xkcd

by **907Code-G** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:18 am UTC

Title Text : "In protest of SOPA, I'm currently getting totally blacked out."

I was refreshing all night waiting to see what he would do for today. Thank you Randall for your support. Everyone, we do need quite a few more Representatives and Senators to kill this bill.

I kind of wonder if, just for completion's sake, there's actually a comic behind the censor bar...

by **billyswong** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:23 am UTC

Love the black hat guy speaking behind the background, which I didn't notice until standing up.

by **Kaleopolitus** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:29 am UTC

Wow. I never would have noticed that if you didn't say that. Very clever~...

by **Quicksilver** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:38 am UTC

I came here today in case Randall had something planned. Very creative.

by **Splarka** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:42 am UTC

████████ ██ ████ █████ ████████████ ███ █████████████ ████ ███ █ ███

by **907Code-G** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:43 am UTC

billyswong wrote:Love the black hat guy speaking behind the background, which I didn't notice until standing up.

Wait, what? Is he behind the censorship bar?

by **Kibate** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:46 am UTC

Good job on noticing the hidden message, i wouldn't have seen it too

Spoiler:

by **atrahasis** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:22 am UTC

I'm not sure this is comic 1005, it's more like "Not Comic 1005".

by **VectorZero** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:26 am UTC

billyswong wrote:Love the black hat guy speaking behind the background, which I didn't notice until standing up.

How about that. I can't see it at all unless I drag the image; for some reason safari renders that preview with the hidden image just barely visible.

by **Mutex** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:29 am UTC

My monitor must be rubbish because I can't see it at all. I had to open it in GIMP and flood the background with a different colour to see it.

by **sjorford** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:29 am UTC

atrahasis wrote:I'm not sure this is comic 1005, it's more like "Not Comic 1005".

People said the same about http://xkcd.com/404/ - but that shows the blackout banner, whereas http://xkcd.com/wghmfdmf shows a 404. So I think that means that 404 is definitely a comic, not a missing comic.

by **shirosuzume** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:35 am UTC

Not that I'm surprised, but I am very glad to see Randall supporting the cause. Cheers.

I hope the senators and representatives are flooded with messages today.

by **atrahasis** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:36 am UTC

sjorford wrote:People said the same about http://xkcd.com/404/ - but that shows the blackout banner, whereas http://xkcd.com/wghmfdmf shows a 404. So I think that means that 404 is definitely a comic, not a missing comic.

I think you're interpreting evidence of an overgeneralised URL parser as evidence that 404 is a comic.

I'm not saying 404 isn't a comic, just that any URL of the form xkcd.com/[0-9]+ will serve as if it's a comic (ie display the banner).

by **necavi** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:41 am UTC

Hmmm...interestingly enough it shows Monday's comic if you use https. (Using https everywhere, of course)

by **J L** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:04 pm UTC

Mutex wrote:My monitor must be rubbish because I can't see it at all. I had to open it in GIMP and flood the background with a different colour to see it.

The background is black (#000000), and his hat is #040404, so it's really hard to spot. I had to drag the picture into another program, too.

by **Mutex** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:10 pm UTC

J L wrote:
Mutex wrote:My monitor must be rubbish because I can't see it at all. I had to open it in GIMP and flood the background with a different colour to see it.

The background is black (#000000), and his hat is #040404, so it's really hard to spot. I had to drag the picture into another program, too.

Yeah I found that out in GIMP. It's a totally blank image on my monitor.

by **MitraSmit** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:31 pm UTC

Does anyone else read the title text as 'I'm getting drunk as hell now'?

by **Socks** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:49 pm UTC

Haha, I pasted the image into paint and changed the true black to white before even reading this. We're on to you, Randall!

by **Mekmek** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:17 pm UTC

Mutex wrote:My monitor must be rubbish because I can't see it at all. I had to open it in GIMP and flood the background with a different colour to see it.

I didn't see it at home, only later on my laptop which actually has a rubbish display. It has this weird loose contact which makes everything red-ish on first startup including todays background image. I've never been prouder.

by **MitraSmit** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:21 pm UTC

On most (laptop) screens, simply changing the viewing angle would be sufficient to notice it... I only see it completely black at 90 degrees and below.

by **radtea** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:34 pm UTC

necavi wrote:Hmmm...interestingly enough it shows Monday's comic if you use https. (Using https everywhere, of course)

Thank you for pointing this out! Wasn't able to figure out why I wasn't able to see what everyone else was seeing.

And NoScript screws up the "Wikipedia blackout", so I've had a very confusing morning, wondering if Mr Munroe was OK as a new comic hadn't been posted, and if Jimmy had changed his mind as Wikipedia was still working...

by **uildaan** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:42 pm UTC

Coolest signature ever or what?

by **|x-x0|<e** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:44 pm UTC

Interestingly enough, I wasn't able to see the hat on a $700 IPS panel, but it was quite clear on a cheap TN one.

