot rising from deep within the earth. ''annnd...''<br />
<br />
===== Panel 8 =====<br />
Background sound effect: <BOOOOM> (in white-on-black)<br />
<br />
===== Panel 9 =====<br />
Girl (off panel): The baking soda supervolcano erupts, injecting clouds of salt into the stratosphere.<br />
<br />
Megan (looking out the window): Why is it getting dark outside?<br />
<br />
Girl (off panel): Learning is fun!<br />
<br />
===== Panel 10 =====<br />
Girl: Sunlight dims. The earth cools. Summer frosts form. Crops die. We check the markets. Grain prices are rising.<br />
<br />
Megan (off panel): I want to stop learning now.<br />
<br />
Girl: soon, we all will.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1611:_Baking_Soda_and_Vinegar&diff=1062601611: Baking Soda and Vinegar2015-12-02T12:00:48Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Transcript */ completed transcript, introduced panel markers</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1611<br />
| date = December 2, 2015<br />
| title = Baking Soda and Vinegar<br />
| image = baking_soda_and_vinegar.png<br />
| titletext = Sure, it may not meet science fair standards, but I want credit for getting my baking soda and vinegar mountain added to the Decade Volcanoes list.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|First go at an explanation, but from a transatlantic perspective...}}<br />
In popular fiction (and maybe in part in fact) the "Baking Soda And Vinegar" volcano is often a staple image of the science nerd at the science fair, unless all the science nerds are doing ''real'' imaginative science and the student(s) with the volcano exhibit are dragging out the old hackneyed stereotype. It may also be age-dependent, this being something that is relatively advanced science for the lower grades but rather a childish experiment in the hands of older students.<br />
<br />
As the adult is probably about to point out, the 'volcano' exhibit doesn't (usually) actually demonstrate anything about volcanic activity, it is just simple chemistry - such as you usually conduct in a simple test-tube - dressed up to look more impressive, often with dye or other additives to make the 'lava' look realistic for the model, but unrelated to the geology it is being represented as.<br />
<br />
''This'' volcano, however, seems to go beyond simple chemistry. The model replicates many of the dangers (aside from the pure lava) of a volcano, and appears to have been given scaled-down vehicles trying (and failing) to escape the dangers of the resultant mud-flows (a.k.a. {{w|lahar|lahars}} in professional terminology) being modelled.<br />
<br />
Even more, this is not an isolated 'model volcano' but a vinegar-powered representation of a geological 'hot spot', such as with the islands of Hawaii, in which the spot moves with respect to the Earth's crust (or vice-versa) and generates a new volcano some way off. Despite this model being supported on a table, it appears that the 'project' extends some way beyond that and has somehow contrived further eruptions away from the table, the room and probably even the building.<br />
<br />
The 'project' seems to be turning into a very thorough model of a much larger geological process and destined to produce a ''very real'' volcanic winter. Where a magma-powered volcano could produce vast clouds of dust, preventing the sun's energy from warming the Earth, in this case it's the airborne salt (probably sodium acetate) from the chemical reaction that appears to be in danger of causing crop failure. There's no mention of the corresponding environmental effects of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide (and/or aqueous carbonic acid) necessarily released in proportion to the ejected salt (presumably itself not left in solution).<br />
<br />
It is especially troubling the child mentions her model volcano is an offshoot of a bakingsoda ''super''volcano. {{w|Supervolcano|Supervolcanoes}} are massive volcano's, far larger than even the Decade-list volcanoes, whose eruption would likely trigger species-level extinction events comparable to the dinosaur extinction. Humanity can only hope the child is exaggerating in her description, but the symptoms witnessed by the adult looking out the window suggest otherwise.<br />
Randall has mentioned supervolcanoes before in [[1053|1053: Ten Thousand]] (title text) and [[1159|1159: Countdown]], making it a recurring interest of his.<br />
<br />
=== Title Text ===<br />
In the title text the student expects extra credit for getting her model volcano added to the {{w|Decade Volcanoes}} list, a list maintained by {{w|International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior}} of the worlds most dangerous volcanoes (currently 16). It is either an absurd notion or a very troubling achievement that a science fair project could achieve the threatlevel posed by the likes of {{w|Mount Vesuvius}} (which destroyed ancient Pompeii in italy, and threatens modern-day Pompei in the same manner), {{w|Mount Rainier}} (whose lahars could potentially destroy parts of Seattle) or {{w|Mauna Loa}} (which threatens all of Hawaii).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
===== Panel 1 =====<br />
Girl: My science project is a baking soda and vinegar volcano!<br />
<br />
===== Panel 2 =====<br />
Ponytail: Why do people make these? It isn't really even a science project. It doesn't teach anything about -<br />
''Volcano makes ''FOOM!''<br />
<br />
===== Panel 3 =====<br />
Girl: See how the baking soda and vinegar mix with mud and ice to form deadly flowing lahars?<br />
<br />
===== Panel 4 =====<br />
Girl: You can see the tiny cars trying to flee. Whoops! Too Slow<br />
<br />
===== Panel 5 =====<br />
Ponytail: Um. This is a bit Grim.<br />
Girl: (interrupts Ponytail) Learning!<br />
<br />
===== Panel 6 =====<br />
Background sound effect: <Rumble><br />
<br />
===== Panel 7 =====<br />
Girl: And now we're learning that this volcano is an offshoot of a vinegar hotspot rising from deep within the earth. ''annnd...''<br />
<br />
===== Panel 8 =====<br />
Background sound effect: <BOOOOM> (in white-on-black)<br />
<br />
===== Panel 9 =====<br />
Girl (off panel): The baking soda supervolcano erupts, injecting clouds of salt into the stratosphere.<br />
<br />
Megan (looking out the window): Why is it getting dark outside?<br />
<br />
Girl (off panel): Learning is fun!<br />
<br />
===== Panel 10 =====<br />
Girl: Sunlight dims. The earth cools. Summer frosts form. Crops die. We check the markets. Grain prices are rising.<br />
<br />
Megan (off panel): I want to stop learning now.<br />
<br />
Girl: soon, we all will.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1611:_Baking_Soda_and_Vinegar&diff=1062591611: Baking Soda and Vinegar2015-12-02T11:50:55Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Title Text */ slightly more detail in volcano examples</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1611<br />
| date = December 2, 2015<br />
| title = Baking Soda and Vinegar<br />
| image = baking_soda_and_vinegar.png<br />
| titletext = Sure, it may not meet science fair standards, but I want credit for getting my baking soda and vinegar mountain added to the Decade Volcanoes list.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|First go at an explanation, but from a transatlantic perspective...}}<br />
In popular fiction (and maybe in part in fact) the "Baking Soda And Vinegar" volcano is often a staple image of the science nerd at the science fair, unless all the science nerds are doing ''real'' imaginative science and the student(s) with the volcano exhibit are dragging out the old hackneyed stereotype. It may also be age-dependent, this being something that is relatively advanced science for the lower grades but rather a childish experiment in the hands of older students.<br />
<br />
As the adult is probably about to point out, the 'volcano' exhibit doesn't (usually) actually demonstrate anything about volcanic activity, it is just simple chemistry - such as you usually conduct in a simple test-tube - dressed up to look more impressive, often with dye or other additives to make the 'lava' look realistic for the model, but unrelated to the geology it is being represented as.<br />
<br />
''This'' volcano, however, seems to go beyond simple chemistry. The model replicates many of the dangers (aside from the pure lava) of a volcano, and appears to have been given scaled-down vehicles trying (and failing) to escape the dangers of the resultant mud-flows (a.k.a. {{w|lahar|lahars}} in professional terminology) being modelled.<br />
<br />
Even more, this is not an isolated 'model volcano' but a vinegar-powered representation of a geological 'hot spot', such as with the islands of Hawaii, in which the spot moves with respect to the Earth's crust (or vice-versa) and generates a new volcano some way off. Despite this model being supported on a table, it appears that the 'project' extends some way beyond that and has somehow contrived further eruptions away from the table, the room and probably even the building.<br />
<br />
The 'project' seems to be turning into a very thorough model of a much larger geological process and destined to produce a ''very real'' volcanic winter. Where a magma-powered volcano could produce vast clouds of dust, preventing the sun's energy from warming the Earth, in this case it's the airborne salt (probably sodium acetate) from the chemical reaction that appears to be in danger of causing crop failure. There's no mention of the corresponding environmental effects of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide (and/or aqueous carbonic acid) necessarily released in proportion to the ejected salt (presumably itself not left in solution).<br />
<br />
It is especially troubling the child mentions her model volcano is an offshoot of a bakingsoda ''super''volcano. {{w|Supervolcano|Supervolcanoes}} are massive volcano's, far larger than even the Decade-list volcanoes, whose eruption would likely trigger species-level extinction events comparable to the dinosaur extinction. Humanity can only hope the child is exaggerating in her description, but the symptoms witnessed by the adult looking out the window suggest otherwise.<br />
Randall has mentioned supervolcanoes before in [[1053|1053: Ten Thousand]] (title text) and [[1159|1159: Countdown]], making it a recurring interest of his.<br />
<br />
=== Title Text ===<br />
In the title text the student expects extra credit for getting her model volcano added to the {{w|Decade Volcanoes}} list, a list maintained by {{w|International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior}} of the worlds most dangerous volcanoes (currently 16). It is either an absurd notion or a very troubling achievement that a science fair project could achieve the threatlevel posed by the likes of {{w|Mount Vesuvius}} (which destroyed ancient Pompeii in italy, and threatens modern-day Pompei in the same manner), {{w|Mount Rainier}} (whose lahars could potentially destroy parts of Seattle) or {{w|Mauna Loa}} (which threatens all of Hawaii).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript}}<br />
<br />
Girl: My science project is a baking soda and vinegar volcano!<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Why do people make these? It isn't really even a science project. It doesn't teach anything about -<br />
''Volcano makes ''FOOM!''<br />
<br />
Girl: See how the baking soda and vinegar mix with mud and ice to form deadly flowing lahars?<br />
<br />
Girl: You can see the tiny cars trying to flee. Whoops! Too Slow<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Um. This is a bit Grim.<br />
<br />
Girl: (interrupts Ponytail) Learning!<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1611:_Baking_Soda_and_Vinegar&diff=1062581611: Baking Soda and Vinegar2015-12-02T11:47:29Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Explanation */ clarified reference to supervolcano, including links to earlier comics mentioning them.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1611<br />
| date = December 2, 2015<br />
| title = Baking Soda and Vinegar<br />
| image = baking_soda_and_vinegar.png<br />
| titletext = Sure, it may not meet science fair standards, but I want credit for getting my baking soda and vinegar mountain added to the Decade Volcanoes list.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|First go at an explanation, but from a transatlantic perspective...}}<br />
In popular fiction (and maybe in part in fact) the "Baking Soda And Vinegar" volcano is often a staple image of the science nerd at the science fair, unless all the science nerds are doing ''real'' imaginative science and the student(s) with the volcano exhibit are dragging out the old hackneyed stereotype. It may also be age-dependent, this being something that is relatively advanced science for the lower grades but rather a childish experiment in the hands of older students.<br />
<br />
As the adult is probably about to point out, the 'volcano' exhibit doesn't (usually) actually demonstrate anything about volcanic activity, it is just simple chemistry - such as you usually conduct in a simple test-tube - dressed up to look more impressive, often with dye or other additives to make the 'lava' look realistic for the model, but unrelated to the geology it is being represented as.<br />
<br />
''This'' volcano, however, seems to go beyond simple chemistry. The model replicates many of the dangers (aside from the pure lava) of a volcano, and appears to have been given scaled-down vehicles trying (and failing) to escape the dangers of the resultant mud-flows (a.k.a. {{w|lahar|lahars}} in professional terminology) being modelled.<br />
<br />
Even more, this is not an isolated 'model volcano' but a vinegar-powered representation of a geological 'hot spot', such as with the islands of Hawaii, in which the spot moves with respect to the Earth's crust (or vice-versa) and generates a new volcano some way off. Despite this model being supported on a table, it appears that the 'project' extends some way beyond that and has somehow contrived further eruptions away from the table, the room and probably even the building.<br />
<br />
The 'project' seems to be turning into a very thorough model of a much larger geological process and destined to produce a ''very real'' volcanic winter. Where a magma-powered volcano could produce vast clouds of dust, preventing the sun's energy from warming the Earth, in this case it's the airborne salt (probably sodium acetate) from the chemical reaction that appears to be in danger of causing crop failure. There's no mention of the corresponding environmental effects of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide (and/or aqueous carbonic acid) necessarily released in proportion to the ejected salt (presumably itself not left in solution).<br />
<br />
It is especially troubling the child mentions her model volcano is an offshoot of a bakingsoda ''super''volcano. {{w|Supervolcano|Supervolcanoes}} are massive volcano's, far larger than even the Decade-list volcanoes, whose eruption would likely trigger species-level extinction events comparable to the dinosaur extinction. Humanity can only hope the child is exaggerating in her description, but the symptoms witnessed by the adult looking out the window suggest otherwise.<br />
Randall has mentioned supervolcanoes before in [[1053|1053: Ten Thousand]] (title text) and [[1159|1159: Countdown]], making it a recurring interest of his.<br />
<br />
=== Title Text ===<br />
In the title text the student expects extra credit for getting her model volcano added to the {{w|Decade Volcanoes}} list, a list maintained by {{w|International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior}} of the worlds most dangerous volcanoes (currently 16). It is either an absurd notion or a very troubling achievement that a science fair project could achieve the threatlevel posed by the likes of {{w|Mount Vesuvius}} (which destroyed ancient Pompei in italy), {{w|Mount Rainier}} (which could potentially destroy parts of Seattle) or {{w|Mauna Loa}} (which threatens all of Hawaii).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript}}<br />
<br />
Girl: My science project is a baking soda and vinegar volcano!<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Why do people make these? It isn't really even a science project. It doesn't teach anything about -<br />
''Volcano makes ''FOOM!''<br />
<br />
Girl: See how the baking soda and vinegar mix with mud and ice to form deadly flowing lahars?<br />
<br />
Girl: You can see the tiny cars trying to flee. Whoops! Too Slow<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Um. This is a bit Grim.<br />
<br />
Girl: (interrupts Ponytail) Learning!<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1611:_Baking_Soda_and_Vinegar&diff=106257Talk:1611: Baking Soda and Vinegar2015-12-02T11:33:54Z<p>162.158.90.193: </p>
<hr />
<div>The only experience I have with such a volcano exhibit is from US TV programmes representing the nerds (or the desperate non-nerds with no imagination) at a science-fair in Stateside schools, but I laid down my impressions of the tradition anyway. No embedded links to anything, as yet, as I expect other people will know what needs explaining (or re-writing) better than me. - I was going to go onto Supervolcano territory, but I'm not sure it's supposed to be more than 'regular' increased volcanic activity, outside, albeit through the power of acid/base interaction (thus salt being the equivalent of volcanic dust plumes, no doubt). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.152.227|162.158.152.227]] 10:00, 2 December 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Another trans-Atleantean here, I've expanded on your explanation with some links and the title-text, but your overall draft concurs with my experience of science-fair volcanoes being a stereotypical "easy/lame" project for science fairs [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.193|162.158.90.193]] 11:33, 2 December 2015 (UTC)</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1611:_Baking_Soda_and_Vinegar&diff=1062561611: Baking Soda and Vinegar2015-12-02T11:31:07Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Title Text */ typo: destroyed</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1611<br />
| date = December 2, 2015<br />
| title = Baking Soda and Vinegar<br />
| image = baking_soda_and_vinegar.png<br />
| titletext = Sure, it may not meet science fair standards, but I want credit for getting my baking soda and vinegar mountain added to the Decade Volcanoes list.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|First go at an explanation, but from a transatlantic perspective...}}<br />
In popular fiction (and maybe in part in fact) the "Baking Soda And Vinegar" volcano is often a staple image of the science nerd at the science fair, unless all the science nerds are doing ''real'' imaginative science and the student(s) with the volcano exhibit are dragging out the old hackneyed stereotype. It may also be age-dependent, this being something that is relatively advanced science for the lower grades but rather a childish experiment in the hands of older students.<br />
<br />
As the adult is probably about to point out, the 'volcano' exhibit doesn't (usually) actually demonstrate anything about volcanic activity, it is just simple chemistry - such as you usually conduct in a simple test-tube - dressed up to look more impressive, often with dye or other additives to make the 'lava' look realistic for the model, but unrelated to the geology it is being represented as.<br />
<br />
''This'' volcano, however, seems to go beyond simple chemistry. The model replicates many of the dangers (aside from the pure lava) of a volcano, and appears to have been given scaled-down vehicles trying (and failing) to escape the dangers of the resultant mud-flows (a.k.a. {{w|lahar|lahars}} in professional terminology) being modelled.<br />
<br />
Even more, this is not an isolated 'model volcano' but a vinegar-powered representation of a geological 'hot spot', such as with the islands of Hawaii, in which the spot moves with respect to the Earth's crust (or vice-versa) and generates a new volcano some way off. Despite this model being supported on a table, it appears that the 'project' extends some way beyond that and has somehow contrived further eruptions away from the table, the room and probably even the building.<br />
