1110: Click and Drag

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Click and Drag
Click and drag.
Title text: Click and drag.

Explanation

This comic is a take on how vast and rich the world is, and on the thrill of exploring it. The world can be described as sad, as well as it can be described as wonderful, even if this seems a bit contradictory, just because there are so many different things happening it it.

Cueball comments about this, and the title text invites the reader to, with his mouse, click and drag the inside of the last panel, and by dragging and dragging, explore what is hidden outside that panel. The image displayed at first turns out to be part of a HUUUGE landscape, filled with big or small things, humorous details, people here and there, cave mazes, things floating in the air, jokes and references, unexpected things, relaxing views, etc.

The fact that we only see a small part of the landscape at once refers the idea that we cannot in real life comprehend the whole world altogether, but only what is around us and/or in the range of our understanding at the time. And the click-and-drag process, in which it is impossible to go as fast as we would want to, also draws a parallel with the fact that exploration is always done gradually, step by step, and trying something (i.e. here dragging in a certain direction) is always done costly. In the end, all this makes that this click-and-drag exploration reproduces pretty well the thrill of discovering new horizons, getting lost sometimes, finding unexpected things, seeing beauty, humor, desolation or happiness here and there... which can easily take a looong time (and qualifies as nerd sniping).

Warning: there are cheating possibilities, but the best way to enjoy this comic is probably to play the game, explore the comic's world the way you're supposed to, get lost in the caves or in the sky, be startled by unexpected things or happy when finding some people after lenghty click-and-drag through a repetitive landscape... So do not read anything below if you do not want to be spoiled from enjoying the comic.

List of details and references

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: 1110: Click and Drag
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

The 225 existing tiles are sorted by columns from West to East and from North to South in each column.

Grid coords Explanation and Transcript
1 North, 33 West Cueball and Megan reach the edge of the image and decide to live there.
1 North, 32 West
1 North, 31 West
1 North, 30 West
1 North, 29 West
1 North, 28 West
1 North, 27 West Velociraptors in the high grass.
Transcript
[Rolling hills with tall grass.]
[On the left there are two velociraptors. The east-facing one looks to be a modern interpretation of the raptor, the west-facing is more Jurassic Park like.]
1 North, 26 West
1 North, 25 West Reference to the movie Contact.
1 North, 24 West
1 North, 23 West
2 North, 22 West
1 North, 22 West
1 North, 21 West The question asked of Jesus is reference to the inspirational text Footprints as well as a reference to the Transformers.
1 North, 20 West
1 North, 19 West
1 North, 18 West
1 North, 17 West A reference to the hatch in Lost.
1 South, 17 West
2 South, 17 West
3 South, 17 West
4 South, 17 West
5 South, 17 West
6 South, 17 West
7 South, 17 West
8 South, 17 West A X-Wing with Wedge Antilles. Reference to Star Wars, where gold leader should copy a maneuver.
9 South, 17 West
10 South, 17 West
11 South, 17 West
12 South, 17 West
1 North, 16 West
12 South, 16 West
1 North, 15 West
12 South, 15 West
1 North, 14 West
12 South, 14 West
1 North, 13 West The statue of liberty head and hand is reference to Planet of Apes.
12 South, 13 West
1 North, 12 West
12 South, 12 West
11 North, 11 West A (useless) white empty cell with symetric coordinates (±11, ±11).
1 North, 11 West Someone playing Marco Polo in the sea.
11 South, 11 West A (useless) black empty cell with symetric coordinates (±11, ±11).

Note, that this PNG file contains an ICC section which means that the blackness in this image is properly color-corrected.

