Happy pi day, everyone!
My skateboard was broken for the past five or six months, and rather than get it repaired, I traded it in for a new, more powerful model. For a cost of about $120, I now have a board that can go zero to 20 mph in four seconds. This is a pretty alarming speed and has finally gotten me to buy a helmet, but it also means I’m one step closer to becoming a Kourier. I just need to talk to Neal Stephenson about some engineering issues with those radial-spoke wheels …
For anyone interested in buying a board, I recommend going to eBay and looking for a cheap used one to try the idea out. My first board, a vaguely toy-like e-skateboard ($31 on eBay in 2004) had an 80-watt motor (still surprisingly powerful — it managed to tow four people at one point). I bought a few other cheap used ones, and then, having decided these things were indeed awesome, I decided to spend some more money on a proper board for getting around the city. I got a 250-watt Exkate Raptor 3.0 for $320, which I talked about in an earlier post.
This new board, a Pro Module 600, is also made by Exkate (now Altered Electric Skateboards):
The old 250-watt board was still not quite powerful enough to climb Somerville hills without complaint (I’m at the upper end of the 170-lb weight limit), but this new one has a 600-watt motor, which handles them no problem.
According to Science, 600 watts is about 80% of a horsepower.
This suggests that if you found a smallish horse (say, 75% the strength of a standard one), and started a tug-of-war using this new board, you could actually win.
This is of course dependent on friction and when the board can actually supply maximum power and so on. But let’s pretend it would work.
Edit: Taylor of Exkate posted with some technical info, and I answered some other questions in the comments. He mentions that if you want to order a board, call him (949.951.9500) and mention xkcd for free shipping (which can be significant). Disclaimer: They aren’t paying/giving me anything, they didn’t ask me to write this, etc. If you’re interested but don’t want to spend a lot yet, I recommend trawling eBay for a cheap board to try the idea out.
xkcd 
so, I think I feel a “404 – Not Found” comic coming up. since it will be the 404th comic and all.
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There was a question going like “do they sell to australia”…
Didn’t bother to read all the comments, so sorry if I’ve been ninjad on that before. but Taylor said: “Mention xkcd – get free shipping”.
No restrictions whatsoever on where shipping should go.
If enough australians order, they’ll be forced to put up an australian dependance 😀
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not to be immature or anything, but the drawing looks like two dudes have found love.. which is okay i guess…
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I once swore I’d never do this, but then you had to go and make the perfect comic to key it off, so nuts to that:
“In Soviet Russia, permafrost chases you!”
Also, is it true that all people named Randy are good at comics? Because according to my research, there’s a 1:1 correlation. Unfortunately my sample size is two.
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Regarding today’s comic: I wish I could pick up girls with that line.
And regarding the recaptcha. Mr Generosity. Well, not really, but the recaptcha seems to like me.
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Wait a second, wouldn’t those two guys be considered clones of eachother?
If all the purpose they both serve is to demonstrate a graphical representation of the above blog…
Then if they have sex, it won’t be gay, it’ll be masterbation!
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You, sir, are brilliant. I must say, attempting to re-create some of the adventures you describe in your webcomic is often more fun than the adventures I concoct myself.
If you write a book, please give me the opportunity to have you sign a copy for me.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONnIjTQ_YK0
dont know if you’ve seen this but i thought of you
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An interesting april fools day joke, switching the websites like that, had me thinking my browser was messed up for a bit 😀
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i was mildly confused for a bit, read the last ten or so ‘questionable content’s, thought, “well fuck. now i have a new way to use up tons of time. i think i’m going to have to go read a bunch of these.” and then it occurred to me what day it was.
clever trick, mr. munroe. once again, i salute you.
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Cleverly awesome. Though it is amusing clicking the links going between the three of y’all I know who swapped server addresses or whatever (no one correct me, I’ll ask my brother who’s a computer science major).
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AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
verynightE U wonk sha bene tnurde supide wond! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
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Funny, I knew after going to qwantz, that you had sent us on a wild goose chase. I just never realized until just now reading the comments, that it was your April Fools Day joke. Well, consider me a fool. But well done.
I actually figured initially that you had a few other domains registered and just had set them up with some front pages but with no actual content. Never occurred to me that you have just switched domains with a couple of other web comics.
Recaptcha: the kicker.
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Noice jorb.
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My roommate early this morning: “I can’t get to questionable content! It goes to some other website.”
Me a few minutes ago: “I can’t get to xkcd! It goes to QC! . . . Wait a minute. This is too weird. Google will know. Google knows all. . . . HA it’s April 1st!”
Nice joke. 🙂
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hey what happen with the site?!?!?
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Hello. Can someone explain to me the irritating American habit of putting the month first on the short date? I know you say, for example, “December 25th” instead of “25th of December”, like we do here in Britain but wouldn’t it make more sense to go from largest to smallest with regards to days, months and years?
In short, 14th of March is not Pi day.
