Clickbait-Corrected p-Value

Explanation:
Clickbait is the practice of using deceptive or hyperbolic headlines to entice readers to click on a dubious or sensationalist news story, often with the purpose of generating site traffic and ad revenue. Randall uses the scientific controversy regarding the health effects of chocolate to humans as an example, as there is widespread misinformation on the health effects of chocolate online. In fact, there are no reliable studies to confirm any health effects while no medical authority has approved any health claims regarding chocolate.
Hypothesis testing in statistics is a standard method to determine whether a particular hypothesis is supported by the data. For the topic given in this comic, a researcher might compare data on athletic performance with data on chocolate consumption by those athletes to determine whether the two trend together. By convention, the "null hypothesis" (denoted H 0 ) is that there is no correlation (e.g. chocolate doesn't affect athletic performance) while the "alternate hypothesis" (H 1 ) would be that they are correlated. (If the study consists of feeding chocolate to one of two identical groups and not the other, rather than tracking what they'd be eating anyway, then the alternative hypothesis can be strengthened to be that chocolate causes improved performance.) These sets are subjected to statistical tests which return a "test statistic". From that test statistic a "p-value" is calculated. The p-value indicates the probability of observing the obtained results (or any more extreme value), when the null hypothesis is true (e.g. chocolate has no effect on athletic performance).
In other words, the p-value is an indicator as to the statistical significance and consequential reliability of the results affirming the "alternate hypothesis"( not the probability that the null hypothesis is correct ). It answers the question: If there is no correlation, how likely was it that I saw a correlation at least this big? Hence, if the p-value is low enough (by convention < 0.05), the null hypothesis is rejected, and we conclude that the alternate hypothesis is supported by the data (NOT that it is "correct" or "true").
In this comic, the p-value is corrected by a factor that takes clickbait into account. This factor has the effect of increasing the p-value if H 1 is more clickbaity than H 0 , and decreases the p-value if H 0 is more clickbaity than H 1 . This suggests that whatever clickers of clickbait believe, the reverse is likely to be true.
Furthermore, this factor may be interpreted as normalisation for the inherent selection bias where the p-values for more clickbaity H 1 s tend to be lower than they should be and p-values for non-clickbaity H 0 s to be higher than they should be. For example, one explanation could be that for p-values that are on the cusp of significance, researchers may be more incentivized to fudge and adjust the data to get the p-value down if the H 1 is highly sensational, since the H 1 would make the research more likely to get published and attract attention. (See also FiveThirtyEight's article on p-hacking and this Stack Exchange question about p-hacking in the wild .) P-hacking has also previously already been associated with chocolate and media sensationalism.
As the statistical results now depend on people's beliefs about the hypothesis, this could appear as far from actual science as one can get. However, in a way, it is more in tune with a quote by John Arbuthnot (one of the originators of the use of p-values) attributing variation to active thought rather than chance, "from whence it follows, that it is Art, not Chance, that governs." Randall applying that quote to the thoughts of the masses brings it in line with "Art".
If this correction could be somehow enforced on the scientific world, it would have the effect of keeping the popular view of scientific results more in line with reality. Often one study will be performed that shows an exciting result, and consequently be sensationalised by the media prior to further studies to verify it. This is in part due to the conflicting interest of the scientific community and the media.  The clickbait correction may aid a reader in exercising caution when interpreting sensationalist scientific discoveries in news media.  Additionally, there can be a problem in some areas of science where more mundane results never undergo the third-party replication studies (see replication crisis , or perhaps are even never studied in the first place. The clickbait correction factor has the opposite effect on these more mundane topics, making it easier to demonstrate effects within them with a lower statistical barrier for entry, perhaps in the hope that more will get studied, published, and exposed to the public.
Technically , the comic's depiction of null and alternative hypotheses is not entirely correct. As the alternative hypothesis (H 1 ) predicts that chocolate will improve performance (i.e., a one-tailed, directional hypothesis), the null hypothesis (H 0 ) should predict that chocolate will do nothing or make performance worse. In other words, the alternative hypothesis should be true if and only if the null hypothesis is false. For example, alternatively, if the H 1 were to say that chocolate will change performance (for better or worse; i.e., a two-tailed hypothesis) then H 0 should say that chocolate will do nothing .
The title text refers to Bayesian statistics , a statistical technique which involves considering (before you see the new data) how likely you think it is that the hypothesis is true. (It is worth noting that the traditional statistical analysis described above, doesn't directly say anything about how likely the hypothesis is to be *true*. It simply assesses whether the data is consistent with the null hypothesis.) Under Bayesian analysis, you begin with a prior probability , or simply just "prior", which expresses how likely you think the alternate hypothesis is. Then after seeing the new data, you apply Bayes' theorem to *update* your belief about the hypothesis, and as a result you should then consider the hypothesis to be more likely (or less likely) than you considered it before.
Bayesian statistics therefore recognizes that an extraordinary claim should require more evidence to convince you than a "reasonable" claim would. (Which is, arguably, sort of, the same point being made by the Clickbait-correction.) But also that *enough* evidence, perhaps gathered step by step over time, should be sufficient to convince you even of extraordinary claims.
The technique can be hard to apply in science however, because of the difficulty in agreeing upon reasonable priors. Here it's suggested that an alternative "clickbayes factor" (a pun and portmanteau of clickbait and Bayesian) could be used to approximate hard to quantify priors.
[Under a heading that says Clickbait-Corrected p-Value there is a mathematical formula. Below that is the description of the two used variables and what they mean:] Clickbait-corrected p-value:
P CL = P traditional ∙ click(H 1 )/click(H 0 )
H 0 : NULL hypothesis ("Chocolate has no effect on athletic performance") H 1 : Alternative hypothesis ("Chocolate boosts athletic performance") click(H): Fraction of test subjects who click on a headline announcing that H is true