12 South, 11 West
1 North, 10 West
12 South, 10 West
1 North, 9 West Possibly a reference to the Principality of Sealand or to the concept of a micronation in general, List of micronations.
2 South, 9 West Jellyfish playing some sort of console game.
12 South, 9 West
1 North, 8 West A boat with a reference to Monty Python? Avast! is not the antivirus software - Possibly a reference to the comic is from the same date as International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
12 South, 8 West
13 South, 8 West
7 North, 7 West
1 North, 7 West
13 South, 7 West
14 South, 7 West
1 North, 6 West
1 South, 6 West Jellyfish
13 South, 6 West
14 South, 6 West
6 North, 5 West Red spiders from earlier comics falling from the sky
1 North, 5 West "I'm on a Boat" is a single from The Lonely Island's debut album Incredibad.
14 South, 5 West
2 North, 4 West
1 North, 4 West
14 South, 4 West
3 North, 3 West
Transcript
[High in the sky.]
[Cueball is sitting in a swing attached to the end of a crane, and is swinging]
Cueball: WHEEE!
2 North, 3 West A (useless) white empty cell.
1 North, 3 West
14 South, 3 West
8 North, 2 West This seems to be Burj Khalifa at witch 6 North, 27 East refers.
7 North, 2 West
6 North, 2 West
5 North, 2 West A construction crane lifting another, smaller, construction crane. Possibly a reference to the "Truck Truck Truck" gag from the Simpsons. Also, self-erecting tower cranes do usually not lift crawler cranes
4 North, 2 West
3 North, 2 West
2 North, 2 West
1 North, 2 West Megan says "I came here to chew bubblegum... And I'm all out of bubblegum" is a reference to the movie They Live in which the character Nada famously says "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubblegum". That line is also used in the game Duke Nukem 3D by Duke himself, when Shrapnel City (Episode 3) starts. Also, Cueball says "That's a shame" a line popularised by Jerry in the sitcom Seinfeld. Pool line is a reference to "pool on the roof" prank from the movie Hackers.
14 South, 2 West
8 North, 1 West A (useless) white empty cell.
5 North, 1 West The tail of the crawler crane lifted at 5 North, 2 West.
2 North, 1 West A (useless) white empty cell.
1 North, 1 West
14 South, 1 West
15 South, 1 West Possible statement about the ubiquity of Facebook and Twitter (that even people living in caves are aware of those services).
13 North, 1 East Two whales is possibly a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the planet Magrathea, where (improbably) two incoming missiles are turned into a whale and a bowl of petunias.
6 North, 1 East
1 North, 1 East The "center" of the world, it's the first tile to show up (see above). The balloons may be a reference to comic 1106. This may also be a reference to Winnie The Pooh.
Transcript
[Open scene.]
[To the extreme left there is the end of a parking lot. Right from that Cueball is holding onto a balloon several feet from the ground.]
Cueball [narration]: I just didn't expect it to be so BIG.
[About 50 feet east of Cueball there is a lone tree with no leaves on it. Cueball is approximately parallel to with the top of it.]
[Farther east and much higher up is a single balloon floating away.]
[More east and on the ground Beret Guy is waving a butterfly net, chasing an RC Helicopter.]
[Two girls, one blonde and one darker, are walking away from Beret Guy.]
[On the extreme right is a fountain spraying water.]
14 South, 1 East
15 South, 1 East
16 South, 1 East
17 South, 1 East
9 North, 2 East Apollo 13 messaging 'Houston, we have a problem'.
3 North, 2 East A falling Icarus screams "I hope the story of how Building Wax Wings Enabled Me To Fly teaches everyone a lesson about hubris." Referring to the Greek myth of Icarus and his father's escape from Crete by building wings of feathers and wax.
1 North, 2 East
14 South, 2 East
17 South, 2 East
3 North, 3 East
2 North, 3 East
1 North, 3 East
14 South, 3 East
17 South, 3 East
18 South, 3 East Minecraft reference: Someone escapes a creeper, running deeper into the cave he just fell in.
2 North, 4 East
1 North, 4 East A black empty cell (required because unspecified North tiles are automatically filled with white).
18 South, 4 East
19 South, 4 East
2 North, 5 East
1 North, 5 East A black empty cell (required because unspecified North tiles are automatically filled with white).
17 South, 5 East
19 South, 5 East
8 North, 6 East Red Five is both Anakin and Luke Skywalker's call sign. Anakin uses the sign in the Battle of Coruscant and Luke uses it in the Battle of Yavin. Also note the use of "cannon" and "canon."
2 North, 6 East Giant airborne jellyfish.
1 North, 6 East
16 South, 6 East
17 South, 6 East
19 South, 6 East
1 North, 7 East A Mario level (level 1, Super Mario Bros 1, NES). This is confirmed by text on 3 South, 7 East.
1 South, 7 East
2 South, 7 East
3 South, 7 East
4 South, 7 East
5 South, 7 East
6 South, 7 East
7 South, 7 East
8 South, 7 East
9 South, 7 East
10 South, 7 East
11 South, 7 East
12 South, 7 East
13 South, 7 East
14 South, 7 East
15 South, 7 East
16 South, 7 East
17 South, 7 East
19 South, 7 East
1 North, 8 East
16 South, 8 East
17 South, 8 East
18 South, 8 East
19 South, 8 East
1 North, 9 East Reference to the first line of "99 Problems" by Jay-Z ("If you're having girl problems I feel bad for you son. I've got 99 problems but a <rhymes with "witch"> ain't one.").
3 North, 10 East The outline of a Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 aircraft, with original photo located here.
1 North, 10 East
11 North, 11 East A (useless) white empty cell with symetric coordinates (±11, ±11).
1 North, 11 East
11 South, 11 East A (useless) black empty cell with symetric coordinates (±11, ±11).

