Could you explain today's XKCD?

[Queen Michael]

You can read it here. [http://xkcd.com/1190/] Explain please?

 

[e033x]

First thing that comes to mind is that if you try to divine what it actually means, you'll pass alot of time, because it is actually meaningless. Could be wrong, of course, but i wouldn't put XKCD past it.

 

[Darken12]

It's set to take a long time to load on purpose. The alt text is "wait for it" which completely tips off the joke.

I'd laugh, except I don't find it funny at all.

 

[Queen Michael]

It's set to take a long time to load on purpose. The alt text is "wait for it" which completely tips off the joke.

I'd laugh, except I don't find it funny at all.

It loads slowly? It loaded instantly for me.

 

[Darken12]

It loads slowly? It loaded instantly for me.

It took so much to load for me that it eventually gave up altogether and gave me a "broken image" icon. Which I thought was the joke all along ("waste time waiting for something ginormous to load!"), but then I went there again and it did load. Then I realised the joke was still the same ("wait in the hopes of seeing something that will make it worth your while!"), only with a slightly more clever distraction.

 

[That Guy Ya Know]

It's not set to load slowly at all. It changes. Not sure why/how it changes but I've visited it three times over the course of today and it was different every time.

 

[sextus the crazy]

I'm guessing it has something to do with his partner, who is recovering from cancer. He occasionally makes references to her and this is probably just supposed to be a sweet reminder that things will be back to normal for them.

 

[DoPo]

It's changing roughly every half an hour to an hour. Explain xkcd has more on it, including a list of prvious panels but...right now so many people are wandiring what's the strip about that their servers are under a lot of load. That's why I won't link to it directly - to avoid sending too much traffic their way. Check it back in an hour or two.

EDIT: and for the record, so far there has been Cueball and Megan sitting (several frames), then Cueball standing up, walking almost to the right edge of the screen, then coming back and sitting next to her, now they are making a sand castle (for several frames).

 

[Psykoma]

Awww, I think it's really sweet

 

[Quaxar]

It's obvious... it is the slowest possible version of the Game of Thrones intro.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

.....If it ever loads, I'll let you know my thoughts on it.

 

[nifedj]

I'm seeing the sandcastle one, and it reminded me of this (Not sure if this is visible outside the UK as it's a BBC video):

 

[Andrew_C]

There is unsurprisingly a lot of discussion about it over at the XKCD forums. One theory is that it is a reference to his partner's ongoing battle with cancer, which he has occasionally alluded to in the strip.

EDIT: ninja'd by sextus by several hours!

 

[mitchell271]

You can read it here. [http://xkcd.com/1190/] Explain please?

It's changed as the day goes on. It started out as a couple on a beach to a couple building a sand castle so far. Who knows, it could be changing every 4 hours.

EDIT: Scratch that, looks to be changing every hour.

EDIT2: Explain xkcd has every panel so far. It changes every 30 minutes. Also, after reading all of them
D'awww

 

[DoPo]

In order to spare some of the load on explain xkcd, here are the images rehosted on Imageshack:

00:00 [http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/6261/timex.png]
00:30 [http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/6775/time2o.png]
01:00 [http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/8628/time3t.png]
01:30 [http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6569/time4.png]
02:00 [http://img547.imageshack.us/img547/3806/time5.png]
02:30 [http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/6260/time6.png]
03:00 [http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/3671/time7.png]
03:30 [http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/2726/time8.png]
04:00 [http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/1861/time9.png]
04:30 [http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/9279/time10.png]
05:00 [http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/8940/time11.png]
05:30 [http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/552/time12.png]
06:00 [http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/2980/time13.png]
06:30 [http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/9678/time14.png]
07:00 [http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/1285/time15.png]
07:30 [http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/2432/time16.png]
08:00 [http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/5442/time17.png]
08:30 [http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/9176/time18.png]
09:00 [http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/3497/time19.png]
09:30 [http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/6334/time20.png]
10:00 [http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/671/time21.png]
10:30 [http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/2716/time22.png]
11:00 [http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/892/time23.png]
11:30 [http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/9094/time24.png]
12:00 [http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1346/time25.png]
12:30 [http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/9625/time26.png]
13:00 [http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/2214/time27.png]
13:30 [http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/5740/time28.png]
14:00 [http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3073/time29.png]
14:30 [http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/9647/time30.png]
15:00 [http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/6965/time31.png]
15:30 [http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/9098/time32.png]
16:00 [http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/3379/time33.png]
16:30 [http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/9598/time34.png]
17:00 [http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/8729/time35.png]
17:30 [http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/795/time36.png]
18:00 [http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/4230/time37.png]
18:30 [http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/3382/time38.png]
19:00 [http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/1603/time39.png]
19:30 [http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/128/time40.png]
20:00 [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/9/9e/time41.png]
20:30 [http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/8291/time42.png]
21:00 [http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/4926/time43.png]
21:30 [http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/9721/time44.png]
22:00 [http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/3112/time45.png]
22:30 [http://img547.imageshack.us/img547/5166/time46.png]
23:00 [http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/6224/time47.png]

 

[General Twinkletoes]

It's set to take a long time to load on purpose. The alt text is "wait for it" which completely tips off the joke.

I'd laugh, except I don't find it funny at all.

Nope. It's a story of him and his wife sand castles, it's changing the image every hour. http://xkcd.aubronwood.com/

 

[loc978]

Given the context of cancer and content of building a sandcastle, it reminds me of a song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW5zPy73gWk]...

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's hard to be funny when that sorta shit is happening to someone you care deeply for.

 

[Strazdas]

It's set to take a long time to load on purpose. The alt text is "wait for it" which completely tips off the joke.

I'd laugh, except I don't find it funny at all.

It loads slowly? It loaded instantly for me.

instantly for me as well, i dont get it too. it went to the end isntantly.

 

[kailus13]

It seems to be continuing. Not sure what to make of it.

 

[JDLY]

If anyone cares, it still seems to be going on, even though it's been several days at this point.