explain xkcd:Explanation Improvement Project

explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Latest comment: 17:04 by FaviFake in topic Transcript
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The Explanation Improvement Project

After remaining inactive more than a decade, the Explanation Completion Project is back with a new goal and a new name! Explaining every comic was just the start; the key to an active wiki is the maintenance and constant improvements for the existing explanations.

While most new comics receive high-quality explanations, due to the growing user base and our high standards, our goal is to have a complete repository of explanations for every comic. However, old and complicated explanations do not attract enough attention and tend to remain stagnant. This project aims to solve that.

This week's explanation for improvement is:

395: Morning

Get involved with the project: nominate an explanation or vote on current nominations!

There are a total of 3322 explanations on this wiki. Every Monday, upon completion of This Week's Explanation for Improvement (TWEFI), a new page will be featured in the Main Page and in our global site banner with the goal of continually keeping our older explanations as detailed and fresh as possible. Remember; every little bit counts. Even if all you can do is add a sentence or fix a typo, that is still another step taken towards finishing the article.

This project differs from our list of incomplete articles, which mostly includes the most recent comics and some evergreen explanations that are never truly "finished". For those, browse Category:Incomplete explanations or jump to a random incomplete explanation.

Criteria[edit]

The Explanation Improvement Project is primarily focused on improving existing explanations while also helping create new editors. Ideal candidates for This Week's Explanation for Improvement are:

1. Needing of improvement, with expansion opportunity. Short explanations (view list of shortest pages) are often the most ideal for improvement, but longer explanations can also be good candidates if they are poorly written or do not explain the joke well. Good short explanations about quick and straightforward jokes should remain short. Regardless of the length of an explanation, consider its overall quality.

2. Interesting to the general public or otherwise ideal for new editors. The edit-a-thon format of the project (a concentrated collaborative effort for a few days) is best suited for comics about topics that most people can relate to. Explanations about more niche or technical jokes usually belong in the Incomplete explanations backlog instead. Explanations that have remained in the backlog for a long time, as well as those detailing the inner workings of the comic rather than its joke, are almost never nominated.

3. Old or out of date. The comic should preferably (but not necessarily) have been published before the creation of this wiki or be in need of an update. This wiki was created after 1079, so comics released after July 2012 were featured on the Main Page for multiple days and are generally higher-quality as a result. Particularly, comics released in the last few years are almost never nominated.

Nomination process[edit]

Anyone is encouraged to nominate one or more explanations! To nominate an explanation for consideration by the Explanation Improvement Project, follow these simple steps:

  1. Check whether the explanation(s) you want to nominate meet the three criteria above.
  2. Click here to add your nomination at the top of the list using this format:
    {{Nominate|1234: Title of Comic}} I'm nominating this explanation because ... (say briefly how it can be improved and which criteria it meets). ~~~~
  3. Save the page.

Done. Your nomination will be discussed by the members of the project in the following days!

Any user is welcome to vote on the suitability of existing nominations as well! To help us select the best Explanations for Improvement, use the "Reply" button to comment on existing nominations. Based on community consensus, successful nominations are moved into the section § Successful nominations (pending) and will be featured week-by-week. Unsuccessful nominations will instead be moved into § Unsuccessful nominations. In either case, the top of the § Discussion section for the comic is marked with a banner that includes the nominator's username!

Nominations[edit]

Current TWEFI[edit]

This is the current Explanation for Improvement for this week.

395: Morning
Morning
I'd press on them to try to unstick them, but I can't reach. Can we try cycling day and night really fast?
Title text: I'd press on them to try to unstick them, but I can't reach. Can we try cycling day and night really fast?

    Explanation[edit]

    This comic has been selected as This Week's Explanation for Improvement. Anyone is encouraged to help explain this comic! Every little bit counts; even just adding a sentence or fixing a typo is another step towards improving the wiki for everyone.

    Suggested improvements:
      Explain the references to The Matrix to someone who has never heard of the movie.
      Explain the "screen resolution of the world" in first panel. Is there truth to this? What resolution do our eyes actually have?
      Explain the title text, especially "cycling day and night really fast".
      The explain of LCD screens is too technical.
      Mention that OLED screens are much more popular nowadays. Do they also suffer from dead pixels?
      Could the dead pixels that Megan sees actually be simple stars visible during the day?

    Click here to get started! If you are new to wiki editing, see our editing FAQ for guidance, or simply learn by doing!

    This comic makes reference to the idea, as presented in the movie The Matrix, that reality is a computer simulation. In LCD screens, especially TFT LCD, a dead pixel is a pixel that does not work properly, usually set as black or as some other color. Megan realizes that the reality is a computer simulation when she sees dead pixels in the sky, indicating that what she sees is an LCD screen.

    In the last panel of the comic, there are two red and one green pixel that look exactly like actual dead pixels.

    Regarding the question in the first panel, "What resolution is life?" (by which "life" presumably means the "real world" or lived experience, not living biochemistry), the typical response involves Planck distance and Planck time, the smallest digital units of distance and time that time-space can be broken down into. Humans, of course, cannot perceive on that scale, but it is the fundamental building block of the time-space around us, similar to pixels (picture elements) on a screen or a bit (one-or-zero) of data. Datum. Data. Our experience occurs at a much higher level, so a lower order of resolution.

    The title text refers to usual techniques for fixing a dead pixel. One way is to apply pressure and release it, which isn't possible for Megan due to the distance of the sky. Another way is to make the area of the screen that the dead pixel is on change colors really quickly, which could happen if the day-night cycle was fast enough.

    Transcript[edit]

    Latest comment: 17:043 comments2 people in discussion
    [Megan is standing to one side.]
    We've all seen The Matrix
    We've all joked about "What resolution is life?"
    But it doesn't blunt the shock
    Of waking up one morning
    [Megan looks up from field and sees several colored pixels in the sky.]
    And seeing dead pixels in the sky.


    This explanation is just seven sentences and three small paragraphs. It also doesn't explain the title text or first panel well enough. This has to be the most incomplete explanation that isn't marked as incomplete. YZ100 (talk) 20:55, 12 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

     Nomination successful. Jeez. You're right; if this comic were released today, its explanation would be at least several pages long! FaviFake (talk) 17:04, 13 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
     Featured as This Week's Explanation for Improvement. FaviFake (talk) 17:04, 13 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

    Successful nominations (pending)[edit]

    Successful nominations from § Current nominations are moved here until they are featured.

    1066: Laundry
    Laundry
    During the second semester, the path is briefly routed through the dishwasher.
    Title text: During the second semester, the path is briefly routed through the dishwasher.

      Explanation[edit]

      This comic is all about college laundry habits and how as time goes by, you end up just throwing clothes on the floor and then wearing them again.

      In the first week, the student undertakes a proper laundry routine. However, due to increasing laziness/workload, by the second week they have abandoned folding their clothes, and by the third week no longer bother hanging them in the closet. By the second month dirty clothes are no longer stored in a laundry hamper and are just dumped on the floor, and by the end of the semester clothes are not washed at all instead rotating between the floor and the students body.

      The title text seems to indicate that the student has a brainwave, some time later, to wash their clothes in the dishwasher along with the dishes. Presumably as a timesaver. The experiment was brief because dishwashers aren't actually any good at washing clothes[1] as they wouldn't move the clothes about.

      Transcript[edit]

      Latest comment: 28 August4 comments3 people in discussion
      College Laundry Habits
      [Panel labeled "First Week". 5 ovals arranged in a rough circle, with a clockwise path connecting them: "Dresser & Closet", "On Body", "Hamper", "Washer & Dryer", "Folding Area" (and back to the first). The area outside the ovals is labeled "Floor."]
      [Panel labeled "Second Week". The path has been modified so that it does not go through "Folding Area" - only through the other 4 ovals.]
      [Panel labeled "Third Week". The path has been modified so that it does not go through "Dresser & Closet". Only "On Body", "Hamper", and "Washer & Dryer" remain.]
      [Panel labeled "Second Month". The path no longer passes through "Hamper" - only "On Body" and "Washer & Dryer".]
      [Panel labeled "End of Semester". The path no longer goes to "Washer & Dryer", instead just looping back around from "On Body" to "On Body" again after passing through the "Floor."]


      Short, relevant to the public, and I'm sure we could go way deeper into washing clothes and adjacent habits. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 21:32, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

      Wow, this simply doesn't even have an explanation at all. It's basically just a transcript in the wrong section. Great find! FaviFake (talk) 22:50, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
      Good pick here! Needs some help for sure Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:08, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
       Nomination successful. FaviFake (talk) 08:16, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

      301: Limerick
      Limerick
      Fun game: try to post a YouTube comment so stupid that people realize you must be joking. (Hint: this is impossible)
      Title text: Fun game: try to post a YouTube comment so stupid that people realize you must be joking. (Hint: this is impossible)

        Explanation[edit]

        A limerick is a well-known type of poem that is usually humorous or bawdy. Technically, a limerick is primarily anapestic trimeter: each line contains three "feet," each foot consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. The rhyme scheme is AABBA: the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme, as do the shorter third and fourth lines. Almost anyone can instantly recognize a limerick after hearing the first line.

        Slashdot is a venerable techie site. On many sites, the user base can vote comments "up" or "down," but at Slashdot, only moderators (these are randomly drawn from the pool of registered users) may up or down vote comments, and the moderator may select a reason for their up or down vote. Instead of a simple +1, a comment may be voted +1 (Funny). Similarly, instead of -1, a comment may be voted -1 (Off-topic). +5 is the maximum positive score. A comment rated +5 (Insightful) has been upvoted at least 5 times, and has a plurality of "Insightful" votes.

        Cueball's limerick says that he does not like Slashdot anymore, because his sarcastic comments are being treated as "insightful" by the very people he's being sarcastic to.

        The title text refers to the notoriously awful comments on YouTube, many of which are so idiotic that they're interpreted as jokes.

        In both cases, Randall is invoking Poe's Law. Both sites have become so full of extremes that you can no longer mock the extremists without looking like a sincere extremist yourself.

        301, the number of this comic, is also a number often associated with YouTube. At the time this comic was published, view counts on YouTube videos would often freeze at 301, as YouTube would switch between view-counting algorithms when the number of views exceeded 300. Therefore, the comic number itself may be a reference to the title text.

        Transcript[edit]

        Latest comment: 28 August4 comments3 people in discussion
        [Cueball sits at a computer, typing.]
        Cueball (typing): I used to find slashdot delightful,
        Cueball (typing): but my feelings of late are more spiteful;
        Cueball (typing): my comments sarcastic
        Cueball (typing): the iconoclastic
        Cueball (typing): keep modding to plus five (Insightful).


        Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

        This looks like a great candidate! Despite being slightly longer than the others, it doesn't really explain the core joke of the comic. FaviFake (talk) 18:55, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
        Agree with FF. The explanation doesn't go into why the upvoted sarcastic comments would cause Cueball's emotion. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 22:38, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
         Nomination successful. FaviFake (talk) 08:16, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

        298: Tesla Coil
        Tesla Coil
        For scientists, this can be the hardest thing about dreams.
        Title text: For scientists, this can be the hardest thing about dreams.

          Explanation[edit]

          Cueball diligently creates a Tesla coil, a device that produces high voltage alternating currents.

          After that show by Cueball, Black Hat magically shoots electricity from his fingertips. When Cueball asks how he did that, he says that science doesn't really work, then hovers in mid-air, further proving his point. There is simply no apparent explanation for Black Hat's abilities, which means science is still woefully incomplete or, as Black Hat said, simply doesn't work.

          Black Hat further explained that the reason that nobody told Cueball was because they thought he was "cute when [he] got into something". Implying that everyone else also knows, and only Cueball was clueless.

          The title text indicates that this was all actually a dream, explaining Black Hat's abilities and pointing out how dreams can be difficult for scientists as they will attempt to analyze and understand everything in the dream according to the laws of science, which wouldn't apply in dreams.[citation needed]

          Transcript[edit]

          Latest comment: 2 September3 comments3 people in discussion
          [Cueball and Black Hat stand near a tesla coil mounted on a table.]
          Cueball: I finally finished my Tesla Coil!
          [The room is dark; the characters appear as faint blue outlines on black background. Cueball turns on the Tesla Coil and it sparks white static electricity.]
          click
          Black Hat: Cool, but—
          Black Hat: Check this out!
          [Lightning shoots out of Black Hat's hands, Cueball appears to be in shock and awe.]
          [The lights are back on, Cueball's arms are raised in amazement.]
          Cueball: How did you do that?
          Black Hat: The world doesn't actually make any sense. Science doesn't work. No one told you because you're so cute when you get into something.
          [Black Hat floats up the frame, and Cueball is pointing towards Black Hat.]
          Black Hat: Still, neat toy.
          Cueball: Now you're hovering!
          Black Hat: I guess you're still not getting this.


          The explanation is very much a transcript. A true explanation of the joke would be nice. It meets all the criteria I believe. Black Hat's Hat (talk) 15:08, 31 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

          Strong agree. We don't mention BH's classhole tendencies, which seems perfect for the idea of hiding the true nature of reality from someone. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 17:11, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
           Nomination successful. FaviFake (talk) 19:19, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

          359: Rock Band
          Rock Band
          I'm gonna have to add something to the strum bar so it makes a clicky sound like the old controllers. I'm so used to the feedback; the silence throws me off.
          Title text: I'm gonna have to add something to the strum bar so it makes a clicky sound like the old controllers. I'm so used to the feedback; the silence throws me off.

            Explanation[edit]

            A smug Cueball demeans his friends' fun experience on Rock Band, a video game which allows players to simulate playing real songs, as if in a real band. The oblivious "band" keeps rocking out, and it transpires that his real purpose is not to spread knowledge but to ruin others' fun (to no avail, thankfully).

            The title text is a comment on haptic feedback, comparing the guitar controllers of Guitar Hero, which make a clicking sound when the user strums, with those of Rock Band, which do not click.

            Transcript[edit]

            Latest comment: 2 September3 comments3 people in discussion
            [Three people are playing Rock Band, one on guitar, another on drums, and the last on vocals. Music notes float above them. Cueball with arms crossed is looking at them.]
            Cueball: You know, playing this doesn't make you cool like a real rock band.
            Cueball: Guys?
            Cueball: Didn't you hear me?
            Cueball: Stop having fun!


            Again, a very short explanation. We could go deeper into why Cueball doesn't want the other people to have fun on Rock Band. Capycapybara (talk) 02:12, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

            Yeah, this one could use some love. Good find! Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:10, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
             Nomination successful. FaviFake (talk) 22:21, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

            430: Every Damn Morning
            Every Damn Morning
            There was something about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill...
            Title text: There was something about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill...

              Explanation[edit]

              Cueball has had a wondrous and striking dream, but is unable to recount it to Megan, as he has forgotten it. The title of the strip suggest that this is a regular occurrence: he wakes up with vivid memories of elaborate and fascinating dreamscapes, but is unable to tell anyone about it, because the memories fade so quickly, he's lost almost everything before he gets the chance.

              The title text is a reference to C.S. Lewis's novel The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, in which Lucy Pevensie reads a story that “refreshes her spirit” – “That is the loveliest story I’ve ever read or ever shall read in my whole life. Oh, I wish I could have gone on reading it for ten years.” – but afterwards can only remember that it had something to do with "a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill."

              An effort to remember dreams was made in 269: TCMP.

              Transcript[edit]

              Latest comment: 2 September3 comments3 people in discussion
              [In the background, a vivid dream scene is apparent, including mountains, a city with a mushroom cloud, a zeppelin where one person has knocked another off, another person climbing on or off the blimp on a rope, another blimp anchoring to a city in the background, one Cueball and Megan holding hands, one Cueball looking at the person on the rope, one Cueball and Megan sword fighting over a cup of spilled liquid, another set looking at a laptop, another set hugging, another set sliding down a separate rope from the blimp and a last set falling. In the far right there is a third blimp flying over a mountain range. All in all, this seems very much like an apocalypse and not something one would forget easily. In the inset, Cueball awakens, very surprised.]
              Cueball: !!!
              [Dream's edges are fading, mountains, city, and zeppelin less clear. In the inset, Cueball is seen running down stairs.]
              [Zeppelin, city, and mountains are very hazy and unclear. The people can still be seen. In the inset, Cueball gets the attention of Megan, who is sitting at a breakfast table.]
              [The dream has completely faded, only the outlines of three people can still be seen. In the inset, Cueball looks confused.]


              The explanation doesn't really seem to fully explain the comic. It just seems to give an overview. Capycapybara (talk) 02:12, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

              Agree; I feel like we could also assess the occurrences in the dream. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 19:25, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
               Nomination successful. FaviFake (talk) 22:21, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

              411: Techno
              Techno
              I don't know what's worse - that there exists broken-hard-drive-sound techno, or that it's not half bad.
              Title text: I don't know what's worse - that there exists broken-hard-drive-sound techno, or that it's not half bad.

                Explanation[edit]

                This comic is an insult towards techno music, which many non-fans find to be very repetitive.

                iTunes is a digital storefront for music (in the years since this comic, it has been expanded into other digital media) which provides a 15 second sample to help buyers make sure they are buying the right song. Cueball claims that for any given techno song, the listener can get the same experience for free by just recording the 15 second sample and playing it on loop.

                The title text refers to the clicking and grinding noises of a dying hard drive, a sound similar to some techno songs. The title text suggests that this actually exists.

                Techno music is also mentioned in 586: Mission to Culture and 740: The Tell-Tale Beat. Sampling and looping sounds that aren't necessarily musical is mentioned in 2427: Perseverance Microphones.

                Transcript[edit]

                Latest comment: 3 September3 comments3 people in discussion
                [Cueball looking over Megan's shoulder while she is clicking her mouse with her other hand on her chin.]
                Cueball: Wait, you're buying techno on iTunes?
                Megan: Yeah. So?
                Cueball: Couldn't you just loop the 15-second free sample 20 times and get basically the same thing?


                I'm not super sure about this one, but it does just seem to have a transcript-like explanation like the ones listed above. Capycapybara (talk) 02:12, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                This one is kinda hard, but I do agree it could be improved. Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:13, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
                This one is pretty good. We can explain the title text better and how iTunes worked back in the day or why one would listed to the free sample.
                 Nomination successful. FaviFake (talk) 09:09, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

                172: Skateboarding is Not a Crime
                Skateboarding is Not a Crime
                'Arrest me, I'm a skateboarder' is an even more obnoxious variant.
                Title text: 'Arrest me, I'm a skateboarder' is an even more obnoxious variant.

                  Explanation[edit]

                  The skateboarding subculture has taken up the phrase "skateboarding is not a crime" in protest of how many cities have banned skateboarding in certain areas, such as parks. Randall apparently really does not like these stickers and states that when he becomes president, any and all displays of stickers bearing the phrase (like the one on the locker in the comic) will be considered a felony, though skateboarding itself will still be legal.

                  The title text also shows another protest phrase, "Arrest me, I'm a skateboarder," that Randall hates even more than "skateboarding is not a crime."

                  Transcript[edit]

                  Latest comment: 6 September3 comments3 people in discussion
                  [A set of lockers, that are dark pink, blue, yellow, dark pink then blue. The middle one has a white sticker stuck to it proclaiming "Skateboarding is not a crime."]
                  [Outside of the Box] When I'm president, skateboarding will still be legal, but display of those stupid stickers will be a felony.


                  Short short. Intriguing, though slightly niche, and dated. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 05:55, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

                  Agreed. We could explain more the controversy around stakeboarding, and the stickers and similar occurances Black Hat's Hat (talk) 19:53, 4 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
                   Nomination successful. FaviFake (talk) 11:02, 6 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

                  Current nominations[edit]

                  Welcome! Follow the instructions above to add your nomination at the top of this section.

                  887: Future Timeline
                  Future Timeline
                  ↓ Skip to explanation ↓
                  Not shown: the approximately 30,000 identical, vaguely hysterical articles titled "WHITE PEOPLE IN [THE US/BRITAIN] TO BECOME MINORITY BY [YEAR]!", which came up for basically any year I put in.
                  Title text: Not shown: the approximately 30,000 identical, vaguely hysterical articles titled "WHITE PEOPLE IN [THE US/BRITAIN] TO BECOME MINORITY BY [YEAR]!", which came up for basically any year I put in.


                    Explanation[edit]

                    This comic uses the same strategy as comic 715: Numbers, in which Randall uses Google to search for phrases and then charts the results. This one is charted as a timeline, whereas 715 was charted as line graphs. It is a list of things predicted or announced by anyone at any time (the ones you see on Google search using "by the year..." or similar statements).

                    "2101 - War Was Beginning" is a reference to the opening narration of video game Zero Wing; the same narration is famous for the internet meme "All your base are belong to us". As there are not any other out and out references in the comic, and the rest are actually results that you can find using Randall's methods, "War Was Beginning" was probably the only thing he got when he googled 2101 as well.

                    Certain events in this comic, e.g., "Social Security stops running surplus", are repeated multiple times. Also, certain bizarre events, like "Apocalypse occurs", or "Flying cars reach market", happen before rather plausible things, like "'Big one' hits California". Certain events, like "Japan is a robot-only country" or "Gillette introduces 14-blade razor" may be related to the recurring theme 605: Extrapolating.

                    According to some official projections, (non Hispanic) White people will no longer be the majority in the United States by 2045 due to low birth rates and high rates of immigration. The title text is Randall's statement that, for both the US and Great Britain, there are so many sources that mention this, for any year he cared to search for and many using more far more doubtful sources (if any), that he decided that it was not worth flooding the chart with all these spurious repetitions, even though he did include other less prolific recurring themes.

                    This comic has similar features to 1413: Suddenly Popular, 1093: Forget, and 891: Movie Ages.

                    The predictions[edit]

                    Year Prediction Further Details Outcome
                    2012 World population Ever since the advent of modern medicine and the more efficient agricultural processes developed since the Industrial Revolution, the human population had been growing at an unprecedented rate. This has caused some people to worry about overpopulation, which would cause a scarcity of resources and overcrowding, and propose various solutions, most of which involve some form of eugenics. 7 billion is a landmark number because it is a multiple of 1 billion. Too late (but close). Earth reached 7 billion in late 2011.
                    Flying cars For decades, flying cars have been a staple of futuristic sci-fi and technological predictions. So far very few of these predictions, which to tend to hover around 5–10 years from whatever the current date is, have come true. Too early. A flying car designed for consumer use was first demonstrated in July 2021 , but has yet to go into production. You could argue that helicopters count as flying cars, but these are not affordable[citation needed] and hence not widely used by the general public.
                    Canada cuts greenhouse emissions Currently, the Earth is experiencing an unprecedented period of warming we call global warming, caused in part by greenhouse emissions, which are gases that help trap heat in the atmosphere. Countries have repeatedly gotten together and promised to stop emitting greenhouse gases, but so far they have failed to meet their targets. False. Canada withdrew from the Kyoto treaty in late 2011, and its emissions in 2012 were 18% above 1990 levels (though its population had grown 26% and its GDP had grown 67% in that period).
                    Apocalypse occurs The end of a cycle of the Mayan calendar on December 22, 2012 has been used in popular culture as a basis for predicting the end of the world. Amongst other things, this included the film '2012'. Some people took this rather more seriously, and actually believed that the world would end on this date. False.[citation needed]
                    2013 National debt paid off For years, the subject of national debt (in the USA) has been a political point of contention. While both parties theoretically support reducing the debt or paying it off entirely, Democrats are more willing to spend to pull the country out of recessions in the economy and Republicans to cut taxes. The last time that spending did not exceed revenue begin under Clinton, a Democrat, and ended after George W. Bush, a Republican, said that this amounted to taxpayers being "overcharged" and taxes were lowered, followed by the Great Recession. Clinton at one point proposed paying off the debt by 2015. False.
                    Microchipping all Americans Microchips are small computer chips, typically embedded in pets in case they get lost, that contain information about the pet. Some, more paranoid, people worry about the government microchipping everyone in an effort to monitor their activities. False. However, voluntary RFID implants do exist.
                    Homelessness ended in MA In 2008, the Commission To End Homelessness in Massachusetts, under Governor Deval Patrick, proposed a plan to all but eliminate homelessness over the next five years (hence the 2013 end-date on the comic). False.
                    Health care reform law repealed A health care reform law, popularly known as Obamacare, was signed into law in 2010. Ever since, many Republicans have tried (in vain) to repeal it, disliking the idea that government should provide and require healthcare. However, President Joe Biden has stated to restore Obamacare. False or Too early. Almost repealed in 2017.
                    2014 US leaves Afghanistan After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York on September 11, 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan, due to the Taliban allegedly hosting al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization behind the attacks. The war has gone on since then, with the public growing increasingly tired of it. Public support then favoured a withdrawal, but for military and logistical reasons, the government could not simply move all the US troops in Afghanistan to their home. Therefore, the government promised to eventually withdraw all troops, initially planned to do so by the end of 2014. Too early. The remaining US troops left Afghanistan in June 2021.
                    GNU/Linux dominant OS An operating system, or OS, is the software that forms the structure in which applications on you computer function. Some typical OSs include Mac OS X, Windows 10, and Linux. The first two of those three are commercial products, sold as a copy by a company. The last is an open-source OS, one that anyone can download and modify free. Typically, open-source software is used by a small number of socially conscious people. False. However, Linux-based Android dominated phones since 2011.
                    2015 New Horizon reaches Pluto The New Horizon spacecraft is a U.S. space mission designed to go to Pluto and take photographs, collect samples, etc. True. It reached Pluto on July 14, 2015.
                    Healthcare law causes hyperinflation The National Inflation Association warned that the healthcare bill would cause U.S. hyperinflation by 2015. False.
                    Millennium development goals achieved Millennium Development Goals False.
                    2016 Baby boomers begin turning 65 Baby boomers are individuals conceived in the years following World War Two, roughly defined as those born from 1946-1959. This isn't so much a prediction as basic math; if you were born in 1946, you turned 65 in 2011. True.
                    Android takes 38%/45% of market share Android is a popular operating system for smartphones and tablets, created by Google. Market share is the percentage of all devices that use the product, in this case the Android operating system. These entries together are humorous because they cannot both happen at the same time. Too late. It passed these marks in 2010. Android OS's market share was already 84.4% as of the third quarter of 2014, showing that both estimates were overly conservative.
                    Windows phone overtakes iOS iOS is the operating system used by Apple iPhones. At the time of the comic, Apple's mobile OS is much more popular than Microsoft's. The article Randall found predicts that the tables will turn. However, Windows Phone was discontinued in 2017, with support for the last version (Windows Phone 10) ending on December 10, 2019. False.
                    2017 China completes lunar mission The Chinese space program has plans for extraterrestrial exploration, including a manned mission to the Moon.

                    Already having had success (prior to the comic) with lunar orbiters from 2007 onwards, the first lunar lander was 14 December 2013. The mission that the comic describes, however, is the first sample-return mission that returned to Earth 16 December 2020 (later than this prediction).

                    		Too early.
                    Social Security stops running surplus The first of many predictions about the United States Social Security trust fund program, all predicting its decline due to a variety of factors. Too early. It occurred in 2021.
                    US budget balanced The United States federal budget outlines how much the US government spends on what in a given fiscal year. The budget is not required to be balanced, and so often more money is spent than is earned in revenue, causing the national debt to rise. False. It is still pretty negative.
                    Newspapers become obsolete and die out The increasing popularity of social media and online news has caused a steady decline in the popularity of print media. False. Though newspapers (especially printed ones) are in decline, they are certainly not obsolete as of 2017, or 2026, for that matter.
                    Cosmetic surgery doubles Cosmetic Surgery False. According to the ASPS (American Society of Plastic Surgeons), 1.6 million cosmetic surgeries were performed in 2011, while 1.8 million were performed in 2017, an increase of only 0.2 million.
                    2018 Social Security stops running surplus Social Security again. Still too early.
                    Jesus returns to Earth A number of Christians have attempted to predict the return of Christ (a.k.a. the second coming or the rapture) using clues from The Bible, even though the Bible and other religious texts says that "no man can know the date" and that it would be within the lifetime of some who witnessed Jesus's first appearance. Several predicted dates have come and gone. False.
                    2019 Social Security stops running surplus Social Security again. Still too early.
                    Every baby has genes mapped at birth Gene Mapping False.
                    2020 Solar power becomes cheaper than fossil fuels Scientists estimate that more than half of the fossil fuels in existence have already been found and that fossil fuel production will begin to decline due to the scarcity, causing prices to increase. At the same time, improvements in solar technology are causing the prices for solar energy to steadily decrease. True. However, only in certain cases.
                    Keyboards and mice become obsolete Computer input devices are beginning to adopt other inputs, such as trackpads, voice commands, touch screens, and eye tracking. While touch screens in particular are gaining widespread use with the rise of smartphones and tablets, as of 2022 desktop computers that use mice are still fairly common. And while voice-to-text has greatly improved, it still doesn't have the accuracy to replace typing. None of the other text inputs are as fast as a keyboard, and none are suitable for writing program code. False. While touchscreen devices are increasingly common, desktop computers are still very much in use. Mice continue to be used alongside touchscreens and trackpads, and keyboards remain the dominant method of writing on computers.
                    New Tappan Zee bridge constructed A replacement bridge was announced in 2008. Too late. It was completed in 2017.
                    2021 US debt reaches 97% of GDP US Debt Too late. It was reached in 2011.
                    US unemployment falls to 2.8% Unemployment in the United States False. Unemployment has increased, partially attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic and other market forces.
                    Restored caliphate unifies Middle East A caliphate is a form of Islamic theocracy, centred around a Caliph, or successor to the prophet Muhammad. This prediction foreshadows the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which attempted but failed to create a caliphate in the Levant. False.
                    Lake Mead evaporates Formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States (measured by maximum capacity). It hasn't reached its capacity since 1983, due to drought and increased demand for water. This is linked to global warming. False. However, water levels continue to fall.
                    2022 Kilimanjaro snow-free At 5,895 metres, Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa, and the highest free-standing mountain in the world. Around 85% of its ice cover disappeared between 1912 and 2011, and it continues to recede. False.
                    HTML 5 finished The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) began work on HTML 5 in 2004. Too late. 5.0 specification released in 2014, but incremental updates continue.
                    Newspapers become obsolete and die out This is the second time this prediction has appeared. False.
                    2023 Jesus returns to Earth (again) Again. False.
                    US debt passes 100% of GDP This references the common fear that US Debt will exceed GDP, possibly causing economic turmoil. Too late. It was reached in 2012.
                    All unprotected ancient forests gone from Pacific Northwest Likely due to a combination of wildfire and deforestation. False.
                    2024 Atlantis begins to reappear Atlantis is the name of a fictional/hypothetical island, which is supposed to have been lost beneath the sea. It's not clear why rising sea level would make it reappear. False.
                    Orangutans extinct in wild Orangutans are a species of great ape, currently classed as an endangered species, and found only in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. False.
                    China lands men and women on the Moon The Chinese space program has plans for extraterrestrial exploration, including a manned mission to the Moon.