LeBron James and Stephen Curry

Explanation:
At the time of this comic, the 2018 NBA Finals were going on, between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors with the Warriors leading 2 games to 0 in a best of seven series. At first glance, the comic looks like an in-depth analysis of two of the star players on those teams, LeBron James and Stephen Curry . The joke is that while comprehensive, all the statistics are completely meaningless - many of them are obviously false, and many don't show any correlation, and if there is one, it's extremely unlikely there is any causal link in there.
The first graph includes a nine-digit Social Security number issued for US citizens which is typically not considered a metric related to athletic ability. As Social Security numbers are essentially random numbers ( until 2011 , there was a geographic correspondence for the first three digits), the graph shows only the free throw percentage of a large number of players, artificially spread vertically. Also note that Social Security numbers are not usually made public, barring security leaks.
The second graph is a graph of 2018 points per game vs teammate's APGAR score. APGAR score is used to quickly summarize the health of newborn children, with scores of 7 and above indicating an infant has generally normal health; its use to rank adult NBA players is odd, if not improper. This graph indicates LeBron's teammates have an average APGAR score of approximately 2.1. Scores of 3 and below are generally regarded as critically low and possibly requiring medical attention. Low APGAR scores can also be associated with increased risk of neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy. The joke appears to be in giving LeBron's less-than-impressive teammates a low APGAR score.
The shot map shows from what position Curry's shots were scored compared to other NBA players. This references Stephen Curry's propensity to take (and make) shots from well beyond the normal distance required for 3 points. [1] The comic then takes this to hilarious extremes by showing he supposedly scored several times from outside the playing field (not a legal play), including twice from the bleachers ( definitely not a legal play), and once from the locker room (which is physically impossible due to multiple walls in between [ citation needed ] ).
Next is a graph of (team) win percentage vs sandwiches eaten during play. Average win percentage seems to go down as number of sandwiches eaten goes up to 3. It does indicate that the Golden State Warriors still have quite high win rate even though they have eaten either 4 sandwiches per game, or 4 sandwiches total during games, over the course of the 2018 season (the graph is unclear on this point). Golden State Warriors seem to be an outlier as their win percentage is much higher than the one of the teams that have eaten 2-3 sandwiches.
In the "2018 total points" table, the highlighted Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers represent the teams of Stephen Curry and LeBron James respectively. Magnetic north is the south pole of the Earth's magnetic field . Certain animals use the magnetic field to navigate and align themselves (including migratory birds, bees, and foxes), but there is no evidence that humans are affected by the earth's magnetic field. This means that there should not be any correlation between orientation of a basketball court and points scored. But Cleveland Cavaliers have a much a higher percentage of goals scored when orientation is towards magnetic North than other teams, probably it is implied that LeBron James and/or his team somehow actually senses magnetic field and uses that to direct shots, but more likely explanation would be that it is just the orientation of the court during their home games.
The title text is a continuation of the joke in the bottom table. FiveThirtyEight , sometimes referred to as 538, is a website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging.
The table at the bottom includes more unrelated comparisons:
Have You Heard of Him Although both players are well known in their native United States, elsewhere basketball is considered a minority sport. Of the 7 billion people in the world it is likely that less than 2% [ dubious ] of the total population will have heard of either player. [ citation needed ] According to Randall, LeBron James is a more well known player than Stephen Curry. President During Most Recent Game 7 Loss In the NBA, the top 16 teams qualify for a single elimination play-off to determine the season champion, with each series played as a best-of-seven series (first to win 4 games). After the fourth game, fixtures are only played as required. Most fixtures are therefore resolved before the last game. Lebron James has participated in seven playoff game 7s in his career (winning 5 of 7), and the last time his team lost a game seven was on May 18, 2008 ( George W. Bush was still President). This also highlights that James is an older athlete, yet has been fairly dominant through his career. Stephen Curry's last game 7 loss came at the hands of Lebron James in the 2016 NBA Finals ( Barack Obama was President). It is notable that both the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers won their respective games 7 in their Conference Finals to make it to this year's NBA Finals. Pog Collection Pogs were a fad in the 1990s. It is unclear why either would have a large collection of them, or why LeBron's collection would be even more "staggeringly large" than Curry's, besides being 4 years older than him.
Career Average Fed Interest Rate The Federal Interest Rate, or federal funds rate , is an interest rate set by the United States Federal Reserve . This rate is increased or decreased periodically based on the health of the U.S. economy. As of the time of publishing, the federal interest rate was targeted at 1.75%. The rate has fluctuated from a high of around 5% to a low of near 0% (during the time of the 2008 recession ). James' career average federal interest rate is higher than Curry's, because James began his career before Curry, when interest rates were higher. Name Scrabble Score Both "lebronjames" and "stephencurry" are worth 22 points in Scrabble . However, proper names are not recognized as scorable words in Scrabble, and thus would be worth nothing. Best Sport It is claimed that their best sport is basketball. This fact should be exceedingly obvious, as they are arguably the two greatest current basketball players; considering all the work they would have dedicated to reach that point, it is extremely unlikely that they have reached an even greater level of mastery in any other sport. Height Both are listed as over 6 feet tall, which is not at all unusual for professional basketball players. Stephen Curry is 6'3" and LeBron James is 6'8", although this chart does not distinguish the exact heights. In most contexts, bucketing humans into broad height-groups would be unsurprising, but in basketball more detail is relevant. Thus, the information is accurate but uninformative --- like the rest of the data in this comic. Retirement Year In 2027, Stephen Curry will be 39 years old, which is a typical retirement age for NBA players. LeBron James's retirement age is listed as Unknown . In reality, there is no way to know when either will return, and if Curry's retirement date is just a projection or prediction, it is unclear why the same could not be done for LeBron (it could perhaps refer to James's high level of play through his mid-30s, when typical players have a decline in their performance). FiveThirtyEight Total Rating Nate Silver is a political commentator and founder of the website FiveThirtyEight , which uses and promotes statistical approaches in explaining the world.  The site's two major areas of focus are in politics (especially on elections - it became famous for correctly predicting for whom 49 of 50 states would vote in the 2008 US presidential election and every US state in the 2012 election, and though it wasn't as accurate in 2016 it had given Donald Trump a larger chance of Electoral College victory than other mainstream media sources) and sports (Silver first got into statistical analysis via baseball). The presence of both sports-related and politics-related topics in the comic, however related they are (or not) with each other, seems to be a nod towards FiveThirtyEight's content. Nate Silver has a much higher 538TR than either Curry or James. As explained in the title text, the 538TR combines basketball skill (either real-life or video game basketball) with election forecasting. This could suggest that Silver is proficient at basketball, presumably the video game kind, or else that election forecasting is heavily weighted.
NBA Playoffs DataDive LeBron James and Stephen Curry What makes these superstars so extraordinary?
[The comic consists of several plots and tables, listed here from top to bottom, left to right.]
Scatter plot of Social Security number vs Free throw percentage [Social Security numbers range from 000-00-0000 to 999-99-9999. No pattern discernable, aside from points being a bit denser in the middle of the plot. Stephen Curry is marked as a point on the right edge of the plot, corresponding to a high free throw percentage.]
Scatter plot of 2018 points per game vs Average teammate APGAR score [APGAR scores range from 0 to 10. Pattern suggests a somewhat positive link between the two factors. LeBron James is marked as having a lot of points, but a low teammate APGAR score of approximately 2.1.]
Shot map [Legend: grey dot for all players, black dot for Stephen Curry] [A diagram of a basketball court is shown with dots placed where players have taken shots at the goal. For the all players category the dots generally cluster next to the goal basket and in front of the three point line. Stephen has 3 dots next to the basket (one is behind it), but does cluster next to the three point line. He also has several dots on the other side of the playing field, and outside it, including three in the bleachers and one in the locker room.]
Sandwiches eaten during play vs Win % [Sandwiches eaten range from 0 to 4. A plot that suggests no relation between the factors because practically all dots are in the zero sandwiches column. 2018 Warriors have one dot at around 60% and 4 sandwiches.]
2018 total points [A table listing teams and their points overall and "When net is within 15° of magnetic north". The rows for the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers are highlighted, the latter showing an abnormally high score in the magnetic north column.]
2018 total points Overall When net is within 15° of magnetic north Golden State Warriors 9304 330 Houston Rockets 9213 268 New Orleans Pelicans 9161 219 Toronto Raptors 9156 341 Cleveland Cavaliers 9091 1644 Denver Nuggets 9020 280
[A table at the bottom:]
Stephen Curry LeBron James Have you heard of him Probably Yes President during most recent game 7 loss Obama Bush Pog collection Large Staggeringly large Career average Fed interest rate 3.42% 4.41% Name Scrabble score 22 22 Best sport Basketball Basketball Height Over 6' Over 6' Retirement year 2027 Unknown Nate Silver FiveThirtyEight total rating (devised by Nate Silver to combine all metrics into a single stat) 37.4 31.8 86.6
This comic was posted the day after the second game in the 2018 NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors (Stephen Curry's team) and the Cleveland Cavaliers (LeBron James' team).  It is the fourth consecutive time the two teams faced each other at the finals, which is unprecedented in major sports leagues in North America.  The Warriors won in 2015 and 2017, the Cavaliers won in 2016. At the time of the comic, the Warriors led the current series 2-0; which they eventually won.


Presidential Succession

Explanation:
The United States presidential line of succession is the order of people who serve as president if the current incumbent president is incapacitated, dies, resigns, or is removed from office.
The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 revised the presidential order of succession to its current order. This Act, though never challenged in the courts, may not be constitutional for two reasons. First, the Act names two members of Congress as successors.  There are serious questions as to whether this violates the principle of Separation of Powers. The second issue is that the Act allows for anyone skipped over for succession to later assume the office if circumstances change to allow them to hold it. This would mean that the person in question could effectively unseat a sitting President, which raises serious constitutional issues.
There are also practical concerns regarding the Act. The line of succession includes all members of the Cabinet in the order that their department was established, with the oldest departments first. No consideration is given to which departments would be most relevant to the Presidency, particularly considering that this type of succession would presumably involve a serious crisis, which the new president would need to be able to address immediately. The Department of Homeland Security is in charge of the security and protection of the United States and its citizens and would probably already be privy to sensitive intelligence and briefings related to national security, but because it is the latest of the Departments to have been established (in 2003), the Secretary of Homeland Security is last in the current Presidential line of succession, behind Secretaries in much less sensitive roles, such as those of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Education.
Another concern is that, by including members of Congress immediately after the Vice President, there is a serious risk that the simultaneous death of the President and Vice President could cause the Presidency to change to the opposing party, which could lead to serious political instability at the precise moment when the country is facing a national crisis. It even presents the possibility that simultaneous assassinations of the President and Vice President could function as an effective coup, shifting power to their opponents.
Finally, there is the issue that, usually, everyone in the line of succession lives and works in Washington D.C. Hence, a sufficiently destructive attack or natural disaster impacting the city could realistically incapacitate all of them, leaving the USA leaderless at a time of extreme crisis. It is already established practice in the USA that everyone in this line not gather together at once. In cases where most senior government officials gather (such as the State of the Union ), at least one member of the line of succession (referred to as the "designated survivor") is secured off-site, and would assume the presidency in the unlikely event that a mass casualty event were to kill or incapacitate everyone else in the line. However, disasters impacting an entire city remain a possibility, and no provision is made for them in current law.
To correct these issues, a think tank known as the Continuity of Government Commission prepared a report recommending a new line of succession, which would not include members of Congress, would reorder the cabinet secretaries so that the most suitable roles would be the first successors, and would include people who do not live or work in Washington DC.  The full text of their report can be found here . A short, readable summary, including the report's recommended new line of succession, is here .
The first six members of the commission's list are taken from the current line of succession, though the order is changed; they propose that after this, five new people should be appointed specifically for the purpose of assuming the presidency, if needed. Randall's list begins with these eleven people (combining the five new appointees into #7); afterwards, his list becomes increasingly comical and ridiculous.
Randall's list omits members of Congress, as well as other cabinet positions, in accordance with the report's concerns about constitutionality and qualifications. However, his other additions totally ignore these issues, including people with no apparent qualifications for the office (such as actors, athletes, and competitive eaters) and people who are constitutionally ineligible for the office.  The US Constitution requires that the President of the United States must be a natural-born US citizen, at least 35 years of age, and have resided in the US for at least fourteen years. Randall's list includes many people who don't meet these requirements.  Most notably, he includes the entire succession to the British crown, almost none of whom meet the requirement of being natural-born citizens of the United States.
It may be expected that many of the athletes, musicians and actors on this list are likely to be ineligible as well. Most professional athletes in the relevant sports are under 35 years old, particularly those at the peak of their careers (when they'd likely win MVP awards), the most popular musicians also tend to be younger than 35, and many who meet these requirements were not born US citizens (and some many not even reside in the US).  However, the existing line of succession can also contain ineligible people, who would simply be skipped over for succession. For example, at the comic's publication, Elaine Chao was the Secretary of Transportation and would normally be 14th in line, but because she is a naturalized citizen of the US, rather than native-born (she was born in Taiwan) she would not qualify for the office if the line came to her.
The title text mentions that ties will be broken by whoever was closest to the surface of Europa when they were born. Europa is a moon of Jupiter and one of the most likely locations in the Solar System for potential habitability . This is likely a parody of systems in which ties are broken by semi-arbitrary rules (such as the older candidate automatically winning a tie) or a randomized ones (such as ties being decided by a coin flip).  The position of Europa with respect to Earth at the time of one's birth depends on enough factors that it acts as a pseudo-random tie breaker, albeit a needlessly complicated one.
The presidential line of succession was first mentioned in 1933: Santa Facts
Based on the comic's defined criteria for the order of succession, these are the specific individuals in that order, including only people who are otherwise eligible to be the President of United States (35 year old and natural born US citizens who lived in US for last 14 years) as of the date the comic was published .
Based on the comic's defined criteria for the order of succession, these are the specific individuals in that order, including only people who are otherwise eligible to be the President of United States (35 year old and natural born US citizens who lived in US for last 14 years) as of the current date . (Last updated on 26 January 2022)
A proposal for a new presidential line of succession Current politics aside, most experts agree the existing process is flawed. The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 is probably unconstitutional on several counts, and there are many practical issues with the system as well. (For more, see the surprisingly gripping Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission , June 2009.) Proposed line of succession: President Vice president Secretary of State Secretary of Defense Secretary of Homeland Security Attorney General Five people who do not live in Washington DC, nominated at the start of the president's term and confirmed by the Senate Tom Hanks State Governors, in descending order of state population at last census Anyone who won an Oscar for playing a governor Anyone who won a Governor's award for playing someone named Oscar Kate McKinnon, if available Billboard year-end Hot 100 singles artists #1 through #10 (for groups, whoever is credited first in name, liner notes, etc) The top 5 US astronauts in descending order of total spaceflight time Serena Williams (or, if she lost her most recent match, whoever beat her) The most recent season NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL MVPs Bull Pullman and his descendants by absolute primogeniture The entire line of succession to the British throne The current champion of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest All other US citizens, chosen by a 29-round single-elimination Jousting tournament


