Keyboards are Disgusting

Explanation:
Ever cleaned a leopard? They're filthy.
This comic refers to the fact that many keyboards, especially desktop keyboards, gather large amounts of crumbs and are rarely cleaned. In the comic, a person (probably Black Hat ) tricks an unsuspecting character into lifting his keyboard up so that all the crumbs fall down onto his face. By tricking the victim into de-focusing, the prankster ensures that the victim will not notice the crumbs coming out of the keyboard until it is too late, perfecting a quality online prank.
The title text references the toy Etch A Sketch , in which you would draw lines using two knobs and shake the Etch A Sketch upside down to clear the screen. If you shook a gross keyboard upside down over you, you would get filth on you as well.
The cleanliness (or lack thereof) of keyboards is mentioned in the title text of 1395: Power Cord .
[Hairy sits at his computer, chatting with another person.] Chat: Wanna see an optical illusion? Chat: Hold your keyboard up in front of you and look at the home row.
[Hairy holds the keyboard in front of him.] Chat: Now cross your eyes a little so the 'g' and 'h' overlap.
Chat: Keeping focus, lift the keyboard over your head. [Hairy lifts the keyboard over his head still looking at the keyboard.]
[Tiny bits of dust and skin particles fall out of the keyboard in Hairy's face.] Hairy: Eww! Chat: Ha ha


Pet Peeve 114

Explanation:
A pet peeve is a minor annoyance that an individual identifies as particularly annoying to them, to a greater degree than others may find it. Cueball counts his pet peeves; this is number 114.
Cueball's friend calls him and finds out that he is reading a book on a Saturday night. Saturday night, or the weekend in general, is supposed to be a time for enjoying or partying with friends after five weekdays of work. But Cueball is annoyed by the fact that people are stuck with the stereotype of partying out on weekends. In his view, reading a good book is also a great way of enjoying the weekend. His annoyance is expressed in the title text.
This was the first time Randall mentions his many Pet Peeves . Although the next already appeared in 283: Projection four months later, still in 2007, it is a slow growing list, but one has been added roughly every other year since then, the fifth coming towards the end of 2018 in 2080: Cohort and Age Effects .
[Cueball reading a book in a chair.] Pet Peeve #114: Voice on the phone: Really? What are you doing reading ? It's Saturday night!


Blagofaire

Explanation:
Facts become distorted as time moves forward. What do we know about the Elizabethan times? They spoke strange English. What will 400 years from now think of the first twenty years of the Internet? Crazy people said crazy things online. Will we even say "online" 400 years from now? Won't the internet be everywhere, and everyone on it all the time in their retinal implants that being "offline" will seem absurd?
Particular facts that this reenactor seems to have confused are:
"Ren Faire" is short for " Renaissance Faire ", described as "an outdoor weekend gathering, usually held in the United States, open to the public and typically commercial in nature, which emulates a historic period for the amusement of its guests."
While Cory Doctorow is not in this comic, the character is cosplaying him. This comic inspired several xkcd readers to give Cory Doctorow a red cape and goggles when he won the 2007 EFF Pioneer Award. Cory Doctorow's balloon is featured in 482: Height .
The title Blagofaire might be an amalgamation between Blogosphere, Medieval Faire, and Blag, Randall's way of referencing his blog .
The title text is probably the future cosplayer referring to the state of the future internet, indicating some organizational structure that constrains and stratifies it, and his preference for what he perceives as the wild and unfettered internet of the past.
The "festival" the cosplayer references is later referenced in 771: Period Speech .
Man in Red Cape and Goggles: Hey, it worked! Cueball: What? Who are you? Man in Red Cape and Goggles: I'm from the distant future. Cueball: Wow. Hi!
Man in Red Cape and Goggles: Are you a blogger? I play one of you at our festivals! Cueball: Huh? Man in Red Cape and Goggles: Like the Ren faires of your time — I do reenactments.
Man in Red Cape and Goggles: We relive the days when the internet was new and free. The days of risky sharing, Slashdot, the Myspace music renaissance. The generation's finest minds meeting on comment threads, battling roving bands of trolls, and holding the great dialogues of the age!
Cueball: Is that how you— Man in Red Cape and Goggles: We're fuzzy on some details. Did bloggers really wear red capes and goggles and blog from high-altitude balloons? Cueball: No! Cueball: Well, Cory Doctorow does. But nobody else.