<br />
The 'project' seems to be turning into a very thorough model of a much larger geological process and destined to produce a ''very real'' volcanic winter. Where a magma-powered volcano could produce vast clouds of dust, preventing the sun's energy from warming the Earth, in this case it's the airborne salt (probably sodium acetate) from the chemical reaction that appears to be in danger of causing crop failure. There's no mention of the corresponding environmental effects of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide (and/or aqueous carbonic acid) necessarily released in proportion to the ejected salt (presumably itself not left in solution).<br />
<br />
=== Title Text ===<br />
In the title text the student expects extra credit for getting her model volcano added to the {{w|Decade Volcanoes}} list, a list maintained by {{w|International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior}} of the worlds most dangerous volcanoes (currently 16). It is either an absurd notion or a very troubling achievement that a science fair project could achieve the threatlevel posed by the likes of {{w|Mount Vesuvius}} (which destroyed ancient Pompei in italy), {{w|Mount Rainier}} (which could potentially destroy parts of Seattle) or {{w|Mauna Loa}} (which threatens all of Hawaii).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript}}<br />
<br />
Girl: My science project is a baking soda and vinegar volcano!<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Why do people make these? It isn't really even a science project. It doesn't teach anything about -<br />
''Volcano makes ''FOOM!''<br />
<br />
Girl: See how the baking soda and vinegar mix with mud and ice to form deadly flowing lahars?<br />
<br />
Girl: You can see the tiny cars trying to flee. Whoops! Too Slow<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Um. This is a bit Grim.<br />
<br />
Girl: (interrupts Ponytail) Learning!<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1611:_Baking_Soda_and_Vinegar&diff=1062551611: Baking Soda and Vinegar2015-12-02T11:30:23Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Explanation */ referenced mud-flow/Lahar</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1611<br />
| date = December 2, 2015<br />
| title = Baking Soda and Vinegar<br />
| image = baking_soda_and_vinegar.png<br />
| titletext = Sure, it may not meet science fair standards, but I want credit for getting my baking soda and vinegar mountain added to the Decade Volcanoes list.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|First go at an explanation, but from a transatlantic perspective...}}<br />
In popular fiction (and maybe in part in fact) the "Baking Soda And Vinegar" volcano is often a staple image of the science nerd at the science fair, unless all the science nerds are doing ''real'' imaginative science and the student(s) with the volcano exhibit are dragging out the old hackneyed stereotype. It may also be age-dependent, this being something that is relatively advanced science for the lower grades but rather a childish experiment in the hands of older students.<br />
<br />
As the adult is probably about to point out, the 'volcano' exhibit doesn't (usually) actually demonstrate anything about volcanic activity, it is just simple chemistry - such as you usually conduct in a simple test-tube - dressed up to look more impressive, often with dye or other additives to make the 'lava' look realistic for the model, but unrelated to the geology it is being represented as.<br />
<br />
''This'' volcano, however, seems to go beyond simple chemistry. The model replicates many of the dangers (aside from the pure lava) of a volcano, and appears to have been given scaled-down vehicles trying (and failing) to escape the dangers of the resultant mud-flows (a.k.a. {{w|lahar|lahars}} in professional terminology) being modelled.<br />
<br />
Even more, this is not an isolated 'model volcano' but a vinegar-powered representation of a geological 'hot spot', such as with the islands of Hawaii, in which the spot moves with respect to the Earth's crust (or vice-versa) and generates a new volcano some way off. Despite this model being supported on a table, it appears that the 'project' extends some way beyond that and has somehow contrived further eruptions away from the table, the room and probably even the building.<br />
<br />
The 'project' seems to be turning into a very thorough model of a much larger geological process and destined to produce a ''very real'' volcanic winter. Where a magma-powered volcano could produce vast clouds of dust, preventing the sun's energy from warming the Earth, in this case it's the airborne salt (probably sodium acetate) from the chemical reaction that appears to be in danger of causing crop failure. There's no mention of the corresponding environmental effects of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide (and/or aqueous carbonic acid) necessarily released in proportion to the ejected salt (presumably itself not left in solution).<br />
<br />
=== Title Text ===<br />
In the title text the student expects extra credit for getting her model volcano added to the {{w|Decade Volcanoes}} list, a list maintained by {{w|International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior}} of the worlds most dangerous volcanoes (currently 16). It is either an absurd notion or a very troubling achievement that a science fair project could achieve the threatlevel posed by the likes of {{w|Mount Vesuvius}} (which destoryed ancient Pompei in italy), {{w|Mount Rainier}} (which could potentially destroy parts of Seattle) or {{w|Mauna Loa}} (which threatens all of Hawaii).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript}}<br />
<br />
Girl: My science project is a baking soda and vinegar volcano!<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Why do people make these? It isn't really even a science project. It doesn't teach anything about -<br />
''Volcano makes ''FOOM!''<br />
<br />
Girl: See how the baking soda and vinegar mix with mud and ice to form deadly flowing lahars?<br />
<br />
Girl: You can see the tiny cars trying to flee. Whoops! Too Slow<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Um. This is a bit Grim.<br />
<br />
Girl: (interrupts Ponytail) Learning!<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1611:_Baking_Soda_and_Vinegar&diff=1062541611: Baking Soda and Vinegar2015-12-02T11:26:12Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Explanation */ expanded title-text reference by adding example volcanoes on the decade list.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1611<br />
| date = December 2, 2015<br />
| title = Baking Soda and Vinegar<br />
| image = baking_soda_and_vinegar.png<br />
| titletext = Sure, it may not meet science fair standards, but I want credit for getting my baking soda and vinegar mountain added to the Decade Volcanoes list.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|First go at an explanation, but from a transatlantic perspective...}}<br />
In popular fiction (and maybe in part in fact) the "Baking Soda And Vinegar" volcano is often a staple image of the science nerd at the science fair, unless all the science nerds are doing ''real'' imaginative science and the student(s) with the volcano exhibit are dragging out the old hackneyed stereotype. It may also be age-dependent, this being something that is relatively advanced science for the lower grades but rather a childish experiment in the hands of older students.<br />
<br />
As the adult is probably about to point out, the 'volcano' exhibit doesn't (usually) actually demonstrate anything about volcanic activity, it is just simple chemistry - such as you usually conduct in a simple test-tube - dressed up to look more impressive, often with dye or other additives to make the 'lava' look realistic for the model, but unrelated to the geology it is being represented as.<br />
<br />
''This'' volcano, however, seems to go beyond simple chemistry. The model replicates many of the dangers (aside from the pure lava) of a volcano, and appears to have been given scaled-down vehicles trying (and failing) to escape the dangers of the resultant mud-flows being modelled.<br />
<br />
Even more, this is not an isolated 'model volcano' but a vinegar-powered representation of a geological 'hot spot', such as with the islands of Hawaii, in which the spot moves with respect to the Earth's crust (or vice-versa) and generates a new volcano some way off. Despite this model being supported on a table, it appears that the 'project' extends some way beyond that and has somehow contrived further eruptions away from the table, the room and probably even the building.<br />
<br />
The 'project' seems to be turning into a very thorough model of a much larger geological process and destined to produce a ''very real'' volcanic winter. Where a magma-powered volcano could produce vast clouds of dust, preventing the sun's energy from warming the Earth, in this case it's the airborne salt (probably sodium acetate) from the chemical reaction that appears to be in danger of causing crop failure. There's no mention of the corresponding environmental effects of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide (and/or aqueous carbonic acid) necessarily released in proportion to the ejected salt (presumably itself not left in solution).<br />
<br />
=== Title Text ===<br />
In the title text the student expects extra credit for getting her model volcano added to the {{w|Decade Volcanoes}} list, a list maintained by {{w|International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior}} of the worlds most dangerous volcanoes (currently 16). It is either an absurd notion or a very troubling achievement that a science fair project could achieve the threatlevel posed by the likes of {{w|Mount Vesuvius}} (which destoryed ancient Pompei in italy), {{w|Mount Rainier}} (which could potentially destroy parts of Seattle) or {{w|Mauna Loa}} (which threatens all of Hawaii).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript}}<br />
<br />
Girl: My science project is a baking soda and vinegar volcano!<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Why do people make these? It isn't really even a science project. It doesn't teach anything about -<br />
''Volcano makes ''FOOM!''<br />
<br />
Girl: See how the baking soda and vinegar mix with mud and ice to form deadly flowing lahars?<br />
<br />
Girl: You can see the tiny cars trying to flee. Whoops! Too Slow<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Um. This is a bit Grim.<br />
<br />
Girl: (interrupts Ponytail) Learning!<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1611:_Baking_Soda_and_Vinegar&diff=1062531611: Baking Soda and Vinegar2015-12-02T11:18:28Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Explanation */ added title text clarification</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1611<br />
| date = December 2, 2015<br />
| title = Baking Soda and Vinegar<br />
| image = baking_soda_and_vinegar.png<br />
| titletext = Sure, it may not meet science fair standards, but I want credit for getting my baking soda and vinegar mountain added to the Decade Volcanoes list.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|First go at an explanation, but from a transatlantic perspective...}}<br />
In popular fiction (and maybe in part in fact) the "Baking Soda And Vinegar" volcano is often a staple image of the science nerd at the science fair, unless all the science nerds are doing ''real'' imaginative science and the student(s) with the volcano exhibit are dragging out the old hackneyed stereotype. It may also be age-dependent, this being something that is relatively advanced science for the lower grades but rather a childish experiment in the hands of older students.<br />
<br />
As the adult is probably about to point out, the 'volcano' exhibit doesn't (usually) actually demonstrate anything about volcanic activity, it is just simple chemistry - such as you usually conduct in a simple test-tube - dressed up to look more impressive, often with dye or other additives to make the 'lava' look realistic for the model, but unrelated to the geology it is being represented as.<br />
<br />
''This'' volcano, however, seems to go beyond simple chemistry. The model replicates many of the dangers (aside from the pure lava) of a volcano, and appears to have been given scaled-down vehicles trying (and failing) to escape the dangers of the resultant mud-flows being modelled.<br />
<br />
Even more, this is not an isolated 'model volcano' but a vinegar-powered representation of a geological 'hot spot', such as with the islands of Hawaii, in which the spot moves with respect to the Earth's crust (or vice-versa) and generates a new volcano some way off. Despite this model being supported on a table, it appears that the 'project' extends some way beyond that and has somehow contrived further eruptions away from the table, the room and probably even the building.<br />
<br />
The 'project' seems to be turning into a very thorough model of a much larger geological process and destined to produce a ''very real'' volcanic winter. Where a magma-powered volcano could produce vast clouds of dust, preventing the sun's energy from warming the Earth, in this case it's the airborne salt (probably sodium acetate) from the chemical reaction that appears to be in danger of causing crop failure. There's no mention of the corresponding environmental effects of the vast amounts of carbon dioxide (and/or aqueous carbonic acid) necessarily released in proportion to the ejected salt (presumably itself not left in solution).<br />
<br />
The Title text mentions the student expects extra credit for getting her model volcano added to the {{w|Decade Volcanoes}} list, a list maintained by {{w|International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior}} of the worlds most dangerous (to humans) volcanoes. An absurd notion for a science fair project.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript}}<br />
<br />
Girl: My science project is a baking soda and vinegar volcano!<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Why do people make these? It isn't really even a science project. It doesn't teach anything about -<br />
''Volcano makes ''FOOM!''<br />
<br />
Girl: See how the baking soda and vinegar mix with mud and ice to form deadly flowing lahars?<br />
<br />
Girl: You can see the tiny cars trying to flee. Whoops! Too Slow<br />
<br />
Ponytail: Um. This is a bit Grim.<br />
<br />
Girl: (interrupts Ponytail) Learning!<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1608:_Hoverboard&diff=1057371608: Hoverboard2015-11-25T13:25:30Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* East / Right */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1608<br />
| date = November 24, 2015<br />
| title = Hoverboard<br />
| image = hoverboard.png<br />
| titletext = Return to the play area<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Could use a little organization and/or grammar cleanup. It's possible not all of the game's secrets have been unearthed yet.}}<br />
The comic features a game made to celebrate the release of Randall's new book, "Thing Explainer". The game features [[Cueball]] on a hover board in an arena filled with coins, initially making it appear that the aim of the game is to simply collect all the coins. However, a seemingly intentional bug in the game (as implied by its "Hoverboard" title) allows the player to jump even in midair and keep jumping forever without needing to land (as would be usual for platforming games like these). This allows the character to go out of bounds of the "Play Area" (prompting multiple warnings insisting the player returns to said "Play Area"). Exiting this area reveals that the "small game" is in fact a vast hidden world similar in style to a previous comic [[1110: Click and Drag]], which can be explored by navigating through various obstacles and hidden areas.<br />
<br />
There are 17 coins in the "Play Area" and a grand total of 169 in the entire game.<br />
<br />
Escaping from the starting area is quite simple; the character simply has to navigate through one of the multiple holes in the area and them simply jump over the wall on the left or the right of the starting area. This can be done by repeatedly tapping the jump key. The player can then explore. The game is physically bounded in the left and the right direction, but is technically unbounded upwards and downwards, however, past a certain point there appears to be nothing interesting in the up or down direction. It could be possible that some unexplored hole leads deeper into the map than has been found so far, it is also possible that jumping for a considerable amount of time would allow the player to reach some additional content above the map.<br />
<br />
As previously noted, the comic bears considerable resemblance to [[1110: Click and Drag]]. The comic is made in much the same way, with 'drawn' images "glued" together to form a large "map", with the illusion of infinite bounds made possible through space saving techniques where blank tiles are not stored and are instead painted white. The boundary between blank squares and 'drawn' squares is made clear as any white space in the normal images has a very slight grey tint. Thus, seams between images and blank spaces can be discerned.<br />
<br />
The tiles for the map are stored as simple PNG files in the naming scheme: X:Y+s.png. An example can be seen here: http://xkcd.com/1608/1013:-1096+s.png Each file is 513x513 pixels in size, one pixel is reserved as overlap to ensure seamless joining of images.<br />
So far, through experimentation, tiles in the range 928 to 1108 X and -1112 to -928 Y have been discovered, internally, the position of the player is divided by 512 and rounded down to give the position of the tile.<br />
<br />
The game was made by [http://chromakode.com Max Goodman] who has previously worked on [[1416: Pixels]]. The source code for the game can be found [https://xkcd.com/1608/tigl.js here].<br />
<br />
===Areas===<br />
There are many different areas beyond the initial starting area, exploration has found so far:<br />
<br />
Notable features include a number of large ships in the sky, with various interiors which can be entered from several places. To find them, follow the strings which several characters are holding near the first ground area. <br />
<br />
Starting area - (x: 512187, y: -549668)<br />
<br />
==== West / Left ====<br />
* Washington Monument - (x: 509864, y: -549746)<br />
** Secret entrance into the inside of the Monument, right side, about halfway up - (x: 509815, y: -552614)<br />
* Girl in a hamster ball - (x: 505790, y: -549905)<br />
* Yet [[1504|another dig]] at the Lion King and the lands touched by shadow - (x: 504998, y: -550676)<br />
* An X-Wing at a gas station - (x: 503253, y: -551129)<br />
** Go straight up from the cockpit for a coin<br />
* A well with a girl at the bottom of it, claiming to not be a ghost - (x: 501998, y: -551030)<br />
* Landing re-entry capsule with parachutes - (x: 500040, y: -552369)<br />
* Local Mom discovering This One Weird Bug - (x: 497994, y: -551334)<br />
* Volcano -<br />
** With suicidal quadcopters taking footage of it - (x: 486640, y: -554838)<br />
* Lava pools -<br />
* A dark grey ocean that isn't noticeable until you fall in<br />
* LOTR Eagles -<br />
* Elon Musk's Volcano Lair - (x: 484167, y: -549462)<br />
** entrance hidden under volcano lava, dive down at Artex, following the wall with ze goggles to find it - (x: 483791, y: -551292)<br />
* Artex + Gandalf - (x: 483715, y: -554354)<br />
* <br />
* Giant spaceship / Floating rock island in the sky (x: 507163, y: -567537)<br />
* Hat underground<br />
* A hole which traps(?) the player unless noclip mode is used<br />
<br />
==== East / Right ====<br />
* Wedding - (x: 531558, y: -549386)<br />
* Giant bird nest -<br />
* Desert -<br />
* Ocean Yelper (giving only 2/5 stars) - x: 522015, y: -549015<br />
* Graveyard - (x: 534140, y: -549546)<br />
* Talking Rogue Wave - (x: 523460, y: -549013)<br />
* People holding anchor lines to the Tantive IV (Star Wars: A New Hope), being attacked by an Imperial Star Destroyer - (the people: x: 518954, y: -549056)<br />
* Imperial Star Destroyer<br />
** Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems (inside ship, go down a shaft from the surface.)<br />
** Emperor Palpatine Park and Gazebo - (x: 546819, y: -559584)<br />
** Dancers (possibly [[162|spinning counter-clockwise]]) dancing to piano music<br />
** Octopus guarding two coins - (x: 531646, y: -559663)<br />
** sign saying "Caution GlitchFloor" (falling straight down through it nets you a coin someway down) - (x: 547898, y: -556784)<br />
* Blackhat's hat on a stick - (x: 549997, y: -549777)<br />
* Remains of [[wikipedia:Ozymandias]]' Statue - (x: 535927, y: -549666)<br />
* Huge pyramid - (x: 538167, y: -550906)<br />
<br />
=== Maps ===<br />
* [http://codepen.io/KyleDavidE/full/605dc87b614ff6b2bd716f4c6f640203/ Quickly hacked overview] - courtesy of [https://www.reddit.com/user/kyledavide kyledavide] on [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxbyn86 reddit]. (Note: currently (2015-11-25) not working with HTTPS-everywhere. Kyle mentioned he would fix this.<br />
* [https://i.imgur.com/uYryxss.png png-map] - courtesy of [https://www.reddit.com/user/luke_in_the_sky luke_in_the_sky] on the same reddit [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxbyn86 thread]<br />
<br />
===Controls===<br />
The controls are as follows:<br />
<br />
* '''Go Left''' - Left arrow key, a or h<br />
* '''Go Right''' - Right arrow key, d or l<br />
* '''Go Up (jump or hover)''' - Up arrow key, w, or k<br />
* '''Go Down (if gravity disabled)''' - Down arrow key, s, or j<br />
<br />
This control scheme covers the three commonly used directional key sets: WASD a set of keys commonly used by modern games; HJKL a set of movement keys used by vi and applications which attempt to mimic vi key controls (vim); and the arrow keys, the most generic set of keys which is usually accepted by most applications which take movement as input, these were commonly used in older games.<br />
<br />
On a tablet (e.g. iPad) changing the orientation of the tablet will control the left and right motion, while tapping the image produced jumps.<br />
<br />
===Cheats and Exploits===<br />
Aside from the obvious ability to move out of bounds in the game, there are some more obscure hidden features which can't be enabled through normal gameplay, the ones found so far are as follows:<br />
<br />
'''Modes''' are activated by opening the Javascript Console (F12 [Or Command-Alt-I in most browsers under Mac OS X] to open Developer Tools, then Console tab) and writing corresponding commands:<br />
<br />
* '''Gandalf Mode: ''' ''window.i.am.gandalf = true'' - jumps and runs further<br />
* '''Speedhack: ''' ''explorer.opts.speed= *Value*'' - Speed hacking, with 1 = normal speed<br />
* '''Jump Hack: ''' '' explorer.opts.jumpForce= -*Value*'' - Jump hacking, with -1 = normal jump (positive values cause the hoverboard guy to move down when jumping)<br />
* '''Mewtwo mode: ''' ''window.mewtwo = true'' - disables gravity<br />
* '''Noclip mode: ''' ''window.noclip = true'' - player is able to move around the map without collision. Combine with Gandalf and Mewtwo modes for free easy map traversal.<br />
* '''Goggles mode: ''' ''window.ze.goggles()'' - displays a small window showing area around the player in a pixelated manner. The goggles indicate collision boundaries (where the player touches the world) in cyan lines. Black pixels that are passable (such as other characters or text) will be highlighted red (allowing secret passages to be discovered).<br />
* '''Position Tracking: ''' ''window.explorer.pos'' - Returns the player location to the console. Can be used to track position and test to ensure you are still moving. Must be re-entered to compare positioning.<br />
* '''Position Setting: ''' ''window.explorer.pos.x = *Value* or window.explorer.pos.y = *Value*'' - Can be used to manually set a position within the world. The start is at x: 512106, y: -549612. The left terrain bound is at x: 475210, y: -553711. The right terrain bound is at x: 567281, y: -549712. Mewtwo and Noclip modes are a must for exploring in this way.<br />
* '''All the above: ''' ''window.explorer.opts'' - Contains all the game's parameters. You can directly mess with ''gravity'', collision (''disableCollision''), jump force (''jumpForce'') and speed (''maxSpeed''), among others. Run ''Object.keys(window.explorer.opts)'' to list all available parameters you can tweak.<br />
* '''List all coins: ''' ''window.explorer.objects'' - Array containing the position of the 169 coins of the game.<br />
* '''Disable tilt input: ''' ''getEventListeners(window)['deviceorientation'][0].remove()'' - on Macs with motion sensor, disables tilt input which causes problems controlling the avatar<br />
<br />
'''Getting All Coins: ''' To instantly get all coins, input the below into the console window. Does not use standard formatting of [i] to avoid conflicts with window.i.am.gandalf<br />
<br />
for (var T = 0; T < explorer.objects.length; T++) {<br />
explorer.objects[T].got = true;<br />
}<br />
<br />
To teleport to the next coin every time you press the left or right arrow:<br />
<br />
var T = 0;<br />
document.onkeydown = function(event){<br />
if (event.keyCode == 37) { T = T-1 }<br />
else if (event.keyCode == 39) { T = T+1 }<br />
else { return }<br />
T = T % explorer.objects.length;<br />
var coin = explorer.objects[T];<br />
explorer.pos.x = coin.x1; explorer.pos.y = coin.y1;<br />
}<br />
<br />
For a quick tour of all the coins:<br />
<br />
var delayInMilliseconds = 1000; // 1 second delay between each teleport. feel free to change this.<br />
var index = 0;<br />
explorer.objects.forEach(function(x){<br />
setTimeout(function(){<br />
explorer.pos.x = x.x1;<br />
explorer.pos.y = x.y1;<br />
x.got = true;<br />
explorer.frame(); // forces a redraw<br />
},<br />
(index + 1) * delayInMilliseconds);<br />
index++;<br />
});<br />
<br />
To see a list of coin coordinates you have not yet collected:<br />
<br />
var L = 0;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (I.got) {<br />
L++; <br />
} else {<br />
console.log(I.x1.toString() + ", " + I.y1.toString());<br />
}<br />
}<br />
console.log("You've found " + L.toString() + " of 169 coins");<br />
<br />
To display the distance and direction to the closest coin:<br />
<br />
function distance(x1, y1, x2, y2) {<br />
var dx = x1 - x2;<br />
var dy = y1 - y2;<br />
return Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);<br />
}<br />
<br />
function renderRadar() {<br />
var mindist = 10000000000;<br />
var closest;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (!I.got) {<br />
var dist = distance(explorer.pos.x, explorer.pos.y, I.x1, I.y1);<br />
if (dist < mindist) {<br />
mindist = dist;<br />
closest = I;<br />
}<br />
}<br />
}<br />
var indicator = "";<br />
if (closest.x1 < explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "left";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.x1 > explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "right";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 < explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " up";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 > explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " down";<br />
}<br />
document.getElementById("radar").innerHTML = "Distance: " + mindist.toFixed(1).toString() + "&lt;br/>" + indicator;<br />
}<br />
<br />
var d = document.createElement("div");<br />
d.id = "radar";<br />
d.style.position = "fixed";<br />
d.style.left = "0px";<br />
d.style.top = "0px";<br />
d.style.width = "150px";<br />
d.style.height = "35px";<br />
d.style.border = "1px solid red";<br />
d.style.zIndex = "2";<br />
d.style.backgroundColor = "green";<br />
d.style.color = "#8f8";<br />
document.body.appendChild(d);<br />
<br />
setInterval(renderRadar, 1000);<br />
<br />
To display your current coordinates:<br />
<br />
function renderRadar2() {<br />
document.getElementById("radar2").innerHTML = "x: " + explorer.pos.x.toFixed(1).toString() + "&lt;br>y: " + explorer.pos.y.toFixed(1).toString()<br />
}<br />
<br />
var d = document.createElement("div")<br />
d.id = "radar2"<br />
d.style.position = "fixed"<br />
d.style.left = "150px"<br />
d.style.top = "0px"<br />
d.style.width = "150px"<br />
d.style.height = "35px"<br />
d.style.border = "1px solid red"<br />
d.style.zIndex = "2"<br />
d.style.backgroundColor = "green"<br />
d.style.color = "#8f8"<br />
document.body.appendChild(d)<br />
<br />
setInterval(renderRadar2, 1000)<br />
<br />
===Functionality===<br />
By observing page code while playing, the game grabs and displays images based on location, and subsequently clears all non-visible images. The game uses what seems to be a position syntax to retrieve the intended images live, and returns an error if such an image does not exist, such as a blank area. This technically means things could be added to the world and updated live. If the player is moving sufficiently fast or if the internet connection is slow, this means that the player can get stuck in a black area that does not load in time.<br />
<br />
This also means that the game does not have coded top or bottom limits, so any attempt to find the ''ceiling'' of the game will be futile unless the game is tweaked. The game does however have side limits.<br />
<br />
When you deposit a certain number of coins, you will get one of the following messages:<br />
* 0 coins : You got 0 coins in (n) seconds/ You successfully avoided all the coins. <br />
* 1 coin : You got a single coin in (n) seconds/ It's a start.<br />
* 2-4 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Not bad!<br />
* 5-9 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Terrific!<br />
* 17 coins : You got 17 coins in (n) seconds/ You found all the coins! Great job!<br />
* 42 coins : You got 42 coins in (n) seconds/ No answers here.<br />
* 169 coins : You got 169 coins in (n) seconds/ Are you Gandalf?<br />
* All others: You got (n) coins in (n) seconds<br />
<br />
Opening the console will display the text: what? hoverboard not enough for you!? in the log. Activating goggles mode will cause the text 'B-)' to appear in the log.<br />
<br />
Leaving the play area will cause the red text 'RETURN TO THE PLAY AREA' to rapidly blink 3 times (150 msec duration), followed by a pause, and this will repeat 5 times for a total of 15 blinks. This will also reoccur if the player passes through the play area on their way back from exploring one side.<br />
<br />
===Explanations of jokes===<br />
{{incomplete|Insert table here}}<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
* The alt text is only visible on the mobile version of the site, or when leaving the starting area. Further, when leaving the starting area, it shows different than normal alt text.<br />
* If the focus switches from the game to the page, the cueball can freeze in midair. The same thing can happen if the window border overlaps the play area.<br />
* The Washington monument as an invisible floor next to the visible bricks.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete|Something similar to 1110: [[Click and Drag]]}}<br />
The game features Cueball on a hoverboard in a simple map. On the map are coins which Cueball has to collect.<br />
It appears Cueball can jump multiple times without needing to land, this means that Cueball is able to escape the designated "Play Area".<br />
This prompts a warning which soon disappears allowing Cueball to discover the world.<br />
<br />
[THIS ONLY COVERS THE PERMANENT TEXT, NOT THE DIFFERENT WIN STATES]<br /> <br />
MY NEW BOOK<br /> <br />
''THE THINGS EXPLAINER'',<br /> <br />
COMES OUT TODAY!<br /> <br />
<br />
TO CELEBRATE, HERE'S<br /> <br />
A SMALL GAME.<br /> <br />
<br />
[TO THE SIDE, BELOW AN ARROW]<br /> <br />
DEPOSIT COINS HERE<br /> <br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1608:_Hoverboard&diff=1057361608: Hoverboard2015-11-25T13:20:16Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Areas */ more areas, sectioned-off maps</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1608<br />
| date = November 24, 2015<br />
| title = Hoverboard<br />
| image = hoverboard.png<br />
| titletext = Return to the play area<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Could use a little organization and/or grammar cleanup. It's possible not all of the game's secrets have been unearthed yet.}}<br />
The comic features a game made to celebrate the release of Randall's new book, "Thing Explainer". The game features [[Cueball]] on a hover board in an arena filled with coins, initially making it appear that the aim of the game is to simply collect all the coins. However, a seemingly intentional bug in the game (as implied by its "Hoverboard" title) allows the player to jump even in midair and keep jumping forever without needing to land (as would be usual for platforming games like these). This allows the character to go out of bounds of the "Play Area" (prompting multiple warnings insisting the player returns to said "Play Area"). Exiting this area reveals that the "small game" is in fact a vast hidden world similar in style to a previous comic [[1110: Click and Drag]], which can be explored by navigating through various obstacles and hidden areas.<br />
<br />
There are 17 coins in the "Play Area" and a grand total of 169 in the entire game.<br />
<br />
Escaping from the starting area is quite simple; the character simply has to navigate through one of the multiple holes in the area and them simply jump over the wall on the left or the right of the starting area. This can be done by repeatedly tapping the jump key. The player can then explore. The game is physically bounded in the left and the right direction, but is technically unbounded upwards and downwards, however, past a certain point there appears to be nothing interesting in the up or down direction. It could be possible that some unexplored hole leads deeper into the map than has been found so far, it is also possible that jumping for a considerable amount of time would allow the player to reach some additional content above the map.<br />
<br />
As previously noted, the comic bears considerable resemblance to [[1110: Click and Drag]]. The comic is made in much the same way, with 'drawn' images "glued" together to form a large "map", with the illusion of infinite bounds made possible through space saving techniques where blank tiles are not stored and are instead painted white. The boundary between blank squares and 'drawn' squares is made clear as any white space in the normal images has a very slight grey tint. Thus, seams between images and blank spaces can be discerned.<br />
<br />
The tiles for the map are stored as simple PNG files in the naming scheme: X:Y+s.png. An example can be seen here: http://xkcd.com/1608/1013:-1096+s.png Each file is 513x513 pixels in size, one pixel is reserved as overlap to ensure seamless joining of images.<br />
So far, through experimentation, tiles in the range 928 to 1108 X and -1112 to -928 Y have been discovered, internally, the position of the player is divided by 512 and rounded down to give the position of the tile.<br />
<br />
The game was made by [http://chromakode.com Max Goodman] who has previously worked on [[1416: Pixels]]. The source code for the game can be found [https://xkcd.com/1608/tigl.js here].<br />
<br />
===Areas===<br />
There are many different areas beyond the initial starting area, exploration has found so far:<br />
<br />
Notable features include a number of large ships in the sky, with various interiors which can be entered from several places. To find them, follow the strings which several characters are holding near the first ground area. <br />
<br />
Starting area - (x: 512187, y: -549668)<br />
<br />
==== West / Left ====<br />
* Washington Monument - (x: 509864, y: -549746)<br />
** Secret entrance into the inside of the Monument, right side, about halfway up - (x: 509815, y: -552614)<br />
* Girl in a hamster ball - (x: 505790, y: -549905)<br />
* Yet [[1504|another dig]] at the Lion King and the lands touched by shadow - (x: 504998, y: -550676)<br />
* An X-Wing at a gas station - (x: 503253, y: -551129)<br />
** Go straight up from the cockpit for a coin<br />
* A well with a girl at the bottom of it, claiming to not be a ghost - (x: 501998, y: -551030)<br />
* Landing re-entry capsule with parachutes - (x: 500040, y: -552369)<br />
* Local Mom discovering This One Weird Bug - (x: 497994, y: -551334)<br />
* Volcano -<br />
** With suicidal quadcopters taking footage of it - (x: 486640, y: -554838)<br />
* Lava pools -<br />
* A dark grey ocean that isn't noticeable until you fall in<br />
* LOTR Eagles -<br />
* Elon Musk's Volcano Lair - (x: 484167, y: -549462)<br />
** entrance hidden under volcano lava, dive down at Artex, following the wall with ze goggles to find it - (x: 483791, y: -551292)<br />
* Artex + Gandalf - (x: 483715, y: -554354)<br />
* <br />
* Giant spaceship / Floating rock island in the sky (x: 507163, y: -567537)<br />
* Hat underground<br />
* A hole which traps(?) the player unless noclip mode is used<br />
<br />
==== East / Right ====<br />
* Wedding - (x: 531558, y: -549386)<br />
* Giant bird nest -<br />
* Desert -<br />
* Ocean Yelper -<br />
* Graveyard -<br />
* Talking Rogue Wave - (x: 523460, y: -549013)<br />
* People holding anchor lines to the Tantive IV (Star Wars: A New Hope), being attacked by an Imperial Star Destroyer - (the people: x: 518954, y: -549056)<br />
* Imperial Star Destroyer<br />
** Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems (inside ship, go down a shaft from the surface.)<br />
** Emperor Palpatine Park and Gazebo - (x: 546819, y: -559584)<br />
** Dancers (possibly [[162|spinning counter-clockwise]]) dancing to piano music<br />
** Octopus guarding two coins - (x: 531646, y: -559663)<br />
** sign saying "Caution GlitchFloor" (falling straight down through it nets you a coin someway down) - (x: 547898, y: -556784)<br />
* Blackhat's hat on a stick - (x: 549997, y: -549777)<br />
* Remains of [[wikipedia:Ozymandias]]' Statue - (x: 535927, y: -549666)<br />
* Huge pyramid - (x: 538167, y: -550906)<br />
<br />
=== Maps ===<br />
* [http://codepen.io/KyleDavidE/full/605dc87b614ff6b2bd716f4c6f640203/ Quickly hacked overview] - courtesy of [https://www.reddit.com/user/kyledavide kyledavide] on [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxbyn86 reddit]. (Note: currently (2015-11-25) not working with HTTPS-everywhere. Kyle mentioned he would fix this.<br />
* [https://i.imgur.com/uYryxss.png png-map] - courtesy of [https://www.reddit.com/user/luke_in_the_sky luke_in_the_sky] on the same reddit [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxbyn86 thread]<br />
<br />
===Controls===<br />
The controls are as follows:<br />
<br />
* '''Go Left''' - Left arrow key, a or h<br />
* '''Go Right''' - Right arrow key, d or l<br />
* '''Go Up (jump or hover)''' - Up arrow key, w, or k<br />
* '''Go Down (if gravity disabled)''' - Down arrow key, s, or j<br />
<br />
This control scheme covers the three commonly used directional key sets: WASD a set of keys commonly used by modern games; HJKL a set of movement keys used by vi and applications which attempt to mimic vi key controls (vim); and the arrow keys, the most generic set of keys which is usually accepted by most applications which take movement as input, these were commonly used in older games.<br />
<br />
On a tablet (e.g. iPad) changing the orientation of the tablet will control the left and right motion, while tapping the image produced jumps.<br />
<br />
===Cheats and Exploits===<br />
Aside from the obvious ability to move out of bounds in the game, there are some more obscure hidden features which can't be enabled through normal gameplay, the ones found so far are as follows:<br />
<br />
'''Modes''' are activated by opening the Javascript Console (F12 [Or Command-Alt-I in most browsers under Mac OS X] to open Developer Tools, then Console tab) and writing corresponding commands:<br />
<br />
* '''Gandalf Mode: ''' ''window.i.am.gandalf = true'' - jumps and runs further<br />
* '''Speedhack: ''' ''explorer.opts.speed= *Value*'' - Speed hacking, with 1 = normal speed<br />
* '''Jump Hack: ''' '' explorer.opts.jumpForce= -*Value*'' - Jump hacking, with -1 = normal jump (positive values cause the hoverboard guy to move down when jumping)<br />
* '''Mewtwo mode: ''' ''window.mewtwo = true'' - disables gravity<br />
* '''Noclip mode: ''' ''window.noclip = true'' - player is able to move around the map without collision. Combine with Gandalf and Mewtwo modes for free easy map traversal.<br />