Sun and Earth

Explanation:
This is one of a number of comics which describe everyday events in unusual terms, making them sound really weird. In this case, both the Sun and the Earth are "massive convective systems [blasting] huge plumes of heat", which contrasts sharply with the daily idea of the Sun being a ball in the sky and the Earth the thing under our feet.
Free convection is based on an difference in density.  What is colder is typically denser, so gravity forces it downwards, displacing what is hotter (and less dense) upward (This should not be confused with forced convection , which uses fans or other devices that are not practical to build on the scale of a planet). In the sun, most of the energy to drive this process comes from nuclear fusion, specifically the fusion of hydrogen into helium.  We cannot directly see inside of the earth, [ citation needed ] but its core is known to be much hotter than its surface.
The magnitude of these systems gives you an idea of the size of the fluctuations you can expect. The sun is very massive, meaning the fluctuations in its convective or heat-dissipating behavior are very large. This is an instance of the Fluctuation-Dissipation theorem . These fluctuations take the form of a solar flare, as explained below. For a more thorough (but non-technical) explanation of the role of gravity and entropy in such systems, see this .
The Sun produces great amounts of light and heat and blasts it towards us, which is why we can live on Earth. Since Ludwig Boltzmann pointed out the fact in 1875, people have been working on establishing exactly how such far from equilibrium systems as life might depend upon, or be formed by ( like this article ), such massive entropy gradients as between the sun and earth (or rather the sun and empty space). Main sequence stars like the sun transport energy by radiation and by convective currents of plasma , bringing the heat generated in the core of the sun to its surface.  These quickly moving charged particles create a massive magnetic field, which occasionally gets concentrated into a solar prominence which can snap, causing a large amount of charged particles to get shot into space as a solar flare .  If the Earth happens to be in the direction of the solar flare, we can notice all sorts of interesting and often damaging effects.  Thankfully, there are lots of other directions for the sun to shoot solar flares, so they don't come by the Earth that often.
The Earth's interior is also very hot. Mantle convection causes plate tectonics which is the main cause of volcanic activity (next to mantle plumes ), which essentially also consists of huge blasts of heat.
This could sound like a very bad scenario, but the title text reminds us that the real scenario we live in is far worse, as we are not likely to die from a Sun blast or volcano eruption. In doing this, he indirectly points out the hard truth about our lives: that they're limited and they're short, and it is far easier to die of because of other things. In this way Randall attempts to give the reader an existential crisis; he concludes that his statement did not help to reassure himself.
This comic was likely inspired by the recent eruptions of the Kīlauea and Volcán de Fuego . In contrast, solar activity is currently low, because the sunspot solar cycle is in the low end of the 11-year cycle.
[The entire comic is within a panel. At the bottom of the image a curved shape depicting a small part of the Earth's surface and labeled as "Earth" is shown. At the top a similar sized shape but opposite curve is labeled as "Sun". The surface of the Sun is seething while on Earth's surface a few plants, two birds, and Cueball together with Megan are visible.]
[Two arrows pointing to the Sun and the Earth with a caption applying to both of them:] Massive convective systems which occasionally blast huge plumes of heat at us without warning through mechanisms we can't directly observe and don't really understand.
Cueball: What a nice day!


Attention Span

Explanation:
People often groan about their shrinking attention span, attributing it to an increased illiteracy. This allows for fond nostalgia about the times when they were supposedly more intelligent and focused. For instance, Nicholas Carr wrote this article to compile both anecdotes (which are more abundant) and research (which is more useful) to describe this phenomenon.
Cueball does the same here, but Megan retorts that he spent six hours reading over a pointless (if disturbingly plausible) theory about a banal show based off a series of bedtime stories made to entertain small children. Thomas The Tank Engine is a British children's series based off a series of books written by Wilbert Awdry. It follows the adventures of anthropomorphized train locomotives and other vehicles.
Cueball qualifies his statement: he has no attention span for anything good anymore. Megan, in reply, examines Cueball’s bookshelf, finding a book that cements Cueball’s status as a nerd who reads high fantasy . Cueball protests that the book is a classic, but Megan dismisses the fact.
To be fair to Cueball, many great fantasies have covers such as those in the comic (e.g. A Song of Ice and Fire , The Lord of the Rings , Randall's personal favorite Discworld ). To be fair to Megan, this book is apparently not one of them, being thicker than it is wide (like The Complete Miss Marple by Agatha Christie ), a telltale sign of needless bombast and turgid prose.
Other possibilities for the dragon book are His Majesty's Dragon from the Temeraire series or Dragonsbane from the Winterlands series.
If there was any doubt about Cueball’s dubious literary tastes before, Megan dispels them in the title text, refering to a novelization of the excoriated movie Surf Ninjas , a movie that is exactly what it sounds like. Signed novelizations of a movie named “Surf Ninjas” are not typical fodder for great minds. [ citation needed ]
The comic contains a hyperlink to an article with the same unfortunate content Cueball has apparently finished reading prior to this comic: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends” . This article, the articles linked from it, further linked articles from those, links found by googling the topic, and other related web surfing on the topic could easily add up to six hours or more of reading.
[Cueball and Megan are standing together.] Cueball: I haven't read any books in forever. I have no attention span anymore.
[Zoom in on the faces of Cueball and Megan.] Megan: Didn't you literally just spend six hours obsessively reading about the theory that Thomas the Tank Engine is authoritarian propaganda depicting a post-apocalyptic fascist dystopia?
[Cueball still standing there. Megan begins pacing away.] Cueball: OK Cueball: I mean I have no attention span for anything good anymore. Megan: Let's check out your bookshelf, shall we?
[Cueball alone.] Cueball: What are you- Off-panel: I see a dragon holding a sword in its teeth on the cover of a book that's thicker than it is wide. Cueball: And? That's a classic! Off-panel: Just saying, I don't think this is a new development.
2005 (the comic number) is also the year of the first XKCD comic.
The dragon described is very loosely similar to the legendary pokemon Zacian , whose game had been teased at the release of this comic.


Customer Rewards

Explanation:
Many supermarkets offer customers Loyalty programs that give discounts. To join one of these programs you often need to give various personal data, such as your name, or download an app that can access your Facebook account. The supermarket gets lots of valuable marketing data to target the customer in the future. They think this will make lots of money for them, so they entice people to do this. This is why it is able to offer a discount to members of the program.
Here, Cueball is at a store where the clerk is offering to give him benefits in exchange for data and to help them advertise their products. This comic imagines the exchange of data for a discount as the sales clerk offering cash at the point of sale, to emphasize how odd this exchange is. Not to mention, when flat-out asking to see someone's phone to write down their contact info and look at all their Facebook posts it sounds disturbingly like uncouth data harvesting, not too far removed from potential identity theft.
The title text continues this by considering how companies will also find ways to incentivize positive viral marketing or offer services in exchange for viewing adverts. By imagining these situations as if they were cash transactions makes them seem ridiculous.
All this information is used to send personalized ads which have a better chance of succeeding and earning money for the store owner.
[To the right Cueball stands in front of a sales desk, his shopping bag on the desk. Behind the desk on the left is a sales clerk wearing a peaked cap and typing on a cash register.] Sales clerk: That will be $23.03. Sales clerk: Also, I'll pay you 24 cents for your last name, 35 cents for a list of your family members, 79 cents for your cell number, and $1.20 if you hand me your phone and let me scroll through your Facebook posts.
[Caption below the panel:] Loyalty cards and rewards account offers get way weirder if you think of them as separate transactions.