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Happy APRIL FOOLS Day! 😉
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Joseph: I believe, beyond the tradition part, it’s slightly shorter to say March 14 than 14th of March, while 14(th) March is perhaps slightly more ambiguous. The year is then tacked on. In the end, though, it’s mostly tradition, which has little to do with common sense.
“Google will know. Google knows all. . . . HA it’s April 1st!”
And Gmail knows it doesn’t have to be April 1st. 😉
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Also, there is no 31st of April, so it would have to be the 3rd of January, which is rather silly. Since you brought up the point of having the parts in order of magnitude, shouldn’t the month correspond to the integer part?
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Every day, I check xkcd and questionable content. I have xkcd bookmarked and i’m too lazy to bookmark qc as well… and since there’s a link to qc on the xkcd page, it’s sort of like one-stop shopping. sort of. on tuesdays and thursdays i skip directly to the link at the bottom of the page to get my qc fix, since the xkcd is old. so today when i clicked on the xkcd link and was taken directly to qc, it actually saved me a step. so thanks for that. 😀 pretty nifty prank, i have to say.
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Joseph: international standardized date format is YYYY-MM-DD. Too lazy to find the ISO/RFC numbers for you, but they exist.
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Just realised that http://www.xkcd.com/404/ 404’s
ah the small pleasures in life 🙂
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Haha, nifty. But I caught your silly prank, I just followed the line of sites. Wish it was longer though. ^_^
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At first I just thought I clicked the wrong link in my bookmark foloder since i read all 3 but soon found out I was very wrong.
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Glee! The ending of that little slice of continuity, and a magma level burn. I’m better at it than you, my ass.
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Pwn D2-D4 and Checkmate! Although I still think the girl is the better pwner.
And recaptcha: Joseph converted. Why and from what and to what?
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I snorted admiringly when I saw that today’s comic was #405.
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it?s such a blunt shock to find people who still haven?t converted to metric.
It’s a blunter shock to find people who object to two male stick figures kissing. (Or who pronounce it to be “okay I guess.”)
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April 1st
Yeah, I think there was a moment of confusion,
but then I did realize it was 1 April 2008 (another way to post dates, for those of you who care).
404
I see that you skipped comic #404 … will you come back to it at a later date, when we’re unsuspecting, and strike with certain fury??? Who knows … the SHADOW knows! (ten points to whomever knows the reference)
hat
Wow … I literally Laughed Out Loud (LOL, for those of you who’ve already forgotten the full version) … amazing that he finally caught up with her. 😀
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journal (again)
Okay, so another revelation has come to me … the first one I referred to was actually journal number two – somehow, I didn’t make the connection with journal number one, but I went back and found it … and wow, that makes it even better. 😀
I’m gonna morph the three pictures into one, and use them as a desktop image, woO!
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view the mastery of my mspaint skillz …
messy desktop scheduled to be cleaned up in approximately … erggg … calculation error; default to “some day eventually”
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The shadow. It’s this movie with Aleck Baldwin (sorry if misspelled).He saves people and ask in exchange that they help him whenever he needs it. He got this mind control ability and it seems he doesn’t only use it on his foes but on people he saved too. They are too willing to risk their lives for him for this to be normal.
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hai guise! todays comic pwns.
so why hasnt Summer Glau posted here yet?
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Wouldn’t the guy just be dragged off by the mini-horse; with the board just zooming off in the opposite direction?
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Because, she’s got better things to do.
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Grace: You’d be surprised at the friction coefficient on the board.
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Cesium Says: “Grace: You’d be surprised at the friction coefficient on the board.”
That’s what SHE said.
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I am sadly lacking a witty comment to reply to this posting, but I just had to say (and I’m quite sure you get this daily) if I bake for you, will you marry me? I may not be a science major, but I have a degree in baking and pastry- and I can cook, too. :p lol. Keep it up, I love reading your stuff.
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Randall is a faggot.
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Randall is a stick of wood? What?
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Very smart wood.
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Regarding the squirrel lifter: if that thing is operating on the electromagnetic levitation concept (which I believe is the only known practical way to do that with current technology), then….you’re COOKING THE SQUIRREL!!!!!!!!!
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This is incredibly off-topic…
I attempted to email admin@limerickdb.com from two different accounts, they both bounced. If it’s a fake email to protect yourself from idiots like me… it’s working.
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can we plz have Vladimir Roschjenko’s email?
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Death by rabid xkcd fan flame attacks. That seems a just punishment to me.
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So I was recently informed as to what “that’s what she said” means. (isn’t that what SHE said?)
Anyway … Vlad seems to be a very clever individual who has the most original material evar!
That said, I’ve never seen someone who looks like a cigarette, OR a piece of wood. Nor British meatballs.
That said, I believe his email is vlad_adores_randall@hotmale.com
This is a comment of the 1AM variety … forgive the insanity, please.
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Death by having to see myself in the mirror every morning: Priceless.
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NINJA’d!!!!!!!!!
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