...stent in the 1970s, and his telephone has a {{w|rotary dial}}, rather than a {{w|touch tone}}, so he can't "press" 1.
...th 1970s fashion. The caller is somehow using time travel to directly dial a number in the present.
3 KB (402 words) - 02:12, 21 May 2022
...his chart would have to be nested in itself—with each planet replaced by a copy of the chart—at least three levels deep.
*A [http://xkcd.com/1071/large/ larger version] of this image can be found by
6 KB (937 words) - 19:14, 14 November 2023
...always mean "two". As with the question of how many spaces should go after a period, it can turn acrimonious surprisingly fast unless all three of them
...use of the word "couple" to refer to exactly one pair of people who are in a romantic relationship.
3 KB (471 words) - 22:02, 27 October 2023
This comic is mainly a joke on the traditional {{w|pick-up line}} that goes: "Baby, if I could rea
...ographies. Unsurprisingly, {{w|English-language spelling reform}} has been a common topic of discussion over the years.
4 KB (572 words) - 13:18, 1 July 2023
...wiftKey}} on his smartphone and brags about this to [[Megan]]. SwiftKey is a product that is installable on {{w|iOS}}/{{w|Android (operating system)|And
...ous word(s) and what it believes is the most likely words you would use in a sentence containing the previous word(s).
4 KB (719 words) - 08:52, 13 December 2022
...yone's caught by surprise when a theory of quantum gravity is developed by a sound technician wearing patent leather shoes while editing Clerks II.
...al universities was beneficial to the science of physics, as the duties as a patent clerk were not challenging to him, paid enough, and allowed him to w
2 KB (365 words) - 21:17, 4 May 2022
<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring Megan|Comics featuring Meg
'''Megan''' is a [[stick figure]] character in [[xkcd]]. She is the second-most frequently a
5 KB (738 words) - 16:43, 27 January 2024
...m 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 seme
...wash their clothes in the dishwasher along with the dishes. Presumably as a timesaver. The experiment was brief because dishwashers aren't actually any
2 KB (328 words) - 19:10, 14 November 2023
<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy|Comics featuring
'''Beret Guy''' is a [[stick figure]] character in [[xkcd]]. He is distinguished by his white be
5 KB (858 words) - 11:02, 1 September 2023
...side a box that is floating in a beam of heavenly light. Inside the box is a pair of shoes with five toes - and with these magic shoes, he can outrun {{
This comic refers to a new type of {{w|Minimalist shoe|running shoes}} which have very little actu
2 KB (423 words) - 19:55, 10 May 2023
| titletext = FYI: I'll be releasing a wolf into a randomly-chosen front yard sometime in the next 30 years. Now your fear is
...rs?" or "Is that an axe murderer hiding in that hedge?" or "There might be a [[:Category:Velociraptors|velociraptor]] lurking nearby". (However in all o
4 KB (684 words) - 20:01, 26 May 2022
...bidden for you to interfere with human history until you've at least taken a class on it.
...n for "be right back". He soon returns, commenting that he found Hitler in a very noisy bunker in the year 1945.
6 KB (1,009 words) - 12:07, 11 December 2023
...no questions asked, for any candidate who describes themselves as 'more of a deficit sugar glider.'
...to reduce the deficit, pay off national debt, and balance the budget is by a combination of increasing taxes and cutting government spending."
2 KB (404 words) - 20:02, 26 May 2022
...ty theory that if you attempt to simplify a system of problems by creating a new system of evaluation for the problems you often have instead made the p
...stands for ''Earth Standard Time'' (hence the title), but it is in itself a joke on the American {{w|Eastern Time Zone|Eastern Standard Time}}. In the
10 KB (1,570 words) - 09:42, 10 December 2023
...aining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than
...s strategy are all feasible separately, and because he describes them with a barrage of trendy buzzwords, his audience is impressed and fails to notice
3 KB (399 words) - 17:52, 2 June 2022
...being a successful rapper to an ambitious politician. This may be seen as a sort of {{w|gentrification}} of black culture, one of the main themes of th
...r measure, or in this case, rap music. Obviously, the song is updated with a reference to {{w|Adele (singer)|Adele}}, who was, of course, not performing
3 KB (481 words) - 09:14, 11 December 2023
A {{w|Bulletin Board System}}, or BBS, is an online service based on microcom
The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) is a non-profit genomics research institute founded by {{w|J. Craig Venter}}, Ph
3 KB (538 words) - 15:27, 21 March 2024
...sometimes gave away "perks" to the users with the highest Klout scores, as a means of advertising the products of their sponsors. Generally, the informa
...hat a small, active group of followers is considered more influential than a large, passive group of followers.
5 KB (775 words) - 19:53, 26 May 2022
...guous and clunky. None of these terms ever became popular enough to become a consensus term. Similarly for the period from 2010-2019, terms like "the 20
...decade-grouping trend will return in the 2020s. On the one hand, such was a well-established custom, and we once again have clear language for it. On t
5 KB (775 words) - 12:58, 17 July 2023
This comic shows a graph with three parts.
...ing and fossil organisms) from bottom to top of which animals would win in a fight. Secondly, the names within the genus are then sorted by coolness of
5 KB (710 words) - 08:54, 11 December 2023
...you pledge more than $50 you'll get on the VIP list and have first dibs on a slot on ANY of the pledge levels in the actual campaign.
...If the Kickstarter is for a book, a large donation makes you eligible for a signed copy.
2 KB (389 words) - 21:33, 4 May 2022
...work hard and bring money home to your family to put food on the table. If a man is out of work he may be stressed out about how to "bring home the baco
At first it seems that [[White Hat]] is happy that his wife, who works as a pharmacist, does bring home the bacon, and he tells this to [[Cueball]].
3 KB (453 words) - 21:39, 1 September 2023
| titletext = 'There is also a spike on the Fourier transformation at the one month mark where--' 'You wan
...not labeling graph axes is a relationship deal-breaker). He has identified a sudden drop. Cueball's romantic partner (probably [[Megan]]) notes from off
2 KB (290 words) - 23:38, 4 January 2024
In this strip, [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] presents a mathematical argument against the idea of making fun of people for their ig
...and - instead of making fun of her, Cueball affirms that Megan is part of a special and select group - she is one of the "Lucky 10,000" who, that day,
7 KB (1,141 words) - 19:59, 27 February 2024
| titletext = Someday I'll be the first to get a Ph. D in 'Undeclared'.
[[Randall]] has written a song called ''Every Major's Terrible'' and this comic illustrates the song.
33 KB (5,503 words) - 21:01, 27 April 2024
...an internet browser will make the links of the pages that you have visited a different color than the links that you have not visited. In the case of {{
...e. However, on hovering the cursor over the article link, only one word at a time is underlined, showing that the links are separate.
3 KB (545 words) - 15:12, 13 March 2024
| titletext = The only things you HAVE to know are how to make enough of a living to stay alive and how to get your taxes done. All the fun parts of l
...h are also entirely non-essential, perhaps even more so than algebra. See "A Mathematician's Lament" by Paul Lockhart: https://www.maa.org/external_arch
3 KB (489 words) - 03:51, 30 June 2023
...g with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'
...' and instead of a secret passage, the wall swings around and takes you to a message "You have terrible taste".
2 KB (407 words) - 04:51, 9 March 2024
...y of code that doesn't work and people who are wrong, which bodes well for a return to normalcy. [Note: Click to read context for the cancer comics. She
...ined end point; things are going to continue to be scary and difficult for a while.|[[Randall Munroe]]}}
4 KB (665 words) - 21:09, 4 May 2022
| titletext = Two tips: 1) 8675309 is not just prime, it's a twin prime, and 2) if you ever find yourself raising log(anything)^e or tak
...sicists' mnemonic that it is "π × 10<sup>7</sup>", though he later added a statement to the top of the comic page addressing this point.
26 KB (3,705 words) - 11:50, 4 May 2024
...f challenge to break into it, while all the valuables are simply stored in a shoe box ''beside'' the vault.
...uch easier to simply break open the safe with brute force than to pick it. A simple and nerdy way to open the vault with brute force would be to use can
2 KB (333 words) - 23:18, 18 November 2022
...en onscreen, with its actions often performed via robots, cyborgs (usually a Terminator), and other computer systems.