Let's hope this rubbish law is put where it belongs to.

by **neoliminal** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:53 pm UTC

Having trouble with reading Wikipedia today? Maybe you need this:

http://simple.wikipedia.com

On an unrelated note the image of the black hat guy in the background is brilliant.

by **ihsir** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:53 pm UTC

It's awesome that Randall is protesting SOPA!
Please, everyone in the US who uses the internet daily, take a few minutes out of your day today and call or email your representatives.
Everyone else, please sign any petitions regarding SOPA that you come across.

We can't let this legislature pass!

by **typo** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:07 pm UTC

I can't see BHG on my Eee from any angle, and it doesn't have the Gimp installed. I loaded the image into Shotwell Viewer and turned Exposure down and Tint and Shadows up, and there he was in green. Very cool.

Oh, and death to SOPA.

by **philsov** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:13 pm UTC

loved the alt text

by **Netzach** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:47 pm UTC

Why do these laws have such ridiculous names? In Swedish "sopa" means "a piece of garbage" and "pipa" means "to squeek" amongst other meanings.

by **A_of_s_t** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:49 pm UTC

Kibate wrote:Good job on noticing the hidden message, i wouldn't have seen it too
Spoiler:

You have to be kidding me... is that really what's hidden? (I can't see it on my monitor)

by **DrZiro** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:50 pm UTC

Fun fact: In Swedish, "sopa" means "piece of trash".

EDIT: Oh, too slow, I see. Just to contribute something: "sopa" can also mean "sweep", to which it is possibly etymologically related, and figuratively "loser, useless person". It's particularly funny at curling games when you can't tell if people are chanting "Sweep! Sweep!" or the other thing. "Pipa" can also mean "pipe", which makes you wonder if the legislators were, as the song says, "smoking weed and doing dirt".

by **Webzter** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:13 pm UTC

DrZiro wrote:Fun fact: In Swedish, "sopa" means "piece of trash".

It pretty much means the same in the US.

by **peteispo** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:32 pm UTC

<not-really-serious>
Any chance of a real comic, for those of us outside the USA who don't really have a lot of influence over the US government?
</not-really-serious>
No - I'll take one for the team, that's fine.

by **PolakoVoador** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:33 pm UTC

Netzach wrote:Why do these laws have such ridiculous names? In Swedish "sopa" means "a piece of garbage" and "pipa" means "to squeek" amongst other meanings.

Well, in (brazilian) Portuguese, "sopa" means "soup" and "pipa" means "kite". I believe that the people in charge of said bills carefully researched for acronyms with random meanings in as much languages as possible.

by **Webzter** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:34 pm UTC

A_of_s_t wrote:
Kibate wrote:Good job on noticing the hidden message, i wouldn't have seen it too
Spoiler:

You have to be kidding me... is that really what's hidden? (I can't see it on my monitor)

It is. I couldn't see it either but I patched and rebooted my computer and now it's rather visible. My guess is Randal lightened the hidden image a bit and re-released it.

That or I totally just got a patch that makes #000000 less #000000.

by **Chezzik** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:38 pm UTC

A_of_s_t wrote:
Kibate wrote:Good job on noticing the hidden message, i wouldn't have seen it too
Spoiler:
http://i.imgur.com/c4YgU.png

You have to be kidding me... is that really what's hidden? (I can't see it on my monitor)

Yeah, I'm at work, and it's easily visible on mine, but one cube away, a co-worker's monitor shows it all as black.

by **PCal** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:45 pm UTC

There was a law passed in the late 80's requiring all future bills to have names that produce easily pronounceable acronyms. Hence Sopa/pipa etc.

by **Wnderer** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:53 pm UTC

What sites are protesting SOPA today? So far I found xkcd, google, duckduckgo and wikipedia. Yahoo, bing, dogpile and wolfram-alpha aren't showing anything.

by **PolakoVoador** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:54 pm UTC

PCal wrote:There was a law passed in the late 80's requiring all future bills to have names that produce easily pronounceable acronyms. Hence Sopa/pipa etc.

I was half-expecting that the sentence would go: "[...]all future bills to have names that produce random words in foreign languages."

by **PolakoVoador** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 3:56 pm UTC

Wnderer wrote:What sites are protesting SOPA today? So far I found xkcd, google, duckduckgo and wikipedia. Yahoo, bing, dogpile and wolfram-alpha aren't showing anything.

Reddit and Cyanide&Happiness are also blacked out. And Gizmodo is doing something too.

by **Felderburg** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 4:05 pm UTC

All the comics I checked linked from the archive are blacked out... except for "Porn Folder" (http://xkcd.com/981/). :?:

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