Note, that this PNG file contains an ICC section which means that the blackness in this image is properly color-corrected.

5 North, 12 East A hot-air balloon with someone singing "Daiiisyyy... Daiiiiisy..." and another person climbing up the balloon to rip it open. These are Hal 9000's dying words as Dave pulls the plug (Daisy Bell).
1 North, 12 East
1 North, 13 East
1 North, 14 East
1 North, 15 East Reference to, and first line of the chorus of, the song Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger. Oregon Trail reference.
2 North, 16 East
1 North, 16 East
2 North, 17 East
1 North, 17 East
3 North, 18 East Commercial airline jet with landing gear deployed. Caption: "Folks, this is your captain speaking. I need you all to turn on every electronic device your have. There's no time to explain." (a reference to the game with the same name?)
1 North, 18 East Two swimmers in the ocean saying "Stupid FreeBSD...". A reference to comic 349.
1 North, 19 East Reference to "Free Willy"? (No, this is a blue whale, while "Free Willy" was about a killer whale.)
1 North, 20 East
1 North, 21 East
2 North, 22 East
1 North, 22 East
3 North, 23 East
2 North, 23 East
1 North, 23 East
4 North, 24 East
3 North, 24 East
2 North, 24 East
1 North, 24 East
5 North, 25 East
4 North, 25 East
3 North, 25 East
2 North, 25 East
1 North, 25 East
6 North, 26 East
5 North, 26 East
4 North, 26 East Black Hat is hanging from one of the wire supports.
3 North, 26 East
2 North, 26 East
1 North, 26 East
7 North, 27 East
6 North, 27 East Tallest man made structure is Burj Khalifa (829.84 m (2,723 ft)) located in Dubai. This appears to be the former record-holder, the KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota.
5 North, 27 East
4 North, 27 East
3 North, 27 East
2 North, 27 East
1 North, 27 East
6 North, 28 East
5 North, 28 East
4 North, 28 East
3 North, 28 East
2 North, 28 East
1 North, 28 East
5 North, 29 East
4 North, 29 East Someone is sliding down the wire.
3 North, 29 East
2 North, 29 East
1 North, 29 East
4 North, 30 East
3 North, 30 East
2 North, 30 East
1 North, 30 East
3 North, 31 East
2 North, 31 East
1 North, 31 East
2 North, 32 East
1 North, 32 East
1 North, 33 East
1 North, 34 East
1 North, 35 East
1 North, 36 East Reference to the original Pokemon games. When Prof. Oak tells you not to go into the tall grass without a Pokemon.
Transcript
[There is a large hill with very tall grass (taller than any character in this section).]
[Left-most is some structure of some kind.]
[West of the structure is Cueball shouting to Megan, who is running into the long grass.]
Cueball: Don't go into the long grass!
Megan: Pikachu, I choose DEATH—
Megan: And with it immortality.
1 North, 37 East
1 North, 38 East
2 North, 39 East
1 North, 39 East
1 North, 40 East
1 North, 41 East
1 North, 42 East
1 North, 43 East
1 North, 44 East
1 North, 45 East
1 North, 46 East
1 North, 47 East
1 North, 48 East Cueball with a ballon in his hand, flying towards the image border. He says “I wonder where I'll float next”. This is a reference to the very first xkcd comic. Maybe it's also a reference to World of Goo, a computer game, where at the and of level 1 the goo balls leave the screen carried by ballons, wondering what will be next.

Whole Image

Whole image

The probably best way to see the whole image and navigate effortlessly through it (map-like, with zooming in and out), has been implemented at http://xkcd-map.rent-a-geek.de/.

Trivia

  • The click-and-drag portion of this comic is divided up into 2592 sections of 2048x2048 pixels.
  • There are 225 separate 2048x2048 PNG files (plus the PNG container with the first panels). The other 2337 sections are simply filled black (in the south) or white (in the north) with HTML.
  • The populated area is 81 frames wide(33 West - 48 East) and 32 frames tall (13 North - 19 South)
  • According to Randall in #xkcd on the night this was released, a full size image of this comic, leaving out the blanks would be 60 gigapixels, a true single rectangular image would be close to a terapixel. The online version is 1 gigapixel without the blanks and 10 gigapixel as rectangular image (2048x2048x225 = 943,718,400 and 2048x2048x2592 = 10,871,635,968).


comment.png add a comment! ⋅ comment.png add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ Icons-mini-action refresh blue.gif refresh comments!