...ng too focused on oneself can be a mark of obsession and anxiety (which is a common theme in XKCD), or of overly philosophical naval-gazing. Hence, in t
3 KB (489 words) - 16:17, 9 February 2024
...non, where writers impose rules or patterns in their works. {{w|Haiku}} is a well known example of this.
...ad that restriction. Twitter is frequently used by well-known comedians as a place to make interesting jokes and observations. It should be noted that t
2 KB (337 words) - 19:58, 26 May 2022
...''South Park''?". The two people are generally chosen carefully to fulfill a particular role, for example:
...e quizzes may be used as a tool to portray a particular person or group in a certain way, or alternatively may be light-hearted jest.
5 KB (744 words) - 01:54, 25 February 2024
...someday DO dream of electric sheep, don't forget to declare sheepCount as a long int.
...oll back over to 000000. Causing or failing to prevent integer overflow is a common mistake by programmers that may have software security consequences.
4 KB (707 words) - 16:14, 29 April 2024
This comic presents a poem about a {{w|god}}'s dilemma of whether to create the world using {{w|Perl}} or {{w|
The implication is that a universe created by Lisp would look better under close examination, the 'fo
3 KB (568 words) - 04:17, 6 November 2023
...the game; however, some parts of some blocks have been erased, likely when a line had been deleted because it was full.
...comic as a straight brown bar). On top of the heavenly feeling of getting a piece that fits, the top score is also about to be smashed, as the player w
3 KB (522 words) - 14:53, 18 October 2023
| titletext = I wonder if I still have time to go shoot a short film with Kevin Bacon.
...way the panels are drawn below makes a transition from this dark image to a normal comic, with the first normal panel being superimposed on the dark im
11 KB (1,929 words) - 20:59, 5 October 2023
...ch must be checked in order to proceed, although ticking the box is merely a formality, and later versions of reCAPTCHA can simply perform the tests qui
...ly things one might see while driving - e.g. "Check all squares containing a stop sign". If the user clicks enough correct squares, they are permitted t
10 KB (1,667 words) - 12:46, 21 July 2023
...e into an executable program. A section of code is said to be dependent on a second segment of code if the second segment is required for the first segm
...dependency, as you must complete this course before you can enroll in it, a phenomenon called {{w|Catch-22 (logic)|Catch-22}}.
4 KB (622 words) - 19:55, 26 May 2022
[[File:white hat.png|thumb|200px|[[White Hat]] is an example of a stick figure character]]
...simplified into single line segments. The majority of [[xkcd]] is drawn in a stick-figure style.
1 KB (196 words) - 08:06, 23 August 2023
[[Cueball]] attempts social interaction at what looks like a party owing to the fact that several people have drinks in their hands. Hi
The title text is a continuation of the internal monologue.
2 KB (356 words) - 19:59, 27 February 2024
...yone is so hungry for BAD news, but fine, I'll give in to feedback and add a dark mode.
This comic is another in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemi
4 KB (673 words) - 03:06, 25 July 2022
...xt = Oh no, a musician just burst in through the door confidently twirling a treble clef.
...h {{w|List of mathematical symbols|mathematical symbols}} would be good in a fight if they were made corporeal in two (or three) dimensions.
14 KB (2,297 words) - 11:02, 10 April 2024
...ed one in question is a woman with whom he is in love, a family member, or a relation of some other kind, but presumably the loved one is his partner.
...ght be read to indicate that they have died and that Cueball is descending a cavern in search of the underworld where they have been taken.
3 KB (459 words) - 11:05, 3 October 2023
<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe|Comics feat
...e time I climb things, open strange doors, and go to goth clubs dressed as a frat guy so I can stand around and look terribly uncomfortable. At frat par
14 KB (1,963 words) - 10:37, 29 August 2023
<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring Cueball|Comics featuring C
...y represent the same character from comic to comic. Instead, he represents a generic {{w|everyman}}. In several comics, there are [[:Category:Multiple C
2 KB (332 words) - 08:57, 24 August 2023
...of buoyancy for ice in cold sea-water), the iceberg as metaphor represents a system where the large majority is unseen, invisible, or hidden in some way
...citatory neurons firing with no inhibition for a prolonged period would be a {{w|seizure}} (most likely fatal), but there's no reason to exclude inhibit
4 KB (650 words) - 22:37, 15 April 2024
...hit the right balance with the 128 bits thing. We can fit MAC addresses in a /64 subnet, and the nanobots will only be able to devour half the planet.
...]] are in orbit while nanobots are devouring the Earth in a swarm. This is a take on the "{{w|Grey goo}}" scenario in which self-replicating nanobots de
3 KB (427 words) - 18:35, 4 September 2023
| titletext = Wait, that second one is a woman? ...wait, if that bothers me, then why doesn't... man, this game is n
FPS stands for {{w|First-person shooter|First Person Shooter}}, which is a type of video game (like ''{{w|Halo (series)|Halo}}'' or ''{{w|Doom}}'') in
6 KB (1,022 words) - 20:43, 28 December 2022
...ule on the wall is a direct contradiction to the initial ideas and follows a very simple plan for the day, making willpower only seem necessary for gett
...product, since it is often significantly more expensive than, say, buying a book on time management at the bookstore.
3 KB (431 words) - 22:38, 4 May 2022
...related to birds (and even to mammals) than to amphibians. She states, in a patronizing way, that the study of reptiles should more properly be combine
Herpetologists would rightly see this view as a threat to their territory, their budgets and even their existence.
4 KB (654 words) - 17:43, 3 November 2022
...omplex. The most important issue to the understanding of the comic is that a matrix can be transformed through various processes. These transformations
...ector and corresponding eigenvalue to match the shoe to its owner. This is a somewhat logical mathematical connection to make as eigenvectors, unchanged
6 KB (989 words) - 20:02, 26 May 2022
This comic juxtaposes a familiar exchange with a surreal outcome.
[[Megan]] is returning after a short absence. [[Cueball]] reacts as if she had been gone for years, and ad
2 KB (390 words) - 11:05, 25 August 2023
...s for the comic. It also has a lot of other percentages and dates, so take a look if you are interested.
...y some (other) constant with the value of the function. Compare how "slow" a value grows by adding even high values (1, 1001, 2001, 3001, 4001, 5001…)
8 KB (1,254 words) - 21:55, 30 April 2024
...splay them by number of votes. Everyone knows that makes it impossible for a few persistent voices to dominate the discussion.'
...seem as though the opinion was coming from the general population and not a politician or company, as an advertisement would imply. And $20/hour was (a
4 KB (715 words) - 16:15, 21 December 2022
This joke is a play on the phrase {{w|context-free grammar}}, which is a technical term used in {{w|formal languages|formal language}} theory.
...ammar!" without any context, and runs off. Because the gag is delivered in a particularly obtuse manner, the title text clears things up by having the c
2 KB (285 words) - 20:00, 26 May 2022
...a portmanteau, from the words motor and hotel. A {{w|neologism}} is simply a newly coined word that is not yet in common use.
...this new word is one of the very words used in the process. This is called a [[917|meta]] or "self-referential" joke.
7 KB (1,125 words) - 23:17, 13 February 2024
...sting resources {{w|reinventing the wheel}}, whilst offering their clients a certain amount of simplicity and compatibility between vendors.
...ensome. As a result, someone eventually takes on the challenge of creating a universal standard that everyone can rally around.
6 KB (849 words) - 15:47, 10 October 2023
This is a list of comics from 1001 to 1500.
{{comicsrow|1352|2014-04-07|Cosmologist on a Tire Swing}}
21 KB (2,502 words) - 20:32, 27 February 2024
This is the third of three "five-minute comics" Randall posted during a week in November 2010. The introduction to the comic explains everything yo
...ine and saved it. Since then it has been added to explain xkcd. So here is a complete list of all four comics in the entire [[:Category:Five-minute comi
16 KB (2,762 words) - 18:42, 26 February 2024
This is the second of three "five-minute comics" Randall posted during a week in November 2010. The introduction to the comic explains everything yo
...ine and saved it. Since then it has been added to explain xkcd. So here is a complete list of all four comics in the entire [[:Category:Five-minute comi
9 KB (1,555 words) - 21:43, 26 February 2024
...}}." The song begins with the following lyrics, of which the title text is a parody:
:Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack
2 KB (328 words) - 07:14, 28 March 2023
...sult rather refers to the insulter}}. On a deeper level, it may imply that a person insulting others is an indication of their own insecurity and weakne
...nd [[Cueball]]). Black Hat takes the traditional saying and twists it into a creepy thought by saying that they are both literally glue and rubber and t
4 KB (639 words) - 16:59, 8 November 2023
| titletext = They're a little cagey about exactly where the crossover point lies relative to the l
...companion ({{w|type Ia supernova|type Ia}}). The collapsing mass leads to a violent explosion, one of the most interesting events for astronomers to ob
6 KB (1,042 words) - 15:02, 13 January 2024
...y a bar graph or a scatter graph (sometimes with a line connection to show a trend, even though there is no actual value for non-integers).