Brookhaven RHIC

Explanation:
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is a particle accelerator designed to collide gold ions together at incredibly high speeds. This is normally done to study particle physics - the high-energy collisions allow us to learn more about how subatomic particles behave.
Randall proposes that, instead of using the beam of gold ions for particle collisions, it should be diverted and sold at cash-for-gold stores to make money. In effect, the particle accelerator would be reconfigured to become an extremely complicated and expensive method to transport gold ions from the foil to the cash-for-gold stores.
Randall proposed modifying part of the circular particle accelerator to add a diverter, so he can direct the gold ion beam to the three stores. It is unclear, however, how he would manage to transport the gold to the stores, as once it leaves the circular particle accelerator, parts of the beam are not in an enclosed space, and would likely collide with something. It would also cause problems once it reached the stores, as the gold ions travel at relativistic speeds.
Part of the joke may be that because they are traveling at relativistic speeds, the mass of the particles being sold will be much more than the mass of the ions being supplied to the collider's input. However, it would be very difficult to sell a beam of charged particles [ citation needed ] , and the amount of gold involved is below microscopic scales. That, and the fact that he is trying to misuse the particle accelerator for his own profit, is the reason why Brookhaven rejected Randall's proposal. Also, the energy used by the particle accelerator would cost more than the revenue from selling the gold.
Randall has done many comics describing impractical research proposals in the past.
The title text imagines the owner of the stores complaining about the sale, not because of impracticality, but because Randall tries to sell gold ions with the entire positively-charged nucleus of the gold atom with all 79 electrons stripped from it instead of normal, electrically neutral gold atoms. This is also a pun on the word "charges", which could refer to electric charge or to criminal charges .
This is an actual map of the area around Brookhaven National Laboratory , with east at the top. The cash for gold stores depicted in the comic are, from left to right:
[A single panel contains a simplified overhead map view of the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and some of the surrounding area. The map is rotated 90°; north is to the left. The collider is located on the left hand side of the image as a yellow beam (representing the Gold ions) outlined in black.  Parts of the collider are are labeled and there are light gray arrows indicating the direction of travel for the ions.  At the bottom of the main accelerator ring there is a diverter that splits the ion beam and directs it towards a set of three Cash for Gold stores, passing through a more diverters along the way.  Each Cash for Gold store is represented with a yellow burst and is marked with a Google maps style "store" locator pin. The following labels are written on the map.]
Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider Gold Ion Source Accelerator Ring Diverter Gold Ion Beam
[There are arrows coming from this label pointing at each store] Cash for Gold Stores
[Caption below the panel:] Sadly, Brookhaven rejected my proposed experiment


Irony Definition

Explanation:
This comic presents a snapshot of an argument between Black Hat and Cueball . Black Hat states that it's ironic how Cueball understands the definition of irony, yet Black Hat is happy while Cueball is not. Cueball is upset because Black Hat is purposely misusing the term "ironic", likely after Cueball had previously corrected him on his use of the word.
Irony is a broad concept that is very often the subject of confusion and debate, especially concerning whether something is "really" irony. In this comic, Black Hat is probably referencing situational irony , which occurs when there is a sharp contrast between the expected and actual results of a situation, often in a humorous way or one that includes some sort of contradiction. For example, cane toads were introduced to Australia to control the native cane beetle, a pest to farmers. Ironically, the toads have caused massive ecological damage and become a pest themselves, and have even failed to control the cane beetles. That someone who understands what irony is would be unhappy while someone who doesn't would be happy is not an example of irony. Since Black Hat is trying to irritate Cueball, he is intentionally misusing the word "ironic".
Irony can have other meanings besides situational irony. Verbal irony (which is related to sarcasm) refers to a contradiction between a statement's stated and intended meaning. Dramatic irony is a device in fiction in which the consumer of a work is aware of information that is unknown to a character in the narrative. The adjective "ironic" is often used colloquially to mean strange, interesting, unexpected, or funny based on some subversion of expectations. The use of the word in these ways is often what prompts conversations and arguments about what really is or isn't ironic.
What could be going on is that Cueball was trying to correct Black Hat's misuse of the word irony, in order to make him feel bad about misusing it. However, Black Hat being the classhole he is, could have decided to take advantage of it, and misuse it again , to make Cueball angry again.
In the title text Black Hat once again misuses the word ironic , this time in an even more absurd way. It is unknown what Black Hat means when he says Cueball's glaring makes him feel "ironic", as this is a totally spurious use of the word, and one which is probably not intended to actually mean anything and is only done to annoy Cueball further.
[Black Hat and Cueball are walking together, with Black Hat walking behind Cueball with his arms out and palms up. Cueball is visibly upset, as evidenced by the squiggle floating above his head and his balled up fists.] Black Hat: It's ironic how you know the definition of irony, yet I'm the one in this conversation who's happy.


Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram

Explanation:
The Hertzsprung–Russell diagram is a scatterplot showing absolute luminosities of stars against its effective temperature or color. It's generally used to understand a star's age.
The axes are labeled in Kelvin (degrees Celsius above absolute zero ) for effective temperature and, unlike many Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams, Watts for luminosity . While most Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams are labelled in units of solar luminosity or absolute magnitude , all three are perfectly valid measures of luminosity , which refers to the total power emitted by the star (or other body). Effective temperature refers to temperature of a blackbody with the same surface area and luminosity. This is meant to provide an estimate of the surface temperature of the object.
Roughly speaking, the luminosity (i.e. total power radiated) by an object is proportional to (1) the total surface area of the object, multiplied by (2) the (absolute) temperature raised to the fourth power. So a high luminosity generally results from either a very hot or a very large object, or a combination of the two. The surface-area dependence explains why the whale and the cruise ship are more luminous than the hotter campfire.
Regular Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams cover ranges of about 1,000K to 30,000K, and what is labeled on this diagram as 10 21 to 10 33 watts—i.e. the upper-left corner. Extended diagrams increase the luminosity range only to include the "Brown Dwarfs". This diagram has been extended to much lower magnitudes on both axes. The joke comes from the absurdity of a diagram meant for stars including much smaller objects, such as planets ... and astronomers.
Though not included in the diagram, the title text notes that the diagram itself would probably be plotted somewhere in the lower right corner due to its (relatively) low power output and temperature. On its face this is nonsensical - the diagram itself, being mere information, possesses neither power output nor temperature - but one can read this as the power output and temperature of a typical screen displaying the diagram. Bigger screens have a higher total output (in terms of luminosity) and are thus positioned further towards the diagram's top. An "unusually big screen" would have to be something like a JumboTron or a projector for its luminosity or temperature to put it outside of the lower right corner.
Expanded Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram [A scatter plot is shown, with the x-axis labeled Effective Temperature (in kelvins), and the y-axis Luminosity (watts).] [Circled items in the top left (high temperature and high luminosity):] Supergiants Giants Main sequence White dwarfs Brown dwarfs [Items shown as points and their values:] Betelgeuse: 	3200 K, 	1.6 × 10 31 W Vega: 	10,000 K, 	1.8 × 10 28 W Sun: 	5800 K, 	3.6 × 10 26 W Proxima Centauri: 	2700 K, 	2.0 × 10 23 W HD 189733 b: 	2100 K, 	4.8 × 10 21 W Interior of a hydrogen bomb during detonation: 	~108 K, 	~10 20 W Jupiter: 	285 K, 	1.2 × 10 18 W Venus: 	330 K, 	5.0 × 10 17 W Earth: 	300 K, 	3.0 × 10 17 W Mars: 	255 K, 	2.0 × 10 16 W Moon: 	300 K, 	1.2 × 10 16 W Nuclear Fireball: 	8000 K, 	2.0 × 10 14 W France: 	300 K, 	2.0 × 10 14 W Europa: 	90 K, 	3.5 × 10 14 W Lightning Bolt: 	30,000 K, 	30 GW Ivanpah Solar Plant Salt Tank: 	1200 K, 	1.2 GW Medium-sized Lava Lake: 	800 K, 	32 MW Cruise Ship: 	325 K, 	30 MW Campfire: 	870 K, 	7.0 kW Blue whale: 	280 K, 	78 kW Arc lamp: 	6500 K, 	150 W Lightbulb: 	4800 K, 	75 W LED Bulb: 	5800 K, 	8 W Astronomer: 	310 K, 	100 W


Update Notes

Explanation:
Update notes or release notes are notes (or documents) released when software has been updated, to inform the user of any important changes to the software.
In this comic, Randall and his friend are using release notes of their apps as a form of chat service, instead of actual software change information. He says this is possible because the two apps are no longer being maintained, so theoretically, there are not many people using the app who would read the update / change notes. Incidentally, one can still argue that the chat is still technically update notes, only instead of updating users on what has changed about an app, it is now giving Randall and his friend status "updates".
This comic has a similar theme as 1305: Undocumented Feature both use old software forums as a chat application.
This "chat service" would not be in real time, so presumably, Randall and his friend would have to be constantly checking each other's apps to see if there are updates.
On the "stars" app, the last "actual" notes says "Introduced bugs and degraded performance". This is a very common change when new features are added, however, developers will normally describe what the new features are rather than just state the negative consequences. It goes in contrast with the typical change note "fixed bugs and improved performance" that usually follows.
The comic also refers to a meteor shower occurring in August, most likely the Perseid meteor shower .
The title text says that Randall, who is at the beach, has left his sunscreen in his car, but that the trunk (a pun with the name of the main software development branch in SVN) is unlocked, for whoever is still reading the updates for this app. This may invite the attention of thieves, who are now informed that Randall's trunk is unlocked.  However they may not know what city Randall lives in, and conversely readers of the release notes could be anywhere in the world so most are probably not in a position to physically make contact with Randall's car.
This comic could be seen as a subtle reference to how plain sight communication such as gang codes and steganography are used by people, possibly out of coerced necessity, to communicate information both deniably and publicly.  It is likely that this often happens in real app update messages in real life.  This kind of communication would more realistically allow a criminal worker to communicate with a contact point without endangering their anonymity by associating with them directly.
This comic could also be poking fun at the non-descriptive updates many popular apps post in the "What's new" or change log. One example of this would be the Uber app stating "We update the app as often as possible" as a "new" feature every update. Apple recently changed AppStore guidelines [1] to require clear descriptions of new features and product changes, effectively putting an end to the problem Randall is highlighting.
Realistically, even if it were permitted, this would be a rather slow form of communication, especially on platforms such as Apple’s App Store, where Randall and his friend would need to wait from a few hours to a few days for their app to be manually reviewed for each “update”.
[There are two panels that show smartphone-esque screens with two different apps with different update notes, showing a conversation between two people. New updates are added to the top, so to follow the conversation flow one would start from the bottom and alternate between the second app and the first one.] [At the top, the status bars between the two panels are slightly different: telephone reception, WiFi strength, battery, GPS...]
["Updates" is written in uppercase at the top. The first app's icon is an "A" symbol. Next to it, there is the following information:] [The app name is a scribble] Version 3.0.1 June 22, 2018
Update Notes:
v3.0.1 I'm actually off work Monday so that's perfect.
v3.0 Oh, that sounds fun! What night?
v2.8.31 Are you around this weekend? We're heading to the beach.
v2.8.3 Hey Mike, you there?
["Updates" is written in uppercase at the top. The second app's icon consists of three stars arranged in a triangle. Next to it, there is:] [The app name is a scribble followed by two stars in parentheses] Version 7.0 June 22, 2018
Update Notes:
v7.0 It peaks August 12-13 th .
v6.8.16 Sorry, no, going to a wedding. But do you want to camp out for the meteor shower in August?
v6.8.15 Yeah, what's up?
v6.8.14 Introduced bugs and degraded performance[.]
[At the bottom of each panel, there are menu icons: a star, a stack of rectangles, a bullet list, a magnifying glass and an arrow pointing down to a square]
[Caption below the panels:] My friend and I both have apps we've stopped maintaining, so we just use the updates to chat.