Discussion

It's a bit of a stretch, but I think the jellyfish is playing Super Mario Bros.. 173.245.54.105 11:36, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I went all the way west, but when I tried going east when I got to the mario bit I went down and got lost :( 141.101.98.246 21:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Newbie editor here (ducks abuse and fires back). When I saw the lighthouse with Megan and Ponytail @ 1 North, 13 West, I immediately went to [1]. --Philo Pharynx (talk) 18:23, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

This is great! Keep up the good work! The servers are melting, but keep refreshing if you get a 500 error. Let's get that chart filled out. --Jeff (talk) 19:05, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been dragging for ages, and it hasn't looped back on itself yet. Source diving tells me that it's freakin' massive, and it loads in a million separate tiles. Please, let me cry in a corner at the impossible majesty of it all. Davidy22 (talk) 06:59, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm source diving, and I've managed to extend the boundaries massively. Trying to find a way to remove the click and drag restriction on this monstrosity, think I've figured it out. Will have obscenely massive image uploaded within the next few hours. Davidy22 (talk) 07:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I swear, it's like he found out about us, and is now saying "Oh, yeah? Well how about this?" Other than the gripes of how hard it's going to be to get this thing explained, this one is pretty epic. lcarsos (talk) 08:08, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I started to comment some easter eggs. Come on, we can make it :-). -- Hkmaly (talk) 09:00, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I found the left hand boundary of the page reasonably quickly. Once you cross the sea you get their pretty fast. I also found an X-Wing coming out of the ground quoting a line from just after the death star trench run. -- Chrisnoise (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Different methods of viewing the world

For those who get impatient scrolling around (and are a little savvy): download the .html file for the comic (index.html), and also the file 1110.js. Edit the .html file to use your 1110.js instead of the one from xkcd.com. Then edit 1110.js: 

* remove the line "overflow: 'hidden',"
* change the "1"s into "4"s in  "for(var y=-1;y<=+1;y++)" and in "for(var x=-1;x<=+1;x++){"
* optionally, remove the line "$remove.remove();"  (warning: this will make it take up a lot of memory eventually!)

Then open the local copy in your web browser. Zooming out, scrolling, and zooming back in helps find the easter eggs. 

 -- 75.111.63.192 (talk)  (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
  • This Page's instructions say to zoom in and out when browsing the modified local file. My browser skills are rusty. I have Firefox, and when I zoom in and out, it zooms the whole page, rather than just the interesting bit. However, seeing as how there are 16000+ panels, I don't think I want to zoom it out quite so very far anyway. Firefox is notoriously bad when there are lots of images on a page (and yes, it cratered while I was exploring the original page). In any case, can someone clarify the use of zoom? 24.57.210.141 08:40, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

The above can be done, without downloading, by putting Chrome or Chromium into developer mode by hitting F12, then altering the very same setting in the page, as you view it --Kazvorpal (talk) 22:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

All is revealed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4542367 - seriously. Links to downloads, full images, how to link directly to a point of interest and so on. -- 145.64.134.242 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Another full view, with pan and zoom http://www.mrphlip.com/xkcd1110/ -- 207.114.139.254 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

For the pack rats, here is a .tar.gz of all the pngs. You can use these to reference where in the comic you are. Files are named <number><north/south><number><east/west>.png. So 1n8w.png is 1 north, 8 west. Let's get this thing done. lcarsos (talk) 09:12, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I've made a full-screen version with cursor control: http://ares.aylett.co.uk/xkcd/ Axa (talk) 12:51, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Seems I'm really too slow, plus I have CSS problems (there are gaps between my rows) but I'll share what I did anyway. Create a file with .html extension with the following content (if you've downlaoded all the images already, you can change the code to use your local files) and you get a map of the world.
<!doctype html>
<html><head><title>Click and Drag</title>
<style>
table {
border-collapse: collapse;
}
td {
padding: 0px;
}
td.s {
background-color: black;
}
</style>
</head><body><table><script>
var x, y, src, cssClass;
for (y = -13; y <= 18; y++) {
	document.write('<tr>');
	for (x = -33; x <= 47; x++) {
		src = (y>=0?(y+1)+'s':-y+'n')+(x>=0?(x+1)+'e':-x+'w');
		cssClass = y>=0?'s':'n';
		url = "http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/" + src + ".png";
		//url = src + ".png"; // Remove comment to use local files
		document.write('<td class=' + cssClass + '><a HREF="' + url + '"><img width="64" height="64" title=' + src + ' src="' + url + '"></a></td>');
	}
	document.write('</tr>');
}
</script>
</table>
</html>
--132.230.1.28 09:58, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
I've created a file which looks the very same :-) The gaps between the rows seem to come from the <img> elements being displayed as inline content, adding some whitespaces to the cells. I now use this css code:
* {
	padding: 0;
	margin: 0;
	border: 0;
}
table {
	border-collapse: collapse;
	border-spacing: 0;
	table-layout: fixed;
}
td {
	width: 2048px;
	height: 2048px;
}
img {
	display: block;
}
--84.181.110.126 15:06, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