...oe|Randall]] was still experimenting with character design, as Cueball has a face in the first two frames.
3 KB (431 words) - 07:55, 31 August 2023
...According to the caption at the top, [[James Zetlen]] presumably once made a joke to [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] similar to the one in the comic.
:Cueball: Here, take a bite of this Snapple.
2 KB (385 words) - 07:52, 31 August 2023
...is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a solar energy tip.
...south-facing orientation and pushing it to its logical extreme by assuming a panel on the sun.
7 KB (1,087 words) - 03:03, 27 March 2024
...d attempted to spread around an {{w|urban legend}} that George Clinton had a {{w|Bachelor of Arts}} degree in mathematics, but he found himself believin
...ematics" from the 1996 album {{w|T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M.}}. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership):
4 KB (623 words) - 07:52, 31 August 2023
...er than in the purely mathematical sense. It is also very monotonous, like a planet's set orbit, but Kepler doesn't mind this.
The comic could also be seen as a subtle reference to the Kepler space telescope that was searching for exopl
3 KB (477 words) - 07:52, 31 August 2023
| titletext = My first try at drawing a real face in years.
In the title text, Randall notes that he has not tried to draw a real face in years, as he mainly draws [[stick figure]]s. In that way this
1 KB (218 words) - 19:52, 11 September 2023
...d algorithm}} is an algorithm that calculates the shortest path(s) through a weighted digraph or collection of connected nodes or vertices. The "Wexler"
*The number of this comic is 69. This number is a term for mutual simultaneous oral sex, sex being the subject of the comic.
1 KB (180 words) - 17:41, 31 December 2023
...(penta means five in Greek) "{{w|Iamb (foot)|iambs}}" per line. An iamb is a unit of two syllables with the stress falling on the second. The actual bre
with a sort of bouncing rhythm.
3 KB (452 words) - 10:13, 20 August 2023
...ng system must be inserted, with no digit being allowed to appear twice in a horizontal or vertical row or in each individual 3×3 grid. The number
.... The joke is that the binary system has only two digits (0 and 1), and as a result binary sudoku puzzles would be trivially easy and thus pointless. Th
2 KB (341 words) - 10:16, 7 August 2023
| titletext = And then do it again in a moment now that they're out of Star Power.
...the neck representing guitar frets and a rocker bar on the body simulating a strumming motion. The game now includes other instruments such as drums and
4 KB (737 words) - 09:30, 21 March 2023
...he has to travel this rectangle, he worries about the extra time taken as a result of following the path. There are downfalls to this plan, however. Th
...longest path (e.g. Path 3 takes 74% as long as Path 1). Each path also has a corresponding equation for in the upper-right corner representing the time
3 KB (535 words) - 03:32, 26 June 2023
| titletext = You're probably thinking, 'has it been a decade?' It's been over thirteen years, buddy.
...el Crichton}}. The film depicts a billionaire who buys an island and opens a zoo/theme park for dinosaurs cloned from DNA recovered from blood found in
3 KB (480 words) - 03:42, 26 June 2023
| titletext = The only downside is that it would be a little uncomfortable.
...of cyclist Lance Armstrong's {{w|Livestrong}} charity, which later became a popular fad for all sorts of charitable and non-charitable causes.
3 KB (466 words) - 18:46, 23 May 2022
...of the time. In the game, you're a downhill skier who attempts to ski down a hill while avoiding obstacles which cause you to crash (which slows you dow
If you ski too far down the hill a monster similar to one in the comic will begin to chase you; contact with t
3 KB (516 words) - 06:59, 9 May 2023
...never been totally satisfied by the explanations for why e to the ix gives a sinusoidal wave.
...meter. Taking these two values and applying them to the value of i in such a manner makes it seem counter-intuitive that it would yield −1 from ba
2 KB (280 words) - 07:09, 12 April 2024
| titletext = I'm sure
a discussion of the reason for the disappearance of adventure games in favor
...sed (like chess): the computer displayed some textual context, you entered
a command (GO <direction>, TAKE <object>, KILL <person>, LOOK AT <object>, et
3 KB (479 words) - 17:12, 29 January 2024
| title = A Simple Plan
...stress of newfound independence. Many, if not all, adolescents go through a phase where the ongoing realization of becoming fully responsible for their
2 KB (251 words) - 19:49, 26 May 2022
...would generally use the former "miss." However, its use on the package for a laser scope implies the latter "miss."
...venge, which is actually a tragically sad story, not the normal fodder for a light-hearted joke.
2 KB (343 words) - 21:39, 30 November 2023
...cur is that his dad gains self-confidence in the past and becomes "less of a loser" in the present.
...Emmett L. Brown ({{w|Christopher Lloyd}}), out of a {{w|DeLorean DMC-12}} (a 1980s-era sports car).
4 KB (600 words) - 22:19, 19 January 2024
{{w|Moral relativism}} is a position in the philosophical field of {{w|ethics}} that holds that moral j
...sta Rap also frequently feature cars speeding on the highway. The graph is a parody on that of the {{w|Lorentz factor}}, which is the factor by which ti
2 KB (344 words) - 21:10, 4 May 2022
...has (by some ritual, judging by the {{w|pentagram}}) summoned himself from a {{w|Multiverse|parallel universe}}. [[Hairy]] suggests that Cueball should
...rge pentagram with candles at the points. A figure is hovering above it in a wave of energy.]
2 KB (248 words) - 16:38, 10 March 2023
...ou can calculate the total angular area of the sky this way. If the sky is a sphere with radius 57.3 degrees, then its area is 4*pi*r^2=41,253 square de
This comic presents a series of Math Facts, appearing to be in a sequential order.
4 KB (742 words) - 15:13, 23 May 2023
...d are now exploring the other sides. They may continue in this way to form a well balanced conclusion on the proposal or continually switch sides withou
...argued, they periodically switched sides in the debate to try to encourage a more balanced conclusion.
2 KB (366 words) - 02:54, 21 May 2022
The title text indicates that [[Randall]] once saw a girl go by and regrets that he did not speak with her as Boy does in this c
:Hairy: A girl whose only mode of transportation is the M.C. Hammer Slide.
2 KB (266 words) - 15:48, 14 May 2023
| titletext = Frankly, my dear, I don't give a BITCH ASS SHIT FUCK DAMN
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" is the signature catchphrase from the 1939 movie ''{{w|Gone With The
2 KB (258 words) - 08:00, 13 July 2023
...usually used to illustrate the overlap between various sets. For example, a Venn diagram of "even numbers" and "numbers divisible by 5" would have 2, 4
Here we have a three-set diagram that Randall has purportedly created to explain his feeli
3 KB (422 words) - 05:29, 1 June 2023
...he pong paddle went on a mission to destroy Atari headquarters and, due to a mixup, found himself inside the game The Matrix Reloaded. Boy, was THAT eve
...missions against those machines that wanted to keep the humans trapped in a simulated environment.
3 KB (602 words) - 19:14, 5 January 2024
...= I woke up to find that I had scrawled the last line of this sleepily on a sheet of paper on my desk. I shouldn't have listened to the 70's hit marath
...an artist {{w|Paul Simon}}. Both the original and alternate lyrics provide a textual hook because the name at the end of the line is rhymed with the wor
1 KB (236 words) - 02:54, 21 May 2022
...a computer programmer shuts down the security systems to steal embryos for a rival company, several of the creatures, among which are the {{w|Velocirapt
...pecies of dinosaur. Unlike the movie, in which they are depicted as having a reptilian skin, both species of dinosaur in reality are theorized to have b
5 KB (814 words) - 17:39, 26 February 2024
| titletext = Every computer, at the unreachable memory address 0x-1, stores a secret. I found it, and it is that all humans ar—SEGMENTATION FAULT.
...Cueball is then annoyed at [[Black Hat]] for not answering his question in a useful manner.