                    Announcements in 2023 established that the Chinese crewed mission remains supposed to happen "by the year 2030".

                    		False
                    NASA sets up permanent Moon base There has been a lot of hype recently about finally returning to the Moon, vis-a-vis Orion. Too early. The Artemis program plans to put the Lunar Gateway in orbit around the Moon, which will be flown up in four launches over the course of six years, beginning "no earlier than 2025"
                    Female professionals pass males in pay This prediction is an erroneous extrapolation from the current (at the time this comic was made) rate at which female incomes were catching up to male incomes. False.
                    2025 World population reaches 8 billion Given current rates, it seems unlikely it will take this long to hit 8 billion, but advances in birth control options and especially their availability in developing nations may slow the current rate considerably. Too late. This number was reached in late 2022, although it may have been reached later as some countries overcount their population.
                    Two billion people face water shortages https://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/28-01-2008/103693-water_crisis-0/ True. As of 2025, 2.2 billion people face ongoing water shortages. In addition, about 4 billion people face severe shortages at least one month per year.
                    62 MPG cars introduced 62 miles per gallon, ~3.8 L/100km. 62 MPG is a very good mileage rate at today's standard, even though some cars can be driven carefully so as to attain over 100 MPG. Somewhat true. Hybrid cars reach around this amount.
                    US power fades https://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-us-power-will-fade-by-2025/ Unknowable: Open to interpretation. There is no quantifiable metric for this.
                    2026 Atlantis emerges completely Atlantis is the name of a fictional/hypothetical island, which is supposed to have been lost beneath the sea. It seems that it has taken 2 years for it to emerge completely. False.
                    Rock Bands die out https://bestbands.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/rock-bands-to-die-out-by-2026/ False. Rock bands are still popular as of 2026-05-07.
                    US debt paid off It’s 2026, and the Debt Is Due. False. The US debt is at an all-time high as of previously mentioned date.
                    Car accidents cease Presumably, cars will be fully automated and able to pilot themselves at this point and will have fail-safes that prevent collisions currently attributed to user error. Car accidents will always be possible, however, due to mechanical and electrical failures. False. Non-self-driving cars are still common on the road and thus car accidents will always be possible (as of previously mentioned date.)
                    West coast falls into ocean Most likely due to a significant seismic event. False. Either won't or hasn't happened as of previously mentioned date.
                    2027 Japan introduces new fastest Maglev train Japan's railway systems are famous for their "bullet trains", or Shinkansen. The Chūō Shinkansen was originally planned to be opened in this year. True. In 2015, Japan set a speed record with the L0 series maglev, which remains unbroken as of 2025, and has since introduced improvements to the train. However, in 2024, JR Central announced opening the Chūō Shinkansen by 2027 is impossible.
                    Lyndon Larouche-planned Mars colony is established https://totse.mattfast1.com/en/technology/space_astronomy_nasa/moonmars.html
                    Social Security stops running surplus Social Security again.
                    2028 Tobacco outlawed Tobacco products (cigarettes and chewing tobacco) have become more and more taboo in modern culture, with most public places and private businesses forbidding their use indoors and near places children congregate. Partially true. More countries have passed "smoke-free generation" legislation, banning smoking for everyone born after a certain date. The UK's Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, for example, bans anyone born after 01 JAN 2009 from buying tobacco ever.
                    40% of coral reefs gone Many factors have been attributed to the decline of coral reefs, including mining, over fishing, and rising ocean tempteratures.
                    US debt paid off US Debt
                    Social Security stops running surplus Social Security again
                    2029 Social Security trust fund exhausted The next stage of the collapse of Social Security. After years of deficits deplete the trust fund, the program will only be able to pay out as much in benefits as it takes in each year.
                    Computers pass the Turing test It is no coincidence that 2029 is the timeline for Terminator Movies. Too late. ChatGPT passed the Turing Test in 2024. See also A Turing test of whether AI chatbots are behaviorally similar to humans (2024), and Large Language Models Pass the Turing Test (2025).
                    Aging reversed Manhattan Beach Project to reverse aging by 2029
                    Wikipedia reaches 30 million articles Ambiguous: Open to interpretation. As of July 2024, Wikipedia has over 63.2 million total articles, if all languages are included. The source being cited may have meant the English language Wikipedia, which has only 6.8 million articles.
                    2030 Half of Amazon rain forest lost to logging WWF press release - Climate Change Speeds Up Amazon’s Destruction referring to a report on the Amazon's vicious cycles. Imprecise: Compared to when?
                    Cancer deaths double from 2008 levels From the Global Cancer Burden to Nearly Double by 2030 article about the article from page 37 of Global Cancer Facts & Figures 2nd edition.
                    Arctic ice-free in summer https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/091015-arctic-ice-free-gone-video-ap.html
                    2031 Computers controlled by thought https://www.gizmag.com/future-mobile-technology/17554/ True but uncommon. As of 2017, this is already possible, but still not used in any mass available devices as of 2026.
                    Realtors replaced by technology https://agbeat.com/editorials/will-realtors-be-replaced-by-technology-by-the-year-2031/
                    Social Security trust fund exhausted https://crfb.org/blogs/cbo-95-percent-confident-social-security-trust-fund-runs-out-25-years
                    2032 "Big One" hits San Francisco San Franscisco is located on the San Andreas Fault, which is predicted to produce a magnitude 7+ earthquake in the 'near future'. This event is referred to as "The Big One".
                    US elects first married lesbian President https://4chandata.org/g/In-what-major-ways-do-you-think-the-world-of-2032-will-be-different-from-that-of-today-a20155
                    Entire world converted to Christianity https://www.goddiscussion.com/38920/christian-domininionsts-to-take-over-the-world-by-2032/
                    2033 Kilimanjaro ice disappears https://www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/02/idUSL2210825
                    India becomes superpower https://www.facebook.com/pages/India-A-SuperPower-by-2033/151177191568098 Unknowable: Open to interpretation. There is no quantifiable metric for this. India has been a nuclear power since 1974 and has over one billion residents.
                    Europe reaches Mars Specifically, a manned European mission. ESA's Mars Express probe landed in 2003.
                    2034 US diabetes cases double, treatment costs triple U.S. diabetes cases to double, costs triple by 2034 Imprecise: Compared to when?
                    US builds autonomous robot army The concept of robots built for military service is another common element of science fiction stories. Unmanned Systems article, about the 2009-2034 Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap publication (details at Amazon).
                    2035 80% of America's energy comes from renewable sources From fact sheet on Obama's State of the Union.
                    Himalayan glaciers down 80% in size From an IPCC report on The Himalayan glaciers that has been analysed in quite some depth. See for example detailed article on an anatomy of IPCC’s mistake. Imprecise: Compared to when?
                    Arctic sea lane opens Arctic sea lane could open by 2035
                    2036 80% of US has access to high-speed rail Obama: 80 Percent of Americans Should Have Access to High Speed Rail By 2036 Imprecise: 80% of humans or acreage?
                    Asteroid Apophis misses/hits Earth 99942 Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a probability of up to 2.7% that it would hit Earth on April 13, 2029.
                    2037 Arctic ice-free in September Arctic sea ice decline
                    Social Security trust fund exhausted Social Security
                    2038 32-bit timestamps roll over, causing Y2K-level chaos On 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038, the value of time_t rolls over, that is it will return to zero. time_t is a computing standard measurement of time; it is a count of the number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970. time_t is used by most computer systems to store date and time information. It is recommended that new software should convert to a 64 bit time_t; indeed, most operating systems designed to run on 64-bit hardware already use signed 64-bit time_t integers. This would give an epoch of 15:30:08 UTC on 4 December 292,277,026,596 (292 billion years away). Of course, legacy systems may not be upgradable so action taken now should prevent this becoming a problem closer to 2038...
                    "Big One" hits California `The big one' likely to hit by 2038
                    2039 US population hits 400 Million U.S. Population Projected to Hit 400 Million in 2039
                    Severe heat waves become commonplace Heat waves and extremely high temperatures could be commonplace in the U.S. by 2039, Stanford study finds Too late or Unknowable: Imprecise wording. How severe is "severe", how common is "common? The frequency and severity has increased dramatically, with five of the eight deadliest heatwaves in recorded history having happened in the last five years (2022-2026). See List of natural disasters by death toll#Heat waves
                    Scientology becomes majority religion in US Essay: Scientology in the year 2039
                    2040 Arctic summers ice-free Arctic Summer Could be Ice-Free by 2040
                    Nanotechnology makes humans immortal Nanotech could make humans immortal by 2040, futurist says
                    2041 Social Security trust fund exhausted Social Security
                    2043 World population passes 9 Billion Population growth
                    2044 Mankind genetically engineered to be happy Premise of the movie Zenith - further details are in the film review for Zenith.
                    Childhood obesity reaches 100% 100-Percent Childhood Obesity Predicted by 2044
                    2045 Humans and machines merge Ray Kurzweil predicts of a 'singularity' which will lead to a race of super intelligent beings. Unknowable: Open to interpretation. There is no quantifiable metric for this. What percentage of humans need to merge, and what level of machine? Pacemakers? Wheelchairs?
                    2046 World's natural resources depleted Peak uncertainty, when will we run out of fossil fuels? Imprecise: All resources, or only some? Oxygen? Helium?
                    2047 World ruled by banks and corporations Future Schlock - the story of a world turned upside down in 2047
                    Tobacco industry fails Experts: Big Tobacco dead by 2047, possibly sooner
                    US begins using autonomous attack drones US Air Force prepares drones to end era of fighter pilots Too late. Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System was introduced in 2025. Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) and Corsair USV were introduced in 2026.
                    2048 Salt-water fish extinct from overfishing WWF report on unsustainable fishing.
                    Unisex bathing suits cover body from shoulder to ankle RyansWorld: Bathing Suits of the Future
                    Entire US population overweight Scientists Say Thin People Face Extinction in United States: Everyone Will Be Overweight by 2048 – And Less Smart (archive)
                    2049 $1,000 computer exceeds computational ability of humanity TechNotes: Trends in Technology
                    Singularity occurs The Singularity Is Near
                    Fishing industry collapses This tends to happen when your food-stock is extinct[citation needed] - see WWF report on unsustainable fishing.
                    2050 80% of Earth's population lives in urban centers 80% of world population will soon be in urban areas
                    China controls space Space Science & Technology in China: A Roadmap to 2050
                    Sex with robots possible Forecast: Sex and Marriage with Robots by 2050 Unknowable: Open to interpretation. There is no universally accepted definition of the terms "sex" or "robot".
                    Cars banned from European cities EU to ban cars from cities by 2050 Partially true. Car-free zones in European cities have expanded. Additionally, some European languages use the term "city" to mean "neighborhood" or "borough" leading to ambiguities.
                    One million species extinct from climate change By 2050 Warming to Doom Million Species, Study Says Unknowable: Known unknown. Scientists are still encountering previously undiscovered species; it is impossible to determine how many undiscovered species have extincted in the past century.
                    2051 Atmosphere escapes into space Conspiracy theory relating to Fallstreak hole or hole punch clouds.
                    2052 Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security spending exceed total US revenue Social Security
                    2053 US budget balanced OMB releases long-term projections for the FY2015 budget proposal
                    Majority of Americans in prison 'Beyond Bricks And Bars' As Jails Overflow, The Lock-'em-up Credo Is Drawing Unlikely Criticism - From Prison Officials Themselves
                    Cars driven by dogs True but uncommon. This has already occurred in 2012! However, it is not as widespread as the prediction may be implying.
                    2054 Hunger becomes unimaginable global problem Hunger Could Be 'Unimaginable' Global Problem By 2054 Ambiguous: Unimaginably bad or impossible?
                    2055 Atmospheric CO2 doubled Carbon Mitigation Initiative: Stabilization Wedges Imprecise: Compared to when?
                    Oil runs out Peak uncertainty, when will we run out of fossil fuels?
                    Copper, tin, lead, gold, and nickel all exhausted 5 Valuable Metals That Could Vanish by 2055
                    2056 RFID-tagged driverless cars RFID-tagged driverless cars on roads by 2056 Partially true or Too late.
                    Robots given same rights as humans Robots Given Same Rights As Humans By 2056 Ironically true. Humans receive the same rights as robots.
                    2057 150 Japanese settlers on Mars Will Japan colonize Mars?
                    Colorado River runs dry Colorado River Reservoirs Could Bottom Out From Warming
                    2058 Smoking ends in New Zealand Smoking to die out in NZ by 2058
                    2059 Humans have domesticated robots Virtual necking, demography, and robots
                    2060 Human race lives in peace ARAS vision/mission Ambiguous: Is oppression "peace"?
                    Extreme droughts across much of Earth Extreme drought across most of Earth by 2060
                    Global temperature rise reaches 4 °C Avoiding dangerous climate change
                    Oil runs out again Oil may run out by 2060: HSBC
                    2061 Halley's comet returns Halley's comet returns to the inner solar system (the vicinity of earth and the sun) every 75.3 years. The last time it was near earth was in 1985-1986. When it next returns, its closest approach to the sun will occur on 28 July 2061.
                    2062 Uganda hosts World Cup Uganda to host world cup in 2062
                    The Jetsons The Jetsons was an animated science fiction sitcom that first aired in 1962. The show was set in the year 2062.
                    2063 First human clones reach adulthood The Fall - Last Days of Gaia Diary #2
                    Population of Moon reaches 100,000 Reading Eagle newspaper article from July 17, 1963 - Moon Population of 100,000 Is Predicted for 2063 and Air Force Predictions for 2063 (1963)
                    Population of Mars reaches 10,000 Air Force Predictions for 2063 (1963)
                    Spacecraft exceed speed of light Physics as currently understood states that it is impossible to exceed the speed of light. A monumental shift in our physics would have had to have occurred for this to come true. This is a reference to the 8th Star Trek feature Film: "Star Trek: First Contact" where Zefram Cochrane performs the first human Warp Flight on April 5, 2063.
                    2064 Clean Air Act finishes reducing haze in national parks to natural levels State plan guarantees a hazy future for Texas’ wilderness areas
                    2065 Last coral reefs die out From an article about a video called Reefs on the Edge set in 2065 where a 15-year-old girl tells her grandfather's stories of coral reefs, and their demise.
                    Chernobyl cleanup complete Chernobyl clean in 55 years time?
                    2066 Cyprus achieves its goal This is from some forum posts on the decendants of Cypriots that lends support to the autonomy of Cyprus from Greek or Turkey.
                    2067 Americans live in domed cities and watch 3D TV The article at Artifact of the Month: Slide rule, 1916 includes information from the International Slide Rule Museum that "in 1967, Keuffel & Esser Co. commissioned a study of the future, predicting that Americans in 2067 would live in domed cities and watch 3D television."
                    Redheads go extinct Are redheads going extinct?
                    2068 Ozone hole over Antarctic finishes recovering NASA Study Finds Clock Ticking Slower On Ozone Hole Recovery
                    Lord Jesus rules the Earth from Throne in Jerusalem. The Resurrections -- What Really Happens
                    Entire world population gay due to chemicals in the water Alex Jones talks about chemicals that make people gay
                    2069 Public masturbation legalized It's still not okay to Pull Your Penis out in Public
                    2070 World population peaks Global population to peak in 2070
                    City-scale flooding disasters City-scale flooding disasters predicted by 2070
                    60% of world's energy comes from renewable sources What Is Alternative Energy All About?
                    2071 Europe's temperatures rise by 3 °C Projection of Economic impacts of climate change in Sectors of the European Union based on bottom-up Analysis
                    World summer temperatures rise by 5 °C See "Air temperature changes in the 21st century"
                    2072 US retirement age is set to 75 Up to 70-80 years
                    2073 Oceans do not rise one foot More like 2 feet
                    2074 Number of 100-year-olds reaches one million UK to have 1 million centenarians by 2074
                    Supertyphoons hit Japan Super typhoons in store as seas warm
                    2075 US retirement age set to 69 Retirement age at 69? Deficit plan hits Social Security
                    2076 Average scientific paper has more than 24 authors Multiple Authorship in Biochemistry and Other Fields (PDF)
                    Social Security trust fund exhausted Social Security
                    2078 Newspapers become obsolete and die out The same prediction was made for 2017 and 2022. Even when most prognosticators agree that something will happen, there can still be much disagreement about when it will happen.
                    2079 US debt reaches 716% of GDP US Debt
                    Lodgepole pines disappear from Northwest Climate change causing demise of lodgepole pine in western North America
                    Floods commonplace Floods To Become Commonplace By 2080 Imprecise: How common is "common"?
                    Religion marginalized https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11347073
                    2080 Federal spending reaches 70% of GDP Our debt problems are far from solved (PDF)
                    UK population doubles Britain's population to hit 110 million Imprecise: Compared to when?
                    2082 World population declines to one billion Population: The Elephant in the Room
                    2084 Robot policemen introduced Robotic cops set to stamp out crime by 2084
                    2085 US deficit reaches 62% of GDP Paul Krugman Throws In Towel, Says We’re Headed For Another Depression
                    2088 Japan becomes all-robot country Japan To Become All Robot Country By 2088
                    2089 World halts fossil fuel use Fossil Fuels
                    2090 Global warming hits 7 °C Models warn of 7C dangerous climate change by 2090. Climate change, especially global warming, is a recurring theme in xkcd.
                    Global warming hits 4 °C Summarized here. In reference to Andy Bowers, “Analysis: Scientists say global warming could affect California's drinking water supply,” NPR All Things Considered, June 22, 2001
                    2100 Global warming around 5-7 °C Hadley Center study warns of ‘catastrophic’ 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path
                    Sea levels have risen by a meter or more Future sea level
                    Joshua trees nearly extinct Joshua Trees Nearly Wiped Out by 2100?
                    Earth's climate resembles that of the Cretaceous Atmospheric CO2 concentrations during ancient greenhouse climates were similar to those predicted for A.D. 2100
                    Germany tropical Climate Change Predictions: A Tropical Germany by 2100?
                    Emperor penguins extinct Emperor penguins face extinction
                    Arctic permafrost thaws Surface Permafrost Could Disappear by 2100
                    Rising seas flood coastal cities Rising Seas Will Affect Major U.S. Coastal Cities by 2100
                    Rain forests mostly gone due to climatic shifts Massive Loss of Rainforest Species by 2100
                    All coral reefs gone Coral Reefs Gone by 2100?
                    Gillette introduces 14-bladed razor Each iteration of the Gillette line of safety razors has one more blade than the previous one. MadTV has also parodied this. Over five years before MadTV did so, the Australian comedy group the D-Generation parodied the first two-bladed razor as the Gillette 3000 with 16 blades.
                    2101 WAR WAS BEGINNING References Zero Wing, a 1989 Japanese computer game set in 2101, famous for poorly translated English and the source for "All your base are belong to us". See 286: All Your Base

                    Transcript[edit]

                    Latest comment: 6 September4 comments4 people in discussion
                    THE FUTURE
                    According to Google search results
                    Events for each year determined by the first page of Google search results for the phrases:
                    "By <year>" "In year"
                    "By the year <year>" "In the year <year>"
                    "Will * by the year <year>" "Will * in the year <year>"
                    "In <year>, * will" "By <year>, * will"
                    2012
                    World population reaches 7 billion
                    Flying cars reach market
                    Canada cuts greenhouse emissions to 6% below 1990 levels as per Kyoto
                    Apocalypse occurs
                    2013
                    National debt paid off through President Clinton's plans
                    Microchipping of all Americans begins
                    Homelessness ended in Massachusetts
                    Health care reform law repealed
                    2014
                    US leaves Afghanistan
                    GNU/Linux becomes dominant OS
                    2015
                    New Horizons reaches Pluto
                    Health care law causes hyperinflation
                    192 UN member nations achieve millennium development goals:
                    • Extreme poverty and hunger eradicated
                    • Universal primary education implemented
                    • Women empowered, gender equality reached
                    • Environmental stability ensured
                    2016
                    Baby boomers begin turning 65
                    Android takes 38% of the smartphone market
                    Android takes 45% of the smartphone market
                    Windows Phone overtakes iOS in smartphones
                    2017
                    China completes unmanned Lunar sample-return mission
                    Social Security stops running surplus
                    US budget balanced
                    Newspapers become obsolete and die out
                    Cosmetic surgery doubles
                    2018
                    Social Security stops running surplus
                    Jesus returns to Earth
                    2019
                    Social Security stops running surplus
                    Every baby has genes mapped at birth
                    2020
                    Solar power becomes cheaper than fossil fuels
                    Keyboards and mice become obsolete
                    New Tappan Zee bridge constructed
                    2021
                    US debt reaches 97% of GDP
                    US unemployment falls to 2.8%
                    Restored caliphate unifies Middle East
                    Lake Mead evaporates
                    2022
                    Kilimanjaro snow-free
                    HTML 5 finished
                    Newspapers become obsolete and die out
                    2023
                    Jesus returns to Earth (again)
                    US debt passes 100% of GDP
                    All unprotected ancient forests gone from Pacific Northwest
                    2024
                    Atlantis begins to reappear
                    Orangutans extinct in wild
                    China lands men and women on the moon
                    NASA sets up permanent moon base
                    Female professionals pass males in pay
                    2025
                    World population reaches 8 billion
                    Two billion people face water shortages
                    62 MPG cars introduced
                    US power fades
                    2026
                    Atlantis emerges completely
                    Rock Bands die out
                    US debt paid off
                    Car accidents cease
                    West coast falls into ocean
                    2027
                    Japan introduces new fastest maglev train
                    Lyndon Larouche-planned Mars colony established
                    Social Security stops running surplus
                    2028
                    Tobacco outlawed
                    40% of coral reefs gone
                    US debt paid off
                    Social Security stops running surplus
                    2029
                    Social Security trust fund exhausted
                    Computers pass the Turing Test
                    Aging reversed
                    Wikipedia reaches 30 million articles
                    2030
                    Half of Amazon rain forest lost to logging
                    Cancer deaths double from 2008 levels
                    Arctic ice-free in summer
                    2031
                    Computers controlled by thought
                    Realtors replaced by technology
                    Social Security trust fund exhausted
                    2032
                    "Big One" hits San Francisco
                    US elects first married lesbian president
                    Entire world converted to Christianity
                    2033
                    Kilimanjaro ice disappears
                    India becomes superpower
                    Europe reaches Mars
                    2034
                    US diabetes cases double, treatment costs triple
                    US builds autonomous robot army
                    2035
                    80% of America's energy comes from renewable sources
                    Himalayan glaciers down 80% in size
                    Arctic sea lane opens
                    2036
                    80% of US has access to high-speed rail
                    Asteroid Apophis hits/misses Earth
                    2037
                    Arctic ice-free in September
                    Social Security trust fund exhausted
                    2038
                    32-bit timestamps role over, causing Y2K-level chaos
                    "Big One" hits California
                    2039
                    US population hits 400 million
                    Severe heat waves become commonplace
                    Scientology becomes majority religion in US
                    2040
                    Arctic summers ice-free
                    Nanotechnology makes humans immortal
                    2041
                    Social Security trust fund exhausted
                    2042
                    2043
                    World population passes 9 billion
                    2044
                    Mankind genetically engineered to be happy
                    Childhood obesity reaches 100%
                    2045
                    Humans and machines merge
                    2046
                    World's natural resources depleted
                    2047
                    World ruled by banks and corporations
                    Tobacco industry fails
                    US begins using autonomous attack drones
                    2048
                    Salt-water fish extinct from overfishing
                    Unisex bathing suits cover body from shoulder to ankle
                    Entire US population overweight
                    2049
                    $1.000 computer exceeds computational ability of humanity
                    Singularity occurs
                    Fishing industry collapses
                    2050
                    80% of Earth's population lives in urban centers
                    China controls space
                    Sex with robots possible
                    Cars banned from European cities
                    One million species extinct from climate change
                    2051
                    Atmosphere escapes into space
                    2052
                    Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security spending exceed total US revenue
                    2053
                    US budget balanced
                    Majority of Americans in prison
                    Cars driven by dogs
                    2054
                    Hunger becomes unimaginable global problem
                    2055
                    Atmospheric CO2 doubled
                    Oil runs out
                    Copper, tin, lead, gold, and nickel all exhausted
                    2056
                    RFID-tagged driverless cars
                    Robots given same rights as humans
                    2057
                    150 Japanese settlers on Mars
                    Colorado River runs dry
                    2058
                    Smoking ends in New Zealand
                    2059
                    Humans have domesticated robots
                    2060
                    Human race lives in peace
                    Extreme droughts across much of Earth
                    Global temperature rise reaches 4°C
                    Oil runs out again
                    2061
                    Halley's comet returns
                    2062
                    Uganda hosts World Cup
                    The Jetsons
                    2063
                    First human clones reach adulthood
                    Population of Moon reaches 100,000
                    Population of Mars reaches 10,000
                    Spacecraft exceed speed of light
                    2064
                    Clean Air Act finishes reducing haze in national parks to natural levels
                    2065
                    Last coral reefs die out
                    Chernobyl cleanup complete
                    2066
                    Cyprus achieves its goal
                    2067
                    Americans live in domed cities and watch 3D TV
                    Redheads go extinct
                    2068
                    Ozone hole over Antarctic finishes recovering
                    Lord Jesus rules the Earth from Throne in Jerusalem.
                    Entire world population gay due to chemicals in the water
                    2069
                    Public masturbation legalized
                    2070
                    World population peaks
                    City-scale flooding disasters
                    60% of world's energy comes from renewable sources
                    2071
                    Europe's temperatures rise by 3°C
                    World summer temperatures rise by 5°C
                    2072
                    US retirement age is set to 75
                    2073
                    Oceans do not rise one foot
                    2074
                    Number of 100-year-olds reaches one million
                    Supertyphoons hit Japan
                    2075
                    US retirement age set to 69
                    2076
                    Average scientific paper has more than 24 authors
                    Social Security trust fund exhausted
                    2077
                    2078
                    Newspapers become obsolete and die out
                    2079
                    US debt reaches 716% of GDP
                    Lodgepole pines disappear from Northwest
                    Floods commonplace
                    Religion marginalized
                    2080
                    Federal spending reaches 70% of GDP
                    UK population doubles
                    2081
                    2082
                    World population declines to one billion
                    2083
                    2084
                    Robot policemen introduced
                    2085
                    US deficit reaches 62% of GDP
                    2086
                    2087
                    2088
                    Japan becomes all-robot country
                    2089
                    World halts fossil fuel use
                    2090
                    Global warming hits 7°C
                    Global warming hits 4°C
                    2091
                    2092
                    2093
                    2094
                    2095
                    2096
                    2097
                    2098
                    2099
                    2100
                    Global warming around 5-7°C
                    Sea levels have risen by a meter or more
                    Joshua trees nearly extinct
                    Earth's climate resembles that of the Cretaceous
                    Germany tropical
                    Emperor penguins extinct
                    Arctic permafrost thaws
                    Rising seas flood coastal cities
                    Rain forests mostly gone due to climatic shifts
                    All coral reefs gone
                    Gillette introduces 14-bladed razor
                    2101
                    WAR WAS BEGINNING


                    I'm nominating this explanation because ... the strip was published in 2011 with predictions for the following century. In the last fifteen years, we've seen things occur that were not predicted until the 2040s. The table should be cleaned up, with the "outcome" fields standardized and color-coded depending on what has come to pass. We should also look for predictions that are unknowable, imprecise, or unquantifiable ("Severe heat waves become commonplace", "India becomes superpower", "US power fades"). 158.173.67.189 01:19, 5 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

                    Me again. Come to think of it, anything a timeline of events over the next century should probably be placed listed for frequent reviews. Is there a "frequent review" project? 158.173.67.79 19:42, 5 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
                    Not particularly, unless there's some archaic attempt to do so that I've forgotten about/missed.
                    There could be maybe some template something like {{reviewBy|date=2027/09/05}} or even {{reviewBy|year=2027}} (the latter being a simpler shortcut to date=2027/01/01) that could generate a membership of a [[Category:Pages for periodic review]] only once a particularly mentioned (or milestoned) date has passed.
                    Part of the review process, by the next person to find it being categorised to that effect, would be to reset the date/milestone to the next such review-time. Maybe another parameter (or the unused no-name trailing parameter(s)) could contain basic information like |may need checking every month, |update to next Presidential election or |the next hot-dog eating contest after the upcoming gubernatorial election is on somedate. In this case, one could line up the years-yet-to-come and as each 'current target' is reached an specifically checked then the next one can be anually shifted out of the line-up to replace the current one now (apart from any off-schedule updates) fulfilled.
                    But one can overthink this idea. Perhaps start with just a {{reviewBy|''some free text''}} that renders such pages searchable-for, before getting too complicated about it! 81.179.200.82 20:21, 5 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
                    That absolutely makes sense. I suppose it should be paired with a "CurrentyTopical=YN" or "TopicalUntil" tag, so that a strip mentioning events in 2032, for example, is topical for the entire year of 2032, or is topical until 2032-12-31T23:59:59. That would stop people from constantly checking in and posting that California has not fallen into the ocean year, but might before the end of the year. IIRC, most of the Future Timeline strips only mention years, not dates. 158.173.67.213 01:17, 6 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

                    170: Turn Back
                    Turn Back
                    I hear that these days Bill Watterson is happy just painting in the Ohio woods with his father and doesn't get any mail or talk to anyone.
                    Title text: I hear that these days Bill Watterson is happy just painting in the Ohio woods with his father and doesn't get any mail or talk to anyone.

                      Explanation[edit]

                      Calvin and Hobbes was a daily comic drawn by Bill Watterson, published between 1985 to 1995. It followed the imaginary adventures of a young boy named Calvin and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, who appears as an actual tiger in Calvin's imagination. The frequent themes of spontaneity, beauty, and adventure that characterize many of Calvin's conversations with his friend Hobbes can also be seen in this exchange between Cueball and Megan as they explore a large desert landscape with various alien-like structures. In C&H, Calvin sometimes imagines himself as Spaceman Spiff, an intergalactic astronaut that is frequently caught on exoplanets, most of which have a strong resemblance to the terrain shown in the comic. The cluelessness and simultaneous wonder that Cueball and Megan feel at their surrounding landscape mirror Calvin's inexperience and curiosity that he exhibits in Watterson's comic.