This is the best full-size view of the comic: http://xkcd-map.rent-a-geek.de/ 77.191.21.108 15:02, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

ZIP upload


Hi,

I’ve locally downloaded all the tiles (there is 225 PNG files) and made a ZIP file of them, but when trying to upload it here the Special:Upload page says: “Permitted file types: png, gif, jpg, jpeg.” Do I have to upload each tile one by one or is there a way to exceptionally bypass this restriction? Thanks. — Ethaniel (talk) 09:13, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Mh, seems I’m hours too late… — Ethaniel (talk) 09:14, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure we should upload each individual frame for this one. Though, we do need to have a discussion about how we're going to handle/archive/explain this one, because it's going to be big and tedius. Maybe some adventurous and hardy soul can stitch together grids of this so that we don't have the problem of having too much image (a single terapixel image will kill anyone's PC if they try to load it) and having so little (while the grids Randall's created are nice and bite-sized, it's hard to see the whole thing). lcarsos (talk) 09:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
I’m going to upload the 225 tiles in few hours: which path is best?
  • [[File:1n1e.png]]
  • [[File:1110/1n1e.png]]
  • [[File:1110: Click and Drag/1n1e.png]]
There will be of course a template ({{1110|1n1e}}) allowing easy access to individual tiles. ;)
Ethaniel (talk) 10:36, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
If you are really going to do this, then I think doing [[File:1110: Click and Drag/1n1e.png]] would be the best spot. lcarsos (talk) 13:53, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Finally I only did the template: direct link to the original tiles is fine too.
Thanks for the answer, it may be useful someday. — Ethaniel (talk) 14:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for the late response, I had to go to bed (I only got 4 hours of sleep anyways) to be able to get up for work today. The template is massively helpful. I crown you champion. It might be interesting to split up each page into sub-pages of this, and then transclude in the first paragraph from the subpage. So, [[1110: Click and Drag/1n1e]] would have a full description, including links to adjacent/related tiles, but have another template transclude in the synopsis and transcript into the table on this page. That's pie-in-the-sky thinking, and definitely should not be done today while the server is being hammered like it is. lcarsos (talk) 17:08, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be a terapixel. There are 225 images of 2048x2048 pixels. The full range is 81x32 tiles, resulting in a 165888x65536 images, at approximately 10 gigapixels. The naming conventions is numberlatitudenumberlongitude.png, where lat can be either n or s, and long can be either e or w. E.g. 1n1e.png, which is the starting image, and they are located at http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/. -- Aufgehaben (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

There's far more than 225 images >> http://lebbeo.us/2012/09/19/not-bbq-fetching-component-images-of-xkcd-comic-1110/ 114.79.57.76 11:17, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me what should happen is that someone should setup a "slippy map" without having to use the browser's zoom in/out capabilities. Think openlayers. -- Anarcat (talk) 13:35, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Raptors

I found two raptors. I couldn't even begin to tell you where they are. Follow the left side. Past the oceans and in some grass...somewhere. This is a lot to draw...I wonder how he did it. The shear size of each image, combined with the fact that they seamlessly transition together...when did he start? How much time did he put in? He should have waited one more to get comic 1111, I think. 76.122.5.96 09:29, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

The far right also quotes the very first xkcd comic ever. 76.122.5.96 09:39, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Black hat

I found him in 2 locations, with a weapon both times. The Gatling gun he has on the building above the XKCD What if? cranes looks like he could be waiting to shoot something. Did anyone find anything he might be trying to shoot? 171.161.160.10 13:09, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind. There's nothing there. But there is a hot air balloon below the area I suspected. 171.161.160.10 13:16, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