4 KB (646 words) - 02:03, 9 February 2024
...e, and put the plate in the oven until the cheese is melted. As usual with a full bag of snacks, you always end up with that tiny bit left at the bottom
...ntal results. In this case, it is neither a virtuous or vicious cycle, but a ''delicious cycle'' - the pun of this joke.
2 KB (294 words) - 19:57, 26 May 2022
...d radiate light from their respective tummy symbols. These combine to form a ray of love and good cheer that could bring care and joy into the target's
...l]] is trying to convince Black Hat to create an account at {{w|Myspace}}, a networking site, but Black Hat isn't interested. When Black Hat gets annoye
2 KB (343 words) - 21:12, 30 July 2022
...ls like (or accidentally) deletes a vital file, they are free to do so. As a result, common advice is to not use sudo unless the command in question abs
...is fairly common for people who use or administer UNIX systems to attempt a straight up <code>% make install</code> and have it fail. They then need to
5 KB (766 words) - 06:56, 12 April 2024
| titletext = I went to a dinner where there was a full 10 minutes of Holy Grail quotes exchanged, with no context, in lieu of
...xpect the punchlines and jokes. This is akin to a common ironic concept of a teenager who wants to rebel against conformity by doing all the things thei
5 KB (749 words) - 07:51, 31 August 2023
<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring White Hat|Comics featuring
...d by his eponymous white hat which appears to be in the shape and style of a {{w|boater}}. His appearance is identical to that of [[Black Hat]] other th
3 KB (383 words) - 22:06, 6 April 2024
[[File:Terrible small logo.png|200px|right]]{{TOC}}{{Quote|A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.|[https://xkcd.com xkcd.co
...mics are posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and are accompanied by a [[Title text|title text]], serving as Randall's commentary.
12 KB (1,921 words) - 16:40, 22 March 2024
...he universe] to produce things like the gravitational constant and pi have a labor union. Judging by the fact that they're calling for help, it seems th
...ce. However, the probability of finding any given string of numbers within a calculable range of digits of pi [http://www.angio.net/pi/whynotpi.html dim
7 KB (1,155 words) - 03:18, 23 March 2024
| titletext = Yes, Eminem is wearing a sleeveless hoodie. What of it?
...first four lines of the work, in which the {{w|poetic persona}} perceives a strange knocking on his door in the middle of the night. Unlike the origina
4 KB (617 words) - 14:01, 5 September 2023
...he number scattered about: a red-colored ''7'', a green-colored ''5'', and a blue-colored ''2''.
...s that cannot be divided by any number other than itself and 1. Factors of a number are numbers that can be multiplied together to produce that number (
3 KB (505 words) - 22:27, 8 February 2024
| titletext = Of course, since their cautionary tale was reported in a print newspaper, no one read it.
...the hardcover edition. Unfortunately for the book-burners, the burning of a Kindle proves fatal because of the toxic fumes from the burning of its plas
3 KB (414 words) - 23:23, 4 May 2022
| titletext = It's not going to break the fan, bouncing a rubber ball off the wall isn't going to dent it, and the roof can hold me j
...s its head, locking the mechanism that rotates it. As it attempts to turn, a release stub on the motor clicks to alleviate pressure and prevent damage t
1 KB (249 words) - 21:10, 4 May 2022
| titletext = We live in a world where there are actual fleets of robot assassins patrolling the skies
...rah Connor}}. As could be expected from a movie, the antagonistic robot is a human-like android.
4 KB (635 words) - 21:45, 4 May 2022
...ginal caption</span>]: I saw the "problem" t-shirt (upper right) on campus a few days ago and suddenly felt so sad.
...ple" (suggesting that the wearer thinks everyone else is dumb, while being a parody of the phrase "I see dead people" from the movie ''{{w|The Sixth Sen
4 KB (578 words) - 01:05, 1 March 2024
#REDIRECT [[97: A Simple Plan]]
31 bytes (4 words) - 14:16, 9 August 2012
...nd-up-in-floating-barrels/ more realistic description] of the behaviour of a barrel in the water.
...during the first several dozen strips. The series features [[Barrel Boy]], a character that is different from what would quickly become the xkcd [[stick
4 KB (609 words) - 23:07, 10 March 2024
| titletext = I've looked into this, and I can't figure out a way to do it cheaply. And I guess it wouldn't be sanitary.
...hat her adulthood means. Free from constraints, she goes ahead and creates a {{w|ball pit}} in her apartment of colored plastic balls. [[Cueball]] admir
3 KB (574 words) - 09:42, 1 September 2023
<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring James Zetlen|Comics featur
...the computer writer I made for him], and [http://blog.xkcd.com/2015/09/22/a-thing-explainer-word-checker/ here is something he wrote to tell his reader
3 KB (424 words) - 11:10, 25 August 2023
| title = Snakes on a Plane! 2
...isingly) snakes, on a plane, attacking the passengers. This comic proposes a sequel, taking the idea to the next level, making things infinitely worse:
1 KB (241 words) - 10:37, 25 August 2023
#REDIRECT [[107: Snakes on a Plane! 2]]
39 bytes (5 words) - 15:29, 17 August 2012
...rter {{w|%46uck#Modern_usage|four letter word}} usually combined with such a gesture.
...forming a double slash and thereby ignoring both him and his question for a favor, by commenting him out programming style, even to the point where Bla
3 KB (538 words) - 22:03, 7 December 2023
...e a choice," a seemingly very sentimental, romantic answer. However, after a {{w|Beat_(filmmaking)|beat panel}}, she effectively kills the romance of th
...:Category:Opening dialogue by Scott|Opening dialogue by Scott]]'', forming a sort of informal mini-series inspired by him. They are:
2 KB (250 words) - 15:52, 22 February 2024
...t she's cool. I mean, she has a dinosaur!<br>I'm gonna update this MWF for a while and see how that works.
In this comic, a man is riding a {{w|Brontosaurus}} (or what would [[:Category:Apatosaurus|later be referred
3 KB (396 words) - 07:51, 31 August 2023
| titletext = And she's gonna feel like a jerk when she realizes it was actually Under Pressure.
...Christian, professes his love for Roxane by arranging to use the words of a fellow soldier, Cyrano, who secretly also loves Roxane.
4 KB (612 words) - 01:12, 16 December 2023
...in a similar situation. Or, as in this case, one might get used to pushing a giant ball around trying to collect smaller objects, and try doing so with
In the game {{w|Katamari Damacy}}, the player has to grow a large ball of clutter by rolling the ball over smaller objects in the playf
3 KB (532 words) - 13:03, 4 March 2023
...oving object, including the Earth, possesses {{w|momentum}}. The Earth has a very high momentum due to its large mass and high speed as it orbits the Su
...e comic, giving a final value of 10<sup>-35</sup>s per turn, or 1/10000 of a quectosecond. This comic is referenced at the end of the ''[[what if? (blog
4 KB (622 words) - 14:18, 1 January 2024
{{w|Donald Knuth}} is a computer science Professor Emeritus at {{w|Stanford University}} who is fam
...in his choice of where to start his arrays. This is a valid complaint, as a lack of such consistency can make coding errors both more likely and more d
4 KB (609 words) - 07:05, 12 April 2024
...are a lot of members of the film industry. The event is a movie premiere, a common place for reporters to interview celebrities, actors, and other peop
...reby a long red carpet is laid out leading to the entrance of a theater as a symbol of elegance. {{w|Movie stars}} are said to "walk the red carpet" whe
5 KB (841 words) - 18:47, 28 February 2024
This is a list of comics from 501 to 1000.
{{comicsrow|551|2009-03-04|Etch-a-Sketch}}
22 KB (2,550 words) - 20:33, 27 February 2024
This is a list of comics from 1 to 500.
{{comicsrow|486|2008-10-08|I am Not a Ninja}}
24 KB (3,013 words) - 20:33, 27 February 2024
...rself so you can pull it up on your friend's laptop, Tim Berners-Lee sheds a single tear.
...il servers means that they must impose size limits, and an email with such a large attachment will therefore not be delivered.
6 KB (1,085 words) - 23:14, 26 October 2022
...ce then, with no clear answer to the mystery. However, this comic proposes a much simpler explanation: there was no disappearance, it just took her 74 y
...not comprehending such a simple answer, but in fact her explanation raises a multitude of other questions. Among them:
6 KB (1,035 words) - 18:04, 27 February 2024
...has a section on motherboard beep codes that lists, for each beep pattern, a song that syncs up well with it.