* '''Goggles mode: ''' ''window.ze.goggles()'' - displays a small window showing area around the player in a pixelated manner. The goggles indicate collision boundaries (where the player touches the world) in cyan lines. Black pixels that are passable (such as other characters or text) will be highlighted red (allowing secret passages to be discovered).<br />
* '''Position Tracking: ''' ''window.explorer.pos'' - Returns the player location to the console. Can be used to track position and test to ensure you are still moving. Must be re-entered to compare positioning.<br />
* '''Position Setting: ''' ''window.explorer.pos.x = *Value* or window.explorer.pos.y = *Value*'' - Can be used to manually set a position within the world. The start is at x: 512106, y: -549612. The left terrain bound is at x: 475210, y: -553711. The right terrain bound is at x: 567281, y: -549712. Mewtwo and Noclip modes are a must for exploring in this way.<br />
* '''All the above: ''' ''window.explorer.opts'' - Contains all the game's parameters. You can directly mess with ''gravity'', collision (''disableCollision''), jump force (''jumpForce'') and speed (''maxSpeed''), among others. Run ''Object.keys(window.explorer.opts)'' to list all available parameters you can tweak.<br />
* '''List all coins: ''' ''window.explorer.objects'' - Array containing the position of the 169 coins of the game.<br />
* '''Disable tilt input: ''' ''getEventListeners(window)['deviceorientation'][0].remove()'' - on Macs with motion sensor, disables tilt input which causes problems controlling the avatar<br />
<br />
'''Getting All Coins: ''' To instantly get all coins, input the below into the console window. Does not use standard formatting of [i] to avoid conflicts with window.i.am.gandalf<br />
<br />
for (var T = 0; T < explorer.objects.length; T++) {<br />
explorer.objects[T].got = true;<br />
}<br />
<br />
To teleport to the next coin every time you press the left or right arrow:<br />
<br />
var T = 0;<br />
document.onkeydown = function(event){<br />
if (event.keyCode == 37) { T = T-1 }<br />
else if (event.keyCode == 39) { T = T+1 }<br />
else { return }<br />
T = T % explorer.objects.length;<br />
var coin = explorer.objects[T];<br />
explorer.pos.x = coin.x1; explorer.pos.y = coin.y1;<br />
}<br />
<br />
For a quick tour of all the coins:<br />
<br />
var delayInMilliseconds = 1000; // 1 second delay between each teleport. feel free to change this.<br />
var index = 0;<br />
explorer.objects.forEach(function(x){<br />
setTimeout(function(){<br />
explorer.pos.x = x.x1;<br />
explorer.pos.y = x.y1;<br />
x.got = true;<br />
explorer.frame(); // forces a redraw<br />
},<br />
(index + 1) * delayInMilliseconds);<br />
index++;<br />
});<br />
<br />
To see a list of coin coordinates you have not yet collected:<br />
<br />
var L = 0;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (I.got) {<br />
L++; <br />
} else {<br />
console.log(I.x1.toString() + ", " + I.y1.toString());<br />
}<br />
}<br />
console.log("You've found " + L.toString() + " of 169 coins");<br />
<br />
To display the distance and direction to the closest coin:<br />
<br />
function distance(x1, y1, x2, y2) {<br />
var dx = x1 - x2;<br />
var dy = y1 - y2;<br />
return Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);<br />
}<br />
<br />
function renderRadar() {<br />
var mindist = 10000000000;<br />
var closest;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (!I.got) {<br />
var dist = distance(explorer.pos.x, explorer.pos.y, I.x1, I.y1);<br />
if (dist < mindist) {<br />
mindist = dist;<br />
closest = I;<br />
}<br />
}<br />
}<br />
var indicator = "";<br />
if (closest.x1 < explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "left";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.x1 > explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "right";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 < explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " up";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 > explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " down";<br />
}<br />
document.getElementById("radar").innerHTML = "Distance: " + mindist.toFixed(1).toString() + "&lt;br/>" + indicator;<br />
}<br />
<br />
var d = document.createElement("div");<br />
d.id = "radar";<br />
d.style.position = "fixed";<br />
d.style.left = "0px";<br />
d.style.top = "0px";<br />
d.style.width = "150px";<br />
d.style.height = "35px";<br />
d.style.border = "1px solid red";<br />
d.style.zIndex = "2";<br />
d.style.backgroundColor = "green";<br />
d.style.color = "#8f8";<br />
document.body.appendChild(d);<br />
<br />
setInterval(renderRadar, 1000);<br />
<br />
To display your current coordinates:<br />
<br />
function renderRadar2() {<br />
document.getElementById("radar2").innerHTML = "x: " + explorer.pos.x.toFixed(1).toString() + "&lt;br>y: " + explorer.pos.y.toFixed(1).toString()<br />
}<br />
<br />
var d = document.createElement("div")<br />
d.id = "radar2"<br />
d.style.position = "fixed"<br />
d.style.left = "150px"<br />
d.style.top = "0px"<br />
d.style.width = "150px"<br />
d.style.height = "35px"<br />
d.style.border = "1px solid red"<br />
d.style.zIndex = "2"<br />
d.style.backgroundColor = "green"<br />
d.style.color = "#8f8"<br />
document.body.appendChild(d)<br />
<br />
setInterval(renderRadar2, 1000)<br />
<br />
===Functionality===<br />
By observing page code while playing, the game grabs and displays images based on location, and subsequently clears all non-visible images. The game uses what seems to be a position syntax to retrieve the intended images live, and returns an error if such an image does not exist, such as a blank area. This technically means things could be added to the world and updated live. If the player is moving sufficiently fast or if the internet connection is slow, this means that the player can get stuck in a black area that does not load in time.<br />
<br />
This also means that the game does not have coded top or bottom limits, so any attempt to find the ''ceiling'' of the game will be futile unless the game is tweaked. The game does however have side limits.<br />
<br />
When you deposit a certain number of coins, you will get one of the following messages:<br />
* 0 coins : You got 0 coins in (n) seconds/ You successfully avoided all the coins. <br />
* 1 coin : You got a single coin in (n) seconds/ It's a start.<br />
* 2-4 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Not bad!<br />
* 5-9 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Terrific!<br />
* 17 coins : You got 17 coins in (n) seconds/ You found all the coins! Great job!<br />
* 42 coins : You got 42 coins in (n) seconds/ No answers here.<br />
* 169 coins : You got 169 coins in (n) seconds/ Are you Gandalf?<br />
* All others: You got (n) coins in (n) seconds<br />
<br />
Opening the console will display the text: what? hoverboard not enough for you!? in the log. Activating goggles mode will cause the text 'B-)' to appear in the log.<br />
<br />
Leaving the play area will cause the red text 'RETURN TO THE PLAY AREA' to rapidly blink 3 times (150 msec duration), followed by a pause, and this will repeat 5 times for a total of 15 blinks. This will also reoccur if the player passes through the play area on their way back from exploring one side.<br />
<br />
===Explanations of jokes===<br />
{{incomplete|Insert table here}}<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
* The alt text is only visible on the mobile version of the site, or when leaving the starting area. Further, when leaving the starting area, it shows different than normal alt text.<br />
* If the focus switches from the game to the page, the cueball can freeze in midair. The same thing can happen if the window border overlaps the play area.<br />
* The Washington monument as an invisible floor next to the visible bricks.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete|Something similar to 1110: [[Click and Drag]]}}<br />
The game features Cueball on a hoverboard in a simple map. On the map are coins which Cueball has to collect.<br />
It appears Cueball can jump multiple times without needing to land, this means that Cueball is able to escape the designated "Play Area".<br />
This prompts a warning which soon disappears allowing Cueball to discover the world.<br />
<br />
[THIS ONLY COVERS THE PERMANENT TEXT, NOT THE DIFFERENT WIN STATES]<br /> <br />
MY NEW BOOK<br /> <br />
''THE THINGS EXPLAINER'',<br /> <br />
COMES OUT TODAY!<br /> <br />
<br />
TO CELEBRATE, HERE'S<br /> <br />
A SMALL GAME.<br /> <br />
<br />
[TO THE SIDE, BELOW AN ARROW]<br /> <br />
DEPOSIT COINS HERE<br /> <br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1608:_Hoverboard&diff=1057341608: Hoverboard2015-11-25T13:10:54Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Areas */ added even more coordinates, created some hierarchy</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1608<br />
| date = November 24, 2015<br />
| title = Hoverboard<br />
| image = hoverboard.png<br />
| titletext = Return to the play area<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Could use a little organization and/or grammar cleanup. It's possible not all of the game's secrets have been unearthed yet.}}<br />
The comic features a game made to celebrate the release of Randall's new book, "Thing Explainer". The game features [[Cueball]] on a hover board in an arena filled with coins, initially making it appear that the aim of the game is to simply collect all the coins. However, a seemingly intentional bug in the game (as implied by its "Hoverboard" title) allows the player to jump even in midair and keep jumping forever without needing to land (as would be usual for platforming games like these). This allows the character to go out of bounds of the "Play Area" (prompting multiple warnings insisting the player returns to said "Play Area"). Exiting this area reveals that the "small game" is in fact a vast hidden world similar in style to a previous comic [[1110: Click and Drag]], which can be explored by navigating through various obstacles and hidden areas.<br />
<br />
There are 17 coins in the "Play Area" and a grand total of 169 in the entire game.<br />
<br />
Escaping from the starting area is quite simple; the character simply has to navigate through one of the multiple holes in the area and them simply jump over the wall on the left or the right of the starting area. This can be done by repeatedly tapping the jump key. The player can then explore. The game is physically bounded in the left and the right direction, but is technically unbounded upwards and downwards, however, past a certain point there appears to be nothing interesting in the up or down direction. It could be possible that some unexplored hole leads deeper into the map than has been found so far, it is also possible that jumping for a considerable amount of time would allow the player to reach some additional content above the map.<br />
<br />
As previously noted, the comic bears considerable resemblance to [[1110: Click and Drag]]. The comic is made in much the same way, with 'drawn' images "glued" together to form a large "map", with the illusion of infinite bounds made possible through space saving techniques where blank tiles are not stored and are instead painted white. The boundary between blank squares and 'drawn' squares is made clear as any white space in the normal images has a very slight grey tint. Thus, seams between images and blank spaces can be discerned.<br />
<br />
The tiles for the map are stored as simple PNG files in the naming scheme: X:Y+s.png. An example can be seen here: http://xkcd.com/1608/1013:-1096+s.png Each file is 513x513 pixels in size, one pixel is reserved as overlap to ensure seamless joining of images.<br />
So far, through experimentation, tiles in the range 928 to 1108 X and -1112 to -928 Y have been discovered, internally, the position of the player is divided by 512 and rounded down to give the position of the tile.<br />
<br />
The game was made by [http://chromakode.com Max Goodman] who has previously worked on [[1416: Pixels]]. The source code for the game can be found [https://xkcd.com/1608/tigl.js here].<br />
<br />
===Areas===<br />
There are many different areas beyond the initial starting area, exploration has found so far:<br />
<br />
Notable features include a number of large ships in the sky, with various interiors which can be entered from several places. To find them, follow the strings which several characters are holding near the first ground area. <br />
<br />
Starting area - (x: 512187, y: -549668)<br />
<br />
West / Left:<br />
* Washington Monument - (x: 509864, y: -549746)<br />
** Secret entrance into the inside of the Monument, right side, about halfway up - (x: 509815, y: -552614)<br />
* Girl in a hamster ball - (x: 505790, y: -549905)<br />
* Yet [[1504|another dig]] at the Lion King and the lands touched by shadow - (x: 504998, y: -550676)<br />
* An X-Wing at a gas station - (x: 503253, y: -551129)<br />
** Go straight up from the cockpit for a coin<br />
* A well with a girl at the bottom of it, claiming to not be a ghost - (x: 501998, y: -551030)<br />
* Landing re-entry capsule with parachutes - (x: 500040, y: -552369)<br />
* Local Mom discovering This One Weird Bug - (x: 497994, y: -551334)<br />
* Volcano -<br />
** With suicidal quadcopters taking footage of it - (x: 486640, y: -554838)<br />
* Lava pools -<br />
* A dark grey ocean that isn't noticeable until you fall in<br />
* LOTR Eagles -<br />
* Elon Musk's Volcano Lair - (x: 484167, y: -549462)<br />
** entrance hidden under volcano lava, dive down at Artex, following the wall with ze goggles to find it - (x: 483791, y: -551292)<br />
* Artex + Gandalf - (x: 483715, y: -554354)<br />
* <br />
* Giant spaceship / Floating rock island in the sky (x: 507163, y: -567537)<br />
* Hat underground<br />
* A hole which traps(?) the player unless noclip mode is used<br />
<br />
East / Right:<br />
* Wedding - (x: 531558, y: -549386)<br />
* Giant bird nest -<br />
* Desert -<br />
* Ocean Yelper -<br />
* Graveyard -<br />
* Talking Rogue Wave - (x: 523460, y: -549013)<br />
* People holding anchor lines to the Tantive IV (Star Wars: A New Hope), being attacked by an Imperial Star Destroyer - (the people: x: 518954, y: -549056)<br />
* Imperial Star Destroyer<br />
** Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems (inside ship, go down a shaft from the surface.)<br />
** Emperor Palpatine Park and Gazebo - (x: 546819, y: -559584)<br />
** Dancers (possibly [[162|spinning counter-clockwise]]) dancing to piano music<br />
** Octopus guarding two coins - (x: 531646, y: -559663)<br />
** sign saying "Caution GlitchFloor" (falling straight down through it nets you a coin someway down) - (x: 547898, y: -556784)<br />
* Blackhat's hat on a stick - (x: 549997, y: -549777)<br />
[http://codepen.io/KyleDavidE/full/605dc87b614ff6b2bd716f4c6f640203/ Quickly hacked overview] - courtesy of [https://www.reddit.com/user/kyledavide kyledavide] on [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxbyn86 reddit].<br />
<br />
===Controls===<br />
The controls are as follows:<br />
<br />
* '''Go Left''' - Left arrow key, a or h<br />
* '''Go Right''' - Right arrow key, d or l<br />
* '''Go Up (jump or hover)''' - Up arrow key, w, or k<br />
* '''Go Down (if gravity disabled)''' - Down arrow key, s, or j<br />
<br />
This control scheme covers the three commonly used directional key sets: WASD a set of keys commonly used by modern games; HJKL a set of movement keys used by vi and applications which attempt to mimic vi key controls (vim); and the arrow keys, the most generic set of keys which is usually accepted by most applications which take movement as input, these were commonly used in older games.<br />
<br />
On a tablet (e.g. iPad) changing the orientation of the tablet will control the left and right motion, while tapping the image produced jumps.<br />
<br />
===Cheats and Exploits===<br />
Aside from the obvious ability to move out of bounds in the game, there are some more obscure hidden features which can't be enabled through normal gameplay, the ones found so far are as follows:<br />
<br />
'''Modes''' are activated by opening the Javascript Console (F12 [Or Command-Alt-I in most browsers under Mac OS X] to open Developer Tools, then Console tab) and writing corresponding commands:<br />
<br />
* '''Gandalf Mode: ''' ''window.i.am.gandalf = true'' - jumps and runs further<br />
* '''Speedhack: ''' ''explorer.opts.speed= *Value*'' - Speed hacking, with 1 = normal speed<br />
* '''Jump Hack: ''' '' explorer.opts.jumpForce= -*Value*'' - Jump hacking, with -1 = normal jump (positive values cause the hoverboard guy to move down when jumping)<br />
* '''Mewtwo mode: ''' ''window.mewtwo = true'' - disables gravity<br />
* '''Noclip mode: ''' ''window.noclip = true'' - player is able to move around the map without collision. Combine with Gandalf and Mewtwo modes for free easy map traversal.<br />
* '''Goggles mode: ''' ''window.ze.goggles()'' - displays a small window showing area around the player in a pixelated manner. The goggles indicate collision boundaries (where the player touches the world) in cyan lines. Black pixels that are passable (such as other characters or text) will be highlighted red (allowing secret passages to be discovered).<br />
* '''Position Tracking: ''' ''window.explorer.pos'' - Returns the player location to the console. Can be used to track position and test to ensure you are still moving. Must be re-entered to compare positioning.<br />
* '''Position Setting: ''' ''window.explorer.pos.x = *Value* or window.explorer.pos.y = *Value*'' - Can be used to manually set a position within the world. The start is at x: 512106, y: -549612. The left terrain bound is at x: 475210, y: -553711. The right terrain bound is at x: 567281, y: -549712. Mewtwo and Noclip modes are a must for exploring in this way.<br />
* '''All the above: ''' ''window.explorer.opts'' - Contains all the game's parameters. You can directly mess with ''gravity'', collision (''disableCollision''), jump force (''jumpForce'') and speed (''maxSpeed''), among others. Run ''Object.keys(window.explorer.opts)'' to list all available parameters you can tweak.<br />
* '''List all coins: ''' ''window.explorer.objects'' - Array containing the position of the 169 coins of the game.<br />
* '''Disable tilt input: ''' ''getEventListeners(window)['deviceorientation'][0].remove()'' - on Macs with motion sensor, disables tilt input which causes problems controlling the avatar<br />
<br />
'''Getting All Coins: ''' To instantly get all coins, input the below into the console window. Does not use standard formatting of [i] to avoid conflicts with window.i.am.gandalf<br />
<br />
for (var T = 0; T < explorer.objects.length; T++) {<br />
explorer.objects[T].got = true;<br />
}<br />
<br />
To teleport to the next coin every time you press the left or right arrow:<br />
<br />
var T = 0;<br />
document.onkeydown = function(event){<br />
if (event.keyCode == 37) { T = T-1 }<br />
else if (event.keyCode == 39) { T = T+1 }<br />
else { return }<br />
T = T % explorer.objects.length;<br />
var coin = explorer.objects[T];<br />
explorer.pos.x = coin.x1; explorer.pos.y = coin.y1;<br />
}<br />
<br />
For a quick tour of all the coins:<br />
<br />
var delayInMilliseconds = 1000; // 1 second delay between each teleport. feel free to change this.<br />
var index = 0;<br />
explorer.objects.forEach(function(x){<br />
setTimeout(function(){<br />
explorer.pos.x = x.x1;<br />
explorer.pos.y = x.y1;<br />
x.got = true;<br />
explorer.frame(); // forces a redraw<br />
},<br />
(index + 1) * delayInMilliseconds);<br />
index++;<br />
});<br />
<br />
To see a list of coin coordinates you have not yet collected:<br />
<br />
var L = 0;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (I.got) {<br />
L++; <br />
} else {<br />
console.log(I.x1.toString() + ", " + I.y1.toString());<br />
}<br />
}<br />
console.log("You've found " + L.toString() + " of 169 coins");<br />
<br />
To display the distance and direction to the closest coin:<br />
<br />
function distance(x1, y1, x2, y2) {<br />
var dx = x1 - x2;<br />
var dy = y1 - y2;<br />
return Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);<br />
}<br />
<br />
function renderRadar() {<br />
var mindist = 10000000000;<br />
var closest;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (!I.got) {<br />
