The xkcd survey

[PhantomWolf]

are there more people than could be accounted for by chance whose favorite number is 42?

Get out of my head!

 

[GlennB]

Now I'm wondering how you managed to see my responses.

Dave

There was nothing in the survey about clairvoyance, but I saw it coming.

 

[Tiktaalik]

No, I got bored. Thought of doing a load of copy/paste but couldn't be arsed.

I typed a whole bunch and then typed OKthat'senough and quit. I thought it might just go on for as long as you kept typing.

 

[arthwollipot]

Did anyone actually fill out that space completely with random characters?

Yes.

 

[rdaneel]

I also filled the text box.

I wonder how many people didn't put cat and dog in the list of first 5 animals they thought of, and how many that didn't were being honest.

Popular food I don't like: Yogurt.
Took me a while to think of that actually, I would have had an easier time if it asked for a popular drink I don't like, Coffee.

 

[Delvo]

Of course. After all, that's what it asked us to do.

No. It didn't use quotation marks. So anybody answering as if it had was not only doing the "pretending to be really clever" schtick from the cartoon, but also being dishonest.

 

[Ladewig]

I also filled the text box.

I wonder how many people didn't put cat and dog in the list of first 5 animals they thought of, and how many that didn't were being honest.

I did not list cat or dog and I was being honest.

ETA
zebra
whale
hedgehog
fox
wolf

 

[quadraginta]

I wonder how many people didn't put cat and dog in the list of first 5 animals they thought of,

I had a cat in my lap when I filled out the survey, so at least that much was inevitable.

"Dog" just sort of followed.

 

[Trebuchet]

Did anyone actually fill out that space completely with random characters?

I did as suggested and closed my eyes and mashed on the keyboard. The box wasn't completely full because some carriage returns were among the random characters.

 

[caveman1917]

My smarty pants response:

Name the first five animals you can think of

Mojo (Cat)
Jazz (Dog)
Clarence (Lion)
Shorty (Giraffe)
Piccolo (Elephant)

Me, my mother, my father, my sister, my boyfriend.

 

[Sherman Bay]

I did as suggested and closed my eyes and mashed on the keyboard. The box wasn't completely full because some carriage returns were among the random characters.

Since the box can be infinitely expanded^*, it can never be filled up.

* WAG: The size of the box may be restrained by the magic number 65,535 +/- 1.

 

[GlennB]

I did as suggested and closed my eyes and mashed on the keyboard. The box wasn't completely full because some carriage returns were among the random characters.

I was afraid I'd hit the <alt gr><fn><lower volume><caps lock> combination. This is a little-documented key combination, and you just don't want to try it, OK?

 

[quadraginta]

I did as suggested and closed my eyes and mashed on the keyboard. The box wasn't completely full because some carriage returns were among the random characters.

Those count as a character, IMO.

 

[GlennB]

Those count as a character, IMO.

Ah, but was the box already full of 'null' characters? In my programming days ascii(0) was a perfectly valid character. Was it a huge bluff by XKCD, just bending users to its evil intent?

 

[Dave Rogers]

Was it a huge bluff by XKCD, just bending users to its evil intent?

Well, it wouldn't be the first time.

Dave

 

[quadraginta]

Ah, but was the box already full of 'null' characters? In my programming days ascii(0) was a perfectly valid character. Was it a huge bluff by XKCD, just bending users to its evil intent?

If it was they weren't random, so that wouldn't count.

And yes. It certainly could have been, considering the author's past history.

 

[Liamo]

I'm wondering if anybody didn't.

Nobody should, as it didn't read: Type "five random words" here.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

I had a real tough time coming up with a popular food i don't like!

Ended up going with "mussels" - but mostly its cause i have very little exposure to them. THe idea feels gross, but i bet i havent had them prepared the right way yet.

LOL, exactly the same here!

 

[casebro]

Did anyone actually fill out that space completely with random characters?

I pounded away for a while, realized it was probably an infinite screen, figured his only possible point was to see how long folks would stick with it, and stopped. I didn't think there was anything for him to learn from which characters we entered, or their order.

 

[Ladewig]

So, if the instructions were "Fill this text box with gibberish by mashing random keyboard keys," then why didn't the self-styled comedians continually write "gibberish by mashing random keyboard keys" again and again until the text box was filled?