...e lights telling you if you have a battery problem or an engine problem or a cooling problem, etc.) Most people have seen at least one error code in the
3 KB (571 words) - 13:13, 7 February 2024
...ent when most people can't remember it, the gap becomes 35 years (implying a median of some 40 years).
'''2017: The first Apple Macintosh''' The {{w|Macintosh}} was a line of computers created by {{w|Apple Inc.|Apple}}, first introduced in 19
12 KB (1,926 words) - 21:59, 12 November 2023
| title = Exploits of a Mom
| titletext = Her daughter is named Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory.
9 KB (1,465 words) - 03:21, 23 March 2024
#REDIRECT[[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
35 bytes (5 words) - 07:04, 10 August 2012
#REDIRECT[[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
35 bytes (5 words) - 07:04, 10 August 2012
#REDIRECT[[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
35 bytes (5 words) - 07:05, 10 August 2012
...wo Electric Skateboards]], [[409: Electric Skateboard (Double Comic)]] and a panel in [[442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel]].
...ve days (Monday to Friday) and not over the usual schedule of three comics a week. These are all the comics in [[:Category:The Race|The Race series]]:
2 KB (325 words) - 06:02, 11 March 2024
The {{w|Amazon Kindle}} is a device that allows people to read books via ebook format. The comic was pub
...oks are for chumps", but goes on to explain the real reason for purchasing a Kindle. Since it has free cellular web access, he could navigate through an
3 KB (571 words) - 17:08, 12 September 2023
...s, hateful, mean-spirited, nonsensical comments of any mainstream website (a reputation touched upon earlier in [[202: YouTube]]).
...ze the stupidity of it and not submit the comment. YouTube later made this a real feature, although it has since been removed again.<ref>Randall (2008-1
2 KB (304 words) - 15:38, 20 April 2024
...jokingly to suggest that something just said (or is about to be said) was a spoiler so long ago that "everyone" should have heard of it by now (e.g. "S
{{w|Severus Snape}} is a character from J.K. Rowling's ''{{w|Harry Potter}}'' series of books.
4 KB (649 words) - 08:33, 21 October 2022
...ext = Plus the reaction in the Tumblverse is always 'repeatedly get hit by a dog and fall down the stairs'.
*{{w|Blog}}: a website with opinions and comments
3 KB (506 words) - 10:26, 7 December 2023
[[Cueball]] is mulling over a previous relationship. Usually when someone says something like "I will nev
...erious relationship and marriage, that he'll never forget. The pond may be a reference to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode {{w|Skin of Evil}}.
2 KB (244 words) - 08:25, 23 December 2022
<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring Rob|Comics featuring Rob]]
...Hat]]'s roommate. He is one of the few of Randall's characters to be given a name. In [[276: Fixed Width]], his screen name appears as "rob", and in [[7
2 KB (355 words) - 08:47, 24 August 2023
This comic is a reference to the {{w|Curiosity rover|NASA Mars Rover "Curiosity"}} landing
...). Given that the filename is loaded with keywords that are irrelevant for a still image file, it is unlikely that this torrent will contain the expecte
2 KB (315 words) - 05:25, 10 January 2024
.... The positive correlation is certainly not an argument '''against''' such a conclusion. But it is only one type of evidence and is certainly not proof.
...usality, but it could equally be due to other factors, or it could even be a random result.
5 KB (834 words) - 09:56, 1 September 2023
| titletext = Wow, that's less than $200 per... uh... that's a good deal!
...al rock band Spın̈al Tap. Here we see lead guitarist {{w|Nigel Tufnel}} (a character portrayed in the movie by {{w|Christopher Guest}}) explaining to
3 KB (522 words) - 18:16, 1 December 2023
...the comic itself, [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] unexpectedly says, "I haven't a goddamn clue", which still conveys the same meaning but ruins the joke inst
...film '''The Boat''' in which the titulular boat is named the ''Damfino'', a word play on "Damned if I know." Keaton answers his wife's question "Where
2 KB (285 words) - 01:43, 12 February 2024
...to be known as the Holocaust. Black Hat's comment that Hitler wanted to be a painter, but did not get into art school, is historically accurate. He appl
...ner. Aram wore a dark grey suit with a red bowtie and a black top hat with a white strip above the brim. Black Hat's hat clearly evolved from the top ha
4 KB (672 words) - 07:53, 31 August 2023
| titletext = General solutions get you a 50% tip.
...kpack or rucksack) that can hold a specific amount of weight, and you have a set of items, each with its own assigned value and weight, you have to sele
5 KB (807 words) - 09:48, 19 March 2024
...h others to free the human race from the robots. The title of the strip is a reference to the documentary on the filming of ''The Matrix'': ''{{w|The Ma
...n the third scene; {{w|Trinity (The Matrix)|Trinity}}, as [[Hairbun]]; and a security guard in the third scene, as another Cueball-like guy.
9 KB (1,620 words) - 18:43, 20 April 2024
...a man dressed like a bat in his next movie. (The man will be dressed like a bat, I mean. Christopher Nolan won't be, probably.)
...a bat." Thus, when Batman's connection to bats is made explicit, he loses a lot of his mystique.
3 KB (498 words) - 19:54, 26 May 2022
#REDIRECT [[107: Snakes on a Plane! 2]]
39 bytes (5 words) - 18:02, 7 August 2012
#REDIRECT [[97: A Simple Plan]]
31 bytes (4 words) - 18:03, 7 August 2012
<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring Donald Knuth|Comics featur
...ight: 1ex;">e</span>X</span>}} computerized typesetting system. He is also a known fan of xkcd and asked two questions at the [https://www.youtube.com/w
1 KB (153 words) - 10:38, 29 August 2023
...d.com/ September 12th, 2016]. For almost a decade and a half, it served as a humorous advisory message to users about the contents of the comics. It sta
...al warning message. The removal of the warning and the footnote was likely a result of the comic's sudden surge in popularity, to ensure that new fans w
2 KB (249 words) - 10:19, 24 July 2023
* [[786: Exoplanets]], a comic posted on August 30, 2010
* [[1071: Exoplanets]], a comic posted on June 20, 2012
437 bytes (44 words) - 08:48, 3 July 2023
...the elevator wherever it may be; or (3) the panel with the buttons is from a template used for various elevators with up to five floors, and as this par
...orks; the elevator opens aboard a Zeppelin floating in the air, high above a land with many glacial lakes, perhaps {{w|Minnesota}}, {{w|Nunavut}}, or e
3 KB (460 words) - 20:09, 22 April 2023
...3A35%20pm-,Island,-I%20draw%20these Original caption</span>]: I draw these a lot.
...}} program, traditionally the first program a developer runs when learning a new programming language.
2 KB (227 words) - 02:16, 29 January 2024
| titletext = "Petit" being a reference to Le Petit Prince, which I only thought about halfway through th
...|Randall]]. ''{{w|The Little Prince}}'' (in French ''Le Petit Prince'') is a novella written by {{w|Antoine de Saint-Exupéry}} in 1943, about the titul
2 KB (361 words) - 04:37, 22 February 2024
...ape,-Don%27t%20ask%20me Original caption</span>]: Don't ask me why there's a river running through the ocean. Please.
...s of a typical scene and combines then in ways that appear to work well on a small scale, but would never combine that way in real life and do not make
3 KB (415 words) - 23:55, 18 September 2023
| titletext = It's commonly known that too much perspective can be a downer.<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/200709
...f-referential, the sentence is now funny! The other guy Cueball, producing a fake laugh, is probably not so sure that it is actually funny.
3 KB (426 words) - 06:37, 12 April 2024
...caption</span>]: I drew this in 11th-grade Spanish class. We were watching a movie and she was asleep on the floor in front of me.
...ent a particular point, it's just a sketch of a girl sleeping drawn during a Spanish class. According to the title text, she is also on the floor. The d
2 KB (271 words) - 17:13, 22 March 2024
...y, philosophical, or scientifically interesting; it just tells a story, in a {{w|Questionable Content}}-esque way. Interestingly, the red spiders actual
*[[47: Counter-Red Spiders]], in which the humans begin a counter-offensive.
3 KB (388 words) - 07:49, 31 August 2023
...e won gold in all of the eight events in which he competed, the record for a single games.