var dist = distance(explorer.pos.x, explorer.pos.y, I.x1, I.y1);<br />
if (dist < mindist) {<br />
mindist = dist;<br />
closest = I;<br />
}<br />
}<br />
}<br />
var indicator = "";<br />
if (closest.x1 < explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "left";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.x1 > explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "right";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 < explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " up";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 > explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " down";<br />
}<br />
document.getElementById("radar").innerHTML = "Distance: " + mindist.toFixed(1).toString() + "&lt;br/>" + indicator;<br />
}<br />
<br />
var d = document.createElement("div");<br />
d.id = "radar";<br />
d.style.position = "fixed";<br />
d.style.left = "0px";<br />
d.style.top = "0px";<br />
d.style.width = "150px";<br />
d.style.height = "35px";<br />
d.style.border = "1px solid red";<br />
d.style.zIndex = "2";<br />
d.style.backgroundColor = "green";<br />
d.style.color = "#8f8";<br />
document.body.appendChild(d);<br />
<br />
setInterval(renderRadar, 1000);<br />
<br />
To display your current coordinates:<br />
<br />
function renderRadar2() {<br />
document.getElementById("radar2").innerHTML = "x: " + explorer.pos.x.toFixed(1).toString() + "&lt;br>y: " + explorer.pos.y.toFixed(1).toString()<br />
}<br />
<br />
var d = document.createElement("div")<br />
d.id = "radar2"<br />
d.style.position = "fixed"<br />
d.style.left = "150px"<br />
d.style.top = "0px"<br />
d.style.width = "150px"<br />
d.style.height = "35px"<br />
d.style.border = "1px solid red"<br />
d.style.zIndex = "2"<br />
d.style.backgroundColor = "green"<br />
d.style.color = "#8f8"<br />
document.body.appendChild(d)<br />
<br />
setInterval(renderRadar2, 1000)<br />
<br />
===Functionality===<br />
By observing page code while playing, the game grabs and displays images based on location, and subsequently clears all non-visible images. The game uses what seems to be a position syntax to retrieve the intended images live, and returns an error if such an image does not exist, such as a blank area. This technically means things could be added to the world and updated live. If the player is moving sufficiently fast or if the internet connection is slow, this means that the player can get stuck in a black area that does not load in time.<br />
<br />
This also means that the game does not have coded top or bottom limits, so any attempt to find the ''ceiling'' of the game will be futile unless the game is tweaked. The game does however have side limits.<br />
<br />
When you deposit a certain number of coins, you will get one of the following messages:<br />
* 0 coins : You got 0 coins in (n) seconds/ You successfully avoided all the coins. <br />
* 1 coin : You got a single coin in (n) seconds/ It's a start.<br />
* 2-4 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Not bad!<br />
* 5-9 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Terrific!<br />
* 17 coins : You got 17 coins in (n) seconds/ You found all the coins! Great job!<br />
* 42 coins : You got 42 coins in (n) seconds/ No answers here.<br />
* 169 coins : You got 169 coins in (n) seconds/ Are you Gandalf?<br />
* All others: You got (n) coins in (n) seconds<br />
<br />
Opening the console will display the text: what? hoverboard not enough for you!? in the log. Activating goggles mode will cause the text 'B-)' to appear in the log.<br />
<br />
Leaving the play area will cause the red text 'RETURN TO THE PLAY AREA' to rapidly blink 3 times (150 msec duration), followed by a pause, and this will repeat 5 times for a total of 15 blinks. This will also reoccur if the player passes through the play area on their way back from exploring one side.<br />
<br />
===Explanations of jokes===<br />
{{incomplete|Insert table here}}<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
* The alt text is only visible on the mobile version of the site, or when leaving the starting area. Further, when leaving the starting area, it shows different than normal alt text.<br />
* If the focus switches from the game to the page, the cueball can freeze in midair. The same thing can happen if the window border overlaps the play area.<br />
* The Washington monument as an invisible floor next to the visible bricks.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete|Something similar to 1110: [[Click and Drag]]}}<br />
The game features Cueball on a hoverboard in a simple map. On the map are coins which Cueball has to collect.<br />
It appears Cueball can jump multiple times without needing to land, this means that Cueball is able to escape the designated "Play Area".<br />
This prompts a warning which soon disappears allowing Cueball to discover the world.<br />
<br />
[THIS ONLY COVERS THE PERMANENT TEXT, NOT THE DIFFERENT WIN STATES]<br /> <br />
MY NEW BOOK<br /> <br />
''THE THINGS EXPLAINER'',<br /> <br />
COMES OUT TODAY!<br /> <br />
<br />
TO CELEBRATE, HERE'S<br /> <br />
A SMALL GAME.<br /> <br />
<br />
[TO THE SIDE, BELOW AN ARROW]<br /> <br />
DEPOSIT COINS HERE<br /> <br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1608:_Hoverboard&diff=1057311608: Hoverboard2015-11-25T12:34:46Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Areas */ More areas + coordinates added</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1608<br />
| date = November 24, 2015<br />
| title = Hoverboard<br />
| image = hoverboard.png<br />
| titletext = Return to the play area<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Could use a little organization and/or grammar cleanup. It's possible not all of the game's secrets have been unearthed yet.}}<br />
The comic features a game made to celebrate the release of Randall's new book, "Thing Explainer". The game features [[Cueball]] on a hover board in an arena filled with coins, initially making it appear that the aim of the game is to simply collect all the coins. However, a seemingly intentional bug in the game (as implied by its "Hoverboard" title) allows the player to jump even in midair and keep jumping forever without needing to land (as would be usual for platforming games like these). This allows the character to go out of bounds of the "Play Area" (prompting multiple warnings insisting the player returns to said "Play Area"). Exiting this area reveals that the "small game" is in fact a vast hidden world similar in style to a previous comic [[1110: Click and Drag]], which can be explored by navigating through various obstacles and hidden areas.<br />
<br />
There are 17 coins in the "Play Area" and a grand total of 169 in the entire game.<br />
<br />
Escaping from the starting area is quite simple; the character simply has to navigate through one of the multiple holes in the area and them simply jump over the wall on the left or the right of the starting area. This can be done by repeatedly tapping the jump key. The player can then explore. The game is physically bounded in the left and the right direction, but is technically unbounded upwards and downwards, however, past a certain point there appears to be nothing interesting in the up or down direction. It could be possible that some unexplored hole leads deeper into the map than has been found so far, it is also possible that jumping for a considerable amount of time would allow the player to reach some additional content above the map.<br />
<br />
As previously noted, the comic bears considerable resemblance to [[1110: Click and Drag]]. The comic is made in much the same way, with 'drawn' images "glued" together to form a large "map", with the illusion of infinite bounds made possible through space saving techniques where blank tiles are not stored and are instead painted white. The boundary between blank squares and 'drawn' squares is made clear as any white space in the normal images has a very slight grey tint. Thus, seams between images and blank spaces can be discerned.<br />
<br />
The tiles for the map are stored as simple PNG files in the naming scheme: X:Y+s.png. An example can be seen here: http://xkcd.com/1608/1013:-1096+s.png Each file is 513x513 pixels in size, one pixel is reserved as overlap to ensure seamless joining of images.<br />
So far, through experimentation, tiles in the range 928 to 1108 X and -1112 to -928 Y have been discovered, internally, the position of the player is divided by 512 and rounded down to give the position of the tile.<br />
<br />
The game was made by [http://chromakode.com Max Goodman] who has previously worked on [[1416: Pixels]]. The source code for the game can be found [https://xkcd.com/1608/tigl.js here].<br />
<br />
===Areas===<br />
There are many different areas beyond the initial starting area, exploration has found so far:<br />
<br />
Notable features include a number of large ships in the sky, with various interiors which can be entered from several places. To find them, follow the strings which several characters are holding near the first ground area. <br />
<br />
West:<br />
* Washington Monument - (x: 509864, y: -549746)<br />
** Secret entrance into the inside of the Monument, right side, about halfway up - (x: 509815, y: -552614)<br />
* Girl in a hamster ball - (x: 505790, y: -549905)<br />
* Yet [[1504|another dig]] at the Lion King and the lands touched by shadow - (x: 504998, y: -550676)<br />
* An X-Wing at a gas station - (x: 503253, y: -551129)<br />
* A well with a girl at the bottom of it, claiming to not be a ghost - (x: 501998, y: -551030)<br />
* Parachuting spacecraft - (x: 500040, y: -552369)<br />
* Local Mom discovering This One Weird Bug - (x: 497994, y: -551334)<br />
* Volcano -<br />
** With suicidal quadcopters taking footage of it - (x: 486640, y: -554838)<br />
* Lava pools -<br />
* A dark grey ocean that isn't noticeable until you fall in<br />
* LOTR Eagles -<br />
* Elon Musk's Volcano Lair - (x: 484167, y: -549462)<br />
** entrance hidden under volcano lava, dive down at Artex, following the wall with ze goggles to find it - (x: 483791, y: -551292)<br />
* Artex + Gandalf - (x: 483715, y: -554354)<br />
* Landing re-entry capsule -<br />
* Giant spaceship / Floating rock island in the sky (x: 507163, y: -567537)<br />
* Hat underground<br />
* A hole which traps(?) the player unless noclip mode is used<br />
<br />
East:<br />
* Wedding - (x: 531558, y: -549386)<br />
* Giant bird nest -<br />
* Desert -<br />
* Ocean Yelper -<br />
* Graveyard -<br />
* Talking Rogue Wave - (x: 523460, y: -549013)<br />
* People holding anchor lines to the Tantalus IV (Star Wars: A New Hope), being attacked by an Imperial Star Destroyer - (the people: x: 518954, y: -549056)<br />
* Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems (inside ship, go down a shaft from the surface.)<br />
* Blackhat's hat - (x: 549997, y: -549777)<br />
<br />
[http://codepen.io/KyleDavidE/full/605dc87b614ff6b2bd716f4c6f640203/ Quickly hacked overview] - courtesy of [https://www.reddit.com/user/kyledavide kyledavide] on [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxbyn86 reddit].<br />
<br />
===Controls===<br />
The controls are as follows:<br />
<br />
* '''Go Left''' - Left arrow key, a or h<br />
* '''Go Right''' - Right arrow key, d or l<br />
* '''Go Up (jump or hover)''' - Up arrow key, w, or k<br />
* '''Go Down (if gravity disabled)''' - Down arrow key, s, or j<br />
<br />
This control scheme covers the three commonly used directional key sets: WASD a set of keys commonly used by modern games; HJKL a set of movement keys used by vi and applications which attempt to mimic vi key controls (vim); and the arrow keys, the most generic set of keys which is usually accepted by most applications which take movement as input, these were commonly used in older games.<br />
<br />
On a tablet (e.g. iPad) changing the orientation of the tablet will control the left and right motion, while tapping the image produced jumps.<br />
<br />
===Cheats and Exploits===<br />
Aside from the obvious ability to move out of bounds in the game, there are some more obscure hidden features which can't be enabled through normal gameplay, the ones found so far are as follows:<br />
<br />
'''Modes''' are activated by opening the Javascript Console (F12 to open Developer Tools, then Console tab) and writing corresponding commands:<br />
<br />
* '''Gandalf Mode: ''' ''window.i.am.gandalf = true'' - jumps and runs further<br />
* '''Speedhack: ''' ''explorer.opts.speed= *Value*'' - Speed hacking, with 1 = normal speed<br />
* '''Jump Hack: ''' '' explorer.opts.jumpForce= -*Value*'' - Jump hacking, with -1 = normal jump (positive values cause the hoverboard guy to move down when jumping)<br />
* '''Mewtwo mode: ''' ''window.mewtwo = true'' - disables gravity<br />
* '''Noclip mode: ''' ''window.noclip = true'' - player is able to move around the map without collision. Combine with Gandalf and Mewtwo modes for free easy map traversal.<br />
* '''Goggles mode: ''' ''window.ze.goggles()'' - displays a small window showing area around the player in a pixelated manner. The goggles indicate collision boundaries (where the player touches the world) in cyan lines. Black pixels that are passable (such as other characters or text) will be highlighted red (allowing secret passages to be discovered).<br />
* '''Position Tracking: ''' ''window.explorer.pos'' - Returns the player location to the console. Can be used to track position and test to ensure you are still moving. Must be re-entered to compare positioning.<br />
* '''Position Setting: ''' ''window.explorer.pos.x = *Value* or window.explorer.pos.y = *Value*'' - Can be used to manually set a position within the world. The start is at x: 512106, y: -549612. The left terrain bound is at x: 475210, y: -553711. The right terrain bound is at x: 567281, y: -549712. Mewtwo and Noclip modes are a must for exploring in this way.<br />
* '''All the above: ''' ''window.explorer.opts'' - Contains all the game's parameters. You can directly mess with ''gravity'', collision (''disableCollision''), jump force (''jumpForce'') and speed (''maxSpeed''), among others. Run ''Object.keys(window.explorer.opts)'' to list all available parameters you can tweak.<br />
* '''List all coins: ''' ''window.explorer.objects'' - Array containing the position of the 169 coins of the game.<br />
* '''Disable tilt input: ''' ''getEventListeners(window)['deviceorientation'][0].remove()'' - on Macs with motion sensor, disables tilt input which causes problems controlling the avatar<br />
<br />
'''Getting All Coins: ''' To instantly get all coins, input the below into the console window. Does not use standard formatting of [i] to avoid conflicts with window.i.am.gandalf<br />
<br />
for (var T = 0; T < explorer.objects.length; T++) {<br />
explorer.objects[T].got = true;<br />
}<br />
<br />
To teleport to the next coin every time you press the left or right arrow:<br />
<br />
var T = 0;<br />
document.onkeydown = function(event){<br />
if (event.keyCode == 37) { T = T-1 }<br />
else if (event.keyCode == 39) { T = T+1 }<br />
else { return }<br />
T = T % explorer.objects.length;<br />
var coin = explorer.objects[T];<br />
explorer.pos.x = coin.x1; explorer.pos.y = coin.y1;<br />
}<br />
<br />
For a quick tour of all the coins:<br />
<br />
var delayInMilliseconds = 1000; // 1 second delay between each teleport. feel free to change this.<br />
var index = 0;<br />
explorer.objects.forEach(function(x){<br />
setTimeout(function(){<br />
explorer.pos.x = x.x1;<br />
explorer.pos.y = x.y1;<br />
x.got = true;<br />
explorer.frame(); // forces a redraw<br />
},<br />
(index + 1) * delayInMilliseconds);<br />
index++;<br />
});<br />
<br />
To see a list of coin coordinates you have not yet collected:<br />
<br />
var L = 0;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (I.got) {<br />
L++; <br />
} else {<br />
console.log(I.x1.toString() + ", " + I.y1.toString());<br />
}<br />
}<br />
console.log("You've found " + L.toString() + " of 169 coins");<br />
<br />
To display the distance and direction to the closest coin:<br />
<br />
function distance(x1, y1, x2, y2) {<br />
var dx = x1 - x2;<br />
var dy = y1 - y2;<br />
return Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);<br />
}<br />
<br />
function renderRadar() {<br />
var mindist = 10000000000;<br />
var closest;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (!I.got) {<br />
var dist = distance(explorer.pos.x, explorer.pos.y, I.x1, I.y1);<br />
if (dist < mindist) {<br />
mindist = dist;<br />
closest = I;<br />
}<br />
}<br />
}<br />
var indicator = "";<br />
if (closest.x1 < explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "left";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.x1 > explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "right";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 < explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " up";<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 > explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " down";<br />
}<br />
document.getElementById("radar").innerHTML = "Distance: " + mindist.toFixed(1).toString() + "&lt;br/>" + indicator;<br />
}<br />
<br />
var d = document.createElement("div");<br />
d.id = "radar";<br />
d.style.position = "fixed";<br />
d.style.left = "0px";<br />
d.style.top = "0px";<br />
d.style.width = "150px";<br />
d.style.height = "35px";<br />
d.style.border = "1px solid red";<br />
d.style.zIndex = "2";<br />
d.style.backgroundColor = "green";<br />
d.style.color = "#8f8";<br />
document.body.appendChild(d);<br />
<br />
setInterval(renderRadar, 1000);<br />
<br />
To display your current coordinates:<br />
<br />
function renderRadar2() {<br />
document.getElementById("radar2").innerHTML = "x: " + explorer.pos.x.toFixed(1).toString() + "&lt;br>y: " + explorer.pos.y.toFixed(1).toString()<br />
}<br />
<br />
var d = document.createElement("div")<br />
d.id = "radar2"<br />
d.style.position = "fixed"<br />
d.style.left = "150px"<br />
d.style.top = "0px"<br />
d.style.width = "150px"<br />
d.style.height = "35px"<br />
d.style.border = "1px solid red"<br />
d.style.zIndex = "2"<br />
d.style.backgroundColor = "green"<br />
d.style.color = "#8f8"<br />
document.body.appendChild(d)<br />
<br />
setInterval(renderRadar2, 1000)<br />
<br />
===Functionality===<br />
By observing page code while playing, the game grabs and displays images based on location, and subsequently clears all non-visible images. The game uses what seems to be a position syntax to retrieve the intended images live, and returns an error if such an image does not exist, such as a blank area. This technically means things could be added to the world and updated live. If the player is moving sufficiently fast or if the internet connection is slow, this means that the player can get stuck in a black area that does not load in time.<br />
<br />
This also means that the game does not have coded top or bottom limits, so any attempt to find the ''ceiling'' of the game will be futile unless the game is tweaked. The game does however have side limits.<br />
<br />
When you deposit a certain number of coins, you will get one of the following messages:<br />
* 0 coins : You got 0 coins in (n) seconds/ You successfully avoided all the coins. <br />
* 1 coin : You got a single coin in (n) seconds/ It's a start.<br />
* 2-4 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Not bad!<br />
* 5-9 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Terrific!<br />
* 17 coins : You got 17 coins in (n) seconds/ You found all the coins! Great job!<br />
* 42 coins : You got 42 coins in (n) seconds/ No answers here.<br />
* 169 coins : You got 169 coins in (n) seconds/ Are you Gandalf?<br />
* All others: You got (n) coins in (n) seconds<br />
<br />
Opening the console will display the text: what? hoverboard not enough for you!? in the log. Activating goggles mode will cause the text 'B-)' to appear in the log.<br />
<br />
Leaving the play area will cause the red text 'RETURN TO THE PLAY AREA' to rapidly blink 3 times (150 msec duration), followed by a pause, and this will repeat 5 times for a total of 15 blinks. This will also reoccur if the player passes through the play area on their way back from exploring one side.<br />
<br />
===Explanations of jokes===<br />
{{incomplete|Insert table here}}<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