[For convenience, here are the update notes in order of release (note that the first is not part of the conversation with Mike):]
"A" app (v6.8.14): Introduced bugs and degraded performance[.]
"3-star" app (v2.8.3): Hey Mike, you there?
A (v6.8.15): Yeah, what's up?
3-star (v.2.8.31): Are you around this weekend? We're heading to the beach.
A (v6.8.16): Sorry, no, going to a wedding. But do you want to camp out for the meteor shower in August?
3-star (v3.0): Oh, that sounds fun! What night?
A (v7.0): It peaks August 12-13th.
3-star (v3.0.1): I'm actually off work Monday so that's perfect.


Newton's Trajectories

Explanation:
The comic shows the Earth, with three apparent rockets on separate trajectories. One is released with sufficient velocity to attain a stable orbit, while the other two fall towards the Earth. This is a slight modification of Newton's cannonball , a thought experiment demonstrating the planetary effects of gravity.
The black rocket trajectory is typically that of a rocket delivering a payload to low earth orbit. While a satellite in orbit is still bound to earth, it represents an important step in the history of space exploration. Today, a lot of scientific research regarding the future of human spaceflight is done from low earth orbit, most notably on the ISS .
The red rocket trajectories are suborbital, and more commonly associated with ICBMs . These are missiles typically equipped with nuclear warheads. Using such a weapon is likely to trigger a global nuclear war, with disastrous effects for civilization. It is worth noting that ICBMs normally use a different trajectory that goes much higher before falling down at a steeper angle. These trajectories are also different from FOBS , where missiles actually go into orbit (the black trajectory) before deorbiting and falling back on earth.
Here, Newton's cannonball is used both to observe humanity’s technological future (interplanetary travel, availability of advanced technology to the masses, and constant scientific improvement; or nuclear desolation and the extinction of our species) and to underscore that argument by pointing out the inherent metaphor in the experiment: the cannonball can only escape the atmosphere by achieving high velocity (i.e. escape velocity). Similarly, Randall’s technological utopia will only deliver us from nuclear extinction if it happens quickly; otherwise, mankind will destroy itself.  Of course, that threat only exists because of a triumph of technological progress, the Manhattan Project , but again, technology is a means to an end.
The phrase "slip the bonds of Earth" comes from the sonnet " High Flight " written in 1941 by John Gillespie Magee Jr., an American pilot in the Second World War. Portions of this poem appear on the headstones of many interred in Arlington National Cemetery, particularly aviators and astronauts; it was also quoted in President Reagan's speech after the Challenger disaster.
The title text alludes to the unfortunate film The Core , involving drilling to the center of the Earth to restart the stopped rotation of the magnetic core. The line is ostensibly aimed at the center of the Earth. Apparently, not even Newton could predict such a bold, daring and disastrous movie. Or movies.
[The panel shows a shaded sphere with a rocket launched from its top to the right. Several trajectories are plotted around the sphere.]
[Trajectory 1 (in black) shows a successful circular orbit.] Humans slip the bonds of Earth to travel the stars
[Trajectory 2 (in red) shows a ballistic arc that crashes into the sphere near the bottom.] Civilization ends in fire
[Trajectory 3 (in red) shows a much shorter ballistic arc. No label.]
[Caption below the panel:] In retrospect, Newton's little cannonball drawing does a surprisingly good job illustrating the range of possible futures of our species.


Thorough Analysis

Explanation:
This comic remarks on how obsessively some scientific papers investigate some insignificant, obscure things. It gives the example of an investigation into whether an earthquake in 1811 caused church bells 600 miles away in Charleston, South Carolina to ring, which, although mildly interesting, is of minimal scientific importance. The earthquake itself is of enormous scientific interest, as an earthquake of the same magnitude in the same area today could cause enormous damage, but Charleston is not in the area considered at significant risk.
An explicit comparison is made to the 9/11 Commission Report , a study that was undertaken to, broadly, answer the question of how the September 11 attacks were able to occur (and by extension, what errors in security and communication needed to be addressed to improve detection of and response to other terrorist acts).
This paper describes the researchers going as far as to genetically test local trees, likely to find those most closely related to the trees used for construction, so as to measure their structural properties and extrapolate the likely structural properties of the original building.  Such extrapolation might require its own study to back its validity.  It is likely in real life that the small differences such research would reveal would end up being too unsubstantial to have actually warranted any searching.
The title text is a continuation of this paper, which researches into the bells' shapes, and then goes on to note that the entire interview is provided in Appendix VII, indicating that this paper has a substantial amount of additional information considered distracting from the main body.
The Tower of London would be a strange place to seek expertise on church bells: even its Bell Tower contains warning bells rather than church-style bells (explain xkcd's transcript with the Tower of London officials on this manner can be viewed in Appendix B).  Until 2017, the nearby Whitechapel Bell Foundry would have been a much better (arguably the best possible) source of information. Whites of Appleton (in Oxfordshire) or John Taylor & Co (in Loughborough) would be current alternatives.  Closer to home for the paper's author, the McShane Bell Foundry in Maryland is likely to offer far more relevant expertise certainly than the Tower of London, and may in addition be able to offer relevant insights specific to the history of bellfounding in the USA.
In keeping with the meta thorough analysis theme of the original comic and this explanation, the comic starts with "The December 1811 earthquake near New Madrid, Missouri..."  The town of New Madrid existed in 1811, but Missouri Territory did not exist until June 4, 1812, and the State of Missouri not until August 10, 1821.
[The comic panel consists of the beginning of a research paper written in gray, with the last line being slightly cut at the bottom by the panels frame indicating that the text continues below.] 1. Introduction
The December 1811 earthquake near New Madrid, Missouri reportedly caused church bells to ring in Charleston, South Carolina.
But did it?
The original bell tower has been lost, but a computer model of the church building was created from archival plans and forensic masonry analysis. Genetic testing of the timber from local trees related to those used in the bell tower shows a weakness in the
[Caption below the panel:] My favorite genre of scientific papers are exhaustive 100-page treatises that answer some minor question with the obsessive thoroughness of the 9/11 Commission Report.


Rock

Explanation:
Megan either knows enough about geology to tell on sight how this particular rock formed, or has brought this rock from a collection. Alternatively she’s simply guessing. Despite admiring its formation, all she wants is to use it as a skipping stone to give it "a weird day in its life" (similar to 325: A-Minus-Minus ), and possibly confuse future geologists.
Megan provides three pieces of information about the rock: It formed at the south pole, during an ice age, just before multicellular life developed. Unfortunately, due to disagreements among geologists and palaeontologists about when exactly the first multicellular life emerged it is unclear which time Megan refers to - and consequently where she is and what kind of rock she is holding. There are two possibilities:
Thus — assuming that Megan has accurately identified the stone — the stone is either from Western Africa or Northern Europe and has "travelled" from there to get to her.
Stone skipping is the art of throwing a flat stone across water in such a way that it bounces off the surface. Despite there being many factors attributed to successfully skipping a stone (including the attributes of the stone itself), Cueball and Megan are in agreement that skipping this particular stone five times is an above-average throw. (It is, however, far short of the world record of 88 skips set by Kurt Steiner in 2013).
This comic is one of many that look at everyday things from a new, philosophical perspective.
[Cueball and Megan are looking at a rock that Megan is holding up in one hand.] Megan: This rock erupted from a volcano near the South Pole when the world was frozen over, just before multicellular life arose.
[Zoom out reveals that Cueball and Megan are standing on the beach of a bay with hills in the background. The water surface is quite flat without any waves. Megan throws the rock which skips 5 times across the water before it sinks.] Stone: Skip Skip Skip Skip Skip Plunk
[Zoom back on Cueball and Megan who are still looking in the direction she threw the stone.] Megan: Now it'll be covered in sediment that becomes a new rock layer. It will likely stay buried until it melts down, erodes away, or the earth is consumed by the sun.
[Cueball and Megan still looking the same way.] Cueball: Today was a weird day in its incredibly long life. Megan: Five brief skips, then eons of darkness. Cueball: Five is a lot, though! Megan: It was a good throw.
Megan throws the rock with her left hand, which supposes that she may be left-handed.