                      The title text, while unclear if it were actually true or not, reflects Mr. Watterson's reclusive nature. He has never licensed his characters for any use outside of reprints, and he stays out of the public spotlight. Thus, it is very probable that it was true at the time of this comic. The title text also serves to point out the connection between Watterson's work and this comic.

                      However, in more recent years, Watterson has come out of his shell a bit. He collaborated with Stephan Pastis, creator of Pearls Before Swine, to do a story arc where a second grader was a better artist than an actual cartoonist. Stephan Pastis later wrote of the experience: "I began to wonder if [Bill Watterson] even had electricity, then I remembered we were using e-mail to communicate."

                      Transcript[edit]

                      Latest comment: 29 August1 comment1 person in discussion
                      Cueball: Should we keep going?
                      Megan: I don't know.
                      Cueball: We can turn back if you want.
                      Megan: Look--
                      Megan: Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don't have a plan any more than you? Maybe just having this conversation means we're lost.
                      [Wide shot of the characters in a Calvin and Hobbes-esque alien landscape.]
                      Cueball: Kind of scary.
                      Megan: It's terrifying.
                      Cueball: This place is beautiful.
                      Megan: Yeah.


                      The current explanation just seems to explain the background behind the comic but not the comic itself. Capycapybara (talk) 20:00, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                      332: Gyroscopes
                      Gyroscopes
                      We didn't actually land on the moon -- it just looked like we did because of precession. Also, gyroscopes caused 9/11.
                      Title text: We didn't actually land on the moon -- it just looked like we did because of precession. Also, gyroscopes caused 9/11.

                        Explanation[edit]

                        Cueball is playing with a gyroscope. Even though he has studied them and intellectually understands their behaviour, they still seem somewhat mysterious, which is a reasonable thought. Gyroscopes hold kinetic and angular momentum at a near constant, which allows them to continuously spin for extended periods of time. At the end of the comic however, the gyroscope is revealed to have the power of levitation and to talk with him, revealing that Cueball's gyroscope is actually a sentient lifeform, turning his previously irrational apprehension into quite the understatement. How the gyroscope is able to do this is unclear. This behavior could be specific to Cueball's gyroscope, or it could be that all gyroscopes have this property, and that only this one shows it. Alternatively, their properties could be unknown because no one who has seen them are left alive to tell the story.

                        In the title text, Randall is mocking the Moon landing conspiracy theories and refers to the lunar precession in process. Gyroscopes and the lunar orbit both exhibit precession, a physical concept that non-scientists can find hard to grasp. Thus, it is a perfect subject for a lunar conspiracy theory. He goes on to claim that gyroscopes (which form part of the navigation system of every commercial airplane) were directly responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

                        Transcript[edit]

                        Latest comment: 28 August2 comments2 people in discussion
                        [Cueball sits at a desk with a gyroscope in his hands. Text on top of the frame:]
                        Despite years of studying physics, I still find gyroscopes a little freaky.
                        [Cueball starts the gyroscope.]
                        Gyroscope: zzzzip
                        [The gyroscope spins.]
                        Gyroscope: zzzzzz
                        [Frameless panel, the gyroscope lifts into the air.]
                        [The gyroscope moves away from Cueball, still spinning.]
                        Gyroscope (in a blocky font): GREETINGS, HUMAN.


                        Very short explanation that's pretty much just a transcript. Capycapybara (talk) 02:12, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                        Yup. Just a transcript, nowhere near today's standards. FaviFake (talk) 08:16, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                        1447: Meta-Analysis
                        Meta-Analysis
                        Life goal #29 is to get enough of them rejected that I can publish a comparative analysis of the rejection letters.
                        Title text: Life goal #29 is to get enough of them rejected that I can publish a comparative analysis of the rejection letters.

                          Explanation[edit]

                          In the scientific literature, meta-analyses are studies which compare multiple studies on a single topic, with the aim of giving a balanced overview of the known results. Medline, Embase and Cochrane are medical research databases which give access to studies on drug effects or results of other medical procedures.

                          This comic explores the idea of iterating the process, going from meta-analyses to meta-meta-analyses (which actually exist, though not necessarily by that name, see below) and hence to a meta-meta-meta-analysis.

                          Of course, the title text adds another level of meta-analysis, since he wants to make a meta-analysis of rejection letters which concern his meta-meta-meta analyses.

                          All of the cited meta-meta-analyses are real: M. Sampson (2003), P. L. Royle (2005), E. Lee (2011), and A.R. Lemeshow (2005).

                          The phrase "too meta" can be found in the comments of videos, blog posts, and other internet content for which the commentator claims they are so abstract that they can't be easily interpreted. It refers to the thing in question being too self-referential, but could just be a cursory dismissal of the presented content.

                          Comic 93: Jeremy Irons similarly states a slightly absurd "life goal". 917: Hofstadter is "meta"-related.

                          Transcript[edit]

                          Latest comment: 27 August2 comments2 people in discussion
                          [Excerpt from a scientific paper.]
                          Many meta-analysis studies include the phrase “We searched Medline, Embase, and Cochrane for studies…”
                          This has led to meta-meta-analyses comparing meta-analysis methods. e.g. M Sampson (2003), PL Royle (2005), E Lee (2011), AR Lemeshow (2005).
                          We performed a meta-meta-meta-analysis of these meta-meta-analyses.
                          Methods: We searched Medline, Embase, and Cochrane for the phrase “We searched Medline, Embase, and Cochrane for the phrase ‘We searched Medline, Embase, and [cut off]
                          [Caption below the panel:]
                          Life goal #28: get a paper rejected with the comment “Too meta”


                          15 comics nominated. All of the comics below are somewhat niche, but broad enough to be good for new users, and in need of some revamping and improvement. Most are before 2013. To be fair, I came upon with this list before the criteria was put down. Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                          This is a pretty decent one, with a pretty good room for improvement in my opinion. But maybe the topic is a bit too technical? FaviFake (talk) 18:55, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                          1025: Tumblr
                          Tumblr
                          Dot Tumblr Dot Com, on the other hand, would be an awful name for a band, if only because of how hard it would be to direct people to your band's website.
                          Title text: Dot Tumblr Dot Com, on the other hand, would be an awful name for a band, if only because of how hard it would be to direct people to your band's website.

                            Explanation[edit]

                            Tumblr is a microblogging service, which has become a home for lots of animated gifs and other internet memes, as well as other assorted novelties.

                            There actually are three raccoon sex dungeon tumblrs, which can be found here, here and here.

                            The phrase that Cueball used to use when he heard a random phrase was "would be a good name for a band". With the advent of Tumblr, his go-to response has shifted because of the proliferation of Tumblr blogs with strange names such as "pissvortex", "hardpee", "iguanamouth" and "internetslug".

                            In the title text he muses on the fact that Dot Tumblr Dot Com would be an awful band name. There could be several reasons for this, but he mentions that it would be hard to direct fans to the band's website. As an example, someone who hears "www.thedottumblrdotcom.com" might instead write it out as "www.the.tumblr.com.com", since '.' is often pronounced as "dot." If the band's website was hosted on Tumblr, then their website would be "dottumblrdotcom.tumblr.com", but could be heard as ".tumblr.com.tumblr.com".

                            Transcript[edit]

                            [Megan and Cueball are talking.]
                            Megan: You know those weird noises from my attic?
                            Megan: Turns out some raccoons got in and were operating this, like, raccoon sex dungeon.
                            Cueball: ...dot tumblr dot com.
                            [Caption below the panel:]
                            For me, "...Dot tumblr dot com" has been gradually replacing "...would be a good name for a band."

                            Trivia[edit]

                            Latest comment: 27 August1 comment1 person in discussion
                            • Randall did register a tumblr page called "Raccoon Sex Dungeon" to coincide with this comic. He had already done the same with Wetriffs.com (archive here) to coincide with Megan registering that domain in 305: Rule 34. The Raccoon Sex Dungeon website should not be confused with the similarly named 'Racoon Sex Dungeon'.

                            Raccoons also feature in a disgusting situation in 1565: Back Seat.


                            Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                            330: Indecision
                            Indecision
                            Hey, I don't make the rules. It's in the book.
                            Title text: Hey, I don't make the rules. It's in the book.

                              Explanation[edit]

                              These two friends appear to feel obliged to engage in sexual experimentation to alleviate boredom, simply because they read a rule that demands this in a book. Such experimentation would usually violate the expectations of a previously platonic friendship, so most people would not take the book's suggestion, and it may even make them feel embarrassed and awkward. The second friend's demeanour suggests he has no great enthusiasm for participating, but that he believes he has no choice in the matter, as it's in 'the rules'.

                              The friends are presumed to be male, since both are Cueballs. If the friends are heterosexual, there would typically be a particularly strong social taboo about this behavior. Even if both men are gay, the fact that they're friends (as the rule in the book describes them) suggests that they are not currently having sex on a regular basis.

                              The book the rule is found in appears to be some sort of all-encompassing rule book, its reach including the social sphere. Obviously, this book is fictional, but the line "I think there's a rule about this" sounds like a reference to folklore rules or guidelines like the "five-second rule." The book may be expressing a supposed descriptive rule, rather than a prescriptive one.

                              Crisco is a brand of shortening, a fat that is solid at room temperature and frequently used in baking, though is also sometimes used, as implied in this instance, as a sexual lubricant. Crisco was referenced again in a sexual context in the title text of 414: Mistranslations and later as a part of a weird dream also in the title text of 557: Students.

                              The title text could be spoken by either one of the characters or Randall. It attempts to pre-empt any awkwardness or judgment the reader may have about this situation by transferring responsibility to the rule book.

                              Transcript[edit]

                              [Cueball is lying on the floor with his friend.]
                              Cueball: So what do you want to do?
                              Friend: Still no ideas.
                              Cueball: Wait, I think there's a rule about this.
                              [Cueball goes to bookshelf and removes a book called "Rules".]
                              [The book of rules is opened to the following:
                              RULE social.b.99.1
                              If friends spend more than 60 minutes deciding what to do, they must default to sexual experimentation.
                              [Cueball is standing, holding the book. The friend is in the process of standing up.]
                              Cueball: Huh.
                              Friend: I did not know that rule.
                              Cueball: Me neither.
                              Friend: I'll go get the Crisco.

                              Trivia[edit]

                              Latest comment: 27 August1 comment1 person in discussion

                              A book suggesting a more or less unrelated solution that is accepted anyway is also pulled from a shelf in 1024.


                              Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                              640: Tornado Hunter
                              Tornado Hunter
                              The Fujita scale was replaced by the enhanced Fujita scale in 2007, but I think 'EF-5' sounds stupid, so I vote we just use the new measurements for assigning number but still call them 'F-whatever'.
                              Title text: The Fujita scale was replaced by the enhanced Fujita scale in 2007, but I think 'EF-5' sounds stupid, so I vote we just use the new measurements for assigning number but still call them 'F-whatever'.

                                Explanation[edit]

                                This is a play on the occupations/hobbies "tornado chaser" - someone who, instead of evacuating the area like normal people, actually goes in to get a closer look at the tornado - and "big game hunter", who often kill for trophies. Tornado chasers are typically, but not always, meteorologists. Here, the tornado chaser actually hunts the tornado with a gun like big game, the joke being that this is not possible in real life.[citation needed]

                                The "F-3" is a reference to the Fujita scale used to classify tornado intensity. It goes from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest, with an updated Enhanced Fujita scale, as mentioned in the title text, being used in the US since 2007.

                                The title text is an aside from Randall, saying that he finds the notation for the Enhanced Fujita scale (EF-#, for example EF-5 for a level 5 tornado) to be stupid, and suggests that we continue to use the Enhanced Fujita scale to measure the strength of tornadoes, but abbreviate it to F instead, leading to the non-stupid "F-whatever" notation, 'whatever' signifying the number of the tornado on the scale.

                                This is the second comic about tornadoes, a recurring subject on xkcd, but it was the first to actually show a tornado. Storm chasers hunting tornadoes was also mentioned in the first comic about tornadoes 402: 1,000 Miles North and they were also shown in 752: Phobia.

                                Transcript[edit]

                                Latest comment: 27 August2 comments2 people in discussion
                                [Two people are in a car, which is driving past a cactus. The passenger has a pith helmet and a mustache.]
                                Cueball: The tornado's three miles west, moving northeast at 15 mph.
                                Passenger: Go right; get ahead of it.
                                [A tornado is visible. The passenger pulls out a gun, and stands up in the car.]
                                Passenger: Okay, we're in range! Stop here!
                                [The passenger fires the gun at the tornado.]
                                BANG
                                Tornado: AUGH!
                                [The tornado is split in half by the bullet.]
                                Passenger: Big one! Must be an F-3!
                                Cueball: I'm not sure we're doing this right.
                                Passenger: Help me mount it on the hood.
                                [The passenger is holding the tornado by its tail.]


                                Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                I'm not fully convinced by this one. It is short, but the joke is pretty simple. But we could add an explanation of what tornado chasers usually do! FaviFake (talk) 16:27, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                1334: Second
                                Second
                                Let me just scroll down and check behind that rock. Annnnd... nope, page copyright year starts with '19'. Oh God, is this a WEBRING?
                                Title text: Let me just scroll down and check behind that rock. Annnnd... nope, page copyright year starts with '19'. Oh God, is this a WEBRING?

                                  Explanation[edit]

                                  Google is a popular search engine.[citation needed] Google's searching algorithms are widely regarded as the most accurate and useful. If your search terms were sufficiently detailed, you will be able to find what you were looking for on the first page. Having to view the second page indicates your search terms were too vague or the answer to your query doesn't exist. When the search results typically number in the tens of millions (or more; in fact, more popular search results are in the billions), only the very first results are mapping to the real idea of the user. The second page is not helpful for the issue.

                                  Cueball, after failing to find his query in the first page of results, takes a curious peek at the second page. This is represented by a not-at-all subtle metaphor in which Cueball is about to wander into a sun-baked desert. According to the title text, he finds one vaguely relevant webpage, but the copyright starting with '19', i.e from the 1990s or older, means that it's likely too old to be of any use.

                                  The title text refers to webrings. Webrings consist of multiple websites that are connected together, usually with a common theme. They connect from one website to the next, eventually leading back to the starting site. They were popular in the 1990s as a way of boosting your search ranking, but newer algorithms in Google and other search engines are now detecting and penalizing web sites for such tactics.[actual citation needed] Webrings were also used in pre-Google days to make it easy to find websites sharing a common theme, but since one site going down broke the ring, they were very inefficient. Seeing a webring typically means a site has not been updated since the mid 90s, though there are some people trying to bring them back for nostalgia reasons.

                                  Transcript[edit]

                                  Latest comment: 27 August2 comments2 people in discussion
                                  [Cueball in a desert standing before a rock.]
                                  Rock: Greetings, stranger.
                                  Rock: Whatever quest drives you, abandon it.
                                  Rock: You shall find no answers in these desolate wastes.
                                  Cueball: I knew I wouldn't.
                                  Cueball: I guess I... just had to see.
                                  I hate feeling desperate enough to visit the second page of Google results.


                                  Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                  In my opinion, this could be a good candidate, even if it's relatively newer and not too deep. The quality of the explanation is not good. FaviFake (talk) 16:27, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                  2171: Shadow Biosphere
                                  Shadow Biosphere
                                  The typical Shadow Biology Department is housed in a building coated in a thin layer of desert varnish which renders it invisible to normal-world university staff.
                                  Title text: The typical Shadow Biology Department is housed in a building coated in a thin layer of desert varnish which renders it invisible to normal-world university staff.

                                    Explanation[edit]

                                    A shadow biosphere is "a hypothetical microbial biosphere of Earth that uses radically different biochemical and molecular processes than currently known life. Although life on Earth is relatively well-studied, the shadow biosphere may still remain unnoticed because the exploration of the microbial world targets primarily the biochemistry of the macro-organisms." Because organisms based on RNA would not have ribosomes, which are usually used to detect living microorganisms, they would be difficult to find in normal circumstances.

                                    The comic suggests that this hypothetical biosphere exists, and its study is funded by "shadow biotech" corporations. The field would be called "shadow biology", so people that study it would be "shadow biologists". However, this is reinterpreted to mean "shadow" biologist, meaning that anyone that studies it becomes undetectable. A "shadowy" figure, presumably a shadow biologist, is telling this to Megan and Cueball, but they are not shadow biologists and can't hear him.

                                    If people who study the shadow biosphere become part of it, then it will be very hard to get a lot of evidence without becoming it.

                                    The title text references desert varnish, an orange-yellow to black coating found on exposed rock surfaces in arid environments, which has been suggested as a potential candidate for a shadow biosphere. Unless a building was made with already-varnished rocks, it would be impractical to cover a building in desert varnish (it forms naturally on rocks over thousands of years). Ignoring its impracticality, the joke is that if a building were covered in desert varnish, it would supposedly be invisible to biologists who don't study the shadow biosphere.

                                    Transcript[edit]

                                    Latest comment: 27 August2 comments2 people in discussion
                                    [Cueball and Megan are standing facing each other. A shadowy figure is behind Megan.]
                                    Shadowy figure: These days most of our funding comes in from the shadow biotech industry.
                                    Megan: Did you hear something?
                                    Cueball: I think it's the wind.
                                    [Caption below the panel:]
                                    The shadow biosphere exists, but if you study it, you become a shadow biologist.


                                    Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                    Definitely needs more explanation, but I feel like the topic may be a bit niche. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 22:35, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                    795: Conditional Risk
                                    Conditional Risk
                                    'Dude, wait -- I'm not American! So my risk is basically zero!'
                                    Title text: 'Dude, wait -- I'm not American! So my risk is basically zero!'

                                      Explanation[edit]

                                      The comic deals with the difference between the general probability of a certain event based on history and the probability of the same event in particular circumstances. The chance of any American selected randomly from the general population to be killed by lightning is very low (actually on average about 28 people die in the U.S. each year), but part of the reason for this is that an average American would seek shelter and safety when caught in a lightning storm. The joke is that someone armed with this particular statistical knowledge would not take the normal precautions and therefore leave themselves far more vulnerable.

                                      In the title text, since the statistic provided talks only about Americans, the other character wrongly assumes that lightning strikes only happen to Americans, rather than the data for lightning strikes for other nationalities being simply not included in the discussion. Because of this, as a non-American, he believes his chance of being struck by lightning is nonexistent – which underlines the difference between knowing a certain event can't or didn't happen and not having any data about the event.

                                      The "one in six" statistic is probably invented by the author – which also illuminates the danger of dealing with "statistical data" provided by random sources without any attribution to actual statistical surveys or hard data. And of course, now a lot of xkcd readers know the statistic, likely bringing down the death rate.

                                      A similar situation is referred to in the what if? article Hailstones.

                                      Transcript[edit]

                                      Latest comment: 27 August1 comment1 person in discussion
                                      [Lightning strikes the ground, illuminating trees with a bright white light. Two people are standing near it. One has a walking stick.]
                                      CRACK
                                      BOOM
                                      First person: Whoa! We should get inside!
                                      Second person: It's okay! Lightning only kills about 45 Americans a year, so the chances of dying are only one in 7,000,000. Let's go on!
                                      [Caption below the panel:]
                                      The annual death rate among people who know that statistic is one in six.


                                      Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                      366: Your Mom
                                      Your Mom
                                      'It's either 'your mom' jokes or me' 'Then I, like so many men before me, must reluctantly choose your mom.'
                                      Title text: 'It's either 'your mom' jokes or me' 'Then I, like so many men before me, must reluctantly choose your mom.'

                                        Explanation[edit]

                                        "Your mom" jokes could be considered an example of fraternity humor, and are seen by most adults as being a sign of immaturity, especially when overused. They generally involve the speaker making indelicate references to the mother of the person to whom he is speaking. They are a distinct variation from the more traditional "yo momma" jokes (as in, "yo momma is so fat..." or "yo momma is so stupid..."), which are merely insulting.

                                        "That's what she said" is a supposedly funny retort to an innocent looking statement, the intent being to recast it in a sexual light. It gained its most recent surge of popularity as Michael Scott's catchphrase on the television series The Office. xkcd contains only failed attempts at "that's what she said" jokes, such as 436: How it Happened. The phrase is a simplified version of the older, British expression "...said the actress to the bishop".

                                        We enter in the middle of a conversation between Cueball and Megan about the status of their relationship. Megan has apparently just said that Cueball turns every conversation into a "your mom" joke and it's becoming unbearable. Cueball immediately turns that sentence into a "your mom" joke.

                                        When Megan makes it clear that she has had enough and that she is leaving, Cueball, in a heroic effort to make things even worse, can only respond with the "that's what she said" joke. Megan agrees with Cueball that it is exactly what she (Megan) said, and is obviously about to break up with him.

                                        The title text stretches the joke further, Cueball suggesting that many men have been with her mother, but perhaps as a last resort or under duress. This is, if true, even more offensive than his previous efforts.

                                        Transcript[edit]

                                        Cueball: Well, your mom turns every conversation into a "your mom" joke and it's become unbearable.
                                        Megan: I'm serious; I can't take this anymore. I'm leaving.
                                        Cueball: ...That's what she said!
                                        Megan: Yes. Yes, it is.

                                        Trivia[edit]

                                        Latest comment: 27 August2 comments2 people in discussion

                                        For examples of "your mom" jokes, see Category:Your Mom.


                                        Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                        This is perfect! A very notable comics about a common joke that has a terrible explanation! Great find! FaviFake (talk) 16:27, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                        680: December 25th
                                        December 25th
                                        If you're turning 27 and were born in the Northeast, maybe you were conceived in the April blizzard of 1982. Imagine: snowed in, candles, massage oil, your mom sporting nothing but her early 80's haircut and a smile... aren't you glad you read the title-text?
                                        Title text: If you're turning 27 and were born in the Northeast, maybe you were conceived in the April blizzard of 1982. Imagine: snowed in, candles, massage oil, your mom sporting nothing but her early 80's haircut and a smile... aren't you glad you read the title-text?

                                          Explanation[edit]

                                          On Christmas Day, most kids whose families celebrate the holiday get Christmas presents. And kids who were actually born on the 25th may feel a little put off because they don't get a special day all to themselves like their siblings and friends do. A lot of families alleviate this by celebrating the child's birthday on a day other than the 25th, so the kid will still get their own party. Unfortunately, the child may not get double presents, but may instead end up getting one gift per gift-giver as both a Christmas gift and a birthday gift.

                                          In the title text, Randall provides a "lovely" image for the people turning 27 on this date (Christmas Day, 2009) that would surely have them reaching for the brain bleach. He describes the prospective 27-year old reader's mother naked, immediately before the sexual encounter in which the reader was conceived. Such a sexual encounter may have been expedited by the (compulsory) seclusion enforced by the blizzard that ravaged New York and New England (where Randall is from) in April 1982 - the blizzard left some people trapped in the houses by snow-drifts and blocked transport for days on end. Given the severity, unexpected nature and location of the blizzard, Randall might well have heard about it as a child, as he was born a mere two years after the event.

                                          Transcript[edit]

                                          Latest comment: 27 August1 comment1 person in discussion
                                          [On one side, a family of four gathered around a Christmas tree, the daughter Ponytail and son Kidball looking excitedly at the presents under the tree; on the other, another Kidball is wearing a party hat, sitting dejectedly before a birthday cake. The panel edges are decorated with holly and a wreath.]
                                          Happy Birthday
                                          to those of you born on the 25th!
                                          Sorry you get kinda shafted
                                          by the overlap with Christmas.


                                          Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                          1165: Amazon
                                          Amazon
                                          Amazon.com took a surprise early lead with 'Time required to transport a package from Iquitos, Peru to Manaus, Brazil' but then lost it at 'Minutes to skeletonize a cow'.
                                          Title text: Amazon.com took a surprise early lead with 'Time required to transport a package from Iquitos, Peru to Manaus, Brazil' but then lost it at 'Minutes to skeletonize a cow'.

                                            Explanation[edit]

                                            The Amazon River in South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow. Amazon.com is a website that specializes in commerce and selling goods over the internet. The "round 14" suggest they are being compared in different criteria in a sort of competition. With such different systems, we can assume that most of those comparisons were similarly funny. The title text mentions two other criteria of comparison.

                                            The measure of flow for the Amazon river (cubic meters per second) indicates the volume of water that passes a given area in the river at any second. To illustrate how much 220,000 cubic meters is, the comic shows a car parked next to 220,000 cubic meters of water. 220,000 cubic meters equals a cube with an edge span of 60.4 meters. By comparison the 0.9 cubic meters (900 L) of goods that are shipped by Amazon.com seems very small (note that 900 liters of goods per second is still a lot). To illustrate this size, the comic shows an Amazonian fish (or possibly an Amazon river dolphin) investigating the packages.

                                            Iquitos and Manaus are cities near the source and middle respectively of the river; the title text suggests that it is shorter to have a package shipped between the two than let it drift downstream. "Minutes to skeletonize a cow" refers to piranha, an Amazonian predatory fish with a popular reputation of being capable of the mentioned act when hunting in groups. (It should be noted that, while not fictional per se, the legendary cow-killing piranhas had been starved beforehand by local humans.)

                                            In 1599: Water Delivery Amazon.com delivers water, as a direct reflection of what the Amazon river actually achieves by default.

                                            Transcript[edit]

                                            Latest comment: 27 August2 comments2 people in discussion
                                            Round 14
                                            Estimated outflow volume
                                            in cubic meters per second
                                            [A cube of water representing the outflow of the Amazon, with various marine life in it and people standing around it.]
                                            Amazon 220,000
                                            [A pile of boxes representing the outflow of Amazon.com, dwarfed by the large cube of water next to it.]
                                            Amazon.com 0.9
                                            Advantage: Amazon


                                            Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                            Maybe we could give the reader more up-to-date stats, since the comic was published more than a decade ago? FaviFake (talk) 16:27, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                            779: Anxiety
                                            Anxiety
                                            Don't need any, thanks. I have a backscattering fetish.
                                            Title text: Don't need any, thanks. I have a backscattering fetish.

                                              Explanation[edit]

                                              Some people are upset about airport security policies that mandate the use of backscatter X-ray machines, since the machines can create an image of the subject naked. In protest, the travellers in the lineup (or at least the male ones) are taking Viagra, sold to them by Black Hat; there is a heteronormative expectation that the male security guard will be disgusted at being forced to look at erect penises. (An expectation which is supported by the guard's thought bubble of "Oh God", which could either be in response to seeing what Black Hat is doing or in response to an unseen person, presumably sporting such an erection, already in the scanner.) Alternatively, the guard may just be worried by the fact that Black Hat is selling unidentified pills which might contain harmful ingredients.

                                              Given Black Hat's personality, it is unlikely he himself is doing this in protest; rather he is monetizing the opportunity, a supposition reinforced by the inflated price ($20 for a single dose) at which he is selling the medication.[citation needed]

                                              An alternate interpretation is that many men feel self-conscious (or anxious, as the title puts it) about their size when flaccid,[citation needed] and thus might wish to "put their best foot forward" and look their best.

                                              Realistically, given the size of the line, there would be insufficient time between consuming the pills and entering the scanner for them to take effect.

                                              In the title text, one of the people in the line explains he has a fetish with being X-ray scanned, and thus doesn't need Viagra to achieve the above effect.

                                              Transcript[edit]

                                              Latest comment: 28 August3 comments2 people in discussion
                                              [There is an airport security checkpoint where a queue of ten passengers is waiting to go through a backscatter X-ray scanner. Near the back of the line, Black Hat is standing next to a stand and a sign which says "Viagra $20". One passenger next to him is drinking a glass of water; another is contemplating the sign.]
                                              Security Guard (thinking): Oh God.


                                              Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                              This is pretty good, the explanation definitely needs some polishing and the joke isn't too obvious. FaviFake (talk) 16:27, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
                                              I am not so sure of this one myself. I feel like we should explain stuff like powerscaling and similar activites (which this comic seems based off of) and some updates stats, but it is not too much in need of help otherwise Black Hat's Hat (talk) 17:44, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                              729: Laser Pointer
                                              Laser Pointer
                                              It's a lasing cat-vity!
                                              Title text: It's a lasing cat-vity!

                                                Explanation[edit]

                                                It is common to use a laser pointer as a cat toy because cats are attracted to the dot and attempt in vain to catch it in their paws. They will chase the dot as it moves around, sometimes pouncing on it or swiping at it with their claws; but they will never be able to catch it.[citation needed] This is very frustrating for cats (and dogs), because it triggers a hunting instinct, but removes the satisfaction of actually catching their prey.

                                                Cueball is messing with his cat with a laser pointer, however he is unprepared when his cat pounces and successfully grabs the laser dot. As Cueball looks around and tries to figure out what happened to the laser, his cat licks it, before eating it and starting to glow with a red light.

                                                The cat then shoots lasers from its eyes and disintegrates a surprised Cueball on the spot in revenge for taunting it with the laser pointer.

                                                It is then revealed that everything that happened was just a cat's dream. Only in its dreams can a cat successfully enact the rest of the comic.[citation needed]

                                                Real cats' eyes (and some other animals' eyes) have a Tapetum Lucidum behind their retinas, which increases their sensitivity in low-light conditions. This can cause their eyes to appear to glow, but they're actually just reflecting light from the environment.

                                                The title text makes a pun on the chamber in which lasers are formed, known as a laser cavity.

                                                Transcript[edit]

                                                Latest comment: 27 August2 comments2 people in discussion
                                                [Cueball points a laser pointer at the floor. A black cat crouches, staring at the red dot.]
                                                [The cat pounces.]
                                                [The cat lands with its paw on the dot, claws out.]
                                                [The cat tugs on the dot.]
                                                Dot: tug tug
                                                [Cueball tries to use the laser pointer, which is no longer emitting a beam. The cat nibbles on the red laser dot.]
                                                Cueball: ??? click click
                                                Cat: lick? nom nom
                                                [The cat arches, emitting red shock lines.]
                                                [The cat shoots lasers out of its eyes at Cueball, who is covered in a bright red glow. The right side of the panel is the end of a thought bubble.]
                                                Laser: FWOOSH
                                                Cueball: AUGH!
                                                [The black cat, sleeping, has dreamed the entire strip.]
                                                Cat: zzzzz


                                                Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                I feel like the explanation covers the comic, but it doesn't explain; I'm feeling the lack of the obligatory TVTropes link and the discussion around laser powers. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 22:40, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                Archived nominations[edit]

                                                For the explanations featured on the previous Explanation Completion Project, see the history of the site notice.