* The alt text is only visible on the mobile version of the site, or when leaving the starting area. Further, when leaving the starting area, it shows different than normal alt text.<br />
* If the focus switches from the game to the page, the cueball can freeze in midair. The same thing can happen if the window border overlaps the play area.<br />
* The Washington monument as an invisible floor next to the visible bricks.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete|Something similar to 1110: [[Click and Drag]]}}<br />
The game features Cueball on a hoverboard in a simple map. On the map are coins which Cueball has to collect.<br />
It appears Cueball can jump multiple times without needing to land, this means that Cueball is able to escape the designated "Play Area".<br />
This prompts a warning which soon disappears allowing Cueball to discover the world.<br />
<br />
[THIS ONLY COVERS THE PERMANENT TEXT, NOT THE DIFFERENT WIN STATES]<br /> <br />
MY NEW BOOK<br /> <br />
''THE THINGS EXPLAINER'',<br /> <br />
COMES OUT TODAY!<br /> <br />
<br />
TO CELEBRATE, HERE'S<br /> <br />
A SMALL GAME.<br /> <br />
<br />
[TO THE SIDE, BELOW AN ARROW]<br /> <br />
DEPOSIT COINS HERE<br /> <br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1608:_Hoverboard&diff=1057281608: Hoverboard2015-11-25T12:14:53Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Areas */ added more coordinates</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1608<br />
| date = November 24, 2015<br />
| title = Hoverboard<br />
| image = hoverboard.png<br />
| titletext = Return to the play area<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Could use a little organization and/or grammar cleanup. It's possible not all of the game's secrets have been unearthed yet.}}<br />
The comic features a game made to celebrate the release of Randall's new book, "Thing Explainer". The game features [[Cueball]] on a hover board in an arena filled with coins, initially making it appear that the aim of the game is to simply collect all the coins. However, a seemingly intentional bug in the game (as implied by its "Hoverboard" title) allows the player to jump even in midair and keep jumping forever without needing to land (as would be usual for platforming games like these). This allows the character to go out of bounds of the "Play Area" (prompting multiple warnings insisting the player returns to said "Play Area"). Exiting this area reveals that the "small game" is in fact a vast hidden world similar in style to a previous comic [[1110: Click and Drag]], which can be explored by navigating through various obstacles and hidden areas.<br />
<br />
There are 17 coins in the "Play Area" and a grand total of 169 in the entire game.<br />
<br />
Escaping from the starting area is quite simple; the character simply has to navigate through one of the multiple holes in the area and them simply jump over the wall on the left or the right of the starting area. This can be done by repeatedly tapping the jump key. The player can then explore. The game is physically bounded in the left and the right direction, but is technically unbounded upwards and downwards, however, past a certain point there appears to be nothing interesting in the up or down direction. It could be possible that some unexplored hole leads deeper into the map than has been found so far, it is also possible that jumping for a considerable amount of time would allow the player to reach some additional content above the map.<br />
<br />
As previously noted, the comic bears considerable resemblance to [[1110: Click and Drag]]. The comic is made in much the same way, with 'drawn' images "glued" together to form a large "map", with the illusion of infinite bounds made possible through space saving techniques where blank tiles are not stored and are instead painted white. The boundary between blank squares and 'drawn' squares is made clear as any white space in the normal images has a very slight grey tint. Thus, seams between images and blank spaces can be discerned.<br />
<br />
The tiles for the map are stored as simple PNG files in the naming scheme: X:Y+s.png. An example can be seen here: http://xkcd.com/1608/1013:-1096+s.png Each file is 513x513 pixels in size, one pixel is reserved as overlap to ensure seamless joining of images.<br />
So far, through experimentation, tiles in the range 928 to 1108 X and -1112 to -928 Y have been discovered, internally, the position of the player is divided by 512 and rounded down to give the position of the tile.<br />
<br />
The game was made by [http://chromakode.com Max Goodman] who has previously worked on [[1416: Pixels]]. The source code for the game can be found [https://xkcd.com/1608/tigl.js here].<br />
<br />
===Areas===<br />
There are many different areas beyond the initial starting area, exploration has found so far:<br />
<br />
Notable features include a number of large ships in the sky, with various interiors which can be entered from several places. To find them, follow the strings which several characters are holding near the first ground area. <br />
<br />
West:<br />
* Washington Monument - (x: 509864, y: -549746)<br />
** Secret entrance into the inside of the Monument, right side, about halfway up - (x: 509815, y: -552614)<br />
* Girl in a hamster ball - (x: 505790, y: -549905)<br />
* Yet [[1504|another dig]] at the Lion King and the lands touched by shadow - (x: 504998, y: -550676)<br />
* Parachuting spacecraft -<br />
* Volcano -<br />
* Lava pools -<br />
* A dark grey ocean that isn't noticeable until you fall in<br />
* LOTR Eagles -<br />
* Elon Musk's Volcano Lair -<br />
* Landing re-entry capsule -<br />
* Giant spaceship / Floating rock island in the sky (x: 507163, y: -567537)<br />
* Hat underground<br />
* A hole which traps(?) the player unless noclip mode is used<br />
<br />
East:<br />
* Wedding - (x: 531558, y: -549386)<br />
* Giant bird nest -<br />
* Desert -<br />
* Ocean Yelper -<br />
* Graveyard -<br />
* Talking Rogue Wave - (x: 523460, y: -549013)<br />
* People holding anchor lines to the Tantalus IV (Star Wars: A New Hope), being attacked by an Imperial Star Destroyer - (the people: x: 518954, y: -549056)<br />
* Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems (inside ship, go down a shaft from the surface.)<br />
* Blackhat's hat - (x: 549997, y: -549777)<br />
<br />
[http://codepen.io/KyleDavidE/full/605dc87b614ff6b2bd716f4c6f640203/ Quickly hacked overview] - courtesy of [https://www.reddit.com/user/kyledavide kyledavide] on [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxbyn86 reddit].<br />
<br />
===Controls===<br />
The controls are as follows:<br />
<br />
* '''Go Left''' - Left arrow key, a or h<br />
* '''Go Right''' - Right arrow key, d or l<br />
* '''Go Up (jump or hover)''' - Up arrow key, w, or k<br />
* '''Go Down (if gravity disabled)''' - Down arrow key, s, or j<br />
<br />
This control scheme covers the three commonly used directional key sets: WASD a set of keys commonly used by modern games; HJKL a set of movement keys used by vi and applications which attempt to mimic vi key controls (vim); and the arrow keys, the most generic set of keys which is usually accepted by most applications which take movement as input, these were commonly used in older games.<br />
<br />
On a tablet (e.g. iPad) changing the orientation of the tablet will control the left and right motion, while tapping the image produced jumps.<br />
<br />
===Cheats and Exploits===<br />
Aside from the obvious ability to move out of bounds in the game, there are some more obscure hidden features which can't be enabled through normal gameplay, the ones found so far are as follows:<br />
<br />
'''Modes''' are activated by opening the Javascript Console (F12 to open Developer Tools, then Console tab) and writing corresponding commands:<br />
<br />
* '''Gandalf Mode: ''' ''window.i.am.gandalf = true'' - jumps and runs further<br />
* '''Speedhack: ''' ''explorer.opts.speed= *Value*'' - Speed hacking, with 1 = normal speed<br />
* '''Jump Hack: ''' '' explorer.opts.jumpForce= -*Value*'' - Jump hacking, with -1 = normal jump (positive values cause the hoverboard guy to move down when jumping)<br />
* '''Mewtwo mode: ''' ''window.mewtwo = true'' - disables gravity<br />
* '''Noclip mode: ''' ''window.noclip = true'' - player is able to move around the map without collision. Combine with Gandalf and Mewtwo modes for free easy map traversal.<br />
* '''Goggles mode: ''' ''window.ze.goggles()'' - displays a small window showing area around the player in a pixelated manner. The goggles indicate collision boundaries (where the player touches the world) in cyan lines. Black pixels that are passable (such as other characters or text) will be highlighted red (allowing secret passages to be discovered).<br />
* '''Position Tracking: ''' ''window.explorer.pos'' - Returns the player location to the console. Can be used to track position and test to ensure you are still moving. Must be re-entered to compare positioning.<br />
* '''Position Setting: ''' ''window.explorer.pos.x = *Value* or window.explorer.pos.y = *Value*'' - Can be used to manually set a position within the world. The start is at x: 512106, y: -549612. The left terrain bound is at x: 475210, y: -553711. The right terrain bound is at x: 567281, y: -549712. Mewtwo and Noclip modes are a must for exploring in this way.<br />
* '''All the above: ''' ''window.explorer.opts'' - Contains all the game's parameters. You can directly mess with ''gravity'', collision (''disableCollision''), jump force (''jumpForce'') and speed (''maxSpeed''), among others. Run ''Object.keys(window.explorer.opts)'' to list all available parameters you can tweak.<br />
* '''List all coins: ''' ''window.explorer.objects'' - Array containing the position of the 169 coins of the game.<br />
* '''Disable tilt input: ''' ''getEventListeners(window)['deviceorientation'][0].remove()'' - on Macs with motion sensor, disables tilt input which causes problems controlling the avatar<br />
<br />
'''Getting All Coins: ''' To instantly get all coins, input the below into the console window. Does not use standard formatting of [i] to avoid conflicts with window.i.am.gandalf<br />
<br />
for (var T = 0; T < explorer.objects.length; T++) {<br />
explorer.objects[T].got = true<br />
}<br />
<br />
To teleport to the next coin every time you press the left or right arrow:<br />
<br />
var T = 0;<br />
document.onkeydown = function(event){<br />
if (event.keyCode == 37) { T = T-1 }<br />
else if (event.keyCode == 39) { T = T+1 }<br />
else { return }<br />
T = T % explorer.objects.length;<br />
var coin = explorer.objects[T];<br />
explorer.pos.x = coin.x1; explorer.pos.y = coin.y1;<br />
}<br />
<br />
For a quick tour of all the coins:<br />
<br />
var delayInMilliseconds = 1000; // 1 second delay between each teleport. feel free to change this.<br />
var index = 0;<br />
explorer.objects.forEach(function(x){<br />
setTimeout(function(){<br />
explorer.pos.x = x.x1;<br />
explorer.pos.y = x.y1;<br />
x.got = true;<br />
explorer.frame(); // forces a redraw<br />
},<br />
(index + 1) * delayInMilliseconds);<br />
index++;<br />
});<br />
<br />
To see a list of coin coordinates you have not yet collected:<br />
<br />
var L = 0;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (I.got) {<br />
L++; <br />
} else {<br />
console.log(I.x1.toString() + ", " + I.y1.toString());<br />
}<br />
}<br />
console.log("You've found " + L.toString() + " of 169 coins");<br />
<br />
To display the distance and direction to the closest coin:<br />
<br />
function distance(x1, y1, x2, y2) {<br />
var dx = x1 - x2<br />
var dy = y1 - y2<br />
return Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy)<br />
}<br />
<br />
function renderRadar() {<br />
var mindist = 10000000000<br />
var closest<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S]<br />
if (!I.got) {<br />
var dist = distance(explorer.pos.x, explorer.pos.y, I.x1, I.y1)<br />
if (dist < mindist) {<br />
mindist = dist<br />
closest = I<br />
}<br />
}<br />
}<br />
var indicator = ""<br />
if (closest.x1 < explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "left"<br />
}<br />
if (closest.x1 > explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "right"<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 < explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " up"<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 > explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " down"<br />
}<br />
document.getElementById("radar").innerHTML = "Distance: " + mindist.toFixed(1).toString() + "<br/>" + indicator<br />
}<br />
<br />
var d = document.createElement("div")<br />
d.id = "radar"<br />
d.style.position = "fixed"<br />
d.style.left = "0px"<br />
d.style.top = "0px"<br />
d.style.width = "150px"<br />
d.style.height = "35px"<br />
d.style.border = "1px solid red"<br />
d.style.zIndex = "2"<br />
d.style.backgroundColor = "green"<br />
d.style.color = "#8f8"<br />
document.body.appendChild(d)<br />
<br />
setInterval(renderRadar, 1000)<br />
<br />
===Functionality===<br />
By observing page code while playing, the game grabs and displays images based on location, and subsequently clears all non-visible images. The game uses what seems to be a position syntax to retrieve the intended images live, and returns an error if such an image does not exist, such as a blank area. This technically means things could be added to the world and updated live. If the player is moving sufficiently fast or if the internet connection is slow, this means that the player can get stuck in a black area that does not load in time.<br />
<br />
This also means that the game does not have coded top or bottom limits, so any attempt to find the ''ceiling'' of the game will be futile unless the game is tweaked. The game does however have side limits.<br />
<br />
When you deposit a certain number of coins, you will get one of the following messages:<br />
* 0 coins : You got 0 coins in (n) seconds/ You successfully avoided all the coins. <br />
* 1 coin : You got a single coin in (n) seconds/ It's a start.<br />
* 2-4 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Not bad!<br />
* 5-9 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Terrific!<br />
* 17 coins : You got 17 coins in (n) seconds/ You found all the coins! Great job!<br />
* 42 coins : You got 42 coins in (n) seconds/ No answers here.<br />
* 169 coins : You got 169 coins in (n) seconds/ Are you Gandalf?<br />
* All others: You got (n) coins in (n) seconds<br />
<br />
Opening the console will display the text: what? hoverboard not enough for you!? in the log. Activating goggles mode will cause the text 'B-)' to appear in the log.<br />
<br />
Leaving the play area will cause the red text 'RETURN TO THE PLAY AREA' to rapidly blink 3 times (150 msec duration), followed by a pause, and this will repeat 5 times for a total of 15 blinks. This will also reoccur if the player passes through the play area on their way back from exploring one side.<br />
<br />
===Explanations of jokes===<br />
{{incomplete|Insert table here}}<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
* The alt text is only visible on the mobile version of the site, or when leaving the starting area. Further, when leaving the starting area, it shows different than normal alt text.<br />
* If the focus switches from the game to the page, the cueball can freeze in midair. The same thing can happen if the window border overlaps the play area.<br />
* The Washington monument as an invisible floor next to the visible bricks.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete|Something similar to 1110: [[Click and Drag]]}}<br />
The game features Cueball on a hoverboard in a simple map. On the map are coins which Cueball has to collect.<br />
It appears Cueball can jump multiple times without needing to land, this means that Cueball is able to escape the designated "Play Area".<br />
This prompts a warning which soon disappears allowing Cueball to discover the world.<br />
<br />
[THIS ONLY COVERS THE PERMANENT TEXT, NOT THE DIFFERENT WIN STATES]<br /> <br />
MY NEW BOOK<br /> <br />
''THE THINGS EXPLAINER'',<br /> <br />
COMES OUT TODAY!<br /> <br />
<br />
TO CELEBRATE, HERE'S<br /> <br />
A SMALL GAME.<br /> <br />
<br />
[TO THE SIDE, BELOW AN ARROW]<br /> <br />
DEPOSIT COINS HERE<br /> <br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1608:_Hoverboard&diff=1057271608: Hoverboard2015-11-25T12:05:09Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Areas */ added coordinates for wedding</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1608<br />
| date = November 24, 2015<br />
| title = Hoverboard<br />
| image = hoverboard.png<br />
| titletext = Return to the play area<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Could use a little organization and/or grammar cleanup. It's possible not all of the game's secrets have been unearthed yet.}}<br />
The comic features a game made to celebrate the release of Randall's new book, "Thing Explainer". The game features [[Cueball]] on a hover board in an arena filled with coins, initially making it appear that the aim of the game is to simply collect all the coins. However, a seemingly intentional bug in the game (as implied by its "Hoverboard" title) allows the player to jump even in midair and keep jumping forever without needing to land (as would be usual for platforming games like these). This allows the character to go out of bounds of the "Play Area" (prompting multiple warnings insisting the player returns to said "Play Area"). Exiting this area reveals that the "small game" is in fact a vast hidden world similar in style to a previous comic [[1110: Click and Drag]], which can be explored by navigating through various obstacles and hidden areas.<br />
<br />
There are 17 coins in the "Play Area" and a grand total of 169 in the entire game.<br />
<br />
Escaping from the starting area is quite simple; the character simply has to navigate through one of the multiple holes in the area and them simply jump over the wall on the left or the right of the starting area. This can be done by repeatedly tapping the jump key. The player can then explore. The game is physically bounded in the left and the right direction, but is technically unbounded upwards and downwards, however, past a certain point there appears to be nothing interesting in the up or down direction. It could be possible that some unexplored hole leads deeper into the map than has been found so far, it is also possible that jumping for a considerable amount of time would allow the player to reach some additional content above the map.<br />
<br />
As previously noted, the comic bears considerable resemblance to [[1110: Click and Drag]]. The comic is made in much the same way, with 'drawn' images "glued" together to form a large "map", with the illusion of infinite bounds made possible through space saving techniques where blank tiles are not stored and are instead painted white. The boundary between blank squares and 'drawn' squares is made clear as any white space in the normal images has a very slight grey tint. Thus, seams between images and blank spaces can be discerned.<br />
<br />
The tiles for the map are stored as simple PNG files in the naming scheme: X:Y+s.png. An example can be seen here: http://xkcd.com/1608/1013:-1096+s.png Each file is 513x513 pixels in size, one pixel is reserved as overlap to ensure seamless joining of images.<br />
So far, through experimentation, tiles in the range 928 to 1108 X and -1112 to -928 Y have been discovered, internally, the position of the player is divided by 512 and rounded down to give the position of the tile.<br />
<br />
The game was made by [http://chromakode.com Max Goodman] who has previously worked on [[1416: Pixels]]. The source code for the game can be found [https://xkcd.com/1608/tigl.js here].<br />
<br />
===Areas===<br />
There are many different areas beyond the initial starting area, exploration has found so far:<br />
<br />
Notable features include a number of large ships in the sky, with various interiors which can be entered from several places. To find them, follow the strings which several characters are holding near the first ground area. <br />
<br />
West:<br />
* Washington Monument<br />
* Parachuting spacecraft -<br />
* Volcano -<br />
* Lava pools -<br />
* A dark grey ocean that isn't noticeable until you fall in<br />
* LOTR Eagles -<br />
* Elon Musk's Volcano Lair -<br />
* Landing re-entry capsule -<br />