...n associated with an increased appetite. Otherwise, the text may simply be a reference to Phelps being capable of achieving super-human feats, such as d
3 KB (490 words) - 18:18, 20 March 2024
...on is that these planets are habitable enough for humans, even if just for a visit.
...n early project to produce a spacecraft that would ride the shockwave from a series of nuclear bombs it dropped in order to travel very, very fast. Howe
7 KB (1,143 words) - 01:31, 2 May 2024
...appears to be made with {{w|scrapple}}, which, according to Wikipedia, is a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and wheat flour, o
:[A collection of fictional meat-based cereals in bright colors with nice pictu
2 KB (299 words) - 07:53, 31 August 2023
...t before they strolled over to it anyway. Of course, since they are not in a survival situation in this comic, cannibalism would be completely unnecessa
...side the door, there is a maître d' with a cap behind a lectern. There is a sign on the lectern which says "Eat in".]
3 KB (423 words) - 07:53, 31 August 2023
...se exponentially as more variables are added. It may also be the case that a third factor is causally linked to both outcomes. In this case, it is plaus
...lf of the image. The appearance of the symbol for {{w|Internet Explorer}}, a rival web browser, and the cross, representing Christianity, imply that thi
3 KB (417 words) - 00:02, 25 March 2024
...ox but debuted on {{w|Sci Fi Channel}} in the UK. The show was followed by a devoted number of fans who were outraged by the cancellation of the show. H
*{{w|Simon Tam}} - a doctor trying to rescue his sister.
4 KB (609 words) - 07:49, 31 August 2023
A {{w|prime number}} is any natural number with exactly two natural factors (
...ween the Riemann zeta function and prime numbers, which makes the function a viable target for those attempting to understand primes.
3 KB (411 words) - 23:38, 4 May 2022
{{w|Digital rights management}} (DRM) is a class of methods for controlling digital files, such as by preventing media
...s in fact controlling the wall of ice to make it move quickly enough to be a threat to these organizations, in which case forcing them to eliminate DRM
2 KB (386 words) - 05:31, 14 April 2024
A [http://xkcd.com/1000/large/ larger version] of this image can be found by
...s of 10. Where 1000 is a round number in base 10 (10<sup>3</sup>), 1024 is a round number in base 2 (2<sup>10</sup>). Binary is also referenced in the "
5 KB (658 words) - 16:19, 21 November 2023
...etext = Replace the pendulums with history students and you'll qualify for a grant!
An "interdisciplinary program" is a program at a school or university that involves students from multiple disciplines, or f
3 KB (393 words) - 14:04, 19 December 2022
...andard notation. The oval normally represents either the start or stop of a process. Here, both the ''yes'' and ''no'' end up in ''stop'', which would
...more, freestyle rapping allows the rapper to say something next that bears a relationship to what was just said, but not to what was said before that.
3 KB (434 words) - 21:25, 25 May 2023
| titletext = 'Taft in a wet t-shirt contest' is the key image here.
...d in [[609: Tab Explosion]].) The large diversity in end links may also be a reference to {{w|Wikipedia:Wiki Game|the Wikipedia game}}.
7 KB (1,040 words) - 12:57, 1 April 2024
Here is a tour of various entry points to the site:
...comics]] - the main series of numbered comics that usually come out thrice a week
6 KB (823 words) - 10:17, 22 May 2023
...idge collapse explained with abstract phase-space maps, some x-ray slides, a music score, Minard's Napoleonic war: the most exciting new frontier is cha
...ath the surface lies the most unexplored area on the planet. This comic is a commentary on the need to head below the waves and start exploring.
3 KB (536 words) - 20:27, 1 February 2024
...l the enemy was close enough to guarantee a hit. This was a tactic used by a number of armies, such as Napoleon's French at Aspern and Wellington's Brit
...mself shot due to distracting himself. Also, each of his remarks reference a different sense out of the five senses, missing only hearing (which arguabl
2 KB (279 words) - 18:30, 7 February 2024
...in 2000 after an explosion. The {{w|RMS Lusitania|RMS ''Lusitania''}} was a {{w|United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|British}} ocean liner which
...ogy)|Earth's crust}} as possible. It was abandoned in 2005, after reaching a record of 12,262 metres deep.
11 KB (1,760 words) - 14:07, 11 March 2024
...oo long to say; indeed, using the shorter form "RuBisCO" would normally be a fine safe word.
...ot safe enough and recommends the key signature. However, whereas it takes a long time to say RuBisCO in full during your submission, it would be imposs
3 KB (416 words) - 19:53, 26 May 2022
...t how it's considered implausible to "fly" by positioning an umbrella over a water jet.
...ella against a force of 1g is very different to hanging by your hands from a horizontal bar, since you would actually experience two gravities of force,
3 KB (501 words) - 07:53, 27 March 2023
...live or where they came from determines which comic they actually see. As a result, there are actually multiple comics that went up on April Fools' Day
...he comic, refers to the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok)
33 KB (5,256 words) - 16:48, 3 May 2024
The {{w|Nolan Chart}} is a visual representation of the political spectrum that measures not only libe
...spot because they love the Nolan Charts (which are found online) and have a lot of political opinions.
2 KB (346 words) - 06:22, 29 September 2023
...ng, being told that they'll "keep you in mind", but don't offer you a job. A job interviewer, [[Hairy]], tells [[Black Hat]] exactly that.
...money to bribe the interviewer into hiring Black Hat. Instead, it contains a portal or gateway into an impossibly deep chasm.
3 KB (527 words) - 18:18, 20 March 2024
...llowing the chocolates fast enough. At that point, you'd need some kind of a liquify-and-chug apparatus to get up over the 11:59:59 barrier. Anyway, Mer
...as the story of the Nativity of Jesus), or a small gift, such as a toy or a chocolate item.
6 KB (915 words) - 12:47, 28 February 2024
.... The realization that 'mommy' cannot be found is the first point at which a person learns to stop trusting the world and realizes that the world is not
...during the first several dozen strips. The series features [[Barrel Boy]], a character that is different from what would quickly become the xkcd [[stick
3 KB (432 words) - 07:50, 31 August 2023
...arth according to current knowledge, and [[Randall]] has taught them about a high-five.
...e can also see that they are taking around <sup>1</sup>/<sub>50</sub>th of a year (approximately an Earth-week) to cue up their considered response, yet
4 KB (668 words) - 08:09, 10 December 2023
| titletext = A whirlpool!<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/200
...}}." In the short story, the main character escapes from drowning by using a barrel to escape The Maelström.
3 KB (509 words) - 07:52, 31 August 2023
...'m not destroying anyone's childhood, I don't feel like I'm really pulling a George Lucas.<br>I mean, I'm not destroying more than one childhood.<br>Oop
...nocent wonder. Here, the empty barrel floating adrift, the title text, and a previous announcement by Randall that this would be the conclusion of the s
4 KB (610 words) - 07:52, 31 August 2023
...rs of flight were just a dream. However, the dream becomes reality to save a child from an endless sea of hopelessness.
...during the first several dozen strips. The series features [[Barrel Boy]], a character that is different from what would quickly become the xkcd [[stick
3 KB (506 words) - 07:53, 31 August 2023
...ans to focus on mundane concerns, like a meeting they might be late for or a bus they have to catch, and take their familiar environment for granted, no
...nyon, near the center of the panel. On the other six panels, there is just a ragged line, which thus obviously is this lip of the canyon.
3 KB (510 words) - 07:51, 31 August 2023
...yright%20Law,-I%20posted%20this Original caption</span>]: I posted this to a Slashdot thread about copyrights, and without any moderation, over 600 peop
...their income streams in an age where anyone can copy an {{w|MP3}} file or a DVD quickly and cheaply.
4 KB (564 words) - 07:51, 31 August 2023
The comic features a man and a woman in a romantic setting, surrounded by a {{w|fractal}} combination of love and doubts; an arrangement based on the {
:[A large black circle (drawn on grid paper) with white bubbles inside it, fill
3 KB (386 words) - 07:51, 31 August 2023
...n the sky. Beret Guy then tries to return light to its birthplace by using a mirror, which reflects light back to its source.