JWST Delays

Explanation:
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope created to be the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope .
The telescope has been in development since 1996, but has been plagued by numerous delays and cost overruns. This comic was likely inspired by the most recent delay announcement , which was posted on June 27, 2018. At that time, the JWST was scheduled to launch on March 30, 2021.
This comic portrays the launch delays and the new predicted launch years and the times at which those predictions were made.  There have been so many delays in this project that you can plot a line of best fit with a surprisingly high degree of accuracy.  Randall says optimistically that the line’s slope is less than one (there is less than one year of new delay per year of elapsed time), implying, of course, that if events continue without further intervention, it will eventually be built, with a predicted date of late 2026.
The title text alludes to the famous research over the universe’s accelerating expansion .  The expansion had been predicted to be slowing due to gravity from everything in the universe; instead, it was found to be accelerating since about 5 billion years ago.  Here, Randall looks at the apparently ever-delaying schedule and observes that the delay per time does not decrease, although the date gets nearer (which should help to schedule the launch date, as research and unknown parameters are replaced with engineering and exact predictions and measurements). However, this delay inflation contradicts Randall's usage of a linear trendline.  Given the COVID-19 pandemic brought some additional delays in 2020 and 2021, the "early 2020" date was perhaps unintentionally prescient.
The Wikipedia article linked above includes a table which provides the data points for the chart:
[Top caption, in the panel:] James Webb Space Telescope [Subtitle of top caption:] Launch Delays
[There is a positive-quadrant only line graph. The x- axis is labeled 'Current Date' and the y axis is labeled 'Planned Launch Date'. The dates on both of the axes range from 1995 to 2030.] [In the graph are 15 points, starting at (1997,2007) and extending at a slope of a little less than one. The most recent one is labeled 'Now: 2021'.] [There are two lines on the graph: a red one and a dashed black one. The red one is a regression of the points on the graph. It has a slope of about ⅔. The black one is a line with a slope of one. They intersect at the point (2026,2026), marked by the label 'Late 2026'?]
[Caption below the panel:] Look, at least the slope is less than one.


New Phone Thread

Explanation:
This comic shows the posts on an online forum by a person whose new phone is programmed to autocorrect every complaint about the phone to applaud it, à la Orwell. The phone goes so far as to change a certain complaint to a scripted customer testimonial, complete with a hyperlink to an ordering site. This is of course a highly undesirable feature [ citation needed ] . This is continued in the title text, which presumably contains several flattering compliments about the great developers and the company.
"It's taking the words I type and leaving them exactly the same", "I mean the words are correct" and "some of my posts look normal" are definitely something one would not normally say.  However, the
auto-correct features of cell phones are so notorious for mangling people's posts, that one might express astonishment at a phone which did not change one's meaning.  However the rest of the thread does not support this interpretation.
The original posts may have read something like this:
Whoa, weird
I'm looking at my timeline on my friends phone, and some of my posts look strange
What the hell?
I mean the words are different
That isn't what I typed!'
?????????
I think this new phone isn't working properly
No, it's doing it again
Those aren't my words!
Help!
How do I explain?
It's taking the words I type and changing them [from criticism to praise]
Forget it, I give up
I'll just get a new phone. This one is crap . {or this message may have been inserted entirely by the phone}
What?!?
Listen, if you're thinking about buying the new Mobile Pro 3, you shouldn't . It's the worst phone on the market , a total rip-off. DON'T BUY IT! {or this entire paragraph may be an ad inserted by the phone with no prompting}
AAAAA HELPPP
I hate my new phone!!!!
I'm going to tell the manufacturer that their business practices are DEPLORABLE and HEINOUS and their developers are DISGUSTING and I'm going to report them to the FCC for their DESPICABLE CRIME .
The posts also make sense when posts are read in the reverse order.
The comic may have been inspired by a bug in Samsung Galaxy S9 and Note 8 , discovered a few days earlier – the phone sometimes sent random photos to contacts without leaving any sort of evidence. This doesn't happen with the Mobile Pro 3.
[A thread of posts by the same user is shown with a default user profile, and square and heart-shaped buttons.]
Whoa, weird
I'm looking at my timeline on my friends phone, and some of my posts look normal
What the hell?
I mean the words are correct
That's exactly what I typed!
?????????
I think this new phone is working really well
No, it's doing it again
Those are my words!
Help!
How do I explain?
It's taking the words I type and leaving them exactly the same
Forget it, I give up
I'll never get a new phone. This one is perfect.
What?!?
Listen, if you're thinking about buying the new Mobile Pro 3, you should. It's the best phone on the market at an incredible price. [ORDER NOW button]
AAAAA HELPPP
I love my new phone!!!!


OEIS Submissions

Explanation:
The OEIS is the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences , a listing of hundreds of thousands of sequences of integers, generally of real mathematical interest, such as prime numbers or Armstrong numbers .  The OEIS normally expects submissions to be accompanied by references to scholarly articles about, or at least referencing, the sequence.  They would not be interested in the personal or idiosyncratic sequences proposed by Randall, though they do have the list of subway stops on the New York City Broadway line (IRT #1) , perhaps because a NY Times article mentioned that they don't.
Randall is trying to put his integer sequences on the OEIS website, including making OEIS reveal its password.
sub[43] - All integers which do not appear in the example terms of another OEIS sequence Every OEIS sequence lists several example terms to demonstrate the content of said sequence. This request wants to list all integers which are not used as examples elsewhere. Any numbers used as example terms for this sequence are not counted, so this list is not self-disqualifying. It is well-defined at any given time. Like many other OEIS sequences, it has infinitely many terms (more precisely, it includes all integers except a finite number). However, it may change at any time, whenever a new sequence or a new example is added to the OEIS. If included, it would therefore have to be constantly updated. Such integers are sometimes called " uninteresting numbers " in mathematical terms, and attempts have been made to count them. The list changes, but in July 2009 it began 11630, 12067, 12407, 12887, 13258... sub[44] - Integers in increasing order of width when printed in Helvetica This sequence is not uniquely defined as it depends on the specific version of the Helvetica font used, its point size, the software used to render it (e.g. kerning algorithm), the handling of equal widths by the sorting algorithm and possibly other parameters. Also, all digits usually have the same width, with the exception of the sequence "11", which is a tiny bit narrower because a kerning pair exists in Helvetica. Without an additional tie-breaker for equal width numbers, the order is: 1 to 9 in no particular order, 11, 10 and 12 to 99 in no particular order and so on; for a particular choice of parameters the first 50 terms might be: 1, 9, 6, 2, 8, 5, 0, 7, 3, 4, 11, 61, 71, 91, 21, 51, 81, 41, 31, 19, 13, 18, 10, 12, 15, 16, 14, 17, 69, 63, 68, 79, 60, 62, 65, 73, 78, 99, 93, 98, 66, 70, 72, 75, 29, 90, 92, 95, 23, 28... Despite all of the above issues, and as a direct response to this comic, a well-defined version of this sequence was added to the OEIS . sub[45] - The digits of Chris Hemsworth's cell phone number An attempt to phish the phone number of actor Chris Hemsworth . Luckily for the OEIS there is a loophole to this request: the correct ordering of the digits isn't specified. sub[46] - All integers, in descending order To list all integers in descending order, you would have to begin at the largest integer, but there is no largest integer, so this is impossible. It is equally impossible to list all integers in ascending order, for that matter. On the other hand, A001477 is the sequence of all nonnegative integers in ascending order, as there is the smallest nonnegative integer. Also, A001057 is the sequence of all integers, but in canonical order (i.e. by increasing absolute value). sub[47] - The digits of the OEIS serial number for this sequence This sequence is only important tautologically. sub[48] - 200 terabytes of nines This submission appears to be a joke on common video game limits for, e.g., currency or ammunition, in which the maximum a player can carry is one less than a power of 10. This sequence would be entirely useless, as there is no mental effort required to conceive a list that consists only of a single repeated term, however arbitrarily large. Such a list is also incredibly wasteful; to give a comparison, this very large math proof from 2016 is also 200 terabytes, and requires a supercomputer to hold in its entirety. 200 terabytes is equal to 2 × 10 14 bytes. In UTF-8, each ASCII character, including control characters such as ␂ (start of text) and ␍ (carriage return), can be represented by a single byte. If the list is presumed to be formatted as "␂9␍9␍9 ... 9␍9␃", the first term would take up 3 bytes, and all other terms would take up 2 bytes. Assuming Randall wants the file size to be 200 terabytes minimum , the resulting list would be a minimum of 1 × 10 14 , or 100 trillion, terms long. Curiously, OEIS does in fact contain an entry that lists " all nines " which contains this proposal as a subsequence. sub[49] - The decimal representation of the bytes in the root password to the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences server This would give any user the password to OEIS. Anyone can easily forecast what happens next. Perhaps the idea is to hack OEIS on the premise that accepting this sequence will force OEIS staff to populate it. sub[59] (title text) - The submission numbers for my accepted OEIS submissions in chronological order This would only be useful to Randall. If all of his submissions have been rejected, this would be an empty set. However, if this submission is accepted, the set would, by definition, include at least one number (except that this would not be known at the time of submission). Thus, as in the Russell Paradox, this set would be out of date as soon as it was accepted, since the set of accepted submission numbers would change at that point.
SUB[43]: All integers which do not appear in the example terms of another OEIS sequence SUB[44]: Integers in increasing order of width when printed in Helvetica SUB[45]: The digits of Chris Hemsworth's cell phone number SUB[46]: All integers, in descending order SUB[47]: The digits of the OEIS serial number for this sequence SUB[48]: 200 terabytes of nines SUB[49]: The decimal representation of the bytes in the root password to the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences server
[Caption below the panel:] OEIS keeps rejecting my submissions


