491: Twitter - Revision history

DollarStoreBa'al: firefox

2026-02-12T18:56:32Z

firefox

Revolutionary girl euclid: /* Explanation */ Updated and revised to explanation. I don't think this explanation needs to go THAT in depth on newer information, though. It's an explanation for one comic, not for all of Twitter.

2025-08-14T17:06:56Z

‎Explanation: Updated and revised to explanation. I don't think this explanation needs to go THAT in depth on newer information, though. It's an explanation for one comic, not for all of Twitter.

FaviFake: very helpful Undo revision 383349 by Aprilfoolsupdate! (talk)

2025-08-06T14:52:15Z

very helpful Undo revision 383349 by Aprilfoolsupdate! (talk)

Aprilfoolsupdate! at 14:28, 6 August 2025

2025-08-06T14:28:48Z

FaviFake: /* Explanation */

2025-07-22T09:07:02Z

‎Explanation

FaviFake at 09:01, 22 July 2025

2025-07-22T09:01:04Z

FaviFake: /* Explanation */ {{incomplete|Update the comic with more up-to-date information, for example now tweets aren't constrained if you subscribe, etc. Also, might want to explain the comic further.}}

2025-07-22T08:53:37Z

‎Explanation: {{incomplete|Update the comic with more up-to-date information, for example now tweets aren't constrained if you subscribe, etc. Also, might want to explain the comic further.}}

PinkAmpersand: /* Explanation */ doesn't really make sense, already explained by previous graf

2022-12-24T09:58:12Z

‎Explanation: doesn't really make sense, already explained by previous graf

108.162.245.69: Undo revision 281580 by Donald Trump (talk)

2022-05-26T19:24:07Z

Undo revision 281580 by Donald Trump (talk)

Show changes

Donald Trump: Reverted edit by anti-crap user

2022-05-26T19:00:47Z

Reverted edit by anti-crap user

Show changes

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:56, 12 February 2026
Line 48:		Line 48:
	{{comic discussion}}		{{comic discussion}}
	[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]		[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
		+	[[Category:Firefox]]

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-{{incomplete|Update the comic with more up-to-date information, for example now tweets aren't constrained if you subscribe, Randall doesn't use it anymore, etc. Also, might want to explain the comic further.}}This comic plays off of an old shaving cream product's {{w|Burma-Shave}} advertising campaign employed on American highways from {{w|1925}} to {{w|1963}}. These ads used short poems, each line arranged sequentially on a sign along a highway, the last line always being "Burma Shave," the name of the shaving cream. Originally, these ads only described the product, but others included driving safety messages.
+This comic plays off of an old shaving cream product's {{w|Burma-Shave}} advertising campaign employed on American highways from {{w|1925}} to {{w|1963}}. These ads used short poems, each line arranged sequentially on a sign along a highway, the last line always being "Burma-Shave," the name of the shaving cream. Originally, these ads only described the product, but others included driving safety messages. This notorious advertising gimmick could be considered an "ancient meme", having ended more than a decade before the term {{w|Meme|''meme''}} was even coined.
-{{w|Twitter}} is a text-based social media service where posts are restricted in length, so to get a longer essay sent, you will need to break it up in smaller fragments — like the {{w|Burma-Shave}} messages, although the whole of the text of this comic is considerably less than 140 characters and would not need to be broken up on Twitter.
+{{w|Twitter}} is a text-based social media service where posts are restricted in length (originally 140 characters, though the limit would be doubled to 280 characters from 2017 onward), so to get a longer essay sent, you will need to break it up in smaller fragments — like the {{w|Burma-Shave}} messages, although the whole of the text of this comic is considerably less than 140 characters and would not actually need to be broken up on Twitter. (Long after the release of this comic, Twitter would be {{w|Acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk|acquired by Elon Musk}} and later renamed to X. The platform is still commonly referred to as Twitter, though, including in {{w|Twitter|its Wikipedia article}}.)
-[[Cueball]] gets five messages from Twitter on his device that give the following message: On Twitter feeds - An odd regression: - Ancient memes - Find new expression - Burma-shave.
+[[Cueball]] gets five messages from Twitter on his device that give the following message: "On Twitter feeds - An odd regression: - Ancient memes - Find new expression - Burma-Shave." Thus the "ancient meme" of Burma-Shave advertisements is revived in the form of a broken-up Twitter thread.
-This relates that this old way (ancient-memes) of getting a message through when only having a limited space now again (an odd regression) flourishes on Twitter feeds - Burma-shave...
+{{w|Firefox 2}} had a long-standing annoying bug where only the initial part of the title text was shown as a tooltip, preventing you from seeing the rest of the text unless you right-clicked show-property, which would let you see a sideways scrollable field of the title-text in the properties for the image.
 This bug is also still mentioned in [https://xkcd.com/about xkcd.com's About page]:

@@ Line 47: / Line 47: @@
 :Device: Burma-shave
 {{comic discussion}}
 [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

@@ Line 47: / Line 47: @@
 :Device: Burma-shave
 {{comic discussion}}
 [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:07, 22 July 2025
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	{{w\|Firefox 2}} had a long-standing annoying bug where only the initial part of the title text was shown as a tooltip, creating a "Burma-Shave" effect of only being able to see some of the text. Unlike Burma-Shave, where you would see the rest of the text as you were driving down the highway, Firefox didn't actually show you the rest of the text unless you right-clicked show-property, and you would be able to see a sideways scrollable field of the title-text in the properties for the image.		{{w\|Firefox 2}} had a long-standing annoying bug where only the initial part of the title text was shown as a tooltip, creating a "Burma-Shave" effect of only being able to see some of the text. Unlike Burma-Shave, where you would see the rest of the text as you were driving down the highway, Firefox didn't actually show you the rest of the text unless you right-clicked show-property, and you would be able to see a sideways scrollable field of the title-text in the properties for the image.
		+
		+	This bug is also still mentioned in [https://xkcd.com/about xkcd.com's About page]:
		+
		+	{{Quote\|<big>'''Why can't I read the whole comic mouseover text in Firefox?'''</big>
		+
		+	''They can be read with extensions like [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1715/ Long Titles], or by right-clicking on the images and going to 'properties', then clicking and dragging to read the whole thing. This is a bug in [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id{{=}}45375 Firefox, Mozilla Bug #45375]. It has been outstanding for many years now.
		+
		+	''Note: It looks like it's been fixed in Firefox 3.0. Now, as an added tweak, to keep the tooltips from expiring while you're reading, you can use [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11233 this].\|[[Randall Munroe]]\|[https://xkcd.com/about About xkcd]}}

	==Transcript==		==Transcript==

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 This relates that this old way (ancient-memes) of getting a message through when only having a limited space now again (an odd regression) flourishes on Twitter feeds - Burma-shave...
 {{w|Firefox 2}} had a long standing annoying bug where only the initial part of the title text were shown as a tool-tip, creating a "Burma-Shave" effect of only being able to see some of the text. Unlike Burma-Shave, where you would see the rest of the text as you were driving down the highway, Firefox didn't actually show you the rest of the text unless you right-clicked show-property, and you would be able to see a sideways scrollable field of the title-text in the properties for the image.
 ==Transcript==