...y, this would not work. Only a tiny fraction of the photons emanating from a star will reach the mirror and, even if the mirror is held at the perfect o
3 KB (468 words) - 19:50, 26 May 2022
* [[What If? (book)|''What If?'' (book)]], a book by Randall released in 2014
* [[What If? chapters|''What If?'' chapters]], a list of all articles featured in the blog and the book series
845 bytes (123 words) - 08:21, 11 January 2024
...ltures form based on a geeky obsession over a trivial topic (for instance, a minimally-drawn webcomic). In this case, that topic is crazy straws, which
...larger one. Of course, this nesting is not really infinite, since there is a finite number of people living.{{Citation needed}} The claim that it is inf
3 KB (445 words) - 00:50, 7 November 2023
| titletext = 'Hey Megan, it's your father. How do I print out a flowchart?'
...hich works in many situations. This intuition is shown here in the form of a diagram. In particular, the chart exposes the computer expert's secret ingr
3 KB (501 words) - 09:49, 1 September 2023
...Matrix}}'': "If you're killed in the Matrix, you die here?" There is also a Yahoo Answers thread about this question.
{{quote|This was a hit with Canadians, but I think they just like anything that mentions them
2 KB (314 words) - 07:10, 12 April 2024
| titletext = I plugged in this lamp and my dog went rigid, spoke a sentence of perfect Akkadian, and then was hurled sideways through the pict
...a time before online reviews could be looked up on a smartphone. They spot a lamp they like, check the price, and agree to buy, end of story.
6 KB (1,113 words) - 11:50, 18 April 2024
...a white and yellow filling. They are supposed to replicate a real egg with a hard exterior and soft interior.
...Cadbury Egg alone makes him feel gross. (A 12 oz can equals 355 mL, while a 20 oz bottle is about 590 mL.)
3 KB (531 words) - 23:14, 16 February 2024
.... This page combines the scenery, action, and representative dialogue into a smooth timeline.
3 KB (465 words) - 19:59, 26 May 2022
...n the four was a hilarious joke about Mark Zuckerberg getting caught using a pseudonym to sneak past the TSA.
This comic is a commentary on what sort of articles work best on different {{w|social netwo
3 KB (455 words) - 21:06, 3 January 2024
...ying car (aircraft)|flying cars}} even though it is the year 2011. This is a reference to the joke {{w|Flying_car_(aircraft)#Where.27s_my_flying_car.3F|
...ter game}} on his phone, when she called him. And the call could have been a {{w|video call}}, had it not been because Megan chose not to do so, since s
4 KB (729 words) - 15:48, 4 November 2023
...27s%20Drawing,-My%20brother%20has Original caption</span>]: My brother has a ferret. He holds it like that and generally adores it. I have to concede th
...e ferret actually flying. The fact that Cueball lies about his goal may be a commentary on abandoning dreams to avoid confronting societal expectations.
4 KB (648 words) - 09:15, 1 September 2023
...20of%20a Original caption</span>]: One of a series of strips I drew during a long and boring NASA lecture. It careers wildly from intellectual to chaoti
...is similar to [[124: Blogofractal]]. The philosophy of Kurt Gödel is also a theme in [[468: Fetishes]].
11 KB (1,760 words) - 18:02, 26 December 2023
...ther it’s actually true or not). In particular, if you start by assuming a self-contradictory statement, you can derive anything.
...not '''P'''" is shorthand for "'''P''' is both true and false", this forms a contradiction from which the principle of explosion can begin. Humorously a
5 KB (810 words) - 04:15, 7 April 2023
...gram is capable of "counter-convincing" the examiner that they're actually a computer.
...or in different colors or sizes or fonts, or may be very blurry as if from a very bad photocopy. This is to deter an automated {{w|Optical character rec
3 KB (552 words) - 09:34, 5 August 2022
...= Note that this implies you should NOT honk solely because I stopped for a pedestrian and you're behind me.
...{{w|Mathematical logic|formal logic}}, but the word "if" is replaced with a formal logic term "{{w|If and only if|iff}}," which means "if and only if".
2 KB (353 words) - 10:16, 1 September 2023
...agile and lean with a focus on the long tail. Ok, our company is actually a polecat I found in my backyard.
...his briefcase, or suitcase, a "handlebox", and it is full of a quarter of a million dollars in cash. (The source of this money is not discussed in this
5 KB (897 words) - 19:58, 27 February 2024
...ay afternoon. Well, I haven't slept, so I say it's still Friday. It's been a weird couple days and I was just thinking it was the weekend. Anyway, the f
...ne person can observe the world differently than another, in this case, in a far more extreme and unexpected way than color differences.
4 KB (676 words) - 07:53, 31 August 2023
...but merely the default date in the xkcd database. These comics do not have a known post date--> 2006
| titletext = A leading expert characterized the situation as 'retarded'
3 KB (474 words) - 11:12, 26 November 2023
...hould be noted however, that the equivalent of a hole in the QED vacuum is a real particle, known as the positron. See the {{w|Dirac sea}}.
Wikipedia gives a good basic explanation of the concept of the "electron hole":
5 KB (781 words) - 00:06, 18 February 2024
...such as particular characters or words. The command to substitute/replace a string is "s", e.g. "s/old/new/g" replaces any occurrence of "old" with "ne
:[There are two browser windows open on a computer screen.]
6 KB (923 words) - 20:26, 19 May 2023
| titletext = I lead a small but extraordinarily persuasive religion whose only members are door-t
...you add only 4 members to an existing group of 2, you would have achieved a growth of 200 percent.
3 KB (484 words) - 22:05, 6 February 2024
...nge, but then he did the same thing to Carrie Underwood. Then he mailed me a scone. I think I'm giving up dating.
...detailed key on the side of [[Ponytail]]'s car in his version of "keying" a car. She broke up with him the day before, as she explains to [[Cueball]],
3 KB (538 words) - 03:30, 8 August 2022
...al in the 1990s that focused on someone (usually someone in authority like a parent) pointing out that Apple Jacks doesn't taste like apples, and one or
...The same ad campaign was referenced previously in [[27: Meat Cereals]] on a parody cereal labelled Scrapple Jacks. Cereal advertising would be referenc
2 KB (377 words) - 07:54, 31 August 2023
...his car insurance by intimidation, instead of choosing the best provider. A golf club would later also be used for similarly socially unacceptable acti
:[Cueball holding a golf club.]
2 KB (364 words) - 07:54, 31 August 2023
...ar star figure in geometry. Once you've seen it done, you can usually draw a pentagram in one continuous motion. Unfortunately, while drawing the star R
...change their entire religious beliefs just so they could more easily draw a star.
2 KB (312 words) - 00:52, 27 April 2024
...er is one-upping her friend's claim of being taken on a mountain hike with a claim that she was proposed to.
...|Super Mario}} series. In the games, completing specific conditions causes a "1-up" (but the marks are chevrons («»), used in some languages like Fren
1 KB (185 words) - 02:41, 15 February 2024
The first part demonstrates a failed attempt at communication:
*[[White Hat]] notices a dangerous hole, and thinks he should warn people about it.
7 KB (1,115 words) - 19:43, 11 July 2022
...Cueball's point. Rejecting Cueball's advice to simply talk to women "like a fucking human being", Hairy sets off to try out the technique.
...uld be vulnerable to being hit in sequence. Perhaps Black Hat is going for a 'strike'. Hairy approaches Danish, while Cueball looks on and says "oh no"
5 KB (877 words) - 03:55, 25 February 2024
...I see no difference between thee and a summer's day. Only Ron Paul offers a TRUE alternative!
...w|English personal pronouns#Full list of personal pronouns|Wikipedia}} has a nice chart for all of English's personal pronouns, current and archaic.
6 KB (1,023 words) - 02:03, 9 January 2024
...letext = 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
{{w|Tumblr}} is a {{w|microblogging}} service, which has become a home for lots of animated {{w|Graphics Interchange Format|gif}}s and other
3 KB (396 words) - 16:14, 10 January 2024
...frequencies and amplitudes. (The most obvious application is in analyzing a sound recording in terms of the different frequencies of sounds used.) So,
...ce the original graph. How a reverse Fourier transformation would apply to a transformed cat has yet to be seen.
3 KB (479 words) - 04:00, 6 November 2023
...child, due to complex subtext or naïvety, to a humorous extreme, and with a specific reference to {{w|television programs}} for children.
...e Chief would congratulate or encourage the players. Rockapella was an {{w|a cappella}} band featured on the show that gave clues, punctuated the show w
10 KB (1,775 words) - 09:03, 27 January 2023
| titletext = I think about self-reference a lot. Example: this comment.