                                                Past successful nominations[edit]

                                                Successful nominations are moved to /Successful nominations after being featured for seven days.

                                                September 2026[edit]

                                                331: Photoshops
                                                Photoshops
                                                When I look into your eyes, I see JPEG artifacts. I can tell by the pixels that we're wrong for each other.
                                                Title text: When I look into your eyes, I see JPEG artifacts. I can tell by the pixels that we're wrong for each other.

                                                  Explanation[edit]

                                                  This is another comic in the My Hobby series. It plays on the then-popular internet meme "This Looks Shopped". Adobe Photoshop is a popular image editing application that was first launched in 1990, and it reached its peak in popularity around the 2000s as the industry standard for editing graphics. The verb "photoshop" (as in "to photoshop") is a verbalization/denominalization (informally known as verbing) of the noun "Photoshop", referring to the act of using editing software to digitally alter an image, often to make the image look more appealing, dramatic, or to trick people online. Its derived adjective "photoshopped" and its shortened version "shopped" are applied to an image that has been manipulated in this way. One particular popular usage of Photoshop is image compositing: combining two or more images together into a single, seamless picture. This allows the digital artist to create humorous and/or falsified scenarios, like making someone who does not hold a rapier hold one. Adobe Photoshop is still considered a prominent image editing service, but has since lost its monopoly in the market.

                                                  Cueball insists that real-life items can be digitally manipulated, even though it is generally not possible to do this to actual physical objects outside of a computer.[citation needed] Megan claims that the sabre she found is a 19th-century heirloom, but Cueball is insisting for fun that the sabre is in fact photoshopped, presumably for fun or to rile Megan up. He then goes on to cite the wrongness of the shadows as why the sabre is photoshopped. This is an especially bizarre claim to make, because real world objects generally cannot cast wrong shadows, unlike a photoshopped image might. Cueball could also be trying to annoy Megan by insisting it's photoshopped and potentially 3D printed into an object that makes it look real.

                                                  Alternatively, calling the artifact "photoshopped" could be Cueball's unique and strange way of suggesting it's a fake. The joke could also refer to the paranoia some internet users have when trying to discern whether images online are real or edited, suggesting that this behaviour might extend into real-life situations, mistaking actual physical objects as "photoshopped" because of how petty such people can be.

                                                  This comic also unintentionally (probably) foreshadowed the rising and unavoidable presence of AI image creation and editing on the internet, several years after its publication. However, manipulating images on social media to create misleading content has been and still is very commonplace. Today, people would often accuse content creators or websites of using images generated by AI, as creating visual aids and content this way is considered lazy and minimizes the purpose of human artists. Identifying both photoshopped and AI images both follow the same base principle of examining minute details for inconsistency. With photoshopped images, it can include inaccurate shadows (as mentioned by Cueball) and differences in quality in sections of the image;[actual citation needed] with AI, the best tell is inconsistencies with reality.

                                                  The title text contains the second part of the internet meme, the complete text of which is: "THIS LOOKS SHOPPED / I CAN TELL FROM SOME OF THE PIXELS AND FROM SEEING QUITE A FEW SHOPS IN MY TIME." Most people have seen this from the popular image file format JPEG, which uses an image compression algorithm that works by converting an image's color data into small blocks, changing those blocks into cosine frequency patterns, rounding off details human eyes cannot see easily, and packing the final data tightly. This works remarkably well, but can sometimes leave artifacts (noticeable distortions or errors in the image) that are visible when zooming in far enough. Cueball is treating Megan's eyes as literal digital images on a screen, claiming that he can tell that he and Megan are "wrong for each other" based on the supposed JPEG artifacts and pixels her eyes are made of.

                                                  Seeing in someone's eyes that you're wrong for each other is a common poetic/clichéd expression for the experience, during intimate moments, of recognising from something unidentifiable about someone's expressions or wider demeanor that there is a lack of personal chemistry between you. It is not usually based on the physical appearance of their irises.

                                                  Transcript[edit]

                                                  Latest comment: 16:445 comments2 people in discussion
                                                  [Megan holds a sword, handle outward, to Cueball. A dark blotch is on the center of the blade, and hangs off it slightly.]
                                                  My hobby: Insisting that real-life objects are photoshopped.
                                                  Megan: This sabre is a 19th-century family heirloom.
                                                  Cueball: It looks photoshopped.
                                                  Megan: Huh?
                                                  Cueball: Yeah, the reflections are all wrong. Definitely photoshopped.


                                                  Very short, and only does a surface graze of the topic. Parallels to AI image editing, anyone? 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 06:03, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                  This is a great one! I was about to say the same thing, it can be updated by better explaining the reference and to add modern parallels. FaviFake (talk) 19:36, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
                                                   Nomination successful. FaviFake (talk) 11:02, 6 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
                                                   Featured as This Week's Explanation for Improvement. FaviFake (talk) 11:02, 6 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
                                                   Archived but marked as still incomplete. Unfortunately it still needs some serious copy-editing. FaviFake (talk) 16:44, 13 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                  August 2026[edit]

                                                  380: Emoticon
                                                  Emoticon
                                                  U+FDD0 is actually Unicode for the eye of the basilisk, though for safety reasons no font actually renders it.
                                                  Title text: U+FDD0 is actually Unicode for the eye of the basilisk, though for safety reasons no font actually renders it.

                                                    Explanation[edit]

                                                    A basilisk, originating in Greco-Roman antiquity, is a legendary creature reputed to have the power to kill, or turn to stone, any living creature with a single glance (a useful idea for metaphor, as in Shakespeare's Richard III, in which a widow wishes her eyes, praised for their beauty by her husband's killer, were basilisks and could "strike [him] dead"). In this comic Cueball doesn't appear to be turned to stone, he simply appears to have died.

                                                    Cueball, who goes by "NICKM", chats online with a user named "BSLSK05" via instant messaging. He quickly learns, much to his dismay, that he is chatting with an actual basilisk, who kills him by texting him a smiley emoticon (a colon and a closing parenthesis: :)), suggesting that the basilisk's power can extend beyond actual physical eye contact and is effective even with a mere visual representation of a pair of "basilisk" eyes as keyboard characters.

                                                    The username "BSLSK05" is, of course, the word "basilisk" without vowels and with appended numbers. Most systems disallow the same username for different users, so users often append digits to their name in order to create something unique. These may be digits that have some significance to them, or simply an arbitrary string.

                                                    The myth of the basilisk has been adapted into many places in popular culture which the comic may be referencing, rather than the original myth directly. In this comic, Cueball is explicitly not referred to as Rob, since his username implies that he goes by "Nick" (possibly short for "Nicholas") and has a family name starting with "M". This may be a reference to the character Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, also known as "Nearly Headless Nick", from the novel and movie series Harry Potter. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a basilisk is let loose in Hogwarts School of Wizardry, and Nearly Headless Nick becomes a victim of the basilisk's gaze. However, since he is a ghost and has already died, he is instead rendered immobile, or in the book, "petrified". (Another possible reference is the Basilisk monster from the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Here, the Basilisk is a monster with the special ability "Petrifying Gaze".)

                                                    Cueball's question, "A/S/L?", is an online messaging shorthand for requesting information about someone — specifically their age, sex, and location. This was commonly used when first meeting someone online in text-only mediums, especially in determining how they might wish to continue to converse with their correspondent (whether it might lead to online flirting or finding some other interesting topic of conversation). However, in some contexts, the question was considered creepy, inappropriate or disruptive. For people who were only interested in talking with existing friends or talking about a specific topic, dealing with unsolicited private messages asking "A/S/L?" was generally an annoyance. Such people may have wished for a way to make the questioner go away, though most would not have resorted to petrification to do so.

                                                    The term has largely fallen out of use since the comic, with the introduction of avatars, profile pictures, and other methods of presenting a user's identity up front. Modern dating sites such as Tinder have built-in algorithms that automatically connect people whose preferences match, skipping the basic introduction stage of a first-time interaction entirely.

                                                    The type of chat system pictured may be Internet Relay Chat (IRC), the earliest popular system used for instant messaging, as most IRC clients share the use of formatting usernames with surrounding angle brackets and prefixing event messages with "-!-".

                                                    The title text refers to the Unicode character at code point U+FDD0, which is a non-character — this specific one is permanently reserved for internal application processing rather than regular text, meaning no font sets support the character. If you attempt to render the non-character in a text field or editor, it would either not show up or would display as an empty rectangle (🯄) or an invalid/missing character box (�). Unicode does, however, have many characters for representing images and icons/symbols, such as ✉ (Envelope), ☎ (Telephone), ✏ (Pencil), ✂ (Scissors), ⚙ (Gear), ★ (Star), ancient Egyptian glyphs, and (most popularly) emojis. Ironically, the characters just given may not render in a given browser, including the one of the editor who placed them here, and also appear as rectangular boxes, even if they can be seen and used on the edit page. The title text claims that U+FDD0 is actually the character for the eye of a basilisk (which does not exist), but is not rendered by any fonts for safety reasons, because it may kill anybody who looks at the character.

                                                    Transcript[edit]

                                                    [Cueball sits at computer, typing. The computer screen reads as follows:]
                                                    -!- Opening Chat with BSLSK05
                                                    <NICKM> Hi!
                                                    <NICKM> A/S/L?
                                                    [The next panel is unframed, with two smaller frames within it.]
                                                    <BSLSK05> :)
                                                    [Cueball looks stunned, flies backward.]
                                                    [The two smaller frames focus in on BSLSK05's emoticon, implying rotation to show a smile and two open eyes.]
                                                    [Cueball at computer slouches in chair, dead, crossbones above his head.]
                                                    [At the remote computer, a basilisk is looking at its screen, pleased with its endeavours.]

                                                    Trivia[edit]

                                                    Latest comment: 6 September5 comments2 people in discussion

                                                    This page is incomplete:
                                                    This is a bit too technical, explain it in simpler terms. You can help by editing the explanation!

                                                    The unicode character used as the eye of the basilisk, U+FDD0 did in fact kill at least one chat client, Konversation (and presumably any other Qt-based chat clients using QTextDocument). This was because U+FDD0 is one of the 32 non-characters located in the block “Arabic Presentation Forms-A” used "to make additional codes available to programmers to use for internal processing purposes". According to the Unicode FAQ they are reserved for internal (private) use.

                                                    However, some cross-platform software development frameworks used to create graphical user interfaces, such as QT's UTF-8 encoder, let it through anyway. QT's qtextdocument (i.e. the container for richtext formatted content) uses U+FDD0 as non-printable text frame delimiting character. When this is appended to a QTextDocument, which is a container for structured rich text documents that provides support for styled text and various other types of document elements, the internal counters used to keep track of depths of embedded content have been incorrectly adjusted, to the degree that it eventually may crash the software using it.

                                                    D-bus closes the connection and crashes the client when it encounters illegal UTF-8, and KDE's notification system works through d-bus.

                                                    The problem was fixed after the xkcd "report" and Konversation now handles unicode normally.


                                                    Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                    This is amazing! It has a relatively deep but simple joke, a weak explanation, and a reference to an old internet custom! FaviFake (talk) 16:27, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
                                                     Nomination successful. FaviFake (talk) 08:22, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
                                                     Featured as This Week's Explanation for Improvement. FaviFake (talk) 08:22, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
                                                     Archived. FaviFake (talk) 11:03, 6 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                    September 2026[edit]

                                                    Unsuccessful nominations[edit]

                                                    Unsuccessful nominations are moved to /Unsuccessful nominations and should not be re-nominated.

                                                    September 2026[edit]

                                                    686: Admin Mourning
                                                    Admin Mourning
                                                    And every day it gets harder to fight the urge to su to the user and freak people out.
                                                    Title text: And every day it gets harder to fight the urge to su to the user and freak people out.

                                                      Explanation[edit]

                                                      This explanation was found to be incomplete after being nominated for This Week's Explanation for Improvement. Although it was not featured, the nomination process revealed issues that still need to be addressed to meet our quality standards. Before removing this notice, read the August 2026 nomination and ensure the issues raised by the Explanation Improvement Project have been satisfactorily addressed:

                                                        The second and third paragraphs of the explanation are too technical and should use simpler terms.
                                                        Explain what the HUP (Hang-up) signal is and what "detach and reattach that output" means.
                                                        The fourth panel assumes the user knows what a "command line interface" is. Explain that concept.
                                                        The journey from "Ghost in the Shell" to "Descartes' theory of mind-body dualism" can be explained better.

                                                      You can help by editing the explanation! If you are new to wiki editing, see our editing FAQ for guidance.

                                                      The background images show the output from the ps command of Unix-like computer systems, which lists all running processes including all interactive users logged in to the server. If a user did not log out, their processes would continue to run until stopped by a reboot. If some specific user dies while logged in, the running sessions still appear in the ps output and be a reminder to other users. This comic depicts an administrator unwilling to reboot a machine that has still running processes from a deceased user named "sam".

                                                      When a session is closed its descendent processes are sent the HUP (Hang-up) signal, a signal sent to a process when its terminal or connection is disconnected, which normally causes them to terminate. However, the popular utility screen enables a user to detach the output from the session and reattach that output later, thus surviving over sessions.

                                                      The joke in the final panel refers to the command line interface being called a shell, and to a particular type of shell called zshell (/bin/zsh in the final panel), making a pun with the expression "Ghost in the Shell", which is the title of a popular manga series, originally derived from the expression "ghost in the machine", used by philosopher Gilbert Ryle to describe Descartes' theory of mind-body dualism.

                                                      The phrase "su to the user" refers to the ability of a system administrator — i.e. the superuser, aka root — to switch to another user account (using the su command, which stands for substitute user) without needing the target user's password, as would normally be necessary, which in this case would give the impression that sam's ghost were using the account.

                                                      Transcript[edit]

                                                      Latest comment: Wednesday at 10:323 comments2 people in discussion
                                                      [The text is over a white-on-black terminal showing a bit of output from ps -el | grep sam, with processes running from root and sam.]
                                                      When a user dies, their connections time out,
                                                      but their screen sessions linger.
                                                      [The end of the command line is a |grep sam.]
                                                      The server's uptime grows
                                                      because you can't bring yourself to reboot
                                                      and wipe out
                                                      their last earthly presence
                                                      [The processes listed are screen, zsh, irssi, and grep sam.]
                                                      the ghost in zshell.


                                                      Black Hat's Hat (talk) 03:42, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                      This explanation would be a perfect candidate if it weren't about a complex topic, imo. I think it doesn't satisfy criterion #2 and it should probably be marked as {{incomplete}}. FaviFake (talk) 16:27, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
                                                       Nomination unsuccessful but marked as incomplete as the explanation remains too technical and should use simpler terms. FaviFake (talk) 10:32, 9 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                      August 2026[edit]

                                                      1506: xkcloud
                                                      xkcloud
                                                        < Previous                 April Fools' Day comics                 Next >      
                                                        This is the 8th xkcd April Fools' Day comic, released by Randall on April 1, 2015. It was published on a Wednesday, following the standard release schedule. You can view all April Fools' Day comics or learn more about them!

                                                        To experience the interactivity of the game, visit the original comic.

                                                        Explanation[edit]

                                                        This explanation was found to be incomplete after being nominated for This Week's Explanation for Improvement. Although it was not featured, the nomination process revealed issues that still need to be addressed to meet our quality standards. Before removing this notice, read the August 2026 nomination and ensure the issues raised by the Explanation Improvement Project have been satisfactorily addressed:

                                                          Need to remove bullet points throughout the #Explanation and #Trivia sections.
                                                          Also, clean up section #Don't contact us (don't use references or striked text, make a cohesive and clear explanation of what happened to the chatroom).
                                                          Also need to move the explanation of the reasons OUTSIDE of the full transcript and inside the, you know, #Explanation...

                                                        You can help by editing the explanation! If you are new to wiki editing, see our editing FAQ for guidance.

                                                        In this interactive April Fools' Day comic Cueball, presumably representing Randall, admits to the readers he built a flimsy cloud services company using spare computers and parts. Included in the cloud hardware are (from left to right) a Macintosh, several old laptops, an Alienware tower, a Nintendo Virtual Boy, an old desktop with the cover off, and an Atari Pong Console. He named the company after xkcd, xkcloud being a portmanteau of "xkcd" and "cloud", here pronounced XK-cloud. The portmanteau incidentally still contains all four xkcd letters in the correct order: xkcLOUd. This was later reused for the xkcd keyboard in 2150: XKeyboarCD, where the word Keyboard, has an X before the word and a C before the D with the xkcd letters capitalized.

                                                        After providing his services to various (very big) companies (Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr), that are very concerned with securing the users data, his setup failed (some portions may even have caught fire? He is not sure). This has caused him to lose the data he was required to preserve as part of his service. He thus requests the readers help to make up and re-imagine the lost data by pressing the large red button at the bottom of the comic. Preferably before Facebook & Co notice we lost it.

                                                        If you take him up on his request and push the button, you will be taken to a "survey" where you will get the chance to help by either trying to combine a posted picture with its lost text or, vice versa, by trying to combine a posted text with its lost picture. In either case you get a selection of texts/pictures to choose from but can also choose to write your own text or even draw the picture. After doing this you get to see this combination in the news feed together with several other posts (which other people have helped combine from other lost data). And then you can continue helping as long as you like.

                                                        The content of the "surveys" appear to come from reader submissions, and are different upon every click. This is thus both an interactive and a dynamic comic with only the first picture shown on top of this page. By inviting the xkcd readers to add content that will be displayed in the comic later, the result of all the interactions leads to the generation of crowd-sourced content.

                                                        It was not immediately clear if the reader-created drawings or captions are, in fact, being cycled into the surveys and feeds, or if the displayed items were all created by Randall and the reader-created content is simply discarded. With the huge amount of different comments and drawings that already appeared on the first day, and since especially the drawings look like they are created in the simple Paint app (i.e. not by Randall), there can be no doubt that most of the content is created by the users. However he must have made some pictures to get it all started, and at least one of these can be seen here.

                                                        This comic resembles last years April Fools' Day comic 1350: Lorenz where user input also generated a very complex crowd-sourced comic. In both comics it was possible to create a permalink to save a given version of the comic to share with others. An earlier comic was also related to problems with cloud computing: 908: The Cloud.

                                                        Due to the very complex nature of this comic, there are lots of details that may need an explanation. This can be found in the sections below. Note that there have been some changes and bugs regarding this comic after it was first released. Some of the pictures that are referenced below were saved before these changes took place. So consult these changes if the pictures do not match the expectations.

                                                        Extra xkcloud pages[edit]

                                                        Since this comic is so big and complicated, extra pages have been created to include much more information than is wished for on this main page (which is already of considerable size). These pages are listed here for convenience, but they are also listed in the relevant sections below:

                                                        Functionality[edit]

                                                        • Pressing the red button at the front page (shown here above) links to one of two interactive survey pages (see the pictures of all types of pages.).
                                                          • All these pages have a news feed below the top post. This will be described here below.
                                                        • The Lost picture page (see several pictures here) asks the reader to indicate which of eight line-drawings (see several examples here) best matches a given caption, or the reader can create their own drawing.
                                                          • This can be done on the Draw one your self sub-page (see several pictures here) in a simple web-based "paint"-style app.
                                                            • Note that someone found a way to copy a picture into the comic. See at least one example of this here.
                                                        • The Lost text page (see several pictures here) asks the reader to indicate which of eight captions best matches the given drawing, or the reader can create their own caption and submit this instead.
                                                          • These captions are user generated. See transcribed examples of these post from users here.
                                                        • In either case, at the top of the pages, we are given the Reason for the data loss. And there are many different reasons (all by account of Randall).
                                                        • After completing the "survey" you go to a new page appears:
                                                        • The Help us recover more data page (see several pictures here) has yet another red button like the front page, but on this page it is at the top of the page, saying exactly Help us recover more data.
                                                          • By pushing this button you go to one of the two "Lost" pages mentioned above.
                                                        • It is possible to go back to the front page at any time by clicking the picture of Cueball sitting behind his desk in the same way as he does in the first picture on the front page.
                                                          • Cueball is always present to the left on all pages after the front page.
                                                          • But if you go back to the front page like this, then if you again click on the "original" red button to return to help with the recovery, you will always go back to the same page you came from (with the same posts in the news feed and if it is one of the lost data pages also with the same post to fix.)
                                                          • You can thus only get to a new survey page by finishing the current task (or pressing a permalink as discussed below).

                                                        News feed[edit]

                                                        • Below the "survey" or the post you just recovered (to begin with), you will be presented with a listing similar to a Facebook news feed, listing six posts of the line-drawings apparently tagged with the captions as paired up by other users survey results.
                                                          • The posts are made by apparently fictional randomly-named readers (see transcribed examples of names here).
                                                          • But there are only 20 user pictures. See these (and why it is known that there are only 20) as well as a description of these pictures here.
                                                          • The posts are accompanied by a button similar to Facebook's "Like button" but here the button is labeled with different words which are all synonyms for want (see transcribed list of words here). So not "to like" but "to want" is the new thing in this version of Facebook.
                                                        • After the first time you recovered a post, there will thus be seven posts on the Help us recover more data page, six new posts below the one you just helped complete.
                                                          • The only difference when you click this pages red button (rather than when you start for the first time at the front page) is that there will now be seven posts below the one you need to fix.
                                                          • These seven posts are the same as those you had on the previous page, including your own at the top.

                                                        Permalink[edit]

                                                        • Next to each post there is a text Link above the "Want" button above the picture. (This goes for all three types of pages mentioned above.)
                                                        • The "Link" is an actual link of the type that is called a "permalink", a portmanteau of "permanent-link".
                                                        • If you wish to "save" any given post for future reference (for instance one with your own drawing) you can do so by copying down this link.
                                                          • Last year's April Fools' Day comic, 1350: Lorenz, was the first time the concept of a permalink was used on xkcd.
                                                          • The permalink option did not appear in the comic until very late in the afternoon on April 1. The "Link" was thus not present on the pictures refereed above. (See these pictures instead).
                                                        • Pressing the "Link" next to any given post takes you to the page of the permalink:
                                                          • This page will show a version of the Help us recover more data page with the chosen post as the top post.
                                                          • When you click the permalink it takes you to this "new" page and this page will not show all the posts from the page where you chose it.
                                                          • Only the post you saved via the "Link" next to it.
                                                            • All the other post will again just be chosen at random, and these will change again every time you reload this page via the saved permalink.
                                                            • Even the text on the "want" buttons also continues to change.
                                                            • The user name and user picture stay the same though.
                                                        • As an example of a permalink this is a post saying: We told Iran that atomic energy is unsafe for a picture of a black devil and two Cueballs next to a road.
                                                          • Originally the user name was Mark Zuckerberg but this has since changed to Destiny1983 next to a user picture of a stick figure with black hair on a skateboard.
                                                          • See Changes in the comic below for a possible reason.
                                                          • Also please make a note here, if the user name and picture is no longer the same.
                                                        • A huge collection of permalinks with link to the pictures have been amassed here:
                                                          • Table with permalinks contains all known images and captions at least once. (2179 feed entries, featuring 1481 different pictures and 1935 different captions, as of 2015-04-24)
                                                          • List of Permalinks contains all known permalinks (25585 links, as of 2015-04-24)

                                                        Details on the permalink[edit]

                                                        • Since the post from the page where you choose the first permalink is reloaded... Can you then only save one post at a time?
                                                        • The answer is "no" - you can save all posts on any given page.
                                                          • For each "Link" text on a given page, there has already been generated a unique permalink URL.
                                                          • Thus you can copy any permalink via the "Link", without actually pressing the "Link" to obtain the permalink for a given post.
                                                          • Furthermore, since this may be the only comic where you can copy the text, you can simple mark the entire page and copy paste it into a document that contains formatting. If you do this then you will have all the text, pictures and most importantly the permalinks for all the posts.
                                                        • If you click the Link and go to the permalink page there will be seven posts, six new and the one you just saved.
                                                          • The behavior of the posts is very strange from here if you press more permalinks on this first permalink page
                                                          • Also it will not be the same again after this first time as compared to if you continue to help recover more data and use the permalink later.
                                                          • On this first permalink page, where your chosen post is at the top, if you click on another post's permalink the following will happen:
                                                            • The post you originally choose disappears from the page, as the new chosen post is moved to the top.
                                                            • The other five post remains in the same order, so there are not only 6 posts.
                                                            • If you continue to choose the other posts one at a time, they will simply exchange place with the one at the top, with all six posts remaining.
                                                            • Once you have been through all of them, then the order of the post has been determined.
                                                              • So if you click on a "Link" that you have already once activated, then this page will just reload, and the post will have the same order as last time.
                                                              • This is only until you choose to reload, or when you load such a permalink later. Then again it will just be the chosen post, and then always six other new posts.
                                                          • If you then at some point move on via the red button you kind of stay in the permalink page, now just with new options to choose from.
                                                            • If you then create a new post, six new posts will be loaded below.
                                                            • When you click on a permalink at this point, there will not be any reloading of the post (because it is not the first time).
                                                            • Any post you click will move to the top, but all the other (six this time) will stay, the top post just moving down to another position.
                                                              • It is not always a direct exchange. Sometimes the top post moves to another position and then pushes the others down until they reach the now calculated position of the post now at the top.

                                                        Our policy regarding your personal data[edit]

                                                        On every of the pages after the front page Cueball sits at his desk labeled XKCD.COM
                                                        Below him are xkcloud's policy:
                                                        Our policy regarding your personal data:
                                                        • Please stop sending us your personal data
                                                        • We are running out of places to put it
                                                        • Is this even yours?
                                                        • Does anyone recognize whose data this is?
                                                        • Oh jeez never mind here comes more data
                                                        • Why are you doing this
                                                        • Please stop
                                                        • Help
                                                        As can be seen he is getting desperate because people keep sending them more data.
                                                        He has no place to store it.
                                                        And he do not even know who the data belongs to.
                                                        So now he hopes someone else recognize the data (what you are doing if you choose to help).
                                                        In the end he simply pleads for people to stop and then shouts Help.
                                                        If you click on the desk you are sent back to the front page of the comic.
                                                        But below Help is their real contact detail Don't contact us:

                                                        Don't contact us[edit]

                                                        • At the same time the permalink appeared, there was also suddenly a new link on all other pages than the front page, written in a very light grey font. It can be hard to see on some screens and has possibly changed colour to become harder to see since it first appeared.
                                                          • It is located right beneath help at the bottom of the list of problems written under our policy regarding your data right beneath Cueball at his desk to the left (see picture here).
                                                          • In some cases, tilting the screen will help to make it visible- if you still can't see it, you can still find it with the cursor, or you can also highlight the text below Cueball down to make it easier to see.
                                                        • The link text reads Don't contact us and links to a now-defunct chatroom formerly hosted at euphoria.io.
                                                        • Click the link to open an xkcd chatroom on Euphoria. (See a picture here).
                                                          • Several xkcd users began posting on the original chatroom at around 18:00 Eastern time (Randall's timezone).
                                                          • After picking a username, you can chat in real time with the other users. You can change your username by clicking on it near the bottom of the screen and entering a new one.
                                                          • On November 23rd 2023, euphoria shut down. The xkcd room lives on in the form of a new instance on euphleet.

                                                        We are open for anyone to chat here. Hey you! Come right over and say hello to us! ~euphoria.io/room/xkcd https://euphoria.leet.nu/room/xkcd/ (PS. Please say thank you to @Xyzzy on it; He did make the new chat, after all. (From @KurzgesagtDuck11. (Now @Geometrist.))

                                                        Undocumented Feature[edit]

                                                        • This chat room is reminiscent of the one in a comic 1305: Undocumented Feature.
                                                        • As mentioned above, this chat room is hard to access - to access it, click on the hidden link saying "Don't contact us" under "Our Policy Regarding Your Personal Data"xkcd 1506.
                                                        • When it came out, many users began using the chatroom.
                                                        • Maybe Randall timed these extra features for when people came back from work all over the US.

                                                        Changes and bugs[edit]

                                                        During the first day there occurred several changes to the comic, and also some bugs very present.

                                                        Changes in the comic[edit]

                                                        • All the changes mentioned here occurred during April 1 on the release day:
                                                        • Since being originally posted the words "Click here" were relatively quickly added in large text to the top of the red button followed by the word "to" being added to the beginning of the existing text.
                                                          • The text changed from
                                                            • Help us recover user data before Facebook & Co notice we lost it. to
                                                            • Click here to help us recover user data before Facebook & Co notice we lost it.
                                                          • The reason for this is most likely that too few users understood that they could enter a second part of the comic by clicking on the red button.
                                                        • Late in the afternoon on April 1 (around 18:00 ET) several changes occurred to the pages that can be reached from the front page:
                                                          • The permalink option appeared
                                                          • The link that says Don't contact us appeared under the text beneath Cueball's desk with a link to an xkcd chat room.
                                                            • Though only for the text font to fade out to being almost invisible again later on April 1.
                                                          • The alignment of the text right beneath Cueball's desk changed. (Compare this before picture with this picture after 18:00 ET).
                                                          • The number of posts increased from 3 or 4 to 6 or 7. (See the pictures above — scroll down to see the relevant after picture).
                                                          • Also the number of pictures and text to choose from increased from five to eight (as can also be seen by comparing the pictures found here for before — for text and for picture — with the pictures after (scroll down as mentioned before)).
                                                            • The reason he increased the number of posts (both to see and to choose from) could simply be because there where now is so many possible posts that the risk of seeing the same is smaller even with 6 posts.
                                                        • Sometime on April 2, Randall made an update to the names list.
                                                          • That this happened could be seen since the names shown in permalinks did change. And since then they have stayed constant.
                                                          • For instance, this permalink, to an atomic bomb explosion with the caption that's one nasty burn!, had the name "Lauren Ibsen Dolores Amit" (a play on "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet"), but then displayed the name "Virginia2006" next to a picture of a man with black hair. Currently, it displays the name "Michelleii" next to the same image.
                                                            • (If this changes please make a note - then the names list have either been changed again, or the assumption that the names stay constant is wrong.)

                                                        Bugs[edit]

                                                        From time to time, instead of the interactive page there is a page with three dots only. Also, at around 18:00, when all the changes occurred, the xkcd page did not work properly. The chat room was also overloaded at this time.

