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* NamedByDemocracy: [[https://xkcd.com/1253/ "Exoplanet Names"]] is about the International Astronomical Union accepting suggestions from the public for the names of astronomical objects, only to regret doing so after receiving an absurd amount of suggestions that aren't suitable names for various reasons, such as [[WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse1983 Eternia Prime]], How Do I Join the IAU, Unicode Snowman, and e'); DROP TABLE PLANETS;--.
-->''[Ponytail {{facepalm}}s]''\\
'''Cueball:''' Can't you filter out the worst ones?\\
'''Hairbun:''' This is '''''after''''' the filter!


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* NonIndicativeName: [[https://xkcd.com/1555/ "Exoplanet Names 2"]] proposes that a certain astronomical object be named "The Moon". Not only would this cause confusion with Earth's moon (which is commonly referred to as "the Moon" in English), but the object in question is actually an exoplanet.
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** [[http://xkcd.com/1025/ Megan mentions that raccoons have gotten into her attic and started a "raccoon sex dungeon";]] Cueball responds by stating it would make for a good Website/{{Tumblr}} URL, with the subtitle mentioning that doing so has been steadily replacing how often he states that a phrase in question "would be a good name for a band". (Inverted in the AltText: "Dot Tumblr Dot Com" would ''not'' make AGoodNameForARockBand, due to potential confusion about its website.)

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** [[http://xkcd.com/1025/ Megan mentions that raccoons have gotten into her attic and started a "raccoon sex dungeon";]] Cueball responds by stating it would make for a good Website/{{Tumblr}} Platform/{{Tumblr}} URL, with the subtitle mentioning that doing so has been steadily replacing how often he states that a phrase in question "would be a good name for a band". (Inverted in the AltText: "Dot Tumblr Dot Com" would ''not'' make AGoodNameForARockBand, due to potential confusion about its website.)



* SpecialEditionTitle: On October 26, 2009, the site was temporarily redesigned in a {{retraux}} [[TheNineties early 90's]] style in dubious honor of the end of Website/GeoCities. [[http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/8049/xkcdredesign.png Complete with broken HTML!]]

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* SpecialEditionTitle: On October 26, 2009, the site was temporarily redesigned in a {{retraux}} [[TheNineties early 90's]] style in dubious honor of the end of Website/GeoCities.Platform/GeoCities. [[http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/8049/xkcdredesign.png Complete with broken HTML!]]

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* {{Facepalm}}: [[http://www.xkcd.com/852/ "Local g"]] offers an example (last panel).

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* {{Facepalm}}: [[http://www."[[http://www.xkcd.com/852/ "Local g"]] offers an example (last panel).Local g]]" has Cueball do this when he realizes that by asking how the angry pole vaulters got onto their balcony, [[ExplainExplainOhCrap he's answered his own question]].



* FalseDichotomy: [[http://xkcd.com/871/ "Charity"]] discusses this.

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* FalseDichotomy: [[http://xkcd.FalseDichotomy:
** Deconstructed in "[[http://xkcd.
com/871/ "Charity"]] discusses this.Charity]]". Megan forces a choice between buying games and donating to charity, hoping it'll convince Cueball to donate the money he was planning to spend on a game he wanted, but this instead convinces Cueball to use the money he was planning on donating to buy a second game.
** Parodied in the appropriately-named "[[https://xkcd.com/2592/ False Dichotomy]]", which provides a sillier and more meta example.
--->'''Cueball''': Yes, but we have to embrace false dichotomies, because the only alternative is cannibalism.



* FantasyTwist: [[http://xkcd.com/429/ This strip]] takes it to a very weird place.

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* FantasyTwist: [[http://xkcd."[[http://xkcd.com/429/ This strip]] Fantasy]]" takes it to a very weird place.place when the daydream versions of Cueball and Megan realize they're in a daydream and decide to ''burn down their world before it ends and they vanish''.



** [[http://xkcd.com/887/ 90 years worth of predictions for the future...]] only to end in an [[DiscreditedMeme extremely lame meme]].
** Lampshaded, then subverted [[http://xkcd.com/410/ here]].