* Giant spaceship / Floating rock island in the sky (x: 507163, y: -567537)<br />
* Hat underground<br />
* A hole which traps(?) the player unless noclip mode is used<br />
<br />
East:<br />
* Wedding - (x: 531558, y: -549386)<br />
* Giant bird nest -<br />
* Desert -<br />
* Ocean Yelper -<br />
* Graveyard -<br />
* Talking Rogue Wave -<br />
* People holding anchor lines to the Tantalus IV (Star Wars: A New Hope), being attacked by an Imperial Star Destroyer<br />
* Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems (inside ship, go down a shaft from the surface.)<br />
* Blackhat's hat - (x: 549997, y: -549777)<br />
<br />
[http://codepen.io/KyleDavidE/full/605dc87b614ff6b2bd716f4c6f640203/ Quickly hacked overview] - courtesy of [https://www.reddit.com/user/kyledavide kyledavide] on [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxbyn86 reddit].<br />
<br />
===Controls===<br />
The controls are as follows:<br />
<br />
* '''Go Left''' - Left arrow key, a or h<br />
* '''Go Right''' - Right arrow key, d or l<br />
* '''Go Up (jump or hover)''' - Up arrow key, w, or k<br />
* '''Go Down (if gravity disabled)''' - Down arrow key, s, or j<br />
<br />
This control scheme covers the three commonly used directional key sets: WASD a set of keys commonly used by modern games; HJKL a set of movement keys used by vi and applications which attempt to mimic vi key controls (vim); and the arrow keys, the most generic set of keys which is usually accepted by most applications which take movement as input, these were commonly used in older games.<br />
<br />
On a tablet (e.g. iPad) changing the orientation of the tablet will control the left and right motion, while tapping the image produced jumps.<br />
<br />
===Cheats and Exploits===<br />
Aside from the obvious ability to move out of bounds in the game, there are some more obscure hidden features which can't be enabled through normal gameplay, the ones found so far are as follows:<br />
<br />
'''Modes''' are activated by opening the Javascript Console (F12 to open Developer Tools, then Console tab) and writing corresponding commands:<br />
<br />
* '''Gandalf Mode: ''' ''window.i.am.gandalf = true'' - jumps and runs further<br />
* '''Speedhack: ''' ''explorer.opts.speed= *Value*'' - Speed hacking, with 1 = normal speed<br />
* '''Jump Hack: ''' '' explorer.opts.jumpForce= -*Value*'' - Jump hacking, with -1 = normal jump (positive values cause the hoverboard guy to move down when jumping)<br />
* '''Mewtwo mode: ''' ''window.mewtwo = true'' - disables gravity<br />
* '''Noclip mode: ''' ''window.noclip = true'' - player is able to move around the map without collision. Combine with Gandalf and Mewtwo modes for free easy map traversal.<br />
* '''Goggles mode: ''' ''window.ze.goggles()'' - displays a small window showing area around the player in a pixelated manner. The goggles indicate collision boundaries (where the player touches the world) in cyan lines. Black pixels that are passable (such as other characters or text) will be highlighted red (allowing secret passages to be discovered).<br />
* '''Position Tracking: ''' ''window.explorer.pos'' - Returns the player location to the console. Can be used to track position and test to ensure you are still moving. Must be re-entered to compare positioning.<br />
* '''Position Setting: ''' ''window.explorer.pos.x = *Value* or window.explorer.pos.y = *Value*'' - Can be used to manually set a position within the world. The start is at x: 512106, y: -549612. The left terrain bound is at x: 475210, y: -553711. The right terrain bound is at x: 567281, y: -549712. Mewtwo and Noclip modes are a must for exploring in this way.<br />
* '''All the above: ''' ''window.explorer.opts'' - Contains all the game's parameters. You can directly mess with ''gravity'', collision (''disableCollision''), jump force (''jumpForce'') and speed (''maxSpeed''), among others. Run ''Object.keys(window.explorer.opts)'' to list all available parameters you can tweak.<br />
* '''List all coins: ''' ''window.explorer.objects'' - Array containing the position of the 169 coins of the game.<br />
* '''Disable tilt input: ''' ''getEventListeners(window)['deviceorientation'][0].remove()'' - on Macs with motion sensor, disables tilt input which causes problems controlling the avatar<br />
<br />
'''Getting All Coins: ''' To instantly get all coins, input the below into the console window. Does not use standard formatting of [i] to avoid conflicts with window.i.am.gandalf<br />
<br />
for (var T = 0; T < explorer.objects.length; T++) {<br />
explorer.objects[T].got = true<br />
}<br />
<br />
To teleport to the next coin every time you press the left or right arrow:<br />
<br />
var T = 0;<br />
document.onkeydown = function(event){<br />
if (event.keyCode == 37) { T = T-1 }<br />
else if (event.keyCode == 39) { T = T+1 }<br />
else { return }<br />
T = T % explorer.objects.length;<br />
var coin = explorer.objects[T];<br />
explorer.pos.x = coin.x1; explorer.pos.y = coin.y1;<br />
}<br />
<br />
For a quick tour of all the coins:<br />
<br />
var delayInMilliseconds = 1000; // 1 second delay between each teleport. feel free to change this.<br />
var index = 0;<br />
explorer.objects.forEach(function(x){<br />
setTimeout(function(){<br />
explorer.pos.x = x.x1;<br />
explorer.pos.y = x.y1;<br />
x.got = true;<br />
explorer.frame(); // forces a redraw<br />
},<br />
(index + 1) * delayInMilliseconds);<br />
index++;<br />
});<br />
<br />
To see a list of coin coordinates you have not yet collected:<br />
<br />
var L = 0;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (I.got) {<br />
L++; <br />
} else {<br />
console.log(I.x1.toString() + ", " + I.y1.toString());<br />
}<br />
}<br />
console.log("You've found " + L.toString() + " of 169 coins");<br />
<br />
To display the distance and direction to the closest coin:<br />
<br />
function distance(x1, y1, x2, y2) {<br />
var dx = x1 - x2<br />
var dy = y1 - y2<br />
return Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy)<br />
}<br />
<br />
function renderRadar() {<br />
var mindist = 10000000000<br />
var closest<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S]<br />
if (!I.got) {<br />
var dist = distance(explorer.pos.x, explorer.pos.y, I.x1, I.y1)<br />
if (dist < mindist) {<br />
mindist = dist<br />
closest = I<br />
}<br />
}<br />
}<br />
var indicator = ""<br />
if (closest.x1 < explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "left"<br />
}<br />
if (closest.x1 > explorer.pos.x) {<br />
indicator += "right"<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 < explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " up"<br />
}<br />
if (closest.y1 > explorer.pos.y) {<br />
indicator += " down"<br />
}<br />
document.getElementById("radar").innerHTML = "Distance: " + mindist.toFixed(1).toString() + "<br/>" + indicator<br />
}<br />
<br />
var d = document.createElement("div")<br />
d.id = "radar"<br />
d.style.position = "fixed"<br />
d.style.left = "0px"<br />
d.style.top = "0px"<br />
d.style.width = "150px"<br />
d.style.height = "35px"<br />
d.style.border = "1px solid red"<br />
d.style.zIndex = "2"<br />
d.style.backgroundColor = "green"<br />
d.style.color = "#8f8"<br />
document.body.appendChild(d)<br />
<br />
setInterval(renderRadar, 1000)<br />
<br />
===Functionality===<br />
By observing page code while playing, the game grabs and displays images based on location, and subsequently clears all non-visible images. The game uses what seems to be a position syntax to retrieve the intended images live, and returns an error if such an image does not exist, such as a blank area. This technically means things could be added to the world and updated live. If the player is moving sufficiently fast or if the internet connection is slow, this means that the player can get stuck in a black area that does not load in time.<br />
<br />
This also means that the game does not have coded top or bottom limits, so any attempt to find the ''ceiling'' of the game will be futile unless the game is tweaked. The game does however have side limits.<br />
<br />
When you deposit a certain number of coins, you will get one of the following messages:<br />
* 0 coins : You got 0 coins in (n) seconds/ You successfully avoided all the coins. <br />
* 1 coin : You got a single coin in (n) seconds/ It's a start.<br />
* 2-4 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Not bad!<br />
* 5-9 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Terrific!<br />
* 17 coins : You got 17 coins in (n) seconds/ You found all the coins! Great job!<br />
* 42 coins : You got 42 coins in (n) seconds/ No answers here.<br />
* 169 coins : You got 169 coins in (n) seconds/ Are you Gandalf?<br />
* All others: You got (n) coins in (n) seconds<br />
<br />
Opening the console will display the text: what? hoverboard not enough for you!? in the log. Activating goggles mode will cause the text 'B-)' to appear in the log.<br />
<br />
Leaving the play area will cause the red text 'RETURN TO THE PLAY AREA' to rapidly blink 3 times (150 msec duration), followed by a pause, and this will repeat 5 times for a total of 15 blinks. This will also reoccur if the player passes through the play area on their way back from exploring one side.<br />
<br />
===Explanations of jokes===<br />
{{incomplete|Insert table here}}<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
* The alt text is only visible on the mobile version of the site, or when leaving the starting area. Further, when leaving the starting area, it shows different than normal alt text.<br />
* If the focus switches from the game to the page, the cueball can freeze in midair. The same thing can happen if the window border overlaps the play area.<br />
* The Washington monument as an invisible floor next to the visible bricks.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete|Something similar to 1110: [[Click and Drag]]}}<br />
The game features Cueball on a hoverboard in a simple map. On the map are coins which Cueball has to collect.<br />
It appears Cueball can jump multiple times without needing to land, this means that Cueball is able to escape the designated "Play Area".<br />
This prompts a warning which soon disappears allowing Cueball to discover the world.<br />
<br />
[THIS ONLY COVERS THE PERMANENT TEXT, NOT THE DIFFERENT WIN STATES]<br /> <br />
MY NEW BOOK<br /> <br />
''THE THINGS EXPLAINER'',<br /> <br />
COMES OUT TODAY!<br /> <br />
<br />
TO CELEBRATE, HERE'S<br /> <br />
A SMALL GAME.<br /> <br />
<br />
[TO THE SIDE, BELOW AN ARROW]<br /> <br />
DEPOSIT COINS HERE<br /> <br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1608:_Hoverboard&diff=1057201608: Hoverboard2015-11-25T10:39:32Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Areas */ found black-hats hat</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1608<br />
| date = November 24, 2015<br />
| title = Hoverboard<br />
| image = hoverboard.png<br />
| titletext = Return to the play area<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|It's possible not all of the game's secrets have been unearthed yet.}}<br />
The comic features a game made to celebrate the release of Randall's new book, "Thing Explainer". The game was made by [http://chromakode.com Max Goodman] who has previously worked on [[1416: Pixels]]. The source code for the game can be found [https://xkcd.com/1608/tigl.js here]. The game features [[Cueball]] on a hover board in an arena filled with coins, initially it appears the aim of the game is to collect all the coins. However, a seemingly intentional bug in the game means that the player can jump and keep jumping forever without needing to land (As is usual for platform games like these). This allows the character to go out of bounds of the "Play Area" prompting multiple warnings insisting the player returns to said "Play Area". Exiting this area reveals a hidden world similar in style to the previous comic [[1110: Click and Drag]], which can be explored by navigating through various obstacles and hidden areas.<br />
<br />
There are 17 coins in the "Play Area" and a grand total of 169 in the entire game.<br />
<br />
Escaping from the starting area is quite simple, the character simply has to navigate through one of the multiple holes in the area and them simply jump over the wall on the left or the right of the starting area, this can be done by repeatedly tapping the jump key. The player can then explore. The game is physically bounded in the left and the right direction, but is technically unbounded upwards and downwards, however, past a certain point there appears to be nothing interesting in the up or down direction. It could be possible that some unexplored hole leads deeper into the map than has been found so far, it is also possible that jumping for a considerable amount of time would allow the player to reach some additional content above the map.<br />
<br />
As previously noted, the comic bears considerable resembelance to [[1110: Click and Drag]]. The comic is made in much the same way, with 'drawn' images "glued" together to form a large "map", with the illusion of infinite bounds made possible through space saving techniques where blank tiles are not stored and are instead painted white. The boundary between blank squares and 'drawn' squares is made clear as any white space in the normal images has a very slight grey tint. Thus, seams between images and blank spaces can be discerned.<br />
<br />
The tiles for the map are stored as simple PNG files in the naming scheme: X:Y+s.png. An example can be seen here: http://xkcd.com/1608/1013:-1096+s.png Each file is 513x513 pixels in size, one pixel is reserved as overlap to ensure seamless joining of images.<br />
So far, through experimentation, tiles in the range 928 to 1108 X and -1112 to -928 Y have been discovered, internally, the position of the player is divided by 512 and rounded down to give the position of the tile.<br />
<br />
===Areas===<br />
There are many different areas beyond the initial starting area, exploration has found so far:<br />
<br />
Notable features include a number of large ships in the sky, with various interiors which can be entered from several places. To find them, follow the strings which several characters are holding near the first ground area. <br />
<br />
West:<br />
* Washington Monument<br />
* Parachuting spacecraft -<br />
* Volcano -<br />
* Lava pools -<br />
* A dark grey ocean that isn't noticeable until you fall in<br />
* LOTR Eagles -<br />
* Elon Musk's Volcano Lair -<br />
* Landing re-entry capsule -<br />
* Giant spaceship / Floating rock island in the sky (x: 507163, y: -567537)<br />
* Hat underground<br />
* A hole which traps(?) the player unless noclip mode is used<br />
<br />
East:<br />
* Wedding -<br />
* Giant bird nest -<br />
* Desert -<br />
* Ocean Yelper -<br />
* Graveyard -<br />
* Talking Rogue Wave -<br />
* People holding anchor lines to a Star Destroyer, among other ships.<br />
* Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems (inside ship, go down a shaft from the surface.)<br />
* Blackhat's hat - (549997, y: -549777)<br />
<br />
[http://codepen.io/KyleDavidE/full/605dc87b614ff6b2bd716f4c6f640203/ Quickly hacked overview] - courtesy of [https://www.reddit.com/user/kyledavide kyledavide] on [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxbyn86 reddit].<br />
<br />
===Controls===<br />
The controls are as follows:<br />
<br />
* '''Go Left''' - Left arrow key, a or h<br />
* '''Go Right''' - Right arrow key, d or l<br />
* '''Go Up (jump or hover)''' - Up arrow key, w, or k<br />
* '''Go Down (if gravity disabled)''' - Down arrow key, s, or j<br />
<br />
This control scheme covers the three commonly used directional key sets: WASD a set of keys commonly used by modern games; HJKL a set of movement keys used by vi and applications which attempt to mimic vi key controls (vim); and the arrow keys, the most generic set of keys which is usually accepted by most applications which take movement as input, these were commonly used in older games.<br />
<br />
On a tablet (e.g. iPad) changing the orientation of the tablet will control the left and right motion, while tapping the image produced jumps.<br />
<br />
===Cheats and Exploits===<br />
Aside from the obvious ability to move out of bounds in the game, there are some more obscure hidden features which can't be enabled through normal gameplay, the ones found so far are as follows:<br />
<br />
'''Modes''' are activated by opening the Javascript Console (F12 to open Developer Tools, then Console tab) and writing corresponding commands:<br />
<br />
* '''Gandalf Mode: ''' ''window.i.am.gandalf = true'' - jumps and runs further<br />
* '''Speedhack: ''' ''explorer.opts.speed= *Value*'' - Speed hacking, with 1 = normal speed<br />
* '''Jump Hack: ''' '' explorer.opts.jumpForce= -*Value*'' - Jump hacking, with -1 = normal jump (positive values cause the hoverboard guy to move down when jumping)<br />
* '''Mewtwo mode: ''' ''window.mewtwo = true'' - disables gravity<br />
* '''Noclip mode: ''' ''window.noclip = true'' - player is able to move around the map without collision. Combine with Gandalf and Mewtwo modes for free easy map traversal.<br />
* '''Goggles mode: ''' ''window.ze.goggles()'' - displays a small window showing area around the player in a pixelated manner. The goggles indicate collision boundaries (where the player touches the world) in cyan lines. Black pixels that are passable (such as other characters or text) will be highlighted red (allowing secret passages to be discovered).<br />
* '''Position Tracking: ''' ''window.explorer.pos'' - Returns the player location to the console. Can be used to track position and test to ensure you are still moving. Must be re-entered to compare positioning.<br />
* '''Position Setting: ''' ''window.explorer.pos.x = *Value* or window.explorer.pos.y = *Value*'' - Can be used to manually set a position within the world. The start is at x: 512106, y: -549612. The left terrain bound is at x: 475210, y: -553711. The right terrain bound is at x: 567281, y: -549712. Mewtwo and Noclip modes are a must for exploring in this way.<br />
* '''All the above: ''' ''window.explorer.opts'' - Contains all the game's parameters. You can directly mess with ''gravity'', collision (''disableCollision''), jump force (''jumpForce'') and speed (''maxSpeed''), among others. Run ''Object.keys(window.explorer.opts)'' to list all available parameters you can tweak.<br />
* '''List all coins: ''' ''window.explorer.objects'' - Array containing the position of the 169 coins of the game.<br />
* '''Disable tilt input: ''' ''getEventListeners(window)['deviceorientation'][0].remove()'' - on Macs with motion sensor, disables tilt input which causes problems controlling the avatar<br />
<br />
'''Getting All Coins: ''' To instantly get all coins, input the below into the console window. Does not use standard formatting of [i] to avoid conflicts with window.i.am.gandalf<br />
<br />
for (var T = 0; T < explorer.objects.length; T++) {<br />
explorer.objects[T].got = true<br />
}<br />
<br />
To teleport to the next coin every time you press the left or right arrow:<br />
<br />
var T = 0;<br />
document.onkeydown = function(event){<br />
if (event.keyCode == 37) { T = T-1 }<br />
else if (event.keyCode == 39) { T = T+1 }<br />
else { return }<br />
T = T % explorer.objects.length;<br />
var coin = explorer.objects[T];<br />
explorer.pos.x = coin.x1; explorer.pos.y = coin.y1;<br />
}<br />
<br />
For a quick tour of all the coins:<br />
<br />
var delayInMilliseconds = 1000; // 1 second delay between each teleport. feel free to change this.<br />
var index = 0;<br />
explorer.objects.forEach(function(x){<br />
setTimeout(function(){<br />
explorer.pos.x = x.x1;<br />
explorer.pos.y = x.y1;<br />
x.got = true;<br />
explorer.frame(); // forces a redraw<br />
},<br />
(index + 1) * delayInMilliseconds);<br />
index++;<br />
});<br />
<br />
To see a list of coin coordinates you have not yet collected:<br />
<br />
var L = 0;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (I.got) {<br />
L++; <br />
} else {<br />
console.log(I.x1.toString() + ", " + I.y1.toString());<br />
}<br />
}<br />
console.log("You've found " + L.toString() + " of 169 coins");<br />
<br />
===Functionality===<br />
