xkcd

xkcd.com There wasn't an active Tumblr posting xkcd comics, so Skirmisher made one! Right now it's maintained by physicynicism, who also maintains depressedaliencomic.

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hey i've noticed you haven't been posting, is something up?

I have stopped paying for the server on which the blog automation is run, so this tumblr will no longer update.

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Someone's probably working on an eBook app where, if you stop reading right before some plot twist happens, the app will wait a while and then send you a breaking news alert about what's happening, prompting you to open it and read the next few pages to learn more.

Icon Swap [Explained]

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[after typing 1,500 words on feathered dinosaurs, paleontology, sexism, lava, and dinosaurs as animals rather than movie monsters] Sorry to cut it short, I'm on my phone. When I'm back at a keyboard, I can give you another 5,000 words.

When I'm Back at a Keyboard [Explained]

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Rome's declaration of war against Carthage was sent from a no-reply address, so Hannibal had to cross the Alps to deliver his "UNSUBSCRIBE" response in person.

Inbox [Explained]

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My brother once asked me if there was a function to produce a calendar grid from a list of dates in Google Sheets. I replied with a single-cell formula that took in a list of dates and outputted a calendar. It used SEQUENCE(), REGEXMATCH(), and a double-nested ARRAYFORMULA(), and it locked up the browser for 15 seconds every time it ran. I think he learned a lot about asking me things.

Spreadsheets [Explained]

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Kind of rude of them to simultaneously issue an EVACUATION - IMMEDIATE alert, a SHELTER IN PLACE alert, and a 911 TELEPHONE OUTAGE alert.

NWS Warnings [Explained]

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"Wait, we've MOVED since 2010. How on Earth did--" "Look, some of us were just born to be champions."

Expiration Date High Score [Explained]

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"Mostly it means that I'm acutely aware that the kid one table over coughed as the server walked past with our food."

Gastroenterology [Explained]

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If only somebody had warned them that the world would roll them like this.

How Hacking Works [Explained]

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When Salvador Dalí died, it took months to get all the flagpoles sufficiently melted.

Flag Interpretation [Explained]

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Psychology researchers say our 'flashbulb' memories of big events can be unreliable, but I clearly remember watching live on CNN as Challenger crashed into and destroyed the Berlin Wall.

First News Memory [Explained]

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It also works for anything you teach someone else to do. "Oh yeah, I trained a pair of neural nets, Emily and Kevin, to respond to support tickets."

Trained a Neural Net [Explained]

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The Antikythera mechanism had a whole set of gears specifically to track the cyclic popularity of skinny jeans and low-rise waists.

Lunar Cycles [Explained]

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

Shadow Biosphere [Explained]

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40 digits: You are optimistic about our understanding of the nature of distance itself.

Coordinate Precision [Explained]

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WE WILL ARREST THE REVOLUTION MEMBERS

Predictive Models [Explained]

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The articles are much shorter, but I assume that's because this version predates the merger with the Hawaiian text that created the modern Hawaiian-Greek hybrid wiki-pedia.

Reading in the Original [Explained]