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** [[http://xkcd.com/887/ 90 years worth of predictions for the future...]] only to end in an [[DiscreditedMeme extremely lame meme]].
a VideoGame/ZeroWing reference.
** Lampshaded, then subverted [[http://xkcd.{{Defied|Trope}} in "[[http://xkcd.com/410/ here]].Math Paper]]", when the professors at Cueball's presentation catch on to the fact that his paper is a Feghoot for an "imaginary friends" pun and revoke his math license.
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* TheGroundIsLava: {{Subverted|Trope}} in "[[https://xkcd.com/735/ Floor]]", where the children apply volcano management techniques to the game. Namely, blowing up a wall to redirect the flow, using running water to lower the temperature, and calling for helicopters.

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* TheGroundIsLava: {{Subverted|Trope}} Spoofed in "[[https://xkcd.com/735/ Floor]]", where the children play the {{Trope Namer|s}}... and apply volcano management techniques to the game. Namely, blowing up a wall to redirect the flow, using running water to lower the temperature, and calling for helicopters. The AltText even mentions they once managed to convince the FAA that a ''real'' volcanic eruption had occurred, resulting in the diversion of flights over their county's airspace because of the supposed ash clouds!



** [[http://www.xkcd.com/1617/ Beret Guy also travels through time to kill Hitler]]. He finds it easier than expected because he traveled to the future by hiding in a time capsule.

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** [[http://www.xkcd.com/1617/ Beret Guy also travels through time to kill Hitler]]. He finds it easier than expected because he traveled to the future ''forward'' in time [[TheSlowPath by hiding in a time capsule.capsule]].



* InstantAIJustAddWater: Very easy [[http://xkcd.com/521/ on Python!]] (As usual, AltText explains how.)

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* InstantAIJustAddWater: Very easy [[http://xkcd.com/521/ on Python!]] (As usual, AltText explains how.Cueball makes a computer sentient simply because he was using Python.]] (Per the AltText, it's as easy as typing "import [[Franchise/{{Terminator}} skynet]]".)
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** The alt text for [[https://xkcd.com/2416/ "Trash Compactor Party"]] is [[Film/ANewHope "What an incredible smell you've discovered."]]
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** Turns out that UsefulNotes/RichardNixon had [[https://xkcd.com/1484/ quite a few speeches to cover multiple outcomes of Apollo 11]].

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** [[https://xkcd.com/2901 #2901]] has what is declared to be the tallest statue of a skateboarding squirrel in the northern hemisphere.
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* TheArtifact: The webcomic's tagline self-describes it as about romance, sarcasm, math, and language. This is true of early ''xkcd'', however the comic's sense of humor has shifted since then, and romance (as well as related concepts like sex, relationships, and breakups) faded out as a major theme roughly around the 1000th comic.
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* WrongSongGag: "Important Life Lesson" warns against leaving your music library running on shuffle while making love. While a couple is going at it in bed, one of their phones suddenly blares out "[[Franchise/PowerRangers GO GO POWER RANGERS!]]"
-->'''AltText''': I didn't even know I ''had'' [[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus the Monty Python "Lumberjack" song]].
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** [[https://xkcd.com/2898/ This comic]] has Megan and Cueball arguing over whether the Earth orbits the sun or vice versa. White Hat suggests that both orbit around a common center (he's correct, as the whole solar system orbits the center of the milky way). The joke is that [[AccidentalTruth accidentally being right this way]] is extremely annoying, with the AltText joke compounding this (light isn't a wave or particle, but both at the same time).
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** [[https://xkcd.com/2893/ "Sphere Tastiness"]] graphs the size of various spheres against how tasty they are. Plotting fruit and celestial together, Randall concludes that (at the midpoint of the objects' magnitudes of size) there is an object 800 meters in diameter that tastes worse than grapes but better than the moon.

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** [[https://xkcd.com/2893/ "Sphere Tastiness"]] graphs the size of various spheres against how tasty they are. Plotting fruit and celestial bodies together, Randall concludes that (at the midpoint of the objects' magnitudes of size) there is an object 800 meters in diameter that tastes worse than grapes but better than the moon.

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* TwentyPercentMoreAwesome: Used repeatedly, including [[http://xkcd.com/523/ this particularly meta example]] involving a graph about a decline in a relationship that might be caused by graphing things.