...o in [[:Category:Self-reference|other comics]]. The webcomic Comic JK made a [https://web.archive.org/web/20140323234759/http://comicjk.com/comic.php/44
2 KB (355 words) - 04:10, 29 January 2024
...un out of cat food, a relatively trivial problem that could be solved with a quick trip to the grocery store.
The title text is a follow-up on the comic dialogue. When Megan replies in confusion, "Come to
2 KB (325 words) - 14:41, 5 February 2024
...ked like. He also says the flowers are based on his imagination and aren't a real species.
:[A sketch of flowers, drawn in green, red, and yellow on a black background.]
2 KB (275 words) - 12:31, 5 November 2023
...nough, you can get them to respond with an involuntary second sigh and get a rhythm going.
...''ab''-ee /ˌdaʊntən ˈæbi/) to being about a monastery in the midst of a large city (incorrectly pronounced ''doun-toun ab''-ee /ˈdaʊnˌtaʊn ˈæ
2 KB (317 words) - 09:55, 1 April 2023
...%2D%20Sheep Original caption</span>]: I'm still on vacation, sorry this is a bit late. I forgot what day it was. Anyway, I'll be back Monday, possibly w
...icked out comics from his old high-school notebooks for the second time in a row. It is an unusual drawing.{{citation needed}}
3 KB (485 words) - 22:48, 23 March 2024
...ulls converge on the area, he sets up a sign reading "GULLS FOR SALE" with a jar for money. Though Beret Guy probably expects to profit, the confused re
...ver their pitch with such seriousness, when Beret Guy's pitch is literally a childish exclamation. Wheeee!
3 KB (457 words) - 00:06, 26 March 2024
...note, there used to be a car company called "{{w|Automobiles Sans Soupapes|A.S.S.}}". Another explanation would be that, since this suffix/prefix refers
...hree hours and four minutes after posting [[25: Barrel - Part 4]], he made a new post, titled [https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063505/http://xkcd-dr
4 KB (604 words) - 07:54, 31 August 2023
| titletext = For the moment it's a standoff<br><br><span class="plainlinks">[https://web.archive.org/web/20060
...atement is juxtaposed with the insignificance of a child's toy floating in a bowl of water. On one level, the absurdity of this is funny in itself; on a
4 KB (621 words) - 13:38, 31 August 2023
...st. These would be activated if the government could prove to a court that a site was primarily used to harbor illegally distributed copyrighted goods,
...quelch smaller competing sites who may not have the resources to challenge a "take-down notice" in court, should judges continually agree with the large
6 KB (933 words) - 04:59, 22 March 2023
...sharp-eyed observers, and the nebulosity is obvious through binoculars or a small telescope.
...}'s {{w|IAU definition of planet#Criticism|demotion}} from {{w|planet}} to a {{w|dwarf planet}}/{{w|Plutoid|plutoid}}.
2 KB (307 words) - 18:47, 26 April 2023
| titletext = Like a beacon
...[[Cueball]]: she is his beacon to know where he can be safe. This also has a romantic notion, as Megan is lighting up the world for Cueball to find her.
2 KB (241 words) - 05:36, 29 January 2024
...been cut down. Anyone snooping into his journal would be punished by such a terrible pun. In the title text, [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] says the pun is
...ree holding a chainsaw over a recently cut-down tree. The first text is in a frame at the top of the panel.]
2 KB (257 words) - 07:54, 31 August 2023
...dow at the top of the picture. Two spiders at the top appear to be passing a block between them, implying that they are, at least, trying to change the
*[[47: Counter-Red Spiders]], in which the humans begin a counter-offensive.
3 KB (391 words) - 07:54, 31 August 2023
..., when one makes a declaration of love or affection, for the other to make a matching declaration. However, instead of continuing [[Cueball]]'s escalati
2 KB (284 words) - 07:55, 31 August 2023
...ic is both funny (as it is unexpected) and not funny (as the last line was a non sequitur and therefore there is no climax) at the same time, thus provi
...is incorrect to say that the atom has decayed or has not decayed; it is in a "superposition" of states, effectively both decayed and undecayed.
5 KB (920 words) - 12:58, 31 August 2023
...ext=1%3A14%20pm-,Secrets,-I%27m%20a%20fan LiveJournal caption</span>]: I'm a fan of [http://www.kurthalsey.com/ Kurt Halsey], if you hadn't noticed. Don
...s this comic. In the original caption of the LiveJournal post, he provides a link to the homepage of Kurt Halsey and praises him for "how much better at
3 KB (417 words) - 12:58, 31 August 2023
<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring Scott|Comics featuring Sco
...n]]. He also [[35: Sheep#Poem by Scott|wrote a poem]] for [[35: Sheep]] on a [[LiveJournal]] comment. He is first indirectly mentioned in the title text
848 bytes (116 words) - 11:09, 25 August 2023
...o be two words, or so little space between letters that they run together. A common kerning issue is an "r" and an "n" together looking like an "m". (Th
...one another space-wise, and as a result if an "A" was simply set alongside a "V" (or vice versa) where the rectangles do not overlap, the spacing would
4 KB (709 words) - 05:54, 31 December 2023
| titletext = Blatantly banking on customers not understanding that it's like a Hollywood studio advertising that their new movie was 'watched by Roger Ebe
...se to boost sales of their product. They state that their product contains a "clinically studied ingredient", which consumers assume means that the ingr
3 KB (404 words) - 15:29, 13 December 2023
...typically uses to solve a certain type of problem. However, as love is not a well-defined mathematical entity, his normal approach is useless. Simply pu
...s, defining love is impossible. It also indicates that love is not always a rational (or irrational) phenomenon.
5 KB (908 words) - 02:10, 4 January 2024
...ly weak there, because it is extremely unlikely or even impossible to have a stack of humans that tall.
*[[126: Red Spiders Cometh]], in which the spiders attack a city.
3 KB (486 words) - 02:13, 9 February 2024
[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are standing together in the middle of a strangely expressionist landscape/environment. As indicated by the words in
...his audience that he hasn't stopped making nerdy comics and puns, because a few of the previous comics diverged from these topics. 47 covered [[Red Spi
2 KB (353 words) - 05:47, 29 January 2024
...on of his feelings. This is often held up as a valuable thing in cementing a relationship. In the first three panels, he makes the kind of cliched poeti
* This comic was [[:Category:Saturday comics|released on a Saturday]]. It was released only 19 minutes before midnight at 11:41 PM.
2 KB (368 words) - 12:59, 31 August 2023
...f the webcomic (the other being Jonathan "Gabe" Gabriel). Penny Arcade has a reputation for making obscure references to video games without explaining,
...f Tycho, a man with wild brown hair in blue and cyan colored shirt. He has a big open mouth and holds one arm up while the other may be in his (unseen)
3 KB (500 words) - 21:05, 19 December 2023
...this formula, ''h'' is the Planck constant, ''c'' is the speed of light in a vacuum, and ''k'' is the Boltzmann constant. The frequency (''f'' or ''v'')
This comic was made into a T-shirt but is no longer available. On the xkcd store, there was an explana
6 KB (1,054 words) - 16:28, 26 December 2023
...s in childhood, rather than adulthood. So, even though vaccinations remain a safer and more effective means of preventing severe disease, pox-parties ma
...een {{w|Poxviridae|poxes}} and {{w|Malaria|malaria}} that make the idea of a malaria party especially absurd:
8 KB (1,237 words) - 01:16, 13 February 2024
...our color theorem}}, which states that a {{w|graph theory|graph}} drawn on a flat plane (like this one) requires at most four colors so that each region
.... Thousands, maybe.|[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/413047-everybody-has-a-secret-world-inside-of-them-i-mean- Neil Gaiman]}}
4 KB (643 words) - 13:00, 31 August 2023
...hooting range in a setting with lots of places to hide. If you don't shoot a hostile target sufficiently quickly, you will be shot, so it is common to s
...f Randall actually did this, he would be dead and therefore unable to draw a comic about it.{{Citation needed}} The title text of [[188: Reload]] refere
5 KB (747 words) - 13:00, 31 August 2023
| title = A Hypochondriac's Nightmare
| titletext = BUT WHAT IF I REASSURE MYSELF WITH A JOKE AND THEN DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE RASH AND IT TURNS OUT TO BE DEATH MITES
2 KB (317 words) - 20:00, 27 February 2024