                                                        Transcript[edit]

                                                        [This transcript only transcribes what can be seen in the first picture shown at the top of the explanation here. The standard text for the next possible pages can be seen on the full transcript.]
                                                        [One large frame with a five part comic and a large red button at the bottom.]
                                                        [Cueball sitting behind a desk.]
                                                        Cueball: We've made a huge mistake.
                                                        Desk: XKCD.COM
                                                        [Cueball stands and indicates a motley collection of computers and related equipment strewn around the desk.]
                                                        Cueball: I figured starting a cloud services company would be easy.
                                                        Cueball: After all, I've got tons of computers!
                                                        [A zoomed view on Cueballs head.]
                                                        Cueball: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr— they all struggle to protect privacy and user data...
                                                        Cueball: And we offered a solution.
                                                        Cueball: I forget what it was, though.
                                                        [Cueball is standing with his arms up.]
                                                        Cueball: Anyway, long story short, we screwed up immediately and lost tons of their data.
                                                        Cueball: Also a bunch of stuff is literally on fire?
                                                        [Cueball standing behind a desk.]
                                                        Cueball: We can fix this.
                                                        Cueball: But we need your help.
                                                        Desk: XKCD.COM
                                                        [Below the above is a large red rectangular clickable button, that will take the reader on to the interactive part of the comic. On the button it says in large white letters:]
                                                        CLICK HERE
                                                        To help us recover user data before Facebook & Co notice we lost it.
                                                        [The standard text for the next possible pages can be seen on the full transcript. Also here will be a list with possible text for the lost data.]

                                                        Trivia[edit]

                                                        Latest comment: 29 August2 comments2 people in discussion
                                                        • It's the first comic:
                                                          • Without a title text. (If you don't count the unnumbered A Smarter Planet comics and 404: Not Found.)
                                                          • Where you can copy and paste most of the text from the comic. I.e it is not drawn but printed.
                                                            • This goes only for the follow up pages after the front page.
                                                            • It does not only go for the user input.
                                                          • These two facts could go together since the way this comic had to be created (i.e. it is not a single picture), there may not have been any possibilities for making a title text
                                                        • Source code of elements in the drawing interactive contain the attribute "data-reactid", indicating it is written using the React JavaScript library, developed to use with Facebook & Instagram.
                                                        • One of the pieces of text you can get explains the very reason you need to put in the image for it.


                                                        April Fool's Comics are always a big task to handle and require a lot of work to fully explain (some of these are from a decade ago and aren't completely explained yet). tori :3talk to me! 21:56, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                         Nomination unsuccessful but marked as incomplete (fails criteria #2 and #3) per my comment at the unixkcd nomination below. FaviFake (talk) 21:41, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                        1975: Right Click
                                                        Right Click
                                                        Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!
                                                        Title text: Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!
                                                          < Previous                 April Fools' Day comics                 Next >      
                                                          This is the 10th xkcd April Fools' Day comic, released by Randall on April 1, 2018. It was published on a Sunday, deviating from the standard release schedule to honor April Fools' Day. In fact, 2009 and 2017 are the only years in which Randall hasn't marked this day with a comic. You can view all April Fools' Day comics or learn more about them!

                                                          To experience the interactivity of the game, visit the original comic.

                                                          Explanation[edit]

                                                          This explanation was found to be incomplete after being nominated for This Week's Explanation for Improvement. Although it was not featured, the nomination process revealed issues that still need to be addressed to meet our quality standards. Before removing this notice, read the August 2026 nomination and ensure the issues raised by the Explanation Improvement Project have been satisfactorily addressed:

                                                            The Spells section has a lot of busy work that doesn't seem too hard to explain, finish explaining the second half of the table.

                                                          You can help by editing the explanation! If you are new to wiki editing, see our editing FAQ for guidance.

                                                          The image downloaded when the save button is selected.

                                                          At first, the comic seems like the most simplistic xkcd comic possible - Cueball standing and doing nothing. The "editor's note" tells you to save a copy of the image to "view the full comic".

                                                          To save an image from a browser most people would right-click on it (or long-click in mobile devices) which normally leads to a "context menu" allowing several actions related to the image, including saving/downloading. This is what you are encouraged to do by the editorial note as well as by the comic name and title text. However, the context menu opened is not the default context menu of the browser but an elaborate context menu containing many nonsensical options.

                                                          At first it also seems impossible to save the image using that menu. However, after exploring the context menu you can find an "easter egg" in one of two different places (see below) which unlocks the save option. This save option gives you a different image than the one you see, which can be thought of as "the full comic" although the meat of the comic is actually in the interactive context menu itself. Note that "cheating" by disabling JavaScript and other methods that allow you to directly save the image won't get you that "full comic" image.

                                                          This comic pokes fun at how hard it can be to save an image or to just navigate context menus in some computer programs. The "easter egg hunt" might be related to the fact the comic was released during Easter (which fell on April fool's in 2018). It might also be related to the movie "Ready Player One" which was recently released when the comic was released. In the movie, based on the book by Cline, finding an "easter egg" in a VR world was a central plot point.

                                                          The title is reminiscent of one of the first interactive comics 1110: Click and Drag, where the title explains what the user should do to experience it. However, that was not a fools' day comic.

                                                          The comic uses JavaScript and HTML5 to override the standard context menu. Since modern browsers use the same features to integrate Add-ons into that menu, the behavior may be different depending on the browser environment. Browsers with JavaScript disabled, either totally or by using NoScript, won't access the functionality of the comic, but of course can easily save the image (not "the full version" but the image that is seen initially).

                                                          Context menu[edit]

                                                          # Menu item Explanation Sub-menu items
                                                          1 Save Only appears after getting one of the two easter eggs that can be found in the menu - in the games ADVENT.EXE and Mornington Crescent (see their explanations below). Save image> Views the image the first time you click, then downloads this image on every visit after that. [1]. The image includes a spheroid object near the top right-hand corner which appears to exhibit red shift and green shift, suggesting that it is rotating rapidly.
                                                          2 File Normal submenu Close: Closes menu, does nothing.

                                                          Open: A:\, C:\, / (See more below)

                                                          Find: Where, When, How, (grayed out) What, (grayed out) Why, Who.

                                                          'Where' leads to four options. The first, 'computer', has two options ('folder' and 'menus'), which link back to the 'find' and right-click menus, respectively. "Narnia" leads to a link to the comic 665: Prudence as well as to a grey comment about how it's weird that "they" have to die to go back to Narnia. "Canada" and "America" lead to the same set of bizarre menus (America leads into Canada's menu), which then give the options 'Upper' and 'Lower', ultimately leading to a drive-through and hockey, respectively.

                                                          'When' leads to a description of Siri entering someone's home, and the menu can be followed to reveal several further events from 'earlier' in the day. The last one ('a bottle of jack and a toothbrush') is likely a reference to the song 'Tik Tok' by Kesha.

                                                          'How' simply leads to an exclamation of 'How!?'.

                                                          'What' is grayed out.

                                                          'Why' links to [2], technically answering the question of "Why?"

                                                          'Who' leads to a menu version of the Abbot and Costello "Who's on First?" routine, which eventually links to a youtube video of the routine. As of April 4th, a second submenu has been added, which contains Slappy and Skippy's "Who's on Stage?" parody of the previous routine, which also eventually leads to its youtube video.

                                                          Backup: Causes the area around the comic to flash red 9 times, with high-pitch sounds reminiscent of a truck backing up. Reminiscent of the Sinclair Spectrum SAVE to tape command, which would flash the border and modulate the speaker.

                                                          Save: Only available after the save menu is unlocked after one of the two Easter Eggs is found, allows a download of a bonus comic, same as clicking the save option from the main menu.

                                                          3 Edit Enables a mode allowing the user to draw on the webpage. You can draw multiple scribbles, however, they will automatically connect together. Pressing Esc asks "Aw, that looks nice though. Really delete?" and the page returns to normal if OK is clicked. None
                                                          4 System Normal submenu Shut Down> Changes the only menu option to "Power on", then once that is used, the system returns to normal.

                                                          / (See below)

                                                          5 View Normal submenu Cascade>Links to [3]

                                                          Tile> Links to 245: Floor Tiles

                                                          Minimize> Changes pointer to a smaller pointer.

                                                          Full Screen> Enters full screen.

                                                          6 Utilities Normal submenu Park drives> Nothing.

                                                          Check space usage> (cannot click) Space usage: -Dark matter -Hydrogen -Helium -Scattered clumps of heavier elements -Stars -Rocks -Some space probes -Earth

                                                          Spell check> English (links to 1069: Alphabet) and Colors (links to [4])

                                                          Train AI> links to 1838: Machine Learning

                                                          Identify song> opens a long word-by-word menu for song lyrics; it's actually a menu-ised version of 851: Na.

                                                          Advanced> several Unix commands, all absurd (or dangerous) for some reason:

                                                          • apt-get install /dev/null: apt-get is the standard package manager used in Debian-derived Linux distributions (including Ubuntu); it is normally used to install software; /dev/null is the "bit-bucket" device on any Unix system, which can be used as a dummy output file to discard output or as a dummy empty input file. This command would attempt to install /dev/null (which is a device, not a package!) or, more correctly, would try to install a package reading its data from /dev/null (if apt-get is given a file name it tries to interpret it as a .deb package), which is obviously impossible.
                                                          • brew install apt-get: brew is a third-party package manager for macOS; it is generally used to install "missing" open-source utilities on a macOS system; the command is attempting to install the aforementioned apt-get, which is both impossible (apt-get doesn't run on macOS) and hilariously recursive (did you install a package manager - brew - to install another one?). Even if this were possible, the package would have been called apt, as apt-get is only one of the commands in the package manager.
                                                          • /usr/local/bin/wine xen-hypervisor.exe: wine is a compatibility layer used to run Windows executables on Linux (and on macOS); the fact that it is in /usr/local hints that it has been manually compiled on this machine; Xen is a Linux-based hypervisor, i.e. a software used to run and manage virtual machines over a Linux host, but the .exe suffix here hints that it is a Windows executable. The command would try to launch a Windows build of a Linux-based virtual machine manager on a Unix machine through a Windows emulation layer (wine).
                                                          • source .bash_history: the source shell command reads the file that is given as argument and executes each of its rows as a command in the current shell, roughly as if you typed them in; .bash_history (located in the user home directory) is the file where the bash shell saves the history of the commands that have been run. This command would re-run all the commands that have been typed in the shell.
                                                          • rm -rf $DIRECTROY/*: rm -rf deletes recursively and forcefully the paths it is given as arguments; $DIRECTROY is a shell variable, probably containing some directory that whoever typed in this command wanted to clean; however, it is misspelled (it says $DIRECTROY, not $DIRECTORY), and, due to how POSIX shell work, it is thus expanded to an empty string; so, the command becomes rm -rf /*, which deletes all the files and directories in the root of the disk, effectively killing the system instead of just deleting the content of some directory. Notice that this particular misspell manages to circumvent the builtin protection of many rm versions, which refuse to do a plain rm -rf /, as /* gets expanded by the shell, so rm never has the chance to see explicitly that you are killing all the data in the root directory.
                                                          • :(){:|:&};:: this is a classic shell fork bomb, i.e. a small program that keeps launching copies of itself until all resources have been exhausted or the user somehow manages to kill all its copies.
                                                          • echo "source .bashrc" >> .bashrc: .bashrc is a file that gets executed whenever the bash shell is started in interactive mode; this command appends the string source .bashrc to it, which effectively executes it again recursively; this would pretty much make it impossible to open an interactive shell when launching it with the default parameters.
                                                          • alias gcc=php: the alias shell builtin create an alias for another command; gcc is the GNU C compiler driver, which is used to compile programs written in the C language; php is the command-line interpreter for the PHP language. This line creates an alias such that when typing gcc, php is actually invoked, which would generate completely absurd error messages. This is doubly devious, as PHP isn't generally held in high esteem by large part of the programming community (especially by someone writing stuff in C).
                                                          7 Games Normal submenu Twenty Questions> A Twenty Questions interface that gets really confusing. There are links to Bing image searches for 'okapi', 'pronghorn', 'eland', 'baribusa', 'musk deer' and 'ibex'. The game also contains some extremely large cans of creamed corn (a reference to 1807: Listening).

                                                          Rock Paper Scissors> A Rock Paper Scissors game where the computer always matches your move. If you go long enough, the Defect option is added, a reference to the Prisoner's Dilemma.

                                                          D&D> An interface that allows you to "cast" over 300 spells from D&D 5e. Several menus are used to filter the spells based on their traits: class which can learn the spell, the school of the spell, the spell level, and components required to perform it (somatic, vocal, material). The traits can be chosen in any order. After all six traits are chosen a submenu opens with all of the spells that match those exact traits (which might be no spells at all).

                                                          Most spells link to various pages, including xkcd comics (e.g. 1331: Frequency), what-ifs (e.g. Saliva Pool) and other external sites (e.g. The Sun | NASA). Some spells create effects that change the comic page temporarily or permanently, and some open submenus from different parts of the context menu.

                                                          See below for all links and effects.

                                                          ADVENT.EXE> A text-based adventure game. If played correctly, you can win, unlocking 'Save'>'Save image' from the beginning menu, which links to [5].

                                                          The first scene allows you a choice between exploring a dark cave or a castle. If you explore the cave first you get the following description: "It's pitch black. You're likely to be eaten by a grue". This is a reference to a text adventure game called Zork, where Grues are monsters who dwell in the dark and eat human explorers, making it impossible to explore dark areas. The same description often appears when you enter a dark area without a light source in Zork and other related games. This has previously been mentionned in 91: Pwned.

                                                          If you ignore the warning and go deeper, you are given one more warning ("You're deep in a cave. Something, possibly this very sentence, tells you it would be dangerous to go any further"). If you ignore that too and keep going, you fall into a pit. Several options are given to try and rescue yourself (or alternatively "resign to your fate" or deny you are in a pit [You also may try to cause a distraction by saying "Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!" This may be a reference to the Curse of Monkey Island, where Guybrush Threepwood distracts characters by saying the same line.]) but all lead to "you've been eaten by a grue". Being eaten by a grue seems to be an irreversible condition - if you exit the context menu and enter ADVENT.EXE again, you are given no options and are told again that "you've been eaten by a grue". Apparently only refreshing the page cancels that.

                                                          Exploring the castle is a much safer option to begin with. The main castle scene has a door, a well, and stairs that go up to the tower. The door is locked, and trying to break it is futile.

                                                          The well is a wishing well. Examining it allows for several options:

                                                          • Examine the sign - it reads "Dark! Narrow! Scary! Well of Three Features". This is a reference to the well of three features from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
                                                          • Wish for... - this one has a lot of options, some of which are links to comics or What If pages and some lead to further submenus:
                                                            • World peace - leads to the answer "I'm just a well, can you scale it down a bit?" and then back to the well menu; this option is from now changed to "Inner peace", which gives "A feeling of calm washes over you." and "Ommmmmm...", which also goes back to the well menu
                                                            • More wishes - leads back to the "Wish for..." menu. The idea of using a wish to wish for more wishes is common when discussing things with wish-granting powers and was previously mentioned in 1086: Eyelash Wish Log.
                                                            • Fewer wishes - Tell you "Really? Okay.." (as this is not something most people would ask for[citation needed]). If you continue you return to the "Examine well" menu. If you want to make a wish again (even after exiting the menu and coming back again) you can only wish for "more wishes" and then you can continue wishing normally.
                                                            • Happiness - links to 572: Together, a comic about getting "happiness" as a scavenger hunt item.
                                                            • Luck - links to 1053: Ten Thousand which refers to hearing about commonly known things for the first time as being one of "today's lucky 10,000".
                                                            • Wisdom - You hear a voice whisper 'N, E, N, N, N, W, S, W'. This is a clue for later.
                                                            • Wealth - Links to the what if article All the Money, which might explain what will happen if the wishing well "overgrants" your wish.
                                                            • A human-sized hamster ball - links to 152: Hamster Ball where Cueball wishes for the same thing.
                                                            • A map of everything - links to 1196: Subways, a map of the subways of North America, which are apparently "everything" for Americans.
                                                            • True love - links to Soul Mates.
                                                            • A kitty! - links to 231: Cat Proximity, a comic detailing the effect of cats on humans.
                                                          • Jump in - Allows you to swim (and later "just keep swimming..." indefinitely) or climb out and return to the "Examine well" menu.
                                                          • Pull up the bucket - "You reel in the bucket. There's something shiny in the bottom". If you examine the bucket you get a key!

                                                          After you have the key, if you go back to the castle you can now use the key on the locked door and enter a dungeon. In the dungeon, there is a clamp on a table that you can take.

                                                          Finally, in the tower, you can find a "strange machine" dubbed a "C-Remover". You can try to use the C-Remover on any item you got. It doesn't affect the key, but it does turn the clamp into a lamp! The C-remover is a reference to either the T-remover from Leather Goddess of Phobos or the multi-letter remover from Counterfeit Monkey, a text adventure by Emily Short inspired by it.

                                                          After you have the lamp, entering the cave becomes safer. It now becomes "a maze of twisty passages, all alike" where each room allows going N, E, S, or W, normally leading to an identical room. Only by using the clue from the wish for "wisdom" in the well and going N, E, N, N, N, W, S, W you can navigate the maze successfully. When following that path, after the first "W" the options become N, S, and Dennis instead of the usual N, E, S, W; this is a reference to the text-based game Thy Dungeonman found in a Strong Bad email from homestarrunner.com.

                                                          If you follow the full path you find the center of the maze where there is a nest with a "large multicolored egg" (an easter egg!). If you take the egg you are told "You feel a sense of potential, as if you may have more options now". This is because the "save" options are now unlocked in the main context menu and the file menu!

                                                          Hoverboard> Links to 1608: Hoverboard browser game.

                                                          Mornington Crescent> This is a simulation of the well-known game Mornington Crescent, which bears a surprising resemblance to London's Underground railway network. Players name a station, in turn, endeavoring to reach Mornington Crescent. The rules of play are very complicated and beyond the scope of this article; interested persons are referred to N. F. Stovold’s Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins (sadly out of print). This variation only includes the sections of the London Underground in fare zone 1. There is a "station" only connected to Vauxhall called "Easter basket". The Easter basket leads you to "Take egg", also allowing you to save. The shortest path to the Easter basket is Euston > Warren Street > Oxford Circus > Green Park > Victoria > Pimlico > Vauxhall > Easter basket, simply following the Victoria Line the entire way. All playable stations are immediately adjacent on the London Underground network to the station last played. Despite the fact that this version of the game starts at Euston, which is adjacent to Mornington Crescent, as Mornington Crescent is in fare zone 2, the branch of the Northern line on which the eponymous station is situated does not appear in the game and Mornington Crescent is not an objective.

                                                          8 Help Contains various submenus, all of which, barring Credits, loop back recursively to this menu: Tutorial

                                                          Support

                                                          Manual

                                                          Troubleshooting

                                                          FAQ

                                                          Guide

                                                          Q&A

                                                          User forums

                                                          Credits> 'Some people who helped with this comic: @chromakode Amber @fadinginterest Kat Kevin Stereo'

                                                          9 Do Crimes Contains several "crimes" that can be committed. This option is unlocked by File > Open > C:\ (or /home/user) > Bookmarks/ > Secret > Enable Dark Web.

                                                          This is a joke about how the dark web is perceived in popular culture - a place that exists solely to do crimes, mainly bitcoin and hacking related.

                                                          		Steal Bitcoins > Grayed out.

                                                          Say swears > Several clean swears that all link to 771: Period Speech.

                                                          Hack > Three sub-options that link to various related comics. (Gibson: Nothing. Election: 1019: First Post. Planet: 1337: Hack.)

                                                          Forge a Scrabble Tile > Several sub-options that don't do anything. (U, Z, <this menu option intentionally left blank>, and two special characters, one being a Russian 'Э', as low-pitched [eh], and the second being a crossed swords emoji (⚔)


                                                          Filesystems Menu[edit]

                                                          Drive Menu Item Explanation Sub-Menu Items
                                                          A:\ Insert Only appears before inserting a floppy disk. Floppy disk> Unlocks other options for drive A:\, which are identical to drive C:\

                                                          Chip card> A long sequence of being told 'Please wait. Authorizing...' ending in 'Chip error! REMOVE CARD NOW!'

                                                          C:\ Documents/ Nothing. None.
                                                          C:\ Music/ Leads to a long string of prompts for song lyrics. 'Hey now / Hey now na now / Sing "This Corrosion" to me' inverts the webpage's color before Easter egg mode is enabled, and plays the referenced song in the browser with inverted color and flashing if the Easter egg mode is enabled. It's actually the same menu that is shown under Utilities>Identify song (which itself is a menu-ised version of 851: Na). 'Hey now / Hey now / Don't dream it's over' links to 240: Dream Girl. 'This / is / a / story all about how / my life got flipped, turned upside down' links to 464: RBA. 'This / is / the / story of a girl / who cried a river and drowned the whole world' links to a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_FVAEYRM5I
                                                          C:\ Bookmarks/ Similar to Music/, Bookmarks/> Comics leads to a chain from which all comics prior to this comic except 1974: Conversational Dynamics are titled and linked. For instance, he thus here recognizes his first April Fools' Day comic 404: Not Found, which cannot be found, as a real comic by linking to it. Bookmarks/> Secret> Enable Dark Web adds the 'Dark Web' option to the initial menu.
                                                          C:\ Games/ Same as 'Games' from the initial menu.
                                                          C:\ Sequences/ The options are the lines from a Tim and Eric sketch Celery Man; the final option links to a YouTube video of the sketch. After several single-option menus, it links to this Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWBEK8w_YY
                                                          / home/ Nothing. guest> links to http://uni.xkcd.com/ - a command-line Unix-style interface for viewing xkcd comics (and other commands to discover) that was used as the April Fool's joke in 2010. See also the comic unixkcd.

                                                          user> Same files as C:\

                                                          root> Displays 'You are not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.' a refrence to 838: Incident and also what the sudo command will print if unauthorized users try to use it.

                                                          / opt/ Does nothing. None.
                                                          / sbin/ Does nothing. None.
                                                          / usr/ Opens an infinite sequence of options, each similar to the last, but replacing the previous selection with another folder; probably a reference to the fact that the /usr hierarchy does contain a list of subdirectories pretty much identical to those of the root directory. /usr/local, too is a duplicate of /usr for files not originating with the distro, and of late /var and /opt have also started expanding.
                                                          / dev/ Nothing. random/> links to a random xkcd comic. In unix systems reading from the /dev/random file generates pseudorandom bytes, so it fits here that /dev/random gives a random comic.

                                                          urandom/> links to 221: Random Number. In unix systems, /dev/urandom is the same as /dev/random, except in /dev/random you don't get anything if you don't have sufficient "randomness" in the system, and in /dev/urandom you get whatever you have. The linked comic describes a botched attempt to create a function that would return a truly random number but actually, it returns a fixed number (and thus isn't useful at all). This alludes to /dev/urandom providing bad results sometimes.

                                                          D&D spells[edit]

                                                          Here all the spells from the D&D game are detailed, including the traits you need to enter to get to them and the link they lead to/effect they create.

                                                          To get to a specific spell using this table you need to go to games->d&d->cast and then enter the traits - level, class, school, and components - in any order. Note that many spells list more than one class in the table (in d&d it means multiple classes can cast that spell), which means you need to choose one of those classes in the menu. Components are listed in the table as V for Verbal Components, S for Somatic Components and M for Material Components - choose "yes" or "no" for these based on whether the matching letter is there or not.

                                                          Link Spells[edit]

                                                          The vast majority of spells (285 of them apparently) are actually links to xkcd comics, what ifs, or external pages that somehow demonstrate or relate to the spell.