Stargazing 2

Explanation:
This is the second comic in the Stargazing series: The first was 1644: Stargazing , two and a half years earlier. It was followed by 2274: Stargazing 3 one and a half years later.
This comic continues with Megan as a TV host mixing accurate astronomical information with trivialities, as well as utterly bizarre statements. (See this section from the original Stargazing comic about the host and also the trivia , from the original comic, regarding the gender of the host).
In the first panel, the host voices surprise that the stars are visible again after disappearing during daylight.
The host mentions three stars in a constellation which she says is called The Triangle, likely referring to the constellation Triangulum , which is in fact just three main stars in a narrow triangle. However, this may also simply be intended to show the host's lack of knowledge of constellations, since she then goes on to point out three other stars forming a triangle and concludes that one can form lots of triangles by connecting groups of three stars. In Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, any set of three non-collinear points will form a triangle, so to say that there are a "lotta triangles" is both trivial and an understatement. [ citation needed ] (There are about 125 billion triangles visible in the night sky with around 9096 visible stars.)
Then she points to planets, calling them dots known as "fool's stars" (like fool's gold). Planets such as Venus and Jupiter are often mistaken as stars, and the word itself is derived from the Greek, planētēs or "wanderer." She also notes that lacking interstellar transportation, humanity will likely only reach the planets within our solar system. However, she then makes the seemingly ludicrous assertion that humans will turn these planets into interplanetary landfills, which might be a comment on how humans have used the Earth.
The host also notices a dot of "space trash": An artificial satellite. Since the nascent Space Age, the Earth's orbit has gradually accumulated artificial materials that include satellites, spent rockets, and space stations. There are concerns such debris accumulation will increasingly imperil current and future space projects. However, the host claims there is an app that can tell you "whose fault it is," presumably a satellite-tracking smartphone app such as SkyView which can inform you who launched a given satellite and thus whose "fault" that particular bit of space-junk might be.
The host eventually goes off on a tangent when someone from the audience points out something blinking in the sky. The host says it is a plane, and tells them what is inside it. The host continues, "don't bother trying to catch that one." This could be understood as she means it's too hard to point the telescope at it properly because it is moving too fast. In the title text, however, she means this literally, revealing that at one point during her studies she apparently used the reflective mirror of a telescope to shine light directly at airplanes, which caused the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to close down the observatory. She claims it was worth getting shut down by the FAA because she completed her thesis for her graduate degree. "Got a thesis out of it" is a phrase typically used by a scholar after discussing a research project, as a way of indicating that it was actually the main research they had conducted as a student in graduate school. Conducting research and writing it up in a thesis is one of the major hurdles toward earning a graduate degree (masters or doctorate).
In the title text, she clarifies that as she was exiting the observatory, she literally "got", as in "stole", someone else's thesis paper and multiple doctorates (presumably framed degrees), either to fraudulently claim them as her own accomplishments, or perhaps just because she wanted to steal stuff. Usually "got a thesis" is shorthand for the process of "writing a lengthy thesis paper and having it be accepted as a requirement for graduation", however in this case she simply swiped someone else's document. The revelations that she's extremely unqualified (and unethical) would explain her many bizarre statements.
[In a dark panel, Megan is a TV host standing in front of a group of 5 people: two Cueballs, Ponytail, Hairbun and a Megan-like woman.] Host: Welcome back to stargazing. Host: When the stars disappeared this morning, I figured I had to find a new job, but they're back! This rules!
[A frame-less white panel in which the host points to the upper right with the Megan-like woman, Ponytail and Cueball looking in that direction.] Host: Those three stars form a constellation called the triangle. Host: Those three are another triangle. Host: Lotta triangles. Very important shape.
[Back to a dark panel with the host now pointing to the upper left in a close-up.] Host: Those dots are planets, or "fool's stars." Without interstellar travel, they're the only ones we can realistically hope to dump trash on. Host: Speaking of space trash, that dot is a satellite. There are apps that will tell you whose fault it is.
[The host is now turned right not pointing, still in a close-up.] Off-panel voice: What's that blinking one? Host: Airplane. They're full of snacks and money and stuff, but don't bother trying to catch them- they're way too high up. Host: Learned that the hard way in grad school. Host: Got a thesis out of it, at least.


Wall Art

Explanation:
Pokémon is a media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, which started with the release of the first video games, Pokémon Red and Blue , for the Game Boy in 1996. Originally released in Japan as Pokémon Red and Green , the game was released in North America as Pokémon Red and Blue in 1998, 20 years ago at the time of publishing.
This is another comic about getting older. Cueball mentions that he thought Pokémon posters were cool 20 years ago (when Pokémon was first released). Now that he is older, he instead has framed oil paintings, which were what wealthier older folks were displaying on their walls at the times that their teenagers were widely into Pokémon. The punchline comes when White Hat mentions that his oil paintings are just paintings of Pokémon characters, showing that Cueball hasn't completely adopted those older cultures in 20 years of maturing, but does have more money.
The title text mentions that Cueball originally had "regular" oil paintings. However, these appear to have been stolen from the Louvre , a famous art museum in Paris, which houses the Mona Lisa . Thus the "grumpy and unreasonable" detectives which came to retrieve the paintings. It even suggests that Cueball had attached those valuable and expensive oil paintings on his wall by poking through them with thumbtacks.  The fact that Cueball stole expensive paintings, poked them with thumbtacks, and did not realize that the detectives were trying to recover priceless artwork that rightfully belonged to the museum may demonstrate that Cueball indeed has not completely grown up.
The comic repeats a common theme of poking fun at how nerds tend to not fully "get" the culture surrounding them, adopting parts but remaining completely blind to other parts. Sharing and reading jokes about this may help people who experience that pattern handle the stress of being unable to completely conform, by bonding over the commonality.
[White Hat and Cueball are standing together and looking at eleven framed pictures on a wall.] Cueball: Getting older is so weird. 20 years ago, I thought thumbtacked Pokémon posters made my wall look so cool.
[Cueball has his hands raised up in a close-up.] Cueball: But these days I feel this compulsion to get framed oil paintings and spend hours carefully arranging them.
[Return to the setting in the first frame.] White Hat: These are all oil paintings of Pokémon. Cueball: Look, I’m meeting maturity halfway.
This is the only xkcd comic ever where the year when the comic was published, in the Gregorian calendar, is the same as the comic's number. This comic is numbered 2018 and was published on Wednesday, July 11, 2018.


An Apple for a Dollar

Explanation:
Megan is about to buy an apple at a grocery store when she is surprised that the price is exactly one dollar. A common practice in pricing items is to deliberately make them slightly less than a round number, such as $1.99 or $1.95 instead of $2, as a psychological trick to make the item seem significantly cheaper than it really is, as "less than two dollars" sounds much less than "two dollars" even though the difference of 0.01 is minimal.  Additionally, in most cases in the US, sales tax must be taken into account, as it is generally not included in the list price (although, most states do exempt food sold in grocery stores from sales taxes), so a price rarely comes out to a round value.  That it came out to an exact dollar is so strange for Megan that it throws her for a loop. Buying one apple for one dollar feels to her more like a simplified, imaginary Idea of a transaction (a " Platonic Ideal ") than like something that could actually happen in real life.
Megan likely shares Randall's background in engineering and math.  When learning science, engineering, and math in the education system, one studies examples where every number is some round value, and all situations are simplified to the barest essentials so as to demonstrate the ideas being taught.  Then, when doing real problems in the real world, one spends the rest of one's life almost never being able to use the simplified tricks demonstrated as examples in school, because when math is used to describe the natural world, nothing is ever a round number unless by design.
Megan references Platonic Idealism , which is the theory attributed to Plato that abstract or non-physical Ideas represent the purest, most accurate version of reality, but we can only perceive of more flawed versions of Ideas because of our limited viewpoint (as explained in his Allegory of the Cave). Thus we can understand the concept of a perfect circle or a perfect line, even though we have never seen one, and cannot create one. Megan believes she has glimpsed a Platonic Ideal because the absolute concept of currency is it is the exact worth of something in trade. Megan is awed because, if this is true, then she is witnessing the next layer of reality, which Plato often compared to heaven.
The harsh difference between being able to buy an apple for a dollar at this quaint store, and having to deal with arbitrary decimals and numbers in the rest of life could be touching on Megan's life experience of the world not being what she was prepared for, resulting in her intense response.  Regardless if that is true or not, it seems the cashier is unable to figure out how to handle it (or does not want to), and raises the price to an arbitrary non-rounded value, which has the intended effect of halting Megan's outburst. The unexpected resolution of the rising tension is a source of humor in this strip.
Megan's references refer to common parameters used in solving science or math questions. A Frictionless plane is a scenario from the writings of Galileo to calculate the movement of an object down an inclined plane , since his equations did not account for friction .
"A train leaving Chicago at 40 mph" refers to common math questions, involving trains and solving for the distance required to overtake said train, although this problem involves the rather unrealistic assumption that the train's velocity keeps constant and doesn't need to accelerate in order to reach its speed. Like the frictionless plane, this is a common simplification that allows the problem to be solved with quite simple techniques, just like having round quantities (e.g. 1 dollar/apple) eases arithmetic problems. See also 669: Experiment . Apples themselves are commonly used as units for math problems, including problems as simple as basic arithmetic.
The comic repeats a common theme in the strip of engineers and computer scientists trying to apply their technical experience to social situations.  In this case, the conversation partner is "normal", and does not respond supportively, which is a common situation in the real world and a possible point of empathy with readers.  -- An alternate viable reading is that the conversation partner responds extremely supportively (by cleverly removing the source of Megan's distress, rather than by questioning the validity of Megan's response). This is a possible point of wish-fulfillment for readers.
It seems that according to the title text, Megan only has (or only wants to spend) one dollar, so she would not be able to buy a whole apple at the new price (0.4608 × $2.17 ≈ $1). Stores usually sell whole apples, so asking for a fraction of one is not likely to work out. [ citation needed ]
There are some stores, such as Dollar Tree , that specialize in selling everything in the store for one dollar per item, which would seem to be operating at that ideal... except they usually do charge sales tax on taxable items leading many sales to not be an even multiple of a dollar. If a store were to charge one dollar per item without charging sales tax, etc. separately (i.e. building the sales tax into the price of each dollar item), they might be able to simplify some operations, such as not dealing with coin change as much, cashiers would be able to calculate the total in their heads, etc.  Customers other than Megan would probably be happier.
[Megan is at the store counter, behind which Ponytail (the cashier) is waiting.] Megan: Just this apple, thanks. Ponytail: That will be one dollar. Megan: Exactly? No tax or anything? Ponytail: That's right.
[Megan stares at the apple in a frameless panel.]
[Scene zooms in on Megan.] Ponytail: ...Is that a problem? Megan: It's just weird to realize that every other transaction in my life will be more complicated than this.
[Scene changes focus to Ponytail behind the counter.] Megan: This is like a platonic ideal exchange. An apple for a dollar. Ponytail: I see.
[Scene changes back to Megan, once again lost in profound contemplation of the apple.] Megan: Are we on a frictionless plane? Is a train leaving Chicago at 40 mph? Should I solve for something?? Ponytail: Okay, apples are $2.17 now. Megan: That's... probably better for us both.