By observing page code while playing, the game grabs and displays images based on location, and subsequently clears all non-visible images. The game uses what seems to be a position syntax to retrieve the intended images live, and returns an error if such an image does not exist, such as a blank area. This technically means things could be added to the world and updated live. If the player is moving sufficiently fast or if the internet connection is slow, this means that the player can get stuck in a black area that does not load in time.<br />
<br />
This also means that the game does not have coded top or bottom limits, so any attempt to find the ''ceiling'' of the game will be futile unless the game is tweaked. The game does however have side limits.<br />
<br />
When you deposit a certain number of coins, you will get one of the following messages:<br />
* 0 coins : You got 0 coins in (n) seconds/ You successfully avoided all the coins. <br />
* 1 coin : You got a single coin in (n) seconds/ It's a start.<br />
* 2-4 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Not bad!<br />
* 5-9 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Terrific!<br />
* 17 coins : You got 17 coins in (n) seconds/ You found all the coins! Great job!<br />
* 42 coins : You got 42 coins in (n) seconds/ No answers here.<br />
* 169 coins : You got 169 coins in (n) seconds/ Are you Gandalf?<br />
* All others: You got (n) coins in (n) seconds<br />
<br />
Opening the console will display the text: what? hoverboard not enough for you!? in the log. Activating goggles mode will cause the text 'B-)' to appear in the log.<br />
<br />
Leaving the play area will cause the red text 'RETURN TO THE PLAY AREA' to rapidly blink 3 times (150 msec duration), followed by a pause, and this will repeat 5 times for a total of 15 blinks. This will also reoccur if the player passes through the play area on their way back from exploring one side.<br />
<br />
===Explanations of jokes===<br />
{{incomplete|Insert table here}}<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
* The alt text is only visible on the mobile version of the site, or when leaving the starting area. Further, when leaving the starting area, it shows different than normal alt text.<br />
* If the focus switches from the game to the page, the cueball can freeze in midair. The same thing can happen if the window border overlaps the play area.<br />
* The Washington monument as an invisible floor next to the visible bricks.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete|Something similar to 1110: [[Click and Drag]]}}<br />
The game features Cueball on a hoverboard in a simple map. On the map are coins which Cueball has to collect.<br />
It appears Cueball can jump multiple times without needing to land, this means that Cueball is able to escape the designated "Play Area".<br />
This prompts a warning which soon disappears allowing Cueball to discover the world.<br />
<br />
[THIS ONLY COVERS THE PERMANENT TEXT, NOT THE DIFFERENT WIN STATES]<br /> <br />
MY NEW BOOK<br /> <br />
''THE THINGS EXPLAINER'',<br /> <br />
COMES OUT TODAY!<br /> <br />
<br />
TO CELEBRATE, HERE'S<br /> <br />
A SMALL GAME.<br /> <br />
<br />
[TO THE SIDE, BELOW AN ARROW]<br /> <br />
DEPOSIT COINS HERE<br /> <br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1608:_Hoverboard&diff=1057101608: Hoverboard2015-11-25T08:38:38Z<p>162.158.90.193: /* Cheats and Exploits */ expanded goggles: color legend</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1608<br />
| date = November 24, 2015<br />
| title = Hoverboard<br />
| image = hoverboard.png<br />
| titletext = Return to the play area<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|It's possible not all of the game's secrets have been unearthed yet.}}<br />
The comic features a game made to celebrate the release of Randall's new book, "Thing Explainer". The game was made by [http://chromakode.com Max Goodman] who has previously worked on [[1416: Pixels]]. The source code for the game can be found [https://xkcd.com/1608/tigl.js here]. The game features [[Cueball]] on a hover board in an arena filled with coins, initially it appears the aim of the game is to collect all the coins. However, a seemingly intentional bug in the game means that the player can jump and keep jumping forever without needing to land (As is usual for platform games like these). This allows the character to go out of bounds of the "Play Area" prompting multiple warnings insisting the player returns to said "Play Area". Exiting this area reveals a hidden world similar in style to the previous comic [[1110: Click and Drag]], which can be explored by navigating through various obstacles and hidden areas.<br />
<br />
There are 17 coins in the "Play Area" and a grand total of 169 in the entire game.<br />
<br />
Escaping from the starting area is quite simple, the character simply has to navigate through one of the multiple holes in the area and them simply jump over the wall on the left or the right of the starting area, this can be done by repeatedly tapping the jump key. The player can then explore. The game is physically bounded in the left and the right direction, but is technically unbounded upwards and downwards, however, past a certain point there appears to be nothing interesting in the up or down direction. It could be possible that some unexplored hole leads deeper into the map than has been found so far, it is also possible that jumping for a considerable amount of time would allow the player to reach some additional content above the map.<br />
<br />
As previously noted, the comic bears considerable resembelance to [[1110: Click and Drag]]. The comic is made in much the same way, with 'drawn' images "glued" together to form a large "map", with the illusion of infinite bounds made possible through space saving techniques where blank tiles are not stored and are instead painted white. The boundary between blank squares and 'drawn' squares is made clear as any white space in the normal images has a very slight grey tint. Thus, seams between images and blank spaces can be discerned.<br />
<br />
The tiles for the map are stored as simple PNG files in the naming scheme: X:Y+s.png. An example can be seen here: http://xkcd.com/1608/1013:-1096+s.png Each file is 513x513 pixels in size, one pixel is reserved as overlap to ensure seamless joining of images.<br />
So far, through experimentation, tiles in the range 928 to 1108 X and -1112 to -928 Y have been discovered, internally, the position of the player is divided by 512 and rounded down to give the position of the tile.<br />
<br />
===Areas===<br />
There are many different areas beyond the initial starting area, exploration has found so far:<br />
<br />
Notable features include a number of large ships in the sky, with various interiors which can be entered from several places. To find them, follow the strings which several characters are holding near the first ground area. <br />
<br />
West:<br />
Washington Monument -<br />
Parachuting spacecraft -<br />
Volcano -<br />
Lava pools -<br />
LOTR Eagles -<br />
Elon Musk's Volcano Lair -<br />
Landing re-entry capsule -<br />
Giant spaceship / Floating rock island in the sky (x: 507163, y: -567537)<br />
Hat underground<br />
A hole which traps(?) the player unless noclip mode is used<br />
<br />
East:<br />
Wedding -<br />
Giant bird nest -<br />
Desert -<br />
Ocean Yelper -<br />
Graveyard -<br />
Talking Rogue Wave -<br />
People holding anchor lines to a Star Destroyer, among other ships.<br />
Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems (inside ship, go down a shaft from the surface.)<br />
<br />
[http://codepen.io/KyleDavidE/full/605dc87b614ff6b2bd716f4c6f640203/ Quickly hacked overview] - courtesy of [https://www.reddit.com/user/kyledavide kyledavide] on [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3u4sy1/xkcd_1608_hoverboard/cxbyn86 reddit].<br />
<br />
===Controls===<br />
The controls are as follows:<br />
<br />
* '''Go Left''' - Left arrow key, a or h<br />
* '''Go Right''' - Right arrow key, d or l<br />
* '''Go Up (jump or hover)''' - Up arrow key, w, or k<br />
<br />
Through inspection of the game's source code, it can be derived that down, j and s are also accepted keystrokes, but it is unclear if the game actually uses these or not.<br />
<br />
This control scheme covers the three commonly used directional key sets: WASD a set of keys commonly used by modern games; HJKL a set of movement keys used by vi and applications which attempt to mimic vi key controls (vim); and the arrow keys, the most generic set of keys which is usually accepted by most applications which take movement as input, these were commonly used in older games.<br />
<br />
On a tablet (e.g. iPad) changing the orientation of the tablet will control the left and right motion, while tapping the image produced jumps.<br />
<br />
===Cheats and Exploits===<br />
Aside from the obvious ability to move out of bounds in the game, there are some more obscure hidden features which can't be enabled through normal gameplay, the ones found so far are as follows:<br />
<br />
'''Modes''' are activated by opening the Javascript Console (F12 to open Developer Tools, then Console tab) and writing corresponding commands:<br />
<br />
* '''Gandalf Mode: ''' ''window.i.am.gandalf = true'' - jumps and runs further<br />
* '''Speedhack: ''' ''explorer.opts.speed= *Value*'' - Speed hacking, with 1 = normal speed<br />
* '''Jump Hack: ''' '' explorer.opts.jumpForce= -*Value*'' - Jump hacking, with -1 = normal jump (positive values cause the hoverboard guy to move down when jumping)<br />
* '''Mewtwo mode: ''' ''window.mewtwo = true'' - disables gravity<br />
* '''Noclip mode: ''' ''window.noclip = true'' - player is able to move around the map without collision. Combine with Gandalf and Mewtwo modes for free easy map traversal.<br />
* '''Goggles mode: ''' ''window.ze.goggles()'' - displays a small window showing area around the player in a pixelated manner. The goggles indicate collision boundaries (where the player touches the world) in cyan lines. Black pixels that are passable (such as other characters or text) will be highlighted red (allowing secret passages to be discovered).<br />
* '''Position Tracking: ''' ''window.explorer.pos'' - Returns the player location to the console. Can be used to track position and test to ensure you are still moving. Must be re-entered to compare positioning.<br />
* '''Position Setting: ''' ''window.explorer.pos.x = *Value* or window.explorer.pos.y = *Value*'' - Can be used to manually set a position within the world. The start is at x: 512106, y: -549612. The left terrain bound is at x: 475210, y: -553711. The right terrain bound is at x: 567281, y: -549712. Mewtwo and Noclip modes are a must for exploring in this way.<br />
* '''All the above: ''' ''window.explorer.opts'' - Contains all the game's parameters. You can directly mess with ''gravity'', collision (''disableCollision''), jump force (''jumpForce'') and speed (''maxSpeed''), among others. Run ''Object.keys(window.explorer.opts)'' to list all available parameters you can tweak.<br />
* '''List all coins: ''' ''window.explorer.objects'' - Array containing the position of the 169 coins of the game.<br />
* ""Disable tilt input:"" "getEventListeners(window)['deviceorientation'][0].remove()" - on Macs with motion sensor, disables tilt input which causes problems controlling the avatar<br />
<br />
'''Getting All Coins: ''' To instantly get all coins, input the below into the console window. Does not use standard formatting of [i] to avoid conflicts with window.i.am.gandalf<br />
<br />
for (var T = 0; T < explorer.objects.length; T++) {<br />
explorer.objects[T].got = true<br />
}<br />
<br />
To teleport to the next coin every time you press the left or right arrow:<br />
<br />
var T = 0;<br />
document.onkeydown = function(event){<br />
if (event.keyCode == 37) { T = T-1 }<br />
else if (event.keyCode == 39) { T = T+1 }<br />
else { return }<br />
T = T % explorer.objects.length;<br />
var coin = explorer.objects[T];<br />
explorer.pos.x = coin.x1; explorer.pos.y = coin.y1;<br />
}<br />
<br />
For a quick tour of all the coins:<br />
<br />
var delayInMilliseconds = 1000; // 1 second delay between each teleport. feel free to change this.<br />
var index = 0;<br />
explorer.objects.forEach(function(x){<br />
setTimeout(function(){<br />
explorer.pos.x = x.x1;<br />
explorer.pos.y = x.y1;<br />
x.got = true;<br />
explorer.frame(); // forces a redraw<br />
},<br />
(index + 1) * delayInMilliseconds);<br />
index++;<br />
});<br />
<br />
To see a list of coin coordinates you have not yet collected:<br />
<br />
var L = 0;<br />
for (var S = 0; S < explorer.objects.length; S++) {<br />
var I = explorer.objects[S];<br />
if (I.got) {<br />
L++; <br />
} else {<br />
console.log(I.x1.toString() + ", " + I.y1.toString());<br />
}<br />
}<br />
console.log("You've found " + L.toString() + " of 169 coins");<br />
<br />
===Functionality===<br />
By observing page code while playing, the game grabs and displays images based on location, and subsequently clears all non-visible images. The game uses what seems to be a position syntax to retrieve the intended images live, and returns an error if such an image does not exist, such as a blank area. This technically means things could be added to the world and updated live. If the player is moving sufficiently fast or if the internet connection is slow, this means that the player can get stuck in a black area that does not load in time.<br />
<br />
This also means that the game does not have coded top or bottom limits, so any attempt to find the ''ceiling'' of the game will be futile unless the game is tweaked. The game does however have side limits.<br />
<br />
When you deposit a certain number of coins, you will get one of the following messages:<br />
* 0 coins : You got 0 coins in (n) seconds/ You successfully avoided all the coins. <br />
* 1 coin : You got a single coin in (n) seconds/ It's a start.<br />
* 2-4 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Not bad!<br />
* 5-9 coins : You got (n) coins in (n) seconds/ Terrific!<br />
* 17 coins : You got 17 coins in (n) seconds/ You found all the coins! Great job!<br />
* 42 coins : You got 42 coins in (n) seconds/ No answers here.<br />
* 169 coins : You got 169 coins in (n) seconds/ Are you Gandalf?<br />
* All others: You got (n) coins in (n) seconds<br />
<br />
Opening the console will display the text: what? hoverboard not enough for you!? in the log. Activating goggles mode will cause the text 'B-)' to appear in the log.<br />
<br />
Leaving the play area will cause the red text 'RETURN TO THE PLAY AREA' to rapidly blink 3 times (150 msec duration), followed by a pause, and this will repeat 5 times for a total of 15 blinks. This will also reoccur if the player passes through the play area on their way back from exploring one side.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete|Something similar to 1110: [[Click and Drag]]}}<br />
The game features Cueball on a hoverboard in a simple map. On the map are coins which Cueball has to collect.<br />
It appears Cueball can jump multiple times without needing to land, this means that Cueball is able to escape the designated "Play Area".<br />
This prompts a warning which soon disappears allowing Cueball to discover the world.<br />
<br />
[THIS ONLY COVERS THE PERMANENT TEXT, NOT THE DIFFERENT WIN STATES]<br /> <br />
MY NEW BOOK<br /> <br />
''THE THINGS EXPLAINER'',<br /> <br />
COMES OUT TODAY!<br /> <br />
<br />
TO CELEBRATE, HERE'S<br /> <br />
A SMALL GAME.<br /> <br />
<br />
[TO THE SIDE, BELOW AN ARROW]<br /> <br />
DEPOSIT COINS HERE<br /> <br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.90.193https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1585:_Similarities&diff=102743Talk:1585: Similarities2015-10-02T12:31:56Z<p>162.158.90.193: (comment) added clarification of "tell me you wouldn't"</p>
<hr />
<div>;Origins<br />
<br />
I've heard 50 Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fan fiction, but don't know how The Martian came to be. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.115|108.162.216.115]] 05:56, 2 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
-- Still missing from the explanation is what kind of brand ''The Martian'' is about... -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.217|162.158.114.217]] 08:18, 2 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
:NASA? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.238|108.162.229.238]] 08:22, 2 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
:A Mars bar? --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.65|141.101.98.65]] 09:09, 2 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
:I'm going with NASA. --[[User:PsyMar|PsyMar]] ([[User talk:PsyMar|talk]]) 09:30, 2 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: It is Twilight fan-fiction. The original version is still availble for free. They just renamed the characters and removed references to Christian being a sparkling vampire and published it as a new book.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.115.22|162.158.115.22]] 08:43, 2 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
::Allegedly removed by the author, first from the fan fiction sites and then her personal site just prior to publication! And you're right, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/02/11/the-most-scandalous-part-of-fifty-shades-of-grey-isnt-the-sex-and-bondage/ the original is 89% similar to the published trilogy]. Names have been changed to protect the author from legal battles, and [http://www.avclub.com/article/holy-crow-fifty-shades-grey-crazy-similar-its-twil-215185 crucial changes from "holy cow" to "holy crap"] were also made.<br />
::[http://www.literarykiss.com/2012/10/communication-in-fifty-shades-of-trey.html I even found a few graphs about its literary horror and crap references, for people like me who are easily amused. Unfortunately it's so bizarre I'm feeling the effects of Poe's law here. Is it really that bad, or is this some parody? I'll never read the books to find out. --[[User:Fedora-tionOfPlanets|Fedora-tionOfPlanets]] ([[User talk:Fedora-tionOfPlanets|talk]]) 11:28, 2 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
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I believe Ponytail is not terrified by suggested title. That's more like she thinksthat Cueball will almost certainly read it and dares him to say otherwise. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.80.53|141.101.80.53]] 11:46, 2 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
: I agree; the ''tell'' is italicized, and that emphasis indicates she's using an American idiom to indicate her enthusiasm for the idea. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.143|108.162.219.143]] 12:11, 2 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: To clarify: in English (American?) slang there are two ways to use "tell me you didn't/wouldn't X".<br />
:A) "(''please/AUGH'') tell me you didn't X" can be translated as "I am horrified to think you did/would-do X, please reassure me you didn't/wouldn't do it:" (usually preceded by a pleading "please" or some exclamation of horror): "please tell me you didn't cross the streams", "ARGH! Please tell me you didn't tell Blackhatguy my email-address, living address and greatest fear!"<br />
:B) (smugly/challenging) "tell my you didn't/wouldn't X" would be translated as "I know you well enough to be 99% sure that you actually _did_/_would_ do X, and I really enjoy your blushing right now because you realise I caught you red-handed, but you cannot lie about it to deny me": "Oh dear Randall, tell me you wouldn't watch a debate between the reanimated corpses of Feynman and Einstein. *Randall blushes in guilty admission* Haha I knew you would"<br />
:[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.193|162.158.90.193]] 12:31, 2 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Considering the timing, I wouldn't be surprised if Randall did indeed saw the movie, but had the comics ready in advance and after the movie only added the title and published it. So the part about him not liking the movie based on comics is unfounded. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:47, 2 October 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Is the sojourner used to communicate in the movie? It seems like it is just kept around to beetle around the hah module and the Lander is used for comms. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.180|141.101.98.180]]IB</div>162.158.90.193