End of the JS file comment

At the end of the JavaScript file responsible for the map code, there's a comment "/* 50:72:6f:50:75:6b:65:20:69:73:20:61:77:65:73:6f:6d:65 */". Interpreted as hex codes for ASCII text, this reads "ProPuke is awesome". -- 134.102.219.116 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Interesting. Google tells me that ProPuke is the handle of a programmer from the UK. This morning, on his twitter feed, he posted "57:68:79:2c:20:74:68:61:6e:6b:20:79:6f:75:21". This translates from hex as "Why, thank you!" Also, his Wikipedia user page tells us a lot about him too. I wonder if he contributed to the code? 71.201.53.130 23:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been dragging and clicking for an hour, and I accidentally found the right edge. I started going left, and when I got to the island, I went into the Earth. I followed tunnels and caves down (at one point, there's a massive underground lake and a tree with a man sitting pensively by it (possibly Dawson?)) there until I found the tunnel that ends up going back to the surface in MarioWorld (complete with flag and castle), and went right from there. After the wind turbines, there's a bridge. On the other side of the bridge is a fencepost joke (If you're having fencepost problems, I feel bad for you son: I've got 99 problems but solved for 101). After that, there's a Burj Dubai reference (I assume the radio tower representing it is drawn to scale - it's very tall). After that, I went up a hill that had random farm callouts scattered on it, and on the other side of the hill is a large water tower. After that, there's grassland until the edge, which has Balloon Randall again saying, "I wonder where I'll float next." -- 67.52.249.244 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I'm going to say this is a perfect example of what Randall wanted by creating a world so huge you can explore for hours, get lost, not care, and find yourself again, and keep wondering what you'll discover next. lcarsos (talk) 18:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

IRC logs or it didn't happen

When I get home I'll post the logs I have (didn't think to have logging turned on until after the discussion started) so that it won't seem like I'm crazy. I remember Randall saying that a full, uncompressed, single rectangular image would be near a terapixel (the figure was something like 800 gigapixels). lcarsos (talk) 16:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

ICC sections

The following files have ICC sections: 

$ grep -l iCCPicc xkcd_grab/*.png
xkcd_grab/11s11e.png
xkcd_grab/11s11w.png
xkcd_grab/16s1e.png
xkcd_grab/17s1e.png
xkcd_grab/19s7e.png
xkcd_grab/1n30e.png
xkcd_grab/1n39e.png
xkcd_grab/2n3w.png
xkcd_grab/3n25e.png
xkcd_grab/4s17w.png
xkcd_grab/6n2w.png
xkcd_grab/8n1w.png

(source of the images for me: 'git clone "https://github.com/danielribeiro/xkcd_grab.git"')

At first I thought the white/black tiles were a hint to some steganography embedded in the images. Then I found those ICC sections and thought it was just a pun to add a color profile to a black image. But not all of the above are just black and having a color profile for white image parts can actually make sense, so maybe someone else has a clue, why those (and only those) tiles have color profiles...

-- Xorg (talk) 19:55, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Do a binary compare on the files.

Jesus

Seems that the description insinuates that the "Jesus" reference (1n21w) is intended to be vocative, not expletive. Can somebody substatiate that conclusion, as opposed to the position that Randall meant s/Jesus/Cripe/... ? (I guess this is just a long-winded way of saying [Citation Needed].) -- IronyChef (talk) 03:43, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


Reference to 'footsteps in the sand'. Not expletive.

dot-code

In 1 North 7 East there are dots and lines. What do they mean?

I think its a reference to Super Mario.--62.180.229.43 08:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a sad, sad day that this had to be explained to someone who reads this comic.-- 99.136.68.159 (talk) 03:11, 21 September 2012 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

No it's not! It's a Ten Thousand day http://xkcd.com/1053/. --Ohbejoyful (talk) 01:24, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Bob Ross


The reference on 1n 33w seems to be related to Bob Ross, he used similar expressions about where items should live on a canvas "You know, this is a nice spot. Let's just live here. "

I would like to note that "Bob Ross" would be an excellent name for a ninja turtle.--98.225.182.131 08:23, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

la raja amo a bjork y estoy demasiado feliz que venga, pero debeira venir con portishead, ella es la raja y seria un honor presenciar tan buena musica, y teniendo a dos exponentes del trip hop juntas..suerte ojala sea seguro y no se suspenda.ahh y smashing pumpkins es de las bandas que me aconpa;o en su creciemiento, en la adolescencia ojala venga, seria espectacular, por favor si hay que se pueda hacer, avinsen para hacer firmas y weas, ojala viniesen.gracias por los maravillosos conciertos que han estado en chile este ultimo anosuerte!!!

48?

How are we certain that the maximum radius of the world is only 48 tiles? If I'm reading everything correctly, didn't Randall say that it was much larger than everybody is measuring? Isn't one explanation for this that there may be more than we've found? Does anybody have a script running that is still exploring?

Answer: This line in the 1110.js source file: "var size=[14,48,25,33];" That controls how far you can scroll. Having hit all the edges you know those are the limits too. There are no actual tiles as far down as 25 or as far up as 14, but it means the page just fills that with white or black as needed. It does mean you can't find the whales by simply going to the top left and going along the top to the right since they will be one tile further down. Same with the tunnel at the bottom. It is a number of tiles above the bottom edge of the image. Lsorense (talk) 18:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. In a world filled with secrets, I still wonder if there's a file on the server in more outer-realm locations.  :)

Would be an interesting little project to (lightly) hit the server with out-of-bounds requests, to see what comes back instead of 404s -- IronyChef (talk) 14:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

More Trivia

  • There is one (dark dark) green pixel in 9s7e.png. The remainder is all grayscale.
  • A number of the images have apparently been updated. Probably with a PNG optimizer, since the displayed data is unchanged.
  • The complete 10 gigapixel image, changed to grayscale, can fit into a 15 Megabyte PNG image. (Though having made it, I can't load it in my normal viewers.)

