They’re in different instances.
Damn. Nice catch.
My least favorite xkcd of all time.
Because their world is not actually two-dimensional.
I am going to go with shitty comic.
At his best, Randal is brilliant, but he has plenty of bad (and indifferent) days and this was one of his worst.
I’m 99% certain it’s on purpose. Randall is a good enough writer (and a good enough visual communicator) that, if he wanted to make the point concisely, he could have. As, in fact, he does - in the alt text. The comic itself is intentionally obtuse as an illustration of the comic’s subject matter.
Some scientists have speculated that there may actually be a third dimension, in addition to the two we’re familiar with, and that it might actually be possible, under the right circumstances, to actually travel through that third dimension. Yes, I know it’s pretty esoteric, and strains suspension of disbelief, but this is Randal Monroe we’re talking about here-- I wouldn’t put it past him to pull that kind of sci-fi twist.
I do see that now, thanks. Although in some of the panels, I have to say it doesn’t look much like an exclamation point.
This particular comic, as drawn (even more poorly than usual), seem to rule out the existence of a third dimension in this little scenario. Otherwise people might have simply walked around the hole.
But they didn’t see the hole, they weren’t paying attention, they were too busy being exasperated by the idiot they were just talking to. They could just as easily have stopped walking, like the hat guy did in the first panel. Or the girl must have done off screen.
Perhaps it is a trench.
I tried it yesterday, entering the URL of my personal Web site, and it just loaded up the xkcd comic again. I tried it again today, this time entering the URL of the Straight Dope, and I got photos of adorable baby otters.
I don’t think Beret Guy and Roundhead are between the two holes. Even if they are in the same area and all the stick people are there at the same time (neither of which is certain), Beret Guy and Roundhead could both be off somewhere to the right of the right-most hole. There’s no indication that Roundhead has already passed a hole.