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* TwentyPercentMoreAwesome: Used repeatedly, including Graphing things that cannot be quantified is a running theme in many comics.
**
[[http://xkcd.com/523/ this This particularly meta example]] involving involves a graph about a decline in a relationship that might be caused by graphing things.things.
** [[https://xkcd.com/2870/ "Love Songs"]] is a scatter plot that measures how much the singer likes the addressee, versus how much the addressee likes the singer. Music/KatyPerry's "Teenage Dream" maximizes both axes, while Music/AlanisMorissette's "You Oughta Know" minimizes it.
** [[https://xkcd.com/2893/ "Sphere Tastiness"]] graphs the size of various spheres against how tasty they are. Plotting fruit and celestial together, Randall concludes that (at the midpoint of the objects' magnitudes of size) there is an object 800 meters in diameter that tastes worse than grapes but better than the moon.
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* FunnyConceptionStory: [[https://xkcd.com/1512/ #1512 "Horoscopes"]] lists potential circumstances of someone's conception based on when they were born. For example, Aries is "You may have been conceived after a 4th of July fireworks show".

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Of course, you wouldn't know that just by looking at the comic. The characters are still drawn as very basic stick figures, with no facial features other than hairstyle (which is often used to [[TertiarySexualCharacteristics distinguish males and females]]). However, there are three recurring characters who can be recognized by their respective headgear:

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Of course, you wouldn't know that just by looking at the comic. The characters are still drawn as very basic stick figures, with no facial features other than hairstyle (which is often used to [[TertiarySexualCharacteristics distinguish males and females]]). However, there There are three a couple recurring characters who that can be recognized discerned by their respective headgear:
headwear:



* "White Hat Guy": best described as "tries to be as mean and cool as Black Hat Guy, but fails miserably". He has the same type of hat as Black Hat Guy, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin only it's white]].



* BitterWeddingSpeech: [[http://xkcd.com/420/ Hey, you asked me to do a toast...]]

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* BitterWeddingSpeech: [[http://xkcd.com/420/ Hey, This comic]] initially appears to be about Cueball falling in love with Megan, but as the text continues it starts to get weirdly bitter about their marriage. And then the final line ("hey, man, you asked me to do a toast...]]toast.") indicates that it's one of Megan's exes giving the speech to spite Cueball.
* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: [[https://xkcd.com/2891/ Log Cabin]] concerns the titular log cabin. Not named for the fact that it's made of wood, but because it has an infinitely-recursive floor plan: the main room looks normal enough, but it connects to a slightly-smaller copy of itself, same for that copy, and so on.

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Marked a YMMV example as in-universe, and removed an audience reaction example


* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: In [[http://xkcd.com/1172/ Workflow]], after the spacebar was fixed to no longer overheat the CPU, someone, who wanted their computer to interpret a rise in temperature as a control key, claims to have their workflow broken.

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* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: In-universe: In [[http://xkcd.com/1172/ Workflow]], after the spacebar was fixed to no longer overheat the CPU, someone, who wanted their computer to interpret a rise in temperature as a control key, claims to have their workflow broken.



* WikiVandal: Wikipedia articles are frequently defaced whenever a relevant topic is mentioned, as [[http://xkcdwikiwatch.blogspot.com this blog documents]].

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* GoneHorriblyRight: [[http://xkcd.com/1320/ The result]] of trying to be "the UsefulNotes/{{Walmart}} of social interaction" is...

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* GoneHorriblyRight: [[http://xkcd.com/1320/ The result]] of trying to be "the UsefulNotes/{{Walmart}} of social interaction" is... [[spoiler:becoming "the Walmart of social interaction" in a different way: a place where, like Walmart, running into people you know is incredibly awkward and leads to forced small talk.]]



** [[http://xkcd.com/119/ Gets skewered here, as well.]]

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** Also Inverted in [[http://xkcd.com/119/ Gets skewered here, as well.]]this strip]]; the comic posits that "Hedgeclipper" is the ''worst'' name for a rock band.


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--> I love Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect. I saw them open for [[https://xkcd.com/936/ Correct Horse Battery Staple]].
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* UnitConfusion: [[https://xkcd.com/2888/ "US Survey Foot"]] follows a team of architects and engineers as they witness Black Hat cause chaos... by using the depreciated US survey foot, longer than the normal foot by 610 nanometers. Knowing that the revival of the US survey foot will cause "headaches of having two conflicting definitions of the foot", the National Institute of Standards and Technology tracks Black Hat's device and sends an elite team of NIST enforcers to his location 8,000 miles away... and they are unable to find him because he's actually 8,000 ''US survey miles'' away.