Negative Results

Explanation:
Recently, scientists have begun encouraging each other to publish negative results, where a study failed to find the intended effect, as a way of counteracting publication bias (where only interesting positive results get published), which results in false-positive results being published while negative results are not.
Cueball misinterprets the "push to publish negative results" as meaning that he should always attempt to publish the fact that he failed to find evidence of an effect, even when he didn't even try, spending his time playing a video game instead. This plays on the unspoken assumption that scientists would only choose to submit (and journals would only accept) negative results where a study was designed and executed well enough that it should have shown an effect or at least demonstrated evidence of some kind.
Besides personal preferences, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild , the most recent Legend of Zelda game at the time of publication, was likely chosen for its notable length, Nintendo nerd cred, and a relevance to Nature magazine’s subject. The average time to beat 100% of the content is over 175 hours .
The title text references the practice of "pre-registration" of a study, which is one means to prevent publication bias: details of a planned study are registered with an organization before the study is conducted, so that a null result or a change in methodology cannot be hidden. The title text may be a play on words, mixing this up with registering (or booking) travel. On the other hand, it may just be playing on the absurdity of pre-registering a simple trip to the beach with a registry for scientific studies.
[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at a desk typing on a laptop computer. The following message is displayed above him:] Dear Nature Magazine, I found no evidence sufficient to reject the null hypothesis in any research areas because I spent the whole week playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild . I'll send you another update next week!
[Caption below the panel:] The push to publish negative results seems kinda weird, but I'm happy to go along with it.


Software Development

Explanation:
Software development is often characterized by graceless solutions to rudimentary problems. Cueball has built an elegant drill (function) that can adjust torque and speed as necessary automatically to fulfill his requirement of 500 holes in the wall. Hairy , in a categorically inelegant solution, loads 500 drills into a cannon and shoots them at the wall. This solution, in reality, would entail too many ludicrous safety problems to execute, but in software, the implications are only really bad code .
The casual disregard for the software itself is reminiscent of the idea of cattle not pets when deploying to servers.
This resembles assigning two different software teams to resolve different parts of a problem and of making the independent tools collaborate to form a fluid solution. The so-called "drill team" is given the task of making the part of the system that makes a hole in the wall. The cannon team was given the task of making the part of the system that aims what the drill team produces at the designated place on the wall and subsequently drills the hole. The drill team assumed that the aiming device would merely position their portion on the wall allowing it to make the hole, but the cannon team could not make assumptions about how the drill team would generate holes - they needed to make something that could use whatever the drill team produced to make the holes, thus making a cannon, so they could ensure their success.
The title text is a joke about how often in software the best solution to a problem is general rather than specific. See for example developers using Ruby on Rails (a full web framework with support for emails, templating, and web sockets) for a simple API-only service. They only need a very small part of rails (the hole drilling part), but end up with the whole framework anyway due to design limitations.
Another explanation of the title text is that software development is also often characterized by complexity and unintentional interdependence between different modules of code.  It is an unending source of frustration for coders that a seemingly minor change to code can cause major changes to how the program works, including changes seemingly unrelated to the specific code that changed.  A similar problem is when a line of code that “should be” unnecessary (according to the rules of the programming language) ends up being essential because the program will not work if the code is cleaned up and the line removed.  A final factor is that coders often write a particular function once in the first module, and then call back to that function when necessary in subsequent modules rather than rewriting the function over and over again.  In that case, the first module cannot be eliminated, even if it is no longer necessary, because then all of the calls to the original function would be null, and the rest of the modules could not work.  This can happen not just within programs but across them, as much software on the internet relies on large collections of program modules in public or open source software databases.  When a module goes missing it can have wide ranging effects, as seen in March of 2016.
In the context of the comic, it could be that the code for the cannon was written to check if it is “loaded” before it does anything, so the drill code is still needed to get the cannon to move on its motorized base and make the holes.  Or the code for the drill defines an obscure variable that is used by other code for the cannon or its base, so “removing” the drill code would cause the cannon to “crash” and not operate.
[Cueball and Hairy are standing together and Hairy holds a power tool in his hands.] Cueball: We need to make 500 holes in that wall, so I've built this automatic drill. It uses elegant precision gears to continually adjust its torque and speed as needed. Hairy: Great, it's the perfect weight! We'll load 500 of them into the cannon we made and shoot them at the wall.
[Caption below the frame:] How software development works


Sports Champions

Explanation:
In an example of nominative determinism , the comic lists people whose surname relates to their participation in various sports. It is presented as though it was created in the far future, reflecting on champions over the decades through to the 2080s. The first three are real sportspeople, the remainder are imaginary players of the future. The names progress from real, to fictional-but-plausible, to rare or highly unusual, to utterly implausible and impractical names.
The caricatures are participating in their sport, except for Jebediah who is standing at a lectern .
Margaret Court (1960s, Tennis) Margaret Court is an Australian tennis player, former world number 1, who won many competitions in the 1960s and 70s. A tennis court is the playing arena used in that sport. Gary Player (1970s, Golf) Gary Player is a South African golfer who won nine major championships between 1959 and 1978. Competitors are often known as player s, such as in The Players Championship . Lonzo Ball (2020s, Basketball) Lonzo Ball is an American professional basketball player, with the Los Angeles Lakers at the time of publishing. The 2020s decade predicts future success, as he began playing professionally in 2017 and the comic was published in 2018. Basketball is, of course, a ball game . Jake Halfpipe (2030s, Skateboarding) A halfpipe is a structure used in extreme sports such as skateboarding and snowboarding. Sarah Goggles (2030s, Swimming) Goggles are protective eyewear used in many sports, such as swimming or skiing. Kevin Slurve (2050s, Baseball) A slurve is a baseball throwing technique, a portmanteau of sl ider and c urve . Julia Chairlift (2050s, Skiing) A chairlift is an aerial machine often used to transport winter sports participants up mountains. Dwight Shuttlecock (2060s, Badminton) A shuttlecock is a projectile used in the sport of badminton. Brandon Sponsorship (2060s, Unclear) Sporting professionals are often sponsored by corporations. Brandon is holding a pair of shoes, which are probably a branded sponsorship item. Possible pun on "brand on sponsorship", i.e. a sponsored player. Kate Dopingscandal (2070s, Cycling) There have been many doping scandals in the world of cycling. Doping refers to the "use of physiological substances or abnormal methods to obtain an artificial increase in performance." (See: 1173: Steroids .) Jebediah Disasterous Postgame-PressConference (2080s, Unspecified) At the end of sporting events - i.e. post-game - there is often a press conference where the competitors discuss the result. Sometimes, these live interviews are a disaster. Randall has chosen to spell his name as "Disasterous", rather than the more conventional "Disastrous". Title Text: Usain Bolt (2010s) and Derek Legs (2090s, Sprinting) From the title text, Usain Bolt is a retired world record sprinter . He was a solid contender for this list since he can bolt down the track. However the fictional Derek Legs is selected, either as an even faster sprinter, or because “legs” more clearly and unambiguously relates to running than “bolt” does.
[Two rows of people wielding sports equipment are shown, six in the upper row, five in the lower, only the last has no equipment but is standing behind a lectern with a microphone attached to it. Below each person, their name is given and the decade in which they were champions of their sport is given below their name, in brackets. Here is a list of the 11 people:]
[Woman with dark hair holding a tennis racket] Margaret Court (1960s)
[Cueball with a golf club] Gary Player (1970s)
[Cueball with a basketball] Lonzo Ball (2020s)
[Hairy on a skateboard] Jake Halfpipe (2030s)
[Woman with dark hair wearing a swim cap and goggles] Sarah Goggles (2030s)
[A man with a baseball cap throwing a baseball to the right] Kevin Slurve (2050s)
[A woman with long black hair in a knit cap and wearing ski googles is standing on skis holding ski poles] Julia Chairlift (2050s)
[Hairy holding a badminton racket bouncing a shuttlecock on it] Dwight Shuttlecock (2060s)
[Hairy holding a pair of shoes in his hand] Brandon Sponsorship (2060s)
[Hairbun standing next to a bicycle.] Kate Dopingscandal (2070s)
[Hairy standing behind a lectern with a microphone on it.] Jebediah Disasterous Postgame PressConference (2080s)
[Caption below the panel:] Fun fact: Every sport eventually produces a champion competitor named after a common element of the game.