                                                          Name Level Classes School Components Link Explanation
                                                          Acid Arrow 2 Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/790/ The comic is about giving LSD (commonly known as "acid") to test subjects
                                                          Aid 2 Cleric, Paladin Abjuration V, S, M http://donorschoose.org A site dedicated to donations - aiding various subjects
                                                          Alarm 1 Ranger, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1359/ Comic about phone alarm
                                                          Alter Self 2 Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S https://xkcd.com/1099/ In this comic beret guy is "altered" in a weird way
                                                          Animal Friendship 1 Bard, Druid, Ranger Enchantment V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1746/ Comic about making friends in a way that might attract some animals better than humans
                                                          Animal Messenger 2 Bard, Druid, Ranger Enchantment V, S, M https://twitter.com/dog_rates A humorous Twitter page about "rating dogs" - in a way "messaging about" animals
                                                          Animal Shapes 8 Druid Transmutation V, S https://xkcd.com/1278/ Comic about using genetic engineering to change an animal (in this case a giraffe) shape
                                                          Animate Dead 3 Cleric, Wizard Necromancy V, S, M http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=62 They were once dead.
                                                          Arcane Eye 4 Wizard Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/993/ The comic is related to creating a brand by having products that "stand out" and are therefore "more visible"
                                                          Astral Projection 9 Cleric, Warlock, Wizard Necromancy V, S, M https://xkcd.com/977/ Comic about map projections
                                                          Augury 2 Cleric Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1334/ The comic is about checking the second page of google results for answers, which might be parallelized to reading omens in the spell.
                                                          Awaken 5 Bard, Druid Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1518/ Comic about awakening... badly to an alarm sound
                                                          Bane 1 Bard, Cleric Enchantment V, S, M https://xkcd.com/972/ The comic details a simple exploit by blackhat, the bane of everyone's existence
                                                          Barkskin 2 Druid, Ranger Transmutation V, S, M https://youtu.be/qFI4BQlBbig A video by "My Brother, My Brother and Me" where a person creates a "shitty iron man armor", parallel to the armor created by barkskin
                                                          Beacon of Hope 3 Cleric Abjuration V, S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault Link to the wikipedia page about the global seed vault, which is meant to function as "a beacon of hope" in case of global disaster.
                                                          Bestow Curse 3 Bard, Cleric, Wizard Necromancy V, S https://xkcd.com/214/ The comic talks about "the problem of wikipedia" which can be time-waster to curious people. This can also be rephrased as "the curse of wikipedia"
                                                          Black Tentacles 4 Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1926/ The comic is about an "ugly mess of code" which can be compared to a tentacle mess
                                                          Blade Barrier 6 Cleric Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/1406/ The comic is about a "universal converted" which can be thought of as a kind of barrier
                                                          Bless 1 Cleric, Paladin Enchantment V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/55/ A what if article about saying "bless you" to random people on the phone, hoping they just sneezed
                                                          Blight 4 Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Necromancy V, S https://xkcd.com/1807/ Another exploit by black hat
                                                          Blindness/Deafness 2 Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Wizard Necromancy V https://xkcd.com/467/ Comic related to "two girls one cup", a well-known shock video which might make people wish they were blind after seeing it
                                                          Branding Smite 2 Paladin Evocation V https://xkcd.com/384/ (Can thunder make intelligent?)
                                                          Burning Hands 1 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/1296/ Git messages become increasingly similar to a person on fire typing them and also relate to haaaannds
                                                          Call Lightning 3 Druid Conjuration V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/16/ A what if with several lightning-related questions
                                                          Calm Emotions 2 Bard, Cleric Enchantment V, S https://twitter.com/CuteEmergency Twitter page about cute dogs that might indeed calm your emotions
                                                          Chain Lightning 6 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/898/ Comic about the chain of command
                                                          Charm Person 1 Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Enchantment V, S https://xkcd.com/1777/ Comic about the Nigerian Scan, which can be thought of as a way to "charm" people into doing what you want (like other scams)
                                                          Chill Touch 0 Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Necromancy V, S https://xkcd.com/1108/ Comic about a cautionary ghost, similar to the ghostly hand the spell creates
                                                          Circle of Death 6 Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Necromancy V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1674/ Comic about doing "adult stuff" including writing a will
                                                          Clairvoyance 3 Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Wizard Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1421/ Comic about discovering a creepily clairvoyant comment from your "past self" in your code
                                                          Clone 8 Wizard Necromancy V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1597/ Comic about git - "clone" is a common git command.
                                                          Cloudkill 5 Sorcerer, Wizard Conjuration V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/8/ Human crowd
                                                          Color Spray 1 Sorcerer, Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1882/ Comic about color
                                                          Command 1 Cleric, Paladin Enchantment V https://xkcd.com/857/ Comic about a man making a famous phrase by Archimedes into a command with an ultimatum
                                                          Commune 5 Cleric Divination V, S, M https://youtu.be/7yxaKeRRypo?t=44s Tried to snipe but turned into laughs
                                                          Commune with Nature 5 Druid, Ranger Divination V, S https://youtu.be/BOxRFMiSDZU?t=9m47s Suddenly, Dino-Lansbury.
                                                          Comprehend Languages 1 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1816/ Comic about language weirdness and puns
                                                          Compulsion 4 Bard Enchantment V, S https://xkcd.com/609/ Comic about TVTropes, which might create a compulsion to follow links and stay there for a long time
                                                          Cone of Cold 5 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1714/ Comic about volcanoes, which are actually cones of heat usually (the "waffle cone" volcano in the comic is probably cold)
                                                          Confusion 4 Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Enchantment V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1969/ Comic presents a way to confuse people by setting to "not found" page of your site to a "not available in your country" page
                                                          Conjure Woodland Beings 4 Druid, Ranger Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1903/ Comic about "buns" (rabbits) which are woodland beings
                                                          Contact Other Plane 5 Warlock, Wizard Divination V https://xkcd.com/1889/ Comic from the "xkcd Phone" series. With all their features, surely xkcd phones can contact other planes...
                                                          Contagion 5 Cleric, Druid Necromancy V, S https://xkcd.com/1161/ Comic about hand sanitizer, which is meant to prevent contagion, but maybe not as effectively as Cueball would like.
                                                          Contingency 6 Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/140/ Comic about how one gets cheese when they have chips and chips when they have cheese, a situation in which one condition triggers a contingency and vice versa.
                                                          Continual Flame 2 Cleric, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_Eternal_Flame Wikipedia about eternal (continual) flame
                                                          Control Water 4 Cleric, Druid, Wizard Transmutation V,S,M https://what-if.xkcd.com/103/ What if article about water disappearing
                                                          Control Weather 8 Cleric, Druid, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1126/ Comic about the weirdness of the weather in 2005
                                                          Create Food and Water 3 Cleric, Paladin Conjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/1774/ Comic about food in supermarkets
                                                          Create or Destroy Water 1 Cleric, Druid Transmutation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/103/ What if article about water disappearing (Same as in "control water" - actually more fitting here)
                                                          Create Undead 6 Cleric, Warlock, Wizard Necromancy V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/69/ What if about the dead users in Facebook who are compared to "undead" in a comic image at the start of the article
                                                          Creation 5 Sorcerer, Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://youtu.be/_hH7vZF15SY "Monster Factory" episode which is a gameplay video of the game spore which is about the creation of a species and a civilization. "Creating" is also in the video title.
                                                          Cure Wounds 1 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/1618/ Comic about trying to cure a pretty bad cold
                                                          Dancing Lights 0 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1331/ Comic that shows frequencies of different events in the form of blinking ("dancing") gifs ("lights")
                                                          Daylight 3 Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Sorcerer Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/673/ Comic about "daylight saving time"
                                                          Death Ward 4 Cleric, Paladin Abjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/865/ In the comic IPv6 functions as a sort of "death ward" against nanobots, buying us some time before the total annihilation of life on earth.
                                                          Demiplane 8 Warlock, Wizard Conjuration S https://xkcd.com/1703/
                                                          Detect Evil and Good 1 Cleric, Paladin Divination V, S https://xkcd.com/256/ A map of internet communities, with the good and bad parts.
                                                          Detect Magic 1 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Sorcerer, Wizard Divination V, S https://xkcd.com/808/ An economic argument that "detects" what crazy "magic" phenomenon actually works and what doesn't.
                                                          Detect Poison and Disease 1 Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/802/ Updated version of "map of online communities" which was linked to from "detect good and evil", again suggesting that online communities are full of "poison and disease".
                                                          Detect Thoughts 2 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1448/ A note asking someone about their thoughts (or feelings)
                                                          Disguise Self 1 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Illusion V, S https://xkcd.com/451/ Comic about being an impostor and "disguising" yourself as an expert in a field.
                                                          Disintegrate 6 Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/ The very first what if, where a baseball is pitched at 90% of the speed of light and begins to disintegrate... In a nuclear explosion
                                                          Dispel Evil and Good 5 Cleric, Paladin Abjuration V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ What-if about a contemporary robot apocalypse ("evil") and how to "dispel" it.
                                                          Dispel Magic 3 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Abjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/109/ Comic about spoilers who "dispel the magic" of watching some movies.
                                                          Divination 4 Cleric Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1525/ xkcd's version of the magic 8 ball, a toy/tool for divination
                                                          Divine Favor 1 Paladin Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/1575/ Comic parodying the Christian poem "footprints" which is about divine favor
                                                          Divine Word 7 Cleric Evocation V https://xkcd.com/741/ Comic about content producing, some of which may be divine words
                                                          Dominate Beast 4 Druid, Sorcerer Enchantment V, S https://xkcd.com/1934/ Comic about excessive phone security settings that "dominate" the thief in a way
                                                          Dominate Monster 8 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Enchantment V, S https://youtu.be/JgChfrBsEaI "Monster factory" episode about "creating the Shrek franchise" - which is about a monster - in spore.
                                                          Dominate Person 5 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Enchantment V, S https://xkcd.com/1116/ Comic about confusing traffic light which can "dominate" a person.
                                                          Dream 5 Bard, Warlock, Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://xkcd.com/557/ Comic about the common "not ready for school" dream
                                                          Druidcraft 0 Druid Transmutation V, S https://xkcd.com/867/ Comic about branches of zoology - zoology can be thought of as "druidcraft"
                                                          Earthquake 8 Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer Evocation V, S, M https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/08/24/earthquakes/ Blog post about earthquakes
                                                          Eldritch Blast 0 Warlock Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/356/ Comic about "nerd sniping", an unconventional sort of "blast" for "hitting" nerds
                                                          Enhance Ability 2 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer Transmutation V, S, M https://youtu.be/YLg_aIlhe6I?t=23m33s "Monster factory" episode about the stars recreating themselves in a WWE videogame, in a way "enhancing their abilities"
                                                          Entangle 1 Druid Conjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/257/ Comic about code encryption, which adds complexity similar to an entanglement
                                                          Enthrall 2 Bard, Warlock Enchantment V, S https://xkcd.com/1286/ Comic about improperly encrypted passwords, similar to the "distracting string of words" in the spell description
                                                          Etherealness 7 Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Transmutation V, S https://xkcd.com/644/
                                                          Expeditious Retreat 1 Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Transmutation V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/61/ What-if about speed bumps
                                                          Eyebite 6 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Necromancy V, S https://xkcd.com/1015/ Comic about bad kerning, which is a "bite" to the eyes
                                                          Fabricate 4 Wizard Transmutation V, S Another Monster Factory video, fabricating a character in Mass Effect
                                                          Faerie Fire 1 Bard, Druid Evocation V https://what-if.xkcd.com/151/ What-If about fireflies
                                                          Faithful Hound 4 Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1193/ Comic that ends with a very large dog
                                                          False Life 1 Sorcerer, Wizard Necromancy V, S, M https://youtu.be/8-3jDVTLdaQ Monster Factory video involving the game Second Life.
                                                          Fear 3 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1242/ A chart comparing how scary things are
                                                          Feather Fall 1 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, M https://youtu.be/bWvyJ05TdC8?t=13m34s In this clip, the floor is removed, causing a lot of people to fall.
                                                          Feeblemind 8 Bard, Druid, Warlock, Wizard Enchantment V, S, M https://xkcd.com/574/ A comic about misinformed people, who could be described as acting feeble-minded.
                                                          Find Familiar 1 Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/413/ Comic talking about a new pet (that is actually a computer). A familiar is an animal, similar to a pet, that serves a master, usually the magic user that summoned it.
                                                          Find Steed 2 Paladin Conjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/1651/ After the events of the comic, you would have to sort through the pile of cars to find your own; Your car here being the "steed" of the spell.
                                                          Find the Path 6 Bard, Cleric, Druid Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/887/
                                                          Find Traps 2 Cleric, Druid, Ranger Divination V, S https://xkcd.com/1195/ This comic itself is a trap!
                                                          Finger of Death 7 Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Necromancy V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/117/ A What-If about death.
                                                          Fire Bolt 0 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/639/
                                                          Fire Shield 4 Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1090
                                                          Fire Storm 7 Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer Evocation V, S https://youtu.be/ujADg0nWqCw?t=15m51s A discusion of Curiosity's landing gear, including its heat shield.
                                                          Flame Blade 2 Druid Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/961/ Strangely, not used for Continual Flame, despite the title.
                                                          Flame Strike 5 Cleric Evocation V, S, M https://youtu.be/J9hMe1R8eYw
                                                          Flaming Sphere 2 Druid, Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/673/ This is a comic about the sun, which can be described as a flaming sphere.
                                                          Flesh to Stone 6 Warlock, Wizard Transmutation V,S,M https://xkcd.com/1409/ Might be a penis joke on the "hours since watching porn" query.
                                                          Floating Disk 1 Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/50/ What-If on boating. A boat can - generously - be described as a floating disk.
                                                          Fly 3 Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/353/ A comic where a Python user gains the power of flight.
                                                          Fog Cloud 1 Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer, Wizard Conjuration V, S http://twitter.com/karlthefog The twitter account for a fog cloud.
                                                          Forbiddance 6 Cleric Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/782/ A comic about breaking forbidden taboos and paying the consequences.
                                                          Forcecage 7 Bard, Warlock, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1142/ A Faraday cage could be described as a force-cage.
                                                          Foresight 9 Bard, Druid, Warlock, Wizard Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1876/ A comic about using one's foresight to extrapolate trends.
                                                          Freedom of Movement 4 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Ranger Abjuration V, S, M https://youtu.be/sCOwRahm0so?t=1m8s Jet boots and forging your own path both enable freedom of movement
                                                          Freezing Sphere 6 Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/121/ A What-If about freezing a lot of things at once.
                                                          Gaseous Form 3 Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/146/ This What-If is about Jupiter, a gas giant.
                                                          Geas 5 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Wizard Enchantment V https://xkcd.com/1559/ Geas gives the target a magical command that they must follow, a somewhat-common use of which is instructing someone to walk across a continent to get them out of the way.
                                                          Gentle Repose 2 Cleric, Wizard Necromancy V, S, M https://youtu.be/1Wl_yf86n78?t=20m
                                                          Giant Insect 4 Druid Transmutation V, S https://youtu.be/_1jGnFt78H8?t=25m32s Roachie is a radroach, a giant insect much like the kind that this spell creates.
                                                          Glibness 8 Bard, Warlock Transmutation V https://xkcd.com/707/ Glibness is both a spell that makes you more charismatic and the quality of being funny and insincere.
                                                          Globe of Invulnerability 6 Sorcerer, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/153/
                                                          Glyph of Warding 3 Bard, Cleric, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1247/ The warning message in this comic functions as a way of warding off viruses, warning the user of possibile attacks.
                                                          Goodberry 1 Druid, Ranger Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1035/ Goodberry summons a magical berry with as much nutritional value as a full day's food, much in the way that a soda has as much sugar as two or three Cadbury eggs.
                                                          Grease 1 Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/
                                                          Greater Invisibility 4 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Illusion V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/72/ The loneliest human had no connection to anyone else at the time, making them functionally invisible to the world.
                                                          Greater Restoration 5 Bard, Cleric, Druid Abjuration V, S, M http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/my-brother-my-brother-and-me
                                                          Guardian of Faith 4 Cleric Conjuration V https://xkcd.com/1934/ The same comic as Dominate Beass. The security settings guard against thieves.
                                                          Guards and Wards 6 Bard, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1890/ A guide to self-defense in specific situations.
                                                          Guidance 0 Cleric, Druid Divination V, S https://xkcd.com/1028/ A comic on communication and guiding others.
                                                          Guiding Bolt 1 Cleric Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/1160/ Both a poster guiding people to join the trebuchet club, and the actual mechanism of aiming the trebuchet.
                                                          Gust of Wind 2 Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1378/ In this comic, a wind turbine is asked to create a Gust of Wind, but is unable to.
                                                          Hallow 5 Cleric Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1677/ PF2e tips: "Hallow-led" Background has Dubious knowledge skill feat, fail pulls a correct information and a misinformation.
                                                          Hallucinatory Terrain 4 Bard, Druid, Warlock, Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1472/
                                                          Harm 6 Cleric Necromancy V, S https://xkcd.com/218/ A comic where harm is caused to the patient by suggesting the heart is taken out and the ventricles are blown in
                                                          Haste 3 Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1701/
                                                          Heal 6 Cleric, Druid Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/218/
                                                          Healing Word 1 Bard, Cleric, Druid Evocation V https://youtu.be/NYnldxUpYQQ
                                                          Heat Metal 2 Bard, Druid Transmutation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/35/
                                                          Hellish Rebuke 1 Warlock Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/327/
                                                          Heroes' Feast 6 Cleric, Druid Conjuration V, S, M https://youtu.be/_v1v0t8Q5xg?t=7m48s
                                                          Heroism 1 Bard, Paladin Enchantment V, S https://xkcd.com/326/ Used facetiously. Tricking "amateur Grammar Nazis" is a heroic victory for Cueball.
                                                          Hideous Laughter 1 Bard, Wizard Enchantment V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1974/
                                                          Hold Monster 5 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Enchantment V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1604/ Megan is holding a snake, which is a common monster archetype in DnD.
                                                          Hold Person 2 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Enchantment V, S, M https://xkcd.com/540/ In a romantic/sexual way.
                                                          Holy Aura 8 Cleric Abjuration V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/145/
                                                          Hunter's Mark 1 Ranger Divination V https://what-if.xkcd.com/11/
                                                          Hypnotic Pattern 3 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Illusion S, M https://xkcd.com/722/ Literally refers to a "pattern" of lights; hypnotic in the sense that Cueball spent most of his life looking at his computer screen.
                                                          Ice Storm 4 Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/104/
                                                          Identify 1 Bard, Wizard Divination V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/9/
                                                          Illusory Script 1 Bard, Warlock, Wizard Illusion S, M https://xkcd.com/1288/ A set of scriptural substitutions that give the original text the illusion of being about something completely different.
                                                          Imprisonment 9 Warlock, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://youtu.be/U4rwlvMEoj0
                                                          Incendiary Cloud 8 Sorcerer, Wizard Conjuration V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/139/
                                                          Inflict Wounds 1 Cleric Necromancy V, S https://youtu.be/Kcd44VfN-Ro?t=3m24s
                                                          Insect Plague 5 Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1127/ A joke comparing politicians to insects.
                                                          Instant Summons 6 Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/123/ What if about fairy demographics which are "summoned" to the first laugh of a child
                                                          Invisibility 2 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1080/ A comic about the visible field, including "blind spots" where vision is obscured, making things seem "invisible".
                                                          Irresistible Dance 6 Bard, Wizard Enchantment V https://xkcd.com/878/
                                                          Jump 1 Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://youtu.be/kT2Y6ftxilM?t=17m37s
                                                          Knock 2 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V https://xkcd.com/530/ The comic's idiot plot could have been avoided if Cueball simply... knocked.
                                                          Legend Lore 5 Bard, Cleric, Wizard Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1350/
                                                          Lesser Restoration 2 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger Abjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/567/
                                                          Levitate 2 Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/520/
                                                          Light 0 Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/
                                                          Lightning Bolt 3 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/109/
                                                          Locate Animals or Plants 2 Bard, Druid, Ranger Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1826/
                                                          Locate Creature 4 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Wizard Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1747/
                                                          Locate Object 2 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Wizard Divination V, S, M http://bfy.tw/Dh
                                                          Longstrider 1 Bard, Druid, Ranger, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1065/
                                                          Mage Armor 1 Sorcerer, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1636/
                                                          Mage Hand 0 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Conjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/1812/
                                                          Magic Circle 3 Cleric, Paladin, Warlock, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/112/
                                                          Magic Jar 6 Wizard Necromancy V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1021/
                                                          Magic Missile 1 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/1356/
                                                          Magic Mouth 2 Bard, Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/37/
                                                          Magic Weapon 2 Paladin, Wizard Transmutation V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/81/
                                                          Magnificent Mansion 7 Bard, Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://youtu.be/TamwFUUd9Yk?t=10m29s
                                                          Major Image 3 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://xkcd.com/980/
                                                          Mass Cure Wounds 5 Bard, Cleric, Druid Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/1793/
                                                          Mass Heal 9 Cleric Evocation V, S https://youtu.be/1Cj8d6EcFp0
                                                          Mass Healing Word 3 Cleric Evocation V https://xkcd.com/1520/
                                                          Mass Suggestion 6 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Enchantment V, M https://xkcd.com/1264/
                                                          Maze 8 Wizard Conjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/246/
                                                          Meld into Stone 3 Cleric, Druid Transmutation V, S https://youtu.be/V5PlKZRQVgQ
                                                          Mending 0 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1780
                                                          Message 0 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1782/
                                                          Meteor Swarm 9 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/1249/
                                                          Mind Blank 8 Bard, Wizard Abjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/1145/
                                                          Minor Illusion 0 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Illusion S, M https://xkcd.com/1492/
                                                          Mirage Arcane 7 Bard, Druid, Wizard Illusion V, S https://xkcd.com/806/
                                                          Mislead 5 Bard, Wizard Illusion S https://xkcd.com/1488/
                                                          Misty Step 2 Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Conjuration V https://what-if.xkcd.com/126/
                                                          Modify Memory 5 Bard, Wizard Enchantment V, S https://xkcd.com/1156/
                                                          Moonbeam 2 Druid Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1738/
                                                          Move Earth 6 Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/723/
                                                          Nondetection 3 Bard, Ranger, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/937/
                                                          Pass Without Trace 2 Druid, Ranger Abjuration V, S, M https://youtu.be/LHBzVTCO3nM?t=4m32s
                                                          Passwall 5 Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1608/
                                                          Phantasmal Killer 4 Wizard Illusion V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/12/
                                                          Phantom Steed 3 Wizard Illusion V, S https://youtu.be/U3JnZEzoL6M
                                                          Planar Ally 6 Cleric Conjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/112/
                                                          Planar Binding 5 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1956/
                                                          Plane Shift 7 Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/803/
                                                          Plant Growth 3 Bard, Druid, Ranger Transmutation V, S https://youtu.be/yV9wy9ucXgc
                                                          Poison Spray 0 Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Conjuration V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/144/
                                                          Polymorph 4 Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1094/
                                                          Power Word Kill 9 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Enchantment V https://youtu.be/VHR0EfYACAI?t=13m51s
                                                          Power Word Stun 8 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Enchantment V https://what-if.xkcd.com/
                                                          Prayer of Healing 2 Cleric Evocation V https://xkcd.com/418/
                                                          Prestidigitation 0 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Transmutation V, S https://xkcd.com/942/
                                                          Prismatic Spray 7 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/657/
                                                          Prismatic Wall 9 Wizard Abjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/1271/
                                                          Private Sanctum 4 Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1663/#74b2196a-34fa-11e8-8001-42010a8e0006
                                                          Produce Flame 0 Druid Conjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/386/
                                                          Programmed Illusion 6 Bard, Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://xkcd.com/303/
                                                          Project Image 7 Bard, Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://youtu.be/bR0Ubck0IRA
                                                          Protection from Energy 3 Cleric, Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer, Wizard Abjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/556/
                                                          Protection from Evil and Good 1 Cleric, Paladin, Warlock, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1303/
                                                          Protection from Poison 2 Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger Abjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/1305/
                                                          Purify Food and Drink 1 Cleric, Druid, Paladin Transmutation V, S https://youtu.be/ONSWw4aBBLg
                                                          Raise Dead 5 Bard, Cleric, Paladin Necromancy V, S, M https://xkcd.com/599/
                                                          Ray of Enfeeblement 2 Warlock, Wizard Necromancy V, S https://xkcd.com/526/
                                                          Ray of Frost 0 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/312/
                                                          Regenerate 7 Bard, Cleric, Druid Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1024/
                                                          Reincarnate 5 Druid Transmutation V, S, M https://youtu.be/WbKrlJgwI4A?t=17m33s
                                                          Remove Curse 3 Cleric, Paladin, Warlock, Wizard Abjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/391/
                                                          Resilient Sphere 4 Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1248/
                                                          Resistance 0 Cleric, Druid Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/730/
                                                          Resurrection 7 Bard, Cleric Necromancy V, S, M https://xkcd.com
                                                          Reverse Gravity 7 Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1115/
                                                          Revivify 3 Cleric, Paladin Necromancy V, S, M https://xkcd.com/346/
                                                          Rope Trick 2 Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
                                                          Sacred Flame 0 Cleric Evocation V, S https://www.nasa.gov/sun
                                                          Sanctuary 1 Cleric Abjuration V, S, M https://youtu.be/qQVlGrwG9yo?t=11m49s
                                                          Scorching Ray 2 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/729
                                                          Scrying 5 Bard, Cleric, Druid, Warlock, Wizard Divination V, S, M https://archive.org/donate/
                                                          Secret Chest 4 Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1762/
                                                          See invisibility 2 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/401/
                                                          Seeming 5 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Illusion V, S https://xkcd.com/451/
                                                          Sending 3 Bard, Cleric, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/352/
                                                          Sequester 7 Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/646/
                                                          Shapechange 9 Druid, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://youtu.be/-aWH3-46slI?t=6m4s
                                                          Shatter 2 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/137/
                                                          Shield 1 Sorcerer, Wizard Abjuration V, S https://xkcd.com/916/
                                                          Shield of Faith 1 Cleric, Paladin Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/129/
                                                          Shillelagh 0 Druid Transmutation V, S, M https://youtu.be/LXxdC9X3hxg?t=8m6s
                                                          Shocking Grasp 0 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S https://xkcd.com/242/
                                                          Silence 2 Bard, Cleric, Ranger Illusion V, S https://xkcd.com/525/
                                                          Silent Image 1 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1416/
                                                          Simulacrum 7 Wizard Illusion V, S, M https://youtu.be/1Qo1Aj_leEo
                                                          Sleep 1 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Enchantment V, S, M https://xkcd.com/320/
                                                          Sleet Storm 3 Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/511/
                                                          Slow 3 Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/162/
                                                          Speak with Animals 1 Bard, Druid, Ranger Divination V, S https://xkcd.com/1879/
                                                          Speak with Plants 3 Bard, Druid, Ranger Transmutation V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/70/
                                                          Spider Climb 2 Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/136/
                                                          Spike Growth 2 Druid, Ranger Transmutation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/67/
                                                          Spirit Guardians 3 Cleric Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/695/
                                                          Spiritual Weapon 2 Cleric Evocation V, S https://youtu.be/A1gTbnB-Gps?t=17m2s
                                                          Stinking Cloud 3 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1066/
                                                          Stone Shape 4 Cleric, Druid, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/135/
                                                          Stoneskin 4 Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M https://youtu.be/LlKnEgPEGmA
                                                          Storm of Vengeance 9 Druid Conjuration V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/93/
                                                          Suggestion 2 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Enchantment V, M https://xkcd.com/672
                                                          Sunbeam 6 Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/141/
                                                          Sunburst 8 Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/115/
                                                          Telekinesis 5 Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/3/
                                                          Telepathic Bond 5 Wizard Divination V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1504/
                                                          Thaumaturgy 0 Cleric Transmutation V https://xkcd.com/1131/
                                                          Thunderwave 1 Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/140/
                                                          Tiny Hut 3 Bard, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/905/
                                                          Tongues 3 Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Divination V, M https://xkcd.com/1137
                                                          Tree Stride 5 Druid, Ranger Conjuration V, S https://youtu.be/IDBcGgjtFRs?t=1m3s
                                                          True Polymorph 9 Bard, Warlock, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M (no link?)
                                                          True Resurrection 9 Cleric, Druid Necromancy V, S, M https://youtu.be/7-n8TZqm9Ic?t=12m36
                                                          True Seeing 6 Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Divination V, S, M http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/
                                                          True Strike 0 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Divination S https://youtu.be/wWOVS0XQmPM?t=12m11s
                                                          Unseen Servant 1 Bard, Warlock, Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/958/
                                                          Vampiric Touch 3 Warlock, Wizard Necromancy V, S https://what-if.xkcd.com/98/
                                                          Vicious Mockery 0 Bard Enchantment V https://xkcd.com/732/
                                                          Wall of Fire 4 Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/usa/index.html
                                                          Wall of Force 5 Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/147/
                                                          Wall of Ice 6 Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/104/
                                                          Wall of Stone 5 Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2003/of03-001/htmldocs/images/chart.pdf
                                                          Wall of Thorns 6 Druid Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1970/
                                                          Warding Bond 2 Cleric Abjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1188/
                                                          Water Breathing 3 Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/969/
                                                          Water Walk 3 Cleric, Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer Transmutation V, S, M https://xkcd.com/1599/
                                                          Web 2 Sorcerer, Wizard Conjuration V, S, M https://xkcd.com/195/
                                                          Weird 9 Wizard Illusion V, S https://xkcd.com/1501/
                                                          Wind Walk 6 Druid Transmutation V, S, M https://youtu.be/zpahjcaRt6w?t=12m27s
                                                          Wind Wall 3 Druid, Ranger Evocation V, S, M https://what-if.xkcd.com/66/
                                                          Wish 9 Sorcerer, Wizard Conjuration V https://xkcd.com/1086/ A comic showing the history of one's eyelash wishes.
                                                          Zone of Truth 2 Bard, Cleric, Paladin Enchantment V, S http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/adventure-zone A reference to the Adventure Zone podcast by the McElroy family, specifically the character Merle Highchurch, who is well known for using this spell in possibly unhelpful situations.

                                                          Submenu Spells[edit]

                                                          These 9 spells all appear with an arrow and open submenus when hovered on. The submenus are all actually from different parts of the context menu. Several of the spells are "teleportation/transportation" related which might explain why they lead you to a different place in the menu.

                                                          Name Level Classes School Components Submenu Explanation
                                                          Antimagic Field 8 Cleric, Wizard Abjuration V, S M Utilities menu
                                                          Banishment 4 Cleric, Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M Do Crimes menu (even without unlocking it via Enable Dark Web)
                                                          Blink 3 Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S Utilities menu
                                                          Counterspell 3 Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Abjuration S Utilities menu
                                                          Delayed Blast Fireball 7 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M Help menu
                                                          Dimension Door 4 Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Conjuration V File - Open - C:\ - Bookmarks submenu
                                                          Teleportation Circle 5 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Conjuration V, M Games menu
                                                          Transport via Plants 6 Druid Conjuration V, S Games menu
                                                          Word of Recall 6 Cleric Conjuration V Utilities menu

                                                          Effect Spells[edit]

                                                          These 10 spells activate different JavaScript functions that affect the page in various ways, permanent or temporary, that are suggestive of the spell that was cast.

                                                          Name Level Classes School Components Effect Explanation
                                                          Acid Splash 0 Sorcerer, Wizard Conjuration V, S Causes the background to change color between red, yellow, chartreuse, blue, fuchsia, and blue-violet randomly every 300ms. Using LSD ('acid') often causes vibrant colors to 'splash' and swivel around one's visual field.
                                                          Animate Objects 5 Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V, S Causes most parts of the page to begin shifting in place randomly every 100ms. The parts, or "objects" on the page are being "animated".
                                                          Blur 2 Sorcerer, Wizard Illusion V Causes the comic and most text to blur. Largely self-explanatory. In D&D, the Blur spell blurs one's body to make it harder to hit. This one blurs the elements on the page.
                                                          Conjure Animals 3 Druid, Ranger Conjuration V, S Adds a rabbit image of a random size next to the comic. Conjures an image of an animal.
                                                          Darkness 2 Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Evocation V, M Causes the comic to disappear and the background to turn black. In D&D, the Darkness spell conjures darkness. This does largely the same thing.
                                                          Darkvision 2 Sorcerer, Wizard, Druid, Ranger Transmutation V, S, M Causes the background to turn gray and the comic to fade. However, it does not appear to work.
                                                          Fireball 3 Sorcerer, Wizard Evocation V, S, M Causes the page background to turn red then slowly turn white. Fireballs caused by nuclear weapons generally appear reddish-white.
                                                          Mirror Image 2 Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard Illusion V, S Causes the entire page to be mirrored on the vertical axis. Here, Mirror Image "mirrors" the image, instead of conjuring "mirror images" of yourself.
                                                          Symbol 7 Bard, Cleric, Wizard Abjuration V, S, M Changes all text on the page to use Wingdings, Webdings, Symbol, or Zapf Dingbats. These are all dingbat fonts which replace text with symbols.
                                                          Time Stop 9 Sorcerer, Wizard Transmutation V Pauses any currently ongoing effects. (But does not cancel them) Time Stop is a spell that stops time. This would make sense to stop ongoing effects.

                                                          Transcript[edit]

                                                          [Empty frame with Cueball standing slightly right of center.]
                                                          [Caption below the frame:]
                                                          Editor's Note: Today's comic is optimized for local viewing. To see the full version, just save a copy of the image!


                                                          Trivia[edit]

                                                          Latest comment: 29 August2 comments2 people in discussion
                                                          • On Monday, April 1st, 2019 2131: Emojidome, an April Fools' Day comic was released, making it look like the missing April Fools' Day comic in 2017 was an outlier.
                                                          • Here is an example of how the game looks when entered:

                                                          • This is broken on iPadOS.
                                                          • The source code for the comic was released on GitHub.


                                                          The Spells section has a lot of busy work that doesn't seem too hard to explain. A week of concentrated collaborative effort should do the trick. tori :3talk to me! 21:56, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                           Nomination unsuccessful but marked as incomplete (fails criteria #2 and #3) per my comment at the unixkcd nomination below. FaviFake (talk) 21:41, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                          2288: Collector's Edition
                                                          Collector's Edition
                                                          I'm sure you can find some suitable worldbuilding material if you scavenge through the archives.
                                                          Title text: I'm sure you can find some suitable worldbuilding material if you scavenge through the archives.
                                                            < Previous                 April Fools' Day comics                 Next >      
                                                            This is the 12th xkcd April Fools' Day comic, released by Randall on April 3, 2020. It was published 2 days late on a Friday, following the standard release schedule. Learn why this comic was released late. You can view all April Fools' Day comics or learn more about them!

                                                            To experience the interactivity of the game, visit the original comic!

                                                            Explanation[edit]

                                                            This explanation was found to be incomplete after being nominated for This Week's Explanation for Improvement. Although it was not featured, the nomination process revealed issues that still need to be addressed to meet our quality standards. Before removing this notice, read the August 2026 nomination and ensure the issues raised by the Explanation Improvement Project have been satisfactorily addressed:

                                                              Need to finish uploading the few files of loot missing (UPDATE: Only a few are missing!!!) and loot descriptions.
                                                              This explanation is sparse and many things are missing. Some images some are still missing and require some digging to explain (such as by drawing connections and recognizing where the Loot come from).

                                                            You can help by editing the explanation! If you are new to wiki editing, see our editing FAQ for guidance.

                                                            This comic is a large draggable image that acted as a shared virtual sandbox for users to interact. Chests are "Items" (small and often humorous images) which could be collected from other comics, and then placed in this image by viewers, but today they are no longer dropped. The collection then updated for all viewers in real-time. Multiples of the same item are often seen. There is a "backpack" at the bottom, similar to backpacks in video games containing items collected by the player. As hinted by the title text, items could be found by visiting different xkcd comics/pages. Randomly, some pages would have a treasure chest which contained the sticker related to the page. The hint would refer to the page which currently had a chest.

                                                            The image at the origin is a reference to 1450: AI-Box Experiment.

                                                            The comic contains 32993 separate images. The sticker images can be seen at xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot_XXX.png, where XXX is a number from 001 to 253. Additionally, some images can be found at custom URLs, for example the periodic elements can be found at https://xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/element-XX.png, where XX is the element, and text loot at xkcd.com/2288/collectors/static/loot/loot-words-X.png, where X is the sentence. The source code for the comic was released on GitHub.

                                                            Placement is limited to 10,000 horizontal units and 5,000 vertical units from the origin. Users received no messages if they try placing something outside the boundary, with a silent fail and the object not being placed. The coordinates are relative to the bottom left corner of the canvas. As the default coordinates are (-370,-277) and the origin is in the center, the displayed portion of the canvas can be found to be twice this in magnitude, 740 x 544 units. The most common image is loot-30.png, which appears 2576 times.

                                                            The full image

                                                            Hints[edit]

                                                            For a more minimal list of the stickers found in the comic, see 2288: Collector's Edition/Stickers.