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* StupidQuestionBait: [[http://xkcd.com/1239/ A press conference]] about an asteroid heading towards Earth gets sidetracked by reporters asking about what role Social Media has played.

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* StupidQuestionBait: StupidQuestionBait:
**
[[http://xkcd.com/1239/ A press conference]] about an asteroid heading towards Earth gets sidetracked by reporters asking about what role Social Media has played.
** [[https://xkcd.com/2887/ "Minnesota"]] has Cueball's boss ask if anyone has any concerns about their meeting. Cueball responds that he's concerned about geophysics causing Minnesota to shrink less than an inch per year. His boss has to clarify and ask if anyone has concerns specifically about the meeting.



* SwivelChairAntics: [[http://xkcd.com/815/ Graphed.]]T

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* SwivelChairAntics: [[http://xkcd.com/815/ Graphed.]]T#815]] graphs the productivity of someone when they have a swivel chair of various levels of friction. The lower the friction, the more productive -- until a certain point when less friction leads to less productivity, caused by that person getting distracted by spinning really fast on their swivel chair. When the friction is low enough, productivity becomes negative by virtue of that person roping others into associated swivel chair antics.

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Trope was cut/disambiguated due to cleanup


** Cueball and friends try to come up with a word to fill the Kix slogan "Kid Tested, Mother...". Among their failed attempts is "Fucker".



* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Cueball and friends try to come up with a word to fill the Kix slogan "Kid Tested, Mother...". Their failed attempts include "Selected", "Perfected", "Not Notified", "Watching Helplessly", "Infected", "Consumed", and [[PrecisionFStrike "Fucker".]]
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* DisposableIntern: In [[https://xkcd.com/2886/ "Fast Radio Bursts",]] Cueball mentions the slim possibility that the titular phenomenon is caused by a star somehow contained within the observatory's break room. He sending a grad student to check, either because to be in the same room as a star would flash-fry one's body and they'd want to sacrifice someone who isn't as useful, or (the more likely situation) the task is trivial and useless.
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** [[https://xkcd.com/2886 "Fast Ratio Bursts"]] discusses possible origins of the titular: energetic stellar-sized astrophysical objects floating in space (most common), microwave ovens in the observatory break room (actually happened once in 2015), energetic stellar-sized microwave ovens floating in space (unlikely), and energetic stellar-sized astrophysical objects in the observatory break room (most certainly untrue, but they're sending a grad student to double-check).

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* HypocriticalHumor: In [[https://xkcd.com/610/ "Sheeple"]], someone on public transit looks at four other people and mentally criticizes them for not thinking about things, [[ItsAllAboutMe holding themselves up as the only conscious person in a world where everyone else is mindless]]. The joke is that all five of the characters are thinking the exact same thing about the other four.



* SwivelChairAntics: [[http://xkcd.com/815/ Graphed.]]

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* SwivelChairAntics: [[http://xkcd.com/815/ Graphed.]]]]T



** There's one against Atlas Shrugged [[https://xkcd.com/1049/ here.]]



** The aliens in [[https://xkcd.com/2478/ "Alien Visitors 2"]] arrive recommending technologies to humanity that are outdated and inefficient or dangerous, such as biplanes, hydrogen blimps, and at the end, the Juicero juicer press.

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** Various comics take potshots at Creator/AynRand:
*** [[https://xkcd.com/610/ "Sheeple"]]'s AltText suggests that all Ayn Rand followers are presumptuous and self-centered, to the point of thinking less of others who happen to hold the exact same beliefs as them.
*** In [[https://xkcd.com/1049/ this comic,]] a hidden passageway activated by pulling on a copy of ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'' exists only to tell the prospective reader that they have awful taste in books.
*** [[https://xkcd.com/1277/ "Ayn Random"]] has White Hat write a random number generator named for Ayn Rand. Cueball notices that, despite supposedly being fair, the generator is biased towards certain numbers, as a potshot against Rand's philosophy supposedly being fair to everyone yet actually benefiting people who were previously already wealthy.
** The aliens in [[https://xkcd.com/2478/ "Alien Visitors 2"]] arrive recommending technologies to humanity that are outdated and inefficient or dangerous, such as biplanes, hydrogen blimps, and at the end, singling out the Juicero juicer press.
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Crosswicking