--Divad27182 (talk) 03:21, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


How do you know the pictures are not uptdated or completed from time to time, adding or moving tiles?

Locked

Will this be unlocked at some point? There are still a number of un-filled-in cells! - jerodast (talk) 11:07, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it was locked as a guard against spam. That was a while ago though, maybe the admins forgot about it. Davidy22[talk] 11:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Special:Log shows that the unlocking will occur automatically on December 7. Also, Special:ListUsers shows that your account was created on 3 December 2012 at 13:01 UTC. After 3 days and 10 edits, it will be automatcally promoted to autoconfirmed, so tomorrow by this time you will be able to edit semiprotected pages like this one. Only full protection prevents everyone except admins from editing the page (e.g. the main page). Hope this helps :) --Waldir (talk) 14:51, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there really any need for the bolded Transcript sections for tiles where there is no dialogue? It seems like it just makes the chart heavier. And for example at 1N, 22W, is there any real distinction between the description used before the "==Transcript==" compared to the stage directions that come after? - jerodast (talk) 14:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Edges connected. I found this: http://baltixy.w.interia.pl/xkcd/1110.htm. Looks like the original, but the left and right sides are connected. Should we add this here? 108.162.254.103 19:50, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

You know what would be awesome? if you could control one of the stick figures, and walk around and (possibly) interact with objects. Someone should really make that. 173.245.56.180 01:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Another click and drag browser: hey,how about this? Just basic html site,should someone add it here? http://geocities.ws/pluman/clickanddrag/ --103.22.200.222 14:54, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

path to completeness?

excuse me, I have no idea what would make it complete? - right now I would say: thumbnails to all listed artifacts (like "man-made structure") - just making screenshots and upload and link? Anything else? Thanks for advise -- 162.158.92.17 07:53, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

second: I guess each listed tile should have a short explanation what's to see there?
    • some tiles have "Transcript" while there is a full story like in a usual comic, e.g. 1 North, 33 West
    • others have "transcript" and just describing static things, e.g. 6 South, 17 West
    • and some more have just plain description, like "Water" e.g. 1 North, 12 West
what looks best in case 3?
third: I found incomplete-description : Some of the jokes in the larger world might benefit from an explanation ;-) thx, 162.158.92.17 08:22, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Something tells of What if #51 free fall. 108.162.218.65 20:11, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

At this point I am not sure what else we can add: The description of the completeness problem talks about jokes in the larger world, but without some clarification on what is meant by that I don't know how to add anything. Furthermore, I think at this point we need to move on to another comic as the incomplete explanation of the day: Click and Drag is just too difficult to add any more information to, and I think if a different comic was chosen you would see a much higher rate of participation in the project. Bbruzzo (talk) 23:37, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Video Game Reference

This immediately brought to mind the game "Unfinished Swan". "The player is a young boy chasing after a swan who has wandered off into a surreal, unfinished kingdom. The game begins in a completely white space where players can throw paint to splatter their surroundings and reveal the world around them." [2] The look of the comic is similar and the game has balloons throughout. 108.162.236.223 13:47, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Submarine? Perhaps not.


I saw the entry for 17 South, 5 East listed as a submarine. However when I first saw it I immediately thought of a project called the "Blur Building".

Reasons I don't think it's a sub:

  • No rudder
  • No propeller
  • Not teardrop shaped
  • dual conning towers (subs typically have one)

Before editing it I thought I would ask for comment here first. So what do you think? Is it a submarine or the blur building? Or neither? --Tsdorsey (talk) 17:19, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Either the Blur Building or a U.F.O. Randall has shown interest to space and planets in many XKCD comics and other places *cough* the What If? book *cough cough* -- JayRulesXKCD (talk) 12:57, 9 September 2016 (EDT)
It's a Winans Cigar Boat! Even for xkcd this reference is truly arcane! I recently managed to find these things myself based a vague, twenty year old memory of seeing a strange illustration as a child. Thank god (or the devil, whatever) for Google.

