
r/xkcd

ExplainXKCD has been down for days?
The explainxkcd website has been down for a while.
Anyone know why?
I'm lost without it!
> Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties.
> Try waiting a few minutes and reloading.
> (Cannot access the database)
> You can try searching via Google in the meantime.
> Note that their indexes of our content may be out of date.
A lot of people are suddenly Googling "giant crystal cave mexico"
I see no explanation for the 2 x "oops" in XKCD 3266
XKCD 3266 posted today (07/02/2026 - for posterity 😆 ) Has two annotations "oops" - it seems to imply that some of the deep excavations ran into some issue or non-lethat accident? But at the same time the overlaying entities are geographically dispersed, so maybe it's just a Randall "oops" in drawing?
For anyone reading through the xkcd archive: I made a tracker extension
I kept losing track of where I was while reading through old xkcd comics, so I made a small Chrome extension for it.
It adds lightweight controls directly on xkcd.com to mark comics as read/unread, favorite them, rate them, and keep a “continue reading” point. There’s also a popup and dashboard for progress, unread ranges, favorites, import/export, etc.
It’s unofficial, not affiliated of course. No account, no analytics, no backend server. The reading data stays in Chrome extension storage.
Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/xkcd-reading-tracker/daemkaclgpcpeekkhnnkleeajbhnbkmd
Source code: https://github.com/Wolfsblvt/xkcd-reading-tracker
Mostly sharing because I figured a few other people here might have the same problem.
Made a 3254
I had a very busy week with many important things to do; so I decided to spend my time building this.
I won't explain how it works internally, because it isn't patented yet. It absolutely isn't a green LED tied to a USB-C-port, and a non-connected red LED.