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* BlamingTheTools: In the strip "Think Logically", an amateur chess player questions why an experienced player sometimes moves their pieces backwards - if the goal is to checkmate the enemy king, then moving pieces away from the king doesn't make any sense. The experienced player challenges the amateur to a game and gets an easy checkmate, and the amateur decides the loss demonstrates that chess is a badly designed game
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* MindlessSheep: In "[[https://xkcd.com/610/ Sheeple]]", five people sharing a subway car have the same thought: "Look at these people. Glassy-eyed automatons going about their daily lives, never stopping to look around and ''think!'' I'm the only conscious human in a world of sheep."
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* MeetCute: A friendship version in [[https://xkcd.com/2881/ "Bug Thread":]] a friend group apparently decides to reconvene at a beach house weekend after everyone first meets via a five-years-ongoing bug thread. According to the alt text, six more people get added to the group after finding them on the support forum for the beach house rental business.
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* SodaCandySplosion
** [[https://xkcd.com/346/ #346]] has someone seemingly demonstrating the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment to their friend, deeming it "the coolest thing" and telling them to "give it a moment". [[spoiler:It causes said friend's father to magically come back (either from death or abandonment).]]
** [[https://xkcd.com/1053/ #1053]], which is about not making fun of people for not knowing things, notes that on average, around 10,000 hear about something for the first time. The second panel has Megan not know what the "Diet Coke and Mentos thing" is, causing [[AuthorAvatar Cueball]] to gesture her to come with him to the grocery store, deeming her "one of today's lucky 10,000".

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* AllJustADream: In [[http://xkcd.com/806/ Tech Support]], Cueball is given the chance to ask a tech-savvy person for help if he speaks a secret word on the phone, which could help him on tech support. It is revealed, however, to be a dream.

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* AllJustADream: AllJustADream:
**
In [[http://xkcd.com/806/ Tech Support]], Cueball is given the chance to ask a tech-savvy person for help if he speaks a secret word on the phone, which could help him on tech support. It is revealed, however, to be a dream.dream.
** [[https://xkcd.com/2879/ "Like This One"]] has Cueball and Megan talk to a researcher who is studying "gas molecules, like this one" as she gestures around them. The comic suggests languages, social interactions, gravitational fields, and sound waves as normal things for a researcher to say "like this one" to point out when inquired about their specialization; the AltText, on the other hand, points out how the phrase "I'm a neurologist studying dreams, like this one" would immediately shift the tone of the conversation.
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[[{{UsefulNotes/UNIX}} troper@tvtropes:/$]] describe ''xkcd'' here

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[[{{UsefulNotes/UNIX}} [[{{Platform/UNIX}} troper@tvtropes:/$]] describe ''xkcd'' here



''[[https://xkcd.com/ xkcd]]'' is a StickFigureComic by Creator/RandallMunroe. It is a gag-a-day comic and generally does not have a continuing plot line or continuity (though there are occasional short story arcs). Many of the jokes are based on math, physics, science, UsefulNotes/{{UNIX}} or [[MemeticMutation Internet memes]], as well as romance and sex. It utilizes AltText for each and every comic, which contains additional jokes and context.

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''[[https://xkcd.com/ xkcd]]'' is a StickFigureComic by Creator/RandallMunroe. It is a gag-a-day comic and generally does not have a continuing plot line or continuity (though there are occasional short story arcs). Many of the jokes are based on math, physics, science, UsefulNotes/{{UNIX}} Platform/{{UNIX}} or [[MemeticMutation Internet memes]], as well as romance and sex. It utilizes AltText for each and every comic, which contains additional jokes and context.



** [[https://xkcd.com/686/ Admin Mourning]] is based on the fact that a person who has died while logged in a Unix-like computer system would still be on the list of running processes. The comic ends with "the ghost in zshell", a pun on Franchise/GhostInTheShell and a zshell (a kind of shell in computing).

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** [[https://xkcd.com/686/ Admin Mourning]] is based on the fact that a person who has died while logged in a Unix-like UNIX-like computer system would still be on the list of running processes. The comic ends with "the ghost in zshell", a pun on Franchise/GhostInTheShell and a zshell (a kind of shell in computing).

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