                                                            Sticker Hint Comic Item unlocked Notes
                                                            Doctors in a row 239: Blagofaire Cory Doctorow These comics all have the same hint, but only one will have the chest
                                                            Get out the (US) vote Chapter 5 of What If? (New York Style Time Machine) Statue of liberty
                                                            Find a box of nice stuff on a picture with words like these 1375: Astronaut Vandalism Signpost
                                                            or File:Miniloot-words-dispenser.png (maybe incomplete) Plug in or find another power source 1373: Screenshot
                                                            Sweet dreams, kitty 729: Laser Pointer (maybe incomplete) Cat licking laser point
                                                            What is this hint pointing to? Hell if I know. 1052: Every Major's Terrible 2 + lightbulb = boat
                                                            Somebody set up us the bomb 286: All Your Base Exploding rock/planet crypton
                                                            Cowabunga 1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (maybe incomplete) Women Science Fiction Authors 197: Ninja Turtles also works
                                                            I want to believe 2156: Ufo Ufo
                                                            Bleeped 290, 398, 430, 447, 533, 549, 677, 724 or 1671 *$@#! Comics whose titles involve profanities or similar insults.
                                                            why waste time say few word when lot word do trick 7, 111, 139, 143, 179, 217, 445, 470, 822, 823, 1022, 1247, 1491, 1921, 1991, 2182 or 2231 First Annual Award for Excellence in Being Very Smart Comics with titles that are six or more words (with the exception of 111, which has five and a spaced dash).
                                                            Cooler than electric scooters 139, 409, 577, 578, 579, 580 or 581 An electric skateboard
                                                            Take it from the top 1: Barrel - Part 1 (maybe incomplete) I am a turtle from 889: Turtles
                                                            I accept the yucca gnocchi, this meal is a success! 1713: 50 ccs (maybe incomplete) Man carrying parentheses from 297: Lisp Cycles
                                                            Catch up on the news 1699: Local News (maybe incomplete)
                                                            Participation trophy 2288: Collector's Edition (maybe incomplete) Server rack
                                                            Find an opportunity for a sojourn 665, 681, 695, 1091, 1504, 1613, 1663 or 2111 Opportunity Mars rover from 2111: Opportunity Rover
                                                            Tastier than tau day 179: e to the pi times i (maybe incomplete) First annual award for excellence in being very smart Need to find out the difference between this, and the entry below!
                                                            Tastier than tau day 235, 396, 872, 1029, 1342, 1655 or 1967 Pie sign Published on Pi day
                                                            418 I'm a teapot 1866: Russell's Teapot (maybe incomplete) S.S. NASA: Space is Hard
                                                            26th September, 1983 2052: Stanislav Petrov Day White dove Might also be written "September 26th, 1983". Locale dependent?
                                                            There are 4241 as of Apr 1, 2020 1071: Exoplanets (maybe incomplete) Little girl from 2264: Satellite
                                                            asableiK 645: RPS A reverse Polish hotdog "Kielbasa" backwards, which is "sausage" in Polish
                                                            Critical mass elements 235: Kite or 239: Blagofaire
                                                            Some Februarys are more equal than others 390: Nightmares? (maybe incomplete) Cueball wheelie from 272: Linux User at Best Buy Comic-hint connection largely conjectural; 390 was the first comic published on a leap day.
                                                            Five spice 1511: Spice Girl or 1554: Spice Girls Rock guitarist
                                                            Call the plumber 423: Finish Line Luigi in a green Kart
                                                            Was it a rat I saw? 968: Everything Cueball with a large sack, pulling a wagon or 1503: Squirrel Plan for Cueball holding a balloon caught in a ceiling fan.
                                                            Churchill's gonna have to seriously rehydrate 346: Diet Coke+Mentos Bottle of soda
                                                            Keep coming back
                                                            A new model released each year Triggered by visiting all xkcd phone comics in order Phone screaming "Noooo"
                                                            Tea Time From the what if? article Lake Tea. All our tea Not technically from a comic
                                                            Try pattern-matching! Look for comic 'bout alphabet? 1045: Constraints Two Tetris blocks
                                                            Where's Hilbert? 195: Map of the Internet (maybe incomplete) Hilbert Curve
                                                            Science fiction fetish 1585: Similarities
                                                            / The first one was funnier 11: Barrel - Part 2 (maybe incomplete) Falling feather / Sign "The uncomfortable truths well"
                                                            It's up to over 260 million cycles! 1941: Dying Gift Megan on a tire swing
                                                            Sleeping Beauty is the same everywhere though 2233: Aurora Meaning (maybe incomplete) Sleeping Cat
                                                            On the internet, nobody knows you're an arachnid 1530: Keyboard Mash (maybe incomplete) Cobwebbed frame from 1135: Arachnoneurology
                                                            Did James Cameron pay for the rice cooker too? 1598: Salvage (maybe incomplete) Rice bowl
                                                            Never going to give you up 351, 389, 396, 524, 573, 609, 802, 1212, 1757 or 1981 Cueball in car listening to music
                                                            If red touches yellow, that's 24 ohms 1604: Snakes, 227: Color Codes? (maybe incomplete) Yoda with an mp3 player from What If
                                                            An enthusiastic but questionable business opportunity 1021, 1032, 1117, 1293, 1493, 1533, 1772, 1812, 1871, 1903, 1997, 2140, 2209 or 2277 Beret guy with a goat on leash
                                                            Multiple: loot_106.png, miniloot-words-hair.png, miniloot-words-ominous.png, miniloot-words-eruption.png, miniloot-words-flying.png or miniloot-words-ghost.png (maybe incomplete) Read the fine manual 293, 434, 456, 912, 1343 or 1692
                                                            That thing's undecimodal! 1347: t Distribution (maybe incomplete) Floating tentacled alien
                                                            Actually, it's Myanmar-Shave now 491: Twitter (maybe incomplete) Expensive bottle
                                                            You don't have to find all 99 121: Balloon (maybe incomplete) Balloon copter Or 51: Malaria ?
                                                            Going in circles 378: Real Programmers (maybe incomplete) Cueball spinning in desk chair
                                                            Couldn't you try knitting, or maybe stamp collecting? 37, 53, 60, 75, 79, 148, 168, 174, 236, 259, 287, 296, 326, 331, 389, 437, 451, 559, 590, 605, 687, 719, 733, 790, 845, 966, 1004, 1119, 1145, 1169, 1208, 1278, 1304, 1329, 1340, 1355, 1405, 1480, 1546, 1598, 1677, 1697, 1705, 1788, 1795, 1960, 1995, 2032, 2123, 2208 or 2252 Phishing License sign Mostly comics that include "My hobby:"
                                                            It's the ciiiiircle of HONK 537: Ducklings or 1729: Migrating Geese DUCKLOOP'D?
                                                            Fool me twice Maybe 292: goto? Need confirmation. Raptor Attack The second April Fools' Day comic
                                                            oOOOoooo Maybe 316: Loud Sex? Need confirmation. Sleeping cat
                                                            Maybe we can ask for new wishes 879: Lamp Genie and his bottle If you place the genie last, you get another genie (indefinitely) - Needs verification, this may also just be a bug!
                                                            HACK THE PLANET 1337: Hack (maybe incomplete) Crash and Burn in the pool from the end of Hackers
                                                            Monetization haute couteur 20, 23, 55, 123, 149, 150, 162, 208, 231, 242, 256, 273, 285, 303, 327, 377, 386, 420, 435, 442, 482, 505, 552, 556, 585, 614, 627, 657, 681, 688, 705, 710, 802, 821, 980, 1033, 1040, 1079, 1127, 1133, 1196, 1298 or 1428 (maybe false positives) Two bags of money
                                                            (maybe incomplete) Maybe writing a script would help 1319: Automation
                                                            Go big to go small 1365: Inflation
                                                            Are you projecting 850, 977, 1500, 1784, 1799, 2242 or 2256 Squirrel on a gun
                                                            Do spiders really have six legs 8, 43, 126, 427, 442 or 1110
                                                            Istanbul or Constantinople or St. Trimble's Island? 1688: Map Age Guide Cephalopod
                                                            Another rulebook? 393: Ultimate Game Merlin in a chair from 270: Merlin
                                                            Moooooon 482, 681, 1276, 1291, 1300, 1389, 1458, 1515, 1633, 1738, 1878 or 2258 MOOOOOON
                                                            Take a flight from LOL to FFS 1937: IATA Airport Abbreviations
                                                            Everyone deserves a second chnace All comics searched, no matches The misspelling is intentional. 745: Dyslexics would have been a good fit
                                                            Community contribution 822, 823, 824, 825, 826 [Citation Needed] protester from 285: Wikipedian Protester
                                                            On the other side of the wardrobe 665: Prudence, 969: Delta-P or 2218: Wardrobe (maybe incomplete) Authentic Reindeer pulling sled from 1776: Reindeer
                                                            Today's your lucky day 1053: Ten Thousand (maybe incomplete) Ms. Frizzle
                                                            [This hint has been redacted due to a copyright claim] 1005: SOPA The tape
                                                            loot_times.png or loot_div.png (maybe incomplete) Try a different approach 55: Useless (maybe incomplete) Equals sign
                                                            The cake is a lie! 606: Cutting Edge Cake
                                                            Joanna, fire. 322: Pix Plz Joanna with EMP cannon
                                                            Everything changes from time to time when the fire nation attacks 965: Elements Symposium
                                                            90KG x 300M 382: Trebuchet Trebuchet
                                                            Copyright Enforcement Brigade 344: 1337: Part 4
                                                            Where Cape Town meets Chukotka 1500: Upside-Down Map Crater
                                                            Take a ride in a barrel View all five barrel comics in reverse order (31, 25, 22, 11, 1) Cueball at the door to the playpen-ball-filled apartment from 150: Grownups
                                                            Compiling... 303: Compiling Two Cueballs fighting with swords while on chairs
                                                            2288: Collector's Edition Sheeple eye from 1013: Wake Up Sheeple
                                                            2288: Collector's Edition Time machine from 1747: Spider Paleontology

                                                            Transcript[edit]

                                                            [Cueball stands to the left of a vibrating box.]
                                                            [The words "Collector's Edition" are written above him and boxed.]

                                                            Trivia[edit]

                                                            Latest comment: 29 August2 comments2 people in discussion
                                                            • This comic is the 2020 April Fools' Day comic and was supposed to be released on Wednesday, April 1st. However, it did not go live until Friday, April 3. Meanwhile, Friday's comic, 2289: Scenario 4, was published a day later for a very rare Saturday release. The message below was displayed on the header text of the site from Wednesday until the comic finally went live:

                                                            Note: For technical reasons Wednesday's comic will be posted Thursday instead. Apologies for the delay!

                                                            This is one of the few comics released four days after the previous one. The last time this occurred was 2224: Software Updates.


                                                            THE BANE OF MY WIKI EDITING EXPERIENCE. I've always been frustrated by how sparse this article is and how many things were missing when I found it. I've uploaded quite a bit, but some are still missing and require some digging to find/explain (because I really suck at drawing connections and recognizing where the Loot come from...) tori :3talk to me! 21:56, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                             Nomination unsuccessful but marked as incomplete (fails criteria #2 and #3) per my comment at the unixkcd nomination below. FaviFake (talk) 21:41, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                            3074: Push Notifications
                                                            Push Notifications
                                                            NOTIFICATION: Now dismissing a head of the Notification Hydra… NOTIFICATION: Success! You have dismissed a head of the Notification Hydra! Different title text: :3
                                                            Title text: NOTIFICATION: Now dismissing a head of the Notification Hydra… NOTIFICATION: Success! You have dismissed a head of the Notification Hydra!

                                                            Different title text: :3
                                                              < Previous                 April Fools' Day comics                 Next >      
                                                              This is the 17th xkcd April Fools' Day comic, released by Randall on April 9, 2025. It was published 8 days late on a Wednesday, following the standard release schedule. Learn why this comic was released late. You can view all April Fools' Day comics or learn more about them!

                                                              To experience the interactivity of the game, visit the original comic!

                                                              Explanation[edit]

                                                              This explanation was found to be incomplete after being nominated for This Week's Explanation for Improvement. Although it was not featured, the nomination process revealed issues that still need to be addressed to meet our quality standards. Before removing this notice, read the August 2026 nomination and ensure the issues raised by the Explanation Improvement Project have been satisfactorily addressed:

                                                                Sort out the explanation structuring, explain further the delay of the comic, upload all pictures from https://xkcd.com/3074/marconi/static/js/index.js?v=1, add a transcript for each image in the image gallery, and explain the table of all notifications.
                                                                The current explanation is too messy (unrelated paragraphs and too many bullet points). If needed, reorganise it, use tables, or divide it into subsections. It might be easier to navigate to have the notifications divided into subsections, one for each type of notification, so we can have smaller, separate tables that are easier to browse. In that same section, we can move the explanation of when they appear and move the image they are related to.
                                                                The #Trivia section doesn't fully explain the apparent delayed launch of the comic. Give examples of other delayed comics and add more information about this one, sucha as the text of the first notification and what it means.
                                                                The gallery is missing many image links! Links to all images are on the index.js at https://xkcd.com/3074/marconi/static/js/index.js?v=1. You can easily identify them, they look like this: static/xyz.png       That same link contains all the comic pictures, including each notification, so download each notification image from here (use Ctrl+F to search for "static/" links, and then paste into the URL in the address bar), and create a new section for them! This way, we can showcase the initial notification flow in order. (Make sure to download the bigger version, labelled "4x" instead of "2x"!).
                                                                Most of the transcripts for the additional #Comic images are not descriptive enough.
                                                                Need to finish explaining the table with all the notifications and copy the images that go along with them. Notifications that are confirmed to be related to image changes should have the image in its explanation. (You can take the image from the section #Comic images.)

                                                              You can help by editing the explanation! If you are new to wiki editing, see our editing FAQ for guidance.

                                                              The comic uses push notifications to change the comic image over time and make other statements. Upon viewing the comic for the first time, a sequence of notifications will be rendered over the comic itself. The notifications have a fade-in animation and appear one after another. The sequence is divided into several "groups" of notifications, each containing up to 4 regular notifications and an interactable button, which has a circled arrow icon to the right as well as a different text color. Clicking the arrow removes all notifications on screen and proceeds the sequence to the next group.

                                                              At the end of the sequence, a red-background option to sign up for xkcd notifications is presented. This part differs depending on if the user is "playing" from a mobile or desktop browser.

                                                              • On desktop, clicking this will result in the browser prompting the user to allow or block xkcd.com's request to send push notifications. By allowing, the game begins. If blocked, the comic shows a message "An actual error occurred :(", and the laptop bursts into flames (see the image in the table below). It also blows up in response to any other browser error, such as a 500 Internal Server Error, which is reported to happen if you click the pause button too quickly.[actual citation needed]
                                                              • On mobile, a new on-screen notification will show up, telling the user to add zk to their home screen in order for it to send push notifications on mobile. Upon doing so and opening the webpage from the home screen, the system will prompt the user to allow or block push notifications from this webpage. The outcomes of allowing and denying are the same as on desktop.

                                                              Once the game begins, you are provided with two buttons: one labeled "Emergency Stop", and one labeled "Silence notifications at a cost". Clicking the "Emergency Stop" button allows you to either restart the full game or to subscribe just to thrice-weekly notifications for new xkcd comics, while the second button will temporarily silence notifications, supposedly at the cost of notifying two random people.

                                                              The title text references the Lernaean Hydra, a multi-headed serpent-like monster from Greek mythology; the Greek hero Heracles was tasked with slaying the Hydra as the second of his twelve labours. When he cut off one of its heads, however, two heads would grow in its place, resulting in more heads than before; Heracles soon realized he could not kill the Hydra in this fashion. It describes a similar situation with the "Notification Hydra": a push notification "head" of the Notification Hydra was dismissed, which subsequently spawned two more push notification heads providing updates about the status of the dismissal. If one of these new notifications were to be dismissed, it would again spawn another set of the same two push notification heads; thus, the Notification Hydra is unkillable in a manner similar to the original.

                                                              Up to 7 clickable cats periodically spawn at predetermined positions around the page, including one on the edge of the Emergency Stop button. The subdirectory where the images and scripts for this comic are stored is titled 'marconi,' which is likely a reference to the Italian engineer and inventor of the same name, Guglielmo Marconi, who is credited with inventing the radio, and did much work in the field of early communication systems.

                                                              Notifications[edit]

                                                              When graphing the coordinates from the zoom notifications, a turtle and a squirrel appear.

                                                              A general list of notification types include:

                                                              • The "Zoom notifications" only include numeric coordinates, sometimes prefixed with "oh look!". Plotting the normal coordinates creates an image of a turtle, a reference to 1416: Pixels, while the coordinates prefixed with "oh look!" create a squirrel behind the turtle. See the image above.
                                                              • A few starter notifications about this comic, the successful sending of a notification of this comic, and the lack of another comic.
                                                              • An announcement that an old comic was posted, specifying a (seemingly) random comic and its publication date. The publication date seems to be shown in a random calendar date format.
                                                              • A word game where a first notification asks you to type a word, with further notifications apparently to be sent whenever someone chooses the same word as you.
                                                                • The word can be chosen by clicking on the first notification, which lands you in the comic page. The comic pane will be changed to a comic-style input dialogue with a space for the word and a submit button. Upon providing a word, a notification informs you that you will then receive notifications (of the form "Someone else has selected the word <Your Word>!"), and that your choice is permanent and cannot be changed. You can also submit a blank text field, thus receiving "Someone else has selected the word !" notifications.
                                                              • A "streak" notification counting the number of times you've clicked it. To start with, the message changes every 10 clicks; then every 50 clicks (after 100) and then at increasing intervals. After every 50 clicks there is an offer to make future clicks count twice, making this a simple version of Cookie Clicker. If you choose to accept the offer by clicking on it, it will reset your clicks back to zero but makes all future clicks count double of the current click rate; you can also reject the offer by continuing to click on the click counter message. There are occasionally notifications encouraging you to keep clicking and "extend your streak," tempting you with "a free click to keep you going". After 400 clicks it will reset your clicks back to zero but makes all future clicks count four times.
                                                                • Early notifications encourage further clicking.
                                                                • Approaching a hundred, the messages grow more concerned and later start warning that the server will crash or has crashed.
                                                                • Above 750: "Are you just doing this to annoy me?"
                                                                • 1000-2000: "You're just doing this to annoy you?"
                                                                • Above 2000: "I guess it worked"
                                                                • Above 1000000: "Wow, you're really into this"
                                                              • "Constant reminders" with references to mathematical, physical, or some other constants. The constant values are stated to be "at the tone", likely in reference to time-of-day phone services, which are live or recorded human voice services that tell you the exact time "at the third stroke" over the phone. (In at least some portions of the USA, the wording did use "tone" rather than "strike." For example, "At the tone, the time will be 2:32pm, and 10 seconds ... (beep)")
                                                              • A "have you seen my cat?" notification which causes all the cats to spawn when clicked.
                                                              • Cat fact notifications that appear when a cat is clicked, in reference to this exchange.
                                                              • Various "Erroneous Alerts" with a warning triangle emoji (⚠ U+26A0), some with just flavor text, some corresponding to changes in the comic image.
                                                              • A notification that offers to provide weather alerts for your location, which leads into a series of notifications asking whether you live in a named city. If none of the cities that it knows are selected, your location is set to the summit of Mount Washington.
                                                              • When the time is near a full hour or half-hour, that the current time is five o'clock.
                                                              • An invitation to subscribe to the "What if?" YouTube channel
                                                              • A notification with the heading "System Log" that reads (INFO): A user has paused notifications
                                                                • This notification presumably appears when a random user has pressed the "Silence notifications at a cost" button.
                                                              • A "Carriage Return Line Feed", referencing the Windows standard of storing line returns as a carriage return character followed by a line feed (newline) character. However, the xkcd Carriage Return Line Feed is instead a news feed concerning the next stop on a supposed "Carriage Return Line" of a train system. The announcements are all related to stations on the London Underground, including the use of the phrase "Mind the gap".
                                                              • A reminder to comment and subscribe. When clicked, they redirect the user to one of the following Wikipedia Talk pages:
                                                              Zoom Notification
                                                              Zoom Notification (33,0)
                                                              Zoom Notification (34,0)
                                                              Zoom Notification (35,0)
                                                              Zoom Notification (36,0)
                                                              Zoom Notification (37,0)
                                                              Zoom Notification (38,0)
                                                              Zoom Notification (28,1)
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                                                              Zoom Notification (30,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (31,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (32,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (33,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (34,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (35,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (36,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (37,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (38,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (39,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (40,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (41,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (42,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (43,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (44,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (45,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (46,1)
                                                              Zoom Notification (24,2)
                                                              Zoom Notification (25,2)
                                                              Zoom Notification (26,2)
                                                              Zoom Notification (27,2)
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                                                              Zoom Notification (43,2)
                                                              Zoom Notification (44,2)
                                                              Zoom Notification (45,2)
                                                              Zoom Notification (46,2)
                                                              Zoom Notification (47,2)
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                                                              Zoom Notification oh look! (4,11)
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                                                              The full list of known notifications is available below, while all the known zoom notifications are on the right.

                                                              Notification title Notification body Explanation
                                                              Congratulations! You've activated desktop notifications. This notification shows up right after the user allows push notifications to be sent from xkcd.com.
                                                              xkcd notification system success Success: A notification about the new xkcd comic has been sent!
                                                              xkcd notification system notifications Notification: No new xkcd comic has been posted since the last notification.
                                                              xkcd notification system test This is a test notification. If you’re seeing this, the notification system is configured incorrectly.
                                                              community message board Have you seen my cat? Up to 7 cats can appear at predetermined positions around the comic's page occasionally. It is guaranteed at the time of this notification being sent that there is at least one cat on screen.
                                                              Cat Fact! Despite frequent media portrayal of giving milk to cats, adult cats are frequently lactose intolerant. Upon clicking any of the 7 cats, the cat will disappear and the user will receive one of these notifications.
                                                              Cat Fact! The animal closest to the cat family without actually being in it is the linsang.
                                                              Cat Fact! The first known cat video was recorded in 1894.
                                                              Cat Fact! Cats can detect the active ingredient of catnip, nepetalactone, at less than one part per billion.
                                                              Cat Fact! Cats under the age of six weeks generally do not show any response to catnip.
                                                              Cat Fact! The oldest known cat lived to an age of 38 years old. Her name was Creme Puff.
                                                              Cat Fact! Cats can jump up to six times their length.
                                                              Cat Fact! Unlike humans, cats are capable of drinking saltwater if necessary for survival.
                                                              Cat Fact! Disneyland is home to approximately 200 feral cats.
                                                              Cat Fact! Many domestic cats can reach a top speed higher than Usain Bolt's 2009 sprint speed record.
                                                              Cat Fact! Estimates place the number of cats on Earth somewhere between 500 million and 1 billion.
                                                              Cat Fact! No one knows the breed of Schrödinger's cat because no one ever asked him.
                                                              Cat Fact! Cats generally purr at frequencies between 25 and 150 Hz.
                                                              Cat Fact! Cats have the same number of vertebrae in their neck as humans - seven.
                                                              Cat Fact! Cat nose prints are distinctive in the same way as human fingerprints.
                                                              Cat Fact! Cats only require approximately a sixth of the light that humans need to see.
                                                              Cat Fact! The first cat video on YouTube was posted in 2005.
                                                              Cat Fact! A cat's resting heart rate is more than twice that of humans with similar levels of fitness.
                                                              Cat Fact! Only one cat has ever been to space.
                                                              Cat Fact! The richest cat in the world was Blackie, who inherited 12.5 million dollars in 1988.
                                                              Cat Fact! "Litter" is the collective noun for a group of kittens born together.
                                                              Cat Fact! "Clowder" is one of the multiple collective nouns for cats.
                                                              Cat Fact! "Clutter" is one of the multiple collective nouns for cats.
                                                              Cat Fact! "Pounce" is one of the multiple collective nouns for cats.
                                                              Cat Fact! "Glaring" is one of the multiple collective nouns for cats.
                                                              Cat Fact! "Kindle" is a collective noun for any group of kittens, even if not all born together.
                                                              Cat Facts Meow!
                                                              Cat Facts Meow Meow!
                                                              Cat Facts Meow Meow Meow!
                                                              Cat Facts Meow Meow Meow Meow!
                                                              Cat Facts Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow!
                                                              Cat Facts Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow!
                                                              Cat Facts Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow!
                                                              Cat Facts Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow!
                                                              xkcd Weather Notification System Click here to get weather notifications!
                                                              Weather Notification Setup Wizard Now determining your location! Don't worry, this shouldn't take too long.
                                                              Please choose your location Are you in Albany? Click here to set your location to Albany.
                                                              Please choose your location Ok, are you in Atlanta? Click here to set your location to Atlanta.
                                                              Please choose your location Ok, are you in Boise? Click here to set your location to Boise.
                                                              Please choose your location Ok, are you in Boston? Click here to set your location to Boston.
                                                              Please choose your location Ok, are you in New York City? Click here to set your location to New York City.
                                                              Please choose your location Ok, are you in Saint Louis? Click here to set your location to Saint Louis.
                                                              Please choose your location Ok, are you in Anchorage? Click here to set your location to Anchorage.
                                                              Please choose your location How many more cities can there be?! Uh, ok, are you in Idaho Falls? #3rd to last
                                                              Please choose your location [getting desperate] Are you in Newport News, VA? #2nd to last
                                                              Please choose your location [increasingly desperate] Fargo???? #last
                                                              Weather location selected I'm sorry! That's all the cities I know! Oh no. What do we do?? Uhhh. Setting your location to MOUNT WASHINGTON SUMMIT, NEW HAMPSHIRE. If the user didn't interact with any of the "choose your location" notifications, this notification will eventually show up.
                                                              Weather Information You are subscribed to weather reports for (City) After selecting a location, the user will receive this notification with (City) substituted with the city they chose.

                                                              If the user had waited until Mt. Washington was automatically selected as a fallback option, (City) will be substituted with MOUNT WASHINGTON SUMMIT, NEW HAMPSHIRE, in all caps. This pattern follows for the other notifications that reference the chosen (City) name.

                                                              Weather report from Albany KALB 092251Z 33010KT 10SM FEW060 FEW120 FEW260 04/M09 A3023 RMK A02 SLP241 ASCL DSNT W T00441094 Depending on the city you picked (see the "choose your location" notifications), the website will periodically send notifications containing METAR data. The weather station producing these data (the first 4 letters) is chosen depending on which city the user has selected.

                                                              Weather station codes selected for each city:

                                                              • Albany: KALB
                                                              • Atlanta: KATL
                                                              • Boise:
                                                              • Boston:
                                                              • New York City:
                                                              • Saint Louis:
                                                              • Anchorage:
                                                              • Idaho Falls:
                                                              • Newport News, VA:
                                                              • Fargo: KFAR
                                                              • MOUNT WASHINGTON SUMMIT, NEW HAMPSHIRE: KMWN

                                                              You can view historical METAR and TAF data of any station here.

                                                              xkcd News We’ve launched a Youtube channel for What If? videos!

                                                              Ring the bell, like, and subscribe!

                                                              		Clicking this notification redirects the user to xkcd's What If? YouTube channel.
                                                              System Log (INFO): A user has paused notifications This notification is likely the result of a random other user clicking the "Silence Notifications at a Cost" button. According to the button's description, pressing it will temporarily pause notifications, but two other users will get this message instead.
                                                              Constant Reminders At the tone, Zero will be a Real Number
                                                              Constant Reminders At the tone, your favorite number will equal 14
                                                              Constant Reminders At the tone, The Golden Ration will equal half of 1 plus SQRT(5) This notification is a play on the concept of golden ratio, a popular and well-studied mathematical constant. (1+SQRT(5))/2 is the exact value of the golden ratio.
                                                              Constant Reminders At the tone, The Golden Ratio will equal half of 1 plus SQRT(5) There seems to be two versions of this notification, one with a "typo" (ration) and one without.
                                                              Constant Reminders At the tone, Pi will equal the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.
                                                              Constant Reminders At the tone, Pi will equal half the value of Tau. While Tau can be defined independently, it is usually defined as 2 times Pi, which makes this notification a circular definition.
                                                              Constant Reminders At the tone, Theodorus' constant will equal sqrt(3)
                                                              Constant Reminders At the tone, The Silver Ratio will equal 1 plus SQRT(2) The silver ratio, also known as silver mean, is a geometrical proportion that indeed has the value of 1+SQRT(2). Its name derived from golden ratio, since both are the positive root of a certain quadratic equation.
                                                              Constant Reminders At the tone, Euler's Number will equal the limit from n to infinity of 1 plus 1 over n to the nth power
                                                              Constant Reminders At the tone, the luminosity of the sun will be L☉
                                                              Constant Reminders We are currently experiencing 3600±1 seconds per hour.

                                                              Changes to this rate will be announced 6 months in advance.