108.162.245.153 02:49, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Oh... could be. Who knows? -- JayRulesXKCD (talk) 12:58, 9 September 2016 (EDT)

Some notes on missing entries


As I don't have an account here, I'm going to go ahead and assume I can't add this information myself. But as a Nerd Sniping victim I just went through the entire chart to explore all the elements (primarily the elements I missed on my exploring the actual comic), and I noticed some gaps in the chart:

  • 1N3E: There's no mention that Cueball and Megan (I think that's Megan) are attempting to use a small sapling to bridge a gap in this quadrant.
  • 17S5E: I feel I must disagree that this thing is a Winans Cigar Boat. I initially took it as a UFO, with the implication that it's being kept secret quite effectively by keeping it underground, the surrounding thatched roofed structures being left over from some ancient tribe which encountered the UFO. I maintain this belief because it has feet/landing gear. I see what I took for a bottom hatch of a UFO could be the bottom part of a ring which a Google Image Search shows looks to be the exposure for a Cigar Boat's large propeller. The top edge matches the second result of this search quite well, the computer rendered image, but the bottom looks like permanently installed feet, useless on such a seafaring vessel.
  • 8N6E: Misses the meaning of "canon". Canon, with one N, refers to facts established for a universe - usually one with considerable content establishing a detailed world, like Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars, or even Harry Potter - in a way where it counts as part of the "history" of that universe. For example, an official Star Wars novel saying Joe Blow was born November 17th, the book being official makes this fact "canon", meaning all future things (books, movies) should refer to Joe Blow's birthday as November 17th, nothing should say otherwise (or must have an explanation as to the discrepancy). This fact can be counted on in discussions. Conversely, if a fan fiction declares Jill Thrill was born July 20th, this is NOT "canon", as the source isn't an official one which can adjust the universe. The line in this comic appears to be making fun of the similar spellings of "cannon" and "canon", that he is both free from being shot at and from having to stick to known facts of the Star Wars universe.
  • 17S6E: Next to the Winans Cigar Boat/UFO are a bunch of thatched roof huts/structures, which isn't mentioned in the table.
  • 1N8E: My impression was that these turbines were a reference to xkcd 556: Alternative Energy Revolution (one of the few comics which appear on every comic page). The comic listed, 1378: Turbine, came well after 1110, while 556 had already been released in the past. Also, 556 features several turbines, like here (1378 only shows one), being watched, like here (both times the observer is even the same character, Megan).
  • 11S11W and 11E: I find the explanation "This PNG file contains an ICC section which means that the blackness in this image is properly color-coded" to be severely lacking. Firstly, while I have done a lot of image editing, it has all been in JPG and GIF files (okay, some PCX and BMP way back when), I've never used or edited an "ICC section", I don't know what an "ICC section" is or what it does, other than what it says here. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. What does "ICC" even stand for? Secondly, the Wikipedia link is to an article which describes doing color-correction for lighting, for photography and television, things like that, like by using gels. This gives about no clue as to how this is achieved for or applies to a digital image or what effect this should have, especially on black, a decidedly LACK of light and colour. (I know I couldn't see any difference between these tiles and the other black tiles nearby)
  • 9S7E: The Trivia says there is a very dark green pixel in here, but I don't see it anywhere. I even saved that tile locally - the tile containing a couple of people mining - to open it in an image editor to zoom better, nothing. I went to the coordinates specified, I still saw no green, even zoomed in to I think 14:1. Finally, using the dropper tool, I found it at the coordinates specified, it says the RGB colour is 0,2,0. It would be best to mention that, that the difference is too infinitesimal to see with the naked eye, even for someone with perfect vision! LOL!

Just trying to contribute how I can. :) - NiceGuy1 (Previously contributed to the Princess Bride comic) 198.41.235.209 09:06, 21 January 2016 (UTC) I finally signed up! This comment is mine. NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:54, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Having just read 1589: Frankenstein, I wish to note that it uses the word "canon" as I described when discussing 8N6E, above. Also, the Explain page includes discussing what the word means. :) (I'm posting this from the same iPad using the same wifi as the above comment, so I'm rather curious if it'll show the same IP, LOL! I should probably create an account already) - NiceGuy1 198.41.235.215 05:11, 19 February 2016 (UTC) So's this! NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:54, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

There is a crowbar in the right borehole in the pair of boreholes above the ufo cvern

This is is great. I love exploration! I love the interactive nature of this one, and wonder how long it took Randall to make... I assume the terrain is probably procedurally generated, but that's still a lot of references, not to mention the sheer size of the files probably complicating the code. Some of the references were particularly pleasant for me, like the Mario section (including the joke about the walls being worn smooth). It's giving me the same feeling I get when I'm exploring a Terraria map with a map viewer... except this is the intended experience not me being lazy about something so no cheater's remorse.--Twisted Code (talk) 16:08, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

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