                                                              		This is a reference to the standard Leap Second procedure.
                                                              Constant reminders The Earth is spinning at a rate of 1 rpd rpd stands for "revolutions per day", a unit for how fast something is spinning. A day can be defined as the length of time it takes for the Earth to complete one full revolution. Thus, saying that the Earth spins at 1 rpd is a circular definition.
                                                              How many times can you click this? You’ve clicked this notification 0 times Each click triggers another notification with the click count incremented. At each identified click count, the source changes to the corresponding text and remains there until the next threshold is reached, except for the "Super-special offer!" notifications. Clicking on a "super-special offer!" notification resets the click count to zero, but the click count will now increment at double the previous rate.
                                                              Hey you're pretty good at this... You've clicked this notification 10 times
                                                              You're really good at this... You've clicked this notification 20 times
                                                              Are you sure you want to keep going? You've clicked this notification 30 times
                                                              You're going to break something! You've clicked this notification 40 times
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 50 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              Upgrade! Enjoy your doubly good clicking.
                                                              You're breaking something! You've clicked this notification 50 times
                                                              You're breaking everything. You've clicked this notification 60 times
                                                              Stop! Please! You've clicked this notification 70 times
                                                              You're going to crash the system! You've clicked this notification 80 times
                                                              You've crashed the system. You've clicked this notification 90 times
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 100 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              Why? You've clicked this notification 100 times
                                                              Okay I kind of get it but... You've clicked this notification 150 times
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 200 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              There's no more notifications You've clicked this notification 200 times
                                                              You've clicked all the notifications You've clicked this notification 250 times
                                                              Okay just one more You've clicked this notification 300 times
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 400 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              You're just doing this to annoy me You've clicked this notification 500 times
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 800 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              You're just doing this to annoy you? You've clicked this notification 1000 times
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 1600 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              I guess it worked You've clicked this notification 2000 times
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 3200 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 6400 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 12800 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 25600 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 51200 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              Wow, You're really into this You've clicked this notification 1000000 times
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 102400 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!
                                                              This is how you spend you time now? You've clicked this notification 10000000 times
                                                              Persistence is thy name You've clicked this notification 25000000 times
                                                              You're still here? You've clicked this notification 100000000 times A reference to the post-credits scene from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off".
                                                              It's over... go home... You've clicked this notification 1000000000 times
                                                              ... You've clicked this notification 10000000000 times
                                                              Super special offer! You've clicked 439804651110400 times. Click here to turn in those clicks to turn your future clicks into double clicks!...
                                                              How many times can you click this? Whoops, did you mean to stop clicking these? We've given you a free click to keep you going. Click here to extend your streak of (N) clicks! Appears if you have a click count above zero but have stopped the chain of clicks. (N) is replaced with the current number of clicks you have. Upon clicking this notification, you are in fact given one free click. The source is whichever one is appropriate for your current click count.
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Error: Too many errors
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Error: Not enough errors
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Error: It's too quiet.
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Boop.
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Error: I forgot whether I'm the server r the client
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Error: I forgot whether I'm the server or the client
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Kernel Panic: Kernel can't remember what number comes after 38 A kernel panic indicates an unrecoverable error in the operating system. Here, the kernel is described to "not remember" the sequence of numbers, a skill that is fundamental for machines. One can argue that failing to compute as a computer is a valid reason for a system-wide failure.
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Error: Not enough extensions installed
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Error: I received your request but decided to ignore you.
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ welcome datacomp
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Error 40¾: HTTP error table corrupted. The error code "40¾" is displayed with Zalgo text for corrupted effect. Clicking on this notification sets the comic to the following image, where Cueball is seen shielding himself from a tentacle that has reached out from his laptop screen.
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Error 418: I'm a teapot. A reference to the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol.
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Your computer has encountered an error. Clicking on this notification will change the comic to the pane where the laptop is on fire.
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ The website has encountered an error.
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Gravity malfunction. Clicking this notification will change the comic pane to one where Cueball, the desk, and the laptop are floating in the air.
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Error: Website is dangerously overloaded. Click to empty computer ballast tanks. Clicking this notification will change the comic pane to a flooded one.
                                                              Erroneous Alert ⚠️ Error: Computer size limiter has encountered a problem. Click to deactivate it. Clicking this notification will make Cueball's laptop larger.
                                                              Comment and Subscribe Leave your thoughts in the comments below! Clicking this takes you to a seemingly random Wikipedia talk page.
                                                              An old xkcd comic has been posted Comic #11 was posted on 1 January 06 ISO 8601
                                                              An old xkcd comic has been posted Comic #301 was posted on 10 Aug 07
                                                              An old xkcd comic has been posted Comic #359 was posted on December 19 07
                                                              An old xkcd comic has been posted Comic #552 was posted on March 6 09
                                                              An old xkcd comic has been posted Comic #1062 was posted on 30 May 2012
                                                              An old xkcd comic has been posted Comic #1600 was posted on 11/06/15
                                                              An old xkcd comic has been posted Comic #1694 was posted on June 15 16
                                                              An old xkcd comic has been posted Comic #2369 was posted on 2020-10-07
                                                              An old xkcd comic has been posted Comic #3054 was posted on Feb 21 25
                                                              An old xkcd comic has been posted Comic #3062 was posted on Mar 12 2025
                                                              Carriage Return Line Feed The next station is Putney Bridge. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform.
                                                              Carriage Return Line Feed The next station is Barbican. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform.
                                                              Carriage Return Line Feed The next station is Fairlop. Please mind the gap
                                                              Current time The current time is five o'clock
                                                              xkcd.com This site has been updated in the background.
                                                              Word game Click here to enter a Notification Word
                                                              Word game Your word has been set to (word). This selection is permanent and can never be modified.
                                                              Word game Someone else has selected the word (word)!

                                                              Comic images[edit]

                                                              Image Transcript and explanation
                                                              Cueball sitting at his desk, with his laptop.
                                                              Cueball sitting at his desk, with a very large laptop.
                                                              Cueball sitting at his desk, with a small potted plant.
                                                              Cueball sitting at his desk, with a squirrel in the pot.


                                                              Cueball sitting at his desk, with a much larger plant that has clearly outgrown the pot, at least vertically.
                                                              Cueball sitting at his desk with the larger plant, with a cat on one of the branches.
                                                              A second image of Cueball sitting at his desk with the larger plant with a cat on one of the branches, but in a different spot.
                                                              Cueball sitting at his desk, with a cat in the foreground near the point of view.
                                                              Cueball sitting at his desk, his chair replaced with a large cat.
                                                              Cueball sitting farther back from his desk, with the laptop on the desk on fire. This image also appears if xkcd.com is denied the permission to send notifications (see the explanation above).
                                                              Cueball, the desk, and the laptop floating in the air.
                                                              Cueball spinning in his chair.
                                                              Cueball sitting on the desk, facing the laptop on the chair.
                                                              The desk vacant with "Game Over" displayed if you use the emergency stop.
                                                              Cueball sitting at his desk, with a laptop on the desk, and a sword leaning against the desk on the other side.
                                                              Cueball and Ponytail swordfighting while the computer has an hourglass icon, referencing 303: Compiling.
                                                              The room flooded 2/3 of the way up the desk. Cueball is still sitting with his laptop.
                                                              The same flooding, with a miniature sailboat behind Cueball.
                                                              The same flooding, with a cat face behind Cueball.
                                                              The same flooding, with a shark fin on the far side of the desk, facing toward Cueball.
                                                              Cueball sitting at the desk, which has been extended behind his laptop like a long meeting table.
                                                              No Cueball, only the chair, desk, and laptop.
                                                              Cueball using the laptop on his lap, with no desk.
                                                              Cueball with a squirrel on his head.
                                                              A squirrel sitting at the desk, seemingly using the laptop.
                                                              Cueball standing on top of the laptop keyboard.
                                                              Cueball sitting at the desk, wearing a wizard hat.
                                                              Cueball sitting on the floor behind the desk.
                                                              Cueball sitting in his chair, shielding his face from a tentacle coming from the computer screen.
                                                              Cueball sitting at his desk, typing on his laptop, while in an office chair raised to an excessive height – likely a reference to 2144: Adjusting a Chair.
                                                              The cat that appears after returning to the comic window after leaving it idle for long period of time. It has a unique title text of ":3".

                                                              Transcript[edit]

                                                              This is one of 36 incomplete transcripts:
                                                              Need to finish the transcript in the table ABOVE, it's not detailed enough. You can help by editing the transcript!

                                                              [Cueball sits at a desk in an office chair. He is typing on a computer.]
                                                              [Gray message boxes with a small circled “x” at the top right corner are shown:]
                                                              Happy April 1st (observed)!
                                                              To celebrate, we were excited to introduce a new xkcd.com feature: push notifications for new comics!
                                                              Unfortunately, this feature has gone horribly wrong.
                                                              Until further notice, we are asking people NOT to sign up for new comic notifications.
                                                              Frankly, we recommend not even clicking on any notifications to learn more.
                                                              Click this notification to learn more! (a circled arrow is shown)
                                                              “Push notifications for new comics” sounds like a simple feature, right?
                                                              There’s a nice API for browser notifications. xkcd updates three times a week.
                                                              So you just send a notification for each update, right?
                                                              That’s what we thought, too.
                                                              Click to continue! (a circled arrow is shown)
                                                              [To the side of the comic frame is a big, horizontal hexagonal stop sign]
                                                              Sign: Emergency STOP
                                                              Below the sign: Halt ALL notifications and forget everything
                                                              The good news is that we did build a button to stop xkcd new comic notifications.
                                                              You can press this button at any time and the system will stop sending you notifications.
                                                              The nightmare will be over and the server will forget you ever existed.
                                                              This part definitely works.
                                                              The rest of the system does NOT work. (a circled arrow is shown)
                                                              We’re sorry.
                                                              We don’t know how things went so wrong.
                                                              The system is sending more than three notifications a week. A LOT more.
                                                              We cannot recommend signing up for xkcd new comic notifications at this time.
                                                              Click here to ignore the warnings. (a circled arrow is shown)
                                                              No, really.
                                                              Our notification system may send a large number of very real system notifications.
                                                              These may flood your browser, displace other notifications, and cause problems.
                                                              ⚠️DO NOT ENABLE XKCD NEW COMIC NOTIFICATIONS⚠️
                                                              Yeah, I get it, but I definitely want to enable xkcd new comic notifications. (a circled arrow is shown)
                                                              Are you sure?
                                                              Yes! (a circled arrow is shown)
                                                              Absolutely sure?
                                                              YES!! (a circled arrow is shown)
                                                              To enable push notifications on mobile you need to add xkcd.com to your home screen.
                                                              Click here to subscribe to xkcd notifications
                                                              [Initial static image shows Cueball sat on an office chair at a desk using a laptop computer. A notification 'window' is speech-bubbled above the computer]
                                                              [Grey notification box, header:] April 1st (Observed)
                                                              [Notification box, further text:] Open xkcd.com to view.
                                                              Laptop: [Warning sign.]
                                                              [When viewed live, various xkcd-style popover notifications appear, each can be dismissed or (usually the last on every page) invited to press an 'onwards'-style button.]
                                                              [First page of messages]
                                                              Happy April 1st! To celebrate, we were excited to introduce a new xkcd.com feature: Push Notifications for new comics!
                                                              Unfortunately, this feature has gone horribly wrong.
                                                              Until further notice, we are asking people NOT to sign up for new comic notifications.
                                                              Frankly, we recommend not even clicking on any notifications to learn more.
                                                              [Notification with 'onwards button':] Click on this notification to learn more
                                                              [Upon choosing to continue, further messages appear, replacing any prior ones left open]
                                                              "Push Notifications for new comics" sounds like a simple feature, right?
                                                              There's a nice API for browser notifications, xkcd updates three times a week.
                                                              So you just send a notification for each upafte, right?
                                                              That's what we thought, too.
                                                              [Notification with 'onwards button':] Click on this notification to continue
                                                              [Next set of popover messages]
                                                              The good news is that we did build a button to STOP xkcd new comic notifications.
                                                              You can press this button at any time and the system will stop sending you notifications.
                                                              The nightmare will be over and the server will forget you ever existed.
                                                              This part definitely works.
                                                              [Notification with 'onwards':] The rest of the system does not work.
                                                              [To the right of the comic frame, a red, octagonal button has white text upon it:]Emergency Stop
                                                              [Below the button is red text:] Halt all notifications and forget everything
                                                              [Next set of popovers, "stop" button remains permanently so long as you continue]
                                                              We're sorry.
                                                              We didn't know how things went so wrong.
                                                              The system is sending more than three notifications at this time.
                                                              ['Onwards' notification:] Click here to ignore the warnings
                                                              [Next set.]
                                                              No, really.
                                                              Our notification system may send a large amount of very real system notifications.
                                                              These may flood your browser, displace other notifications, and cause problems.
                                                              [Text bookended by warning triangles:] Do not enable xkcd new comic notifications
                                                              ['Onwards':] Yeah, I get it, but I definitely want to enable xkcd new comic notifications
                                                              [Just two popovers, initially]
                                                              Are you sure?
                                                              ['Onwards':] Yes
                                                              [On clicking onwards, two more appear below]
                                                              Absolutely sure?
                                                              ['Onwards':] Yes!!
                                                              [On clicking, a further popover]
                                                              [Red-tinted 'onwards'-style popover with warnings:] Click here to subscribe to xkcd notifications.
                                                              [...something appeared then dissappeared...]
                                                              [Genuine(?) browser dialogue activated:] xkcd.com wants to send you notifications. Block / Allow
                                                              [If allowed, one more popover in the original style]
                                                              Success!!
                                                              [Below the Emergency Stop button, an oval gray button appears labeled in white:] Silence notifications at a cost
                                                              [Below that, in grey text:]Temporarily pause your notifications at the cost of notifying two random people.
                                                              [Further changes include the contents of the comic. The transcript for these changes is available on the Comic images section.]

                                                              Trivia[edit]

                                                              Latest comment: 29 August2 comments2 people in discussion
                                                              • This comic was posted 8 days late, as noted by the first notification the user is presented with.


                                                              Sort out the explanation structuring, explain further the delay of the comic, upload all pictures from [6], add a transcript for each image in the image gallery, explain the table of all notifications. tori :3talk to me! 21:56, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                               Nomination unsuccessful but marked as incomplete (fails criteria #2 and #3) per my comment at the unixkcd nomination below. FaviFake (talk) 21:41, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                              unixkcd
                                                              unixkcd
                                                                                                 
                                                              • Comic (April 1, 2010)
                                                                •                                       
                                                                < Previous                 April Fools' Day comics                 Next >      
                                                                This is the 3rd xkcd April Fools' Day comic, released by Randall on April 1, 2010. It was published on a Thursday, deviating from the standard release schedule to honor April Fools' Day. In fact, 2009 and 2017 are the only years in which Randall hasn't marked this day with a comic. You can view all April Fools' Day comics or learn more about them!


                                                                Explanation[edit]

                                                                This explanation was found to be incomplete after being nominated for This Week's Explanation for Improvement. Although it was not featured, the nomination process revealed issues that still need to be addressed to meet our quality standards. Before removing this notice, read the August 2026 nomination and ensure the issues raised by the Explanation Improvement Project have been satisfactorily addressed:

                                                                  We need help from someone who knows unix or linux or code or bash or anything like that. Explain the jokes and references in the #Undocumented commands section and the sections below it.
                                                                  Describe the website interface, such as the links at the bottom, and what it is supposed to resemble.
                                                                  The cheat command actually says **free shipping enabled*** and it needs an explanation

                                                                You can help by editing the explanation! If you are new to wiki editing, see our editing FAQ for guidance.

                                                                On April 1, 2010, Randall altered the xkcd website to mimic a Unix shell. This interface is still available on uni.xkcd.com and the source code is available on GitHub. This fool itself does not warrant its own comic, however.

                                                                unixkcd is a portmanteau of Unix and, of course, xkcd. Additionally, the subdomain of where the interface now lives is a domain hack that incorporates this portmanteau. It can be humorously said that unixkcd is a public shell that is able to access comics from the xkcd web server.

                                                                Unix is a family of operating systems that share multitasking, multi-user, and modular features. These operating systems are said to be Unix-like or comply with the Single UNIX Specification. The first, early set of versions of Unix, also known as "Research Unix", were developed in Bell Labs as a result of its predecessor and former OS, Multics, due to it becoming increasingly complex. Unix still lives on today. Examples of Unix-like operating systems are macOS, iOS, Linux (more specifically its array of operating systems or "distributions" shipped with the Linux kernel), Android, and BSD with its derivatives.

                                                                All interactions in an operating system are done via system calls by computer programs, which are fulfilled by the kernel or another program with absolute control over the system. One special type of programs for these interactions are called shells, and they are used for executing any command or task that the operating system can perform, often using other computer programs. Hence the name, the shell metaphorically wraps around the system.

                                                                Unix shells, in particular, are shells that interact with a Unix-like operating system. The first influential shells developed in Research Unix were the Thompson shell, the C shell, and the Bourne shell (which was the most popular one at the time). Currently, Bash is the most popular Unix shell, inspired by the Bourne shell (hence the Bash acronym, as it stands for the Bourne-again shell), that is provided by many Linux distributions. Bash is likely the shell being mimicked by unixkcd. Most Unix shells use a command-line interface that provide a command prompt, which must be run in a text terminal emulator in order to enter such commands. Since these emulate real computer terminals, such text terminal emulators are normally shown as a black screen behind white or green text.

                                                                The terminal only lists a few available commands, but most commands are undocumented.

                                                                Documented commands[edit]

                                                                Command Response Explanation
                                                                next (shows the next comic) If the latest comic number is given, shows the error Time travel mode not enabled. See enable time travel below.
                                                                prev (shows the previous comic)
                                                                first (shows the first comic)
                                                                last (shows the last comic)
                                                                display [number] (shows the comic with the specified number) Trying to display comic 404: Not Found will result in an endless loading attempt.

                                                                Trying to display comic 1350: Lorenz instead displays 1349: Shouldn't Be Hard, where Cueball thinks about burning his computer. Trying to display comic 2198: Throw will display an image from the comic showing George Washington throwing a microwave oven, with text saying to click to show the full comic up. Clicking the text does nothing.

                                                                random (shows a random comic)
                                                                ls (shows the content of the current directory)
                                                                dir
                                                                cat [filename] (shows the content of the file) See also cat below.
                                                                cd [directory] (changes to the specified directory)

                                                                Undocumented commands[edit]

                                                                Command Response Explanation
                                                                :(){:|:&};: [...] (repeats indefinitely) This command, otherwise known as a shell fork bomb will make the terminal display the [...] loading dots indefinitely, as though it crashed.
                                                                a/s/l or asl A/S/L is not a Unix command, but an acronym of Age/Sex/Location in this case. The following replies are possible:
                                                                2/AMD64/Server Rack Answered as if the server replied. sex refered as AMD
                                                                328/M/Transylvania Answered by Dracula.
                                                                6/M/Battle School Answered by Ender Wiggin or another boy from battle school.
                                                                48/M/The White House Answered by Barack Obama or another male of the same age in the White House.
                                                                7/F/Rapture Answered by a Little Sister from BioShock.
                                                                Exactly your age/A gender you're attracted to/Far far away. Requests for A/S/L are often not answered truthfully, but crafted to suit the one asking the question.
                                                                7,831/F/Lothlórien Answered by Galadriel or another elf. Lothlorien is the region of Middle Earth where a particular group of elves live, and Galadriel is by far the most significant female elf from this (or possibly any) part of the popular stories.
                                                                42/M/FBI Field Office Answered by an FBI agent, referencing the old trope that all girls on the internet are FBI agents impersonating them.
                                                                apt-get This APT has Super Cow Powers. The apt-get command is part of the Debian package manager APT. This reply is one of the built-in Easter eggs.
                                                                apt-get moo 
                                                                        (__)
        (oo)
  /------\/ 
 / |    ||  
*  /\---/\  
   ~~   ~~  

...."Have you mooed today?"...
                                                                		Displays an ASCII drawing of a cow.
                                                                bash You bash your head against the wall. It's not very effective. Bash is a shell for POSIX-based systems. This also references early text-based adventure games where you need to type the action needed to proceed, which could result in unintended consequences. For example, if you typed in something like "ax in chest", the game may stab the axe into your character's torso instead of opening a crate. The line 'it's not very effective' may be a reference to Pokemon, where an attack can deal differing amounts of damage depending on effectiveness.
                                                                cat [number]/alt.txt (displays the title text of the specified comic)
                                                                cat license.txt (displays the license of unixkcd)
                                                                cat welcome.txt (displays the welcome message)
                                                                cat

                                                                (without a filename or with an invalid filename)

                                                                		You're a kitty! A reference to 231: Cat Proximity.
                                                                cheat ***free shipping enabled***

                                                                (Links to xkcd Store)

                                                                buy stuff
                                                                clear (clears the screen)
                                                                curl (creates an iframe to the URL specified) curl is "command line tool and library for transferring data with URLs."
                                                                date March 32nd Instead of April 1st, which is not a real date.[citation needed]
                                                                display title text display: unable to open image "title": No such file or directory. Displayed in red text.
                                                                echo Echo ... echo ... echo ... echo is a command used to print text to the terminal.
                                                                ed You are not a diety ed is a very simple text editor. It is usually not considered very user-friendly. See also vi and emacs.
                                                                emacs You should use Vim. A reference to 378: Real Programmers.
                                                                enable time travel TARDIS error: Time Lord missing A Doctor Who reference. See also the next command.
                                                                exit (ends the terminal session)
                                                                quit
                                                                logout
                                                                find kitten (showed the robotfindskitten game) The link to the Flash version no longer works, but an HTML version is available here.
                                                                find What do you want to find? Kitten would be nice. This links up to the above command find kitten.
                                                                finger Mmmmmm... finger USER is used on UNIX-like systems to get information about another USER. Here, Randall is taking advantage of its suggestive name, referring to the act of fingering (NSFW) for sexual pleasure instead.
                                                                fuck I have a headache. Though the command may have been intended as a profanity, it is interpreted as if a request for sexual intercourse. A stereotypical (film-friendly) response to an expected but unwanted 'bedtime request' from an overamorous bed-partner is to claim to have a headache.
                                                                goto [any] (shows comic 292: goto and asks if you meant display instead.) This jokes on how goto is viewed as a somewhat clumsy command to use - which is the subject of linked comic 292: goto.
                                                                go back You cannot go back.
                                                                go down On our first date? To go down on someone can be interpreted as a request for oral sex. The response appears to be surprised by the request on a "first date".
                                                                Hello Joshua How about a nice game of Global Thermonuclear War? A reference to the WarGames movie.
                                                                hello Hello. A second reply Why hello there! is coded, but it is never used.
                                                                help That would be cheating!
                                                                halp
                                                                hi Hi.
                                                                hint We offer some nice polos. Randomly replies with one of four options.

                                                                The replies itself all have varied meanings, as follows:

                                                                • the first hint takes quite a surreal approach to it, saying that the comic somehow has nice polos.
                                                                • The second one is the only helpful hint of the four, saying how the comic will still remain at the link shown.
                                                                • The third one references use the source luke (see below).
                                                                • The last one says there are cheat codes to help use the interface. However, typing cheat just refers to the xkcd store, making this tip also useless.
                                                                This terminal will remain available at xkcd.com/unixkcd/
                                                                Use the source, Luke!
                                                                There are cheat codes.
                                                                i read the source code <3 The joke here is that you would be unlikely to type this question in without having read the source code, and discovered this command.
                                                                irc [nick] (starts an IRC session on the xkcd channel on irc.foonetic.net)
                                                                write [nick]
                                                                kill Terminator deployed to 1984. A reference to the Terminator movie. In Bash, kill is used to end a process.
                                                                latest (displays the latest comic)
                                                                light torch Light what?
                                                                locate [filename] is normally used to locate a file in a directory. It will give humorous results when searching for ninja, keys, joke, problem and raptor.
                                                                lpr PC LOAD LETTER lpr is a command to print documents. PC_LOAD_LETTER is a printer error.
                                                                make love I put on my robe and wizard hat. A reference to this roleplay chat transcript (NSFW), which was also mentioned in 442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel. make love is a standard Unix joke, because the reply is make: don't know how to make love.
                                                                make me a sandwich What? Make it yourself. A reference to 149: Sandwich.
                                                                man [command] (shows unhelpful information about the command) Only last, help, next, cat have unique responses, all others show a generic "Oh, I\'m sure you can figure it out."
                                                                moo moo A reference to cowsay a popular linux command that displays an ASCII cow that says what the user attaches to the output.
                                                                more Oh, yes! More! More! The more command is used to paginate output.
                                                                nano Seriously? Why don't you just use Notepad.exe? Or MS Paint? Nano is another text editor for Unix systems (see vi and emacs).
                                                                ping There is another submarine three miles ahead, bearing 225, forty fathoms down. The ping command is used to measure round trip times to a destination. The name of the command comes from sonar technology. A submarine using sonar may 'ping' to illuminate nearby objects on radar.
                                                                pwd You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike. The pwd command prints the current working directory (see look). The output is a reference to Colossal Cave Adventure.
                                                                reddit [number] (shows the Reddit voting bar for the specified comic) If no number is specified, shows xkcd.
                                                                rm [filename] (removes a file)
                                                                rm -r (removes a directory)
                                                                serenity You can't take the sky from me. This is a line from the Ballad of Serenity from the Firefly TV series. Serenity is also the name of an Operating System (that Randall probably wasn't thinking of): SerenityOS.
                                                                shutdown Must be root. See also sudo poweroff.
                                                                poweroff
                                                                ssh ssh, this is a library. ssh is the command to start a secure shell, but it also resembles the "Shh" sound.
                                                                su God mode activated. Remember, with great power comes great ... aw, screw it, go have fun. su is a command for logging as an upper user, which gives you full and potentially dangerous access to the system. On some systems, "with great power comes great responsibility" is also part of a message that is printed the first time sudo is used.
                                                                sudo [command] (executes the command with root privileges) The sudo command does this on Unix-like operating systems.
                                                                sudo apt-get dist-upgrade You are already running [OS]. Running the command on Debian Linux would upgrade the operating system.
                                                                sudo apt-get moo Have you mooed today? apt-get Debian Linux command Easter egg.
                                                                sudo apt-get update Reading package lists... Done Refreshes the package list so the system knows which updates are available.
                                                                sudo apt-get upgrade (shows a link to A Better Browser on Internet Explorer and Firefox (< v3). On all other browsers, it says This looks pretty good to me.
                                                                sudo make me a sandwich Okay Behaves like 149: Sandwich.
                                                                sudo !! (will sudo the last command)
                                                                sudo poweroff (shuts down the system)
                                                                sudo shutdown
                                                                sudo reboot (restarts the system)
                                                                sudo restart
                                                                sudo rm -rf / (breaks all commands until the page is reloaded) If this command is run in Linux, then it will simply delete everything in the distro it is run on.
                                                                sudo sudo An internal error occurred: RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded In red text. Refers to a Stack overflow error due to the apparent recursion.
                                                                time travel (shows 630: Time Travel)
                                                                top It's up there --^ The top command shows a table of processes. Here it is taken literally.
                                                                uname Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator uname on Unix lists system information. The Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator is an explosive device created by Marvin the Martian in the Looney Tunes series.
                                                                unixkcd (opens a new terminal window)
                                                                use the force luke I believe you mean source. A reference to the Force in the Star Wars franchise.
                                                                use the source luke I'm not luke, you're luke! An old programmers' joke.
                                                                vi You should use emacs. A reference to 378: Real Programmers.
                                                                vim
                                                                wget [URL] (shows the content of the specified URL) wget is a command on Unix to download the content and not show it.
                                                                who Doctor Who? Another Doctor Who reference. The who command on Unix lists the logged-in users.
                                                                whoami You are Richard Stallman. The whoami command lists the name of the current user. Richard Stallman is the creator of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation.
                                                                xkcd Yes?
                                                                xyzzy Nothing happens. xyzzy is a magic word, originally used in the game Colossal Cave Adventure. It was only effective at specific points in the game; otherwise the response was "Nothing happens." This response was actually a helpful clue to the observant adventurer, and became a famous meme in its own right.
                                                                your gay Keep your hands off it!
                                                                !! (reruns the previous command after stating the command)

                                                                Game commands[edit]

                                                                There are also some other commands borrowed from a Zork like text-based adventure game.

                                                                Command Response Explanation
                                                                look (describes your current surroundings)
                                                                go [direction] (moves you in the specified direction) Going West repeatedly will list the refrain from the song Go West.
                                                                light lamp (lights your lamp) You will be killed by a grue if you don't light your lamp when going south.
                                                                sleep [seconds] (sleeps for the specified time) Without specifying, the nap is 5 seconds.

                                                                Konami code[edit]

                                                                The image used as the background after using the Konami code five times.
                                                                The terminal also responds to the Konami code Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A. Entering this code repeatedly will, in order:
                                                                1. Transform all characters to uppercase
                                                                2. Add a grey text shadow
                                                                3. Add an orange text-shadow
                                                                4. Shake the screen
                                                                5. Add a background image of Richard Stallman from 345: 1337: Part 5.

                                                                After entering the code at least once, commands such as "shutdown" and "apt-get update" will function as if you were using sudo.

                                                                Note that the last step is broken in 2026. The page xkcd.com/unixkcd/over9000.png still exists, but uni.xkcd.com/unixkcd/over9000.png gives a 404.

                                                                Transcript[edit]

                                                                Latest comment: 29 August5 comments2 people in discussion
                                                                [The screen is black.]
                                                                [A white bar is at the top.]
                                                                [Inside the white bar in black text is the title:]
                                                                unixkcd
                                                                [Below is another similar white bar with black text:]
                                                                A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.
                                                                [The text is white, monospaced, and in the top left, similar to that of a computer terminal.]
                                                                [The terminal starts with the prompt:]
                                                                guest@xkcd:/$
                                                                [The terminal automatically runs the command:]
                                                                guest@xkcd:/$ display
                                                                [The most recent XKCD comic appears below the current line.]
                                                                [The terminal runs the command:]
                                                                guest@xkcd:/$ cat welcome.txt
                                                                [The first line is bolded]
                                                                Welcome to the unixkcd console.
                                                                To navigate the comics, enter "next", "prev", "first", "last", "display", or "random".
                                                                Use "ls", "cat", and "cd" to navigate the filesystem.
                                                                [A blinking text cursor appears on the next line after the prompt, and you can type in commands to make the terminal do stuff.]
                                                                guest@xkcd:/$


                                                                I don't know how unix or linux or code or bash or anything like that at all. Please...I need help explaining this comic :C tori :3talk to me! 21:56, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

                                                                Thanks for commenting! Unfortunately I think all of the five April Fools' explanations that you nominated don't meet the criteria #2 and #3, specifically the part about being "ideal for new editors" and interesting to explain. I think this sentences particularly applies: "The one-week edit-a-thon format of the project is well-suited for comics that cover everyday, normal topics. On the other hand, comics about obscure and deeply technical topics usually belong in the Incomplete explanations backlog instead." Essentially, this project is very focused on one specific goal precisely to avoid becoming a bloated mess like the Incomplete explanations backlog.
                                                                For example, the tasks you cited, such as explaining why a comic was released late or downloading and uploading images from the xkcd.com website, are not really interesting, which is why they've sat in the backlog for a decade. Most editors come here because they want to explain Randall's clever jokes. The Incomplete explanations backlog isn't monitored very often, but it is linked from every new explanation and the main page. If even all that "foot traffic" didn't result in meaningful improvements over so many years, I think it's unlikely that featuring those explanation from the sitenotice (which will mostly attract new and inexperienced editors) will do more harm than good. In the best case, there will be no significant improvements except from a few power users like us. In the worst case, it damages the reputation of this project as a means to update neglected explanations.
                                                                The Incomplete explanations backlog was a result of the failed Explanation Completion Project, aka Explanation of the Day. In my opinion, the project's goal was too broad and this led to it becoming less and less relevant over time, as the explanations became more and more similar to technical manuals of how a comic works. The last few explanations featured in the sitenotice were precisely this kind of pages and it didn't work. FaviFake (talk) 23:03, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
                                                                Oh, I see how this works now. Shame on me for not reading through everything thoroughly...thanks for the feedback tori :3talk to me! 00:53, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
                                                                No worries! Putting my goal into words helped me understand them better as well. I've marked the explanations you mentioned as incomplete per this nominations and moved your suggestions there. FaviFake (talk) 21:41, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
                                                                 Nomination unsuccessful but marked as incomplete (fails criteria #2 and #3) per my comment above FaviFake (talk) 21:41, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
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