Dream Girl

Explanation:
This comic is a commentary on people who dream, daydream, and wish for things to happen, commonly in a romantic context. Cueball dreams of a girl who gives him a time and a place, and the last panel implies that he went to that place at the given time, but did not find the girl. The strip builds up hope and anticipation that this supernaturally romantic reunion will occur, but grounds the reader with the last line of the comic and the title text.
The coordinates of the note lead to Reverend Thomas J. Williams Park in Cambridge, MA, USA . The time on the note, September 23, 2007, was about six months after the publishing of this comic. One hundred eighty-one days, to be exact.
Notably, several hundred xkcd fans met up at that very time and place . Randall also visited the meetup, and was recorded as saying "Maybe wanting something does make it real."
The idea that the frame of the comic grabs the people inside was already used in comic 82: Frame and is used again in 475: Further Boomerang Difficulties .
[Cueball and a friend are talking.]
Cueball: I had a dream that I met a girl in a dying world.
[In the next frame, Cueball's words fill the entire frame.]
Cueball: It was all coming apart. Hairline cracks in reality widened to yawning chasms. Everything was going dark and light all at once, and there was a sound like breaking waves rising into a piercing scream at the edge of hearing. I knew we didn't have long together.
Cueball: She grabbed me and spoke a stream of numbers into my ear. Then it all went away. [A girl grabs him as cracks in the edges of the panel become tendrils and grab Cueball and the girl.]
Cueball: I woke up. The memory of the apocalypse faded to mere fancy, but the numbers burned bright in my mind. I wrote them down right away. [A note reads: 42.39561  -71.13051  2007 09 23  14 38 00.] Cueball: They were coordinates. A place and a time, neither one too far away.
Cueball: What else could I do? When the day came, I went to the spot and waited.
Friend: ...and? Cueball: It turns out wanting something doesn't make it real.


Battle Room

Explanation:
The book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is about Ender Wiggin , a boy of extraordinary intelligence, which means he is recruited to be trained to be one of the commanders of Earth's "Defense" Fleet should the Buggers invade again (future books renamed the Buggers to the Formics, to be more politically correct, since in British English, bugger is a swear word meaning to engage in anal sex, and an insult, as in "you silly bugger"). Ender is taken to a space school called Battle School. At the center of Battle School is the Battle Room, where all the training revolves (literally and figuratively) around. Ender's Game has also been discussed in later comics like 635: Locke and Demosthenes and 304: Nighttime Stories .
The Battle Room is described as a hollow perfect cube. "Stars" (smaller cubes) can be pulled from the walls (without changing the shape, more stars come in to fill the space where the old ones were) and can be used as obstacles in the Battle Room, as they will remain absolutely stationary, no matter what force is exerted on them. There is no gravity in the Battle Room. Most squads entering the Battle Room keep their orientation from the hallway (gravity in the hallway dictates where "down" is in the Room). Ender realizes that because the room is a perfect cube, and that even the entrances, called "gates," are perfect squares and do not give any hint about which direction is up or down, that keeping that orientation is useless. He instructs his squad to orient so that the enemy's gate is down, a line of lateral thinking that gives his team three big advantages (smaller targets, "shielding" themselves with their own feet, and unprecedented angles of attack) and leads them to a perfect winning streak.
The joke here, as made by Ender's squadmate Dink, is that the enemy's gate is "down," as in broken. A computer or a website is said to be "down" when it stops operating or is unavailable, due to a cause such as a crash, the power is cut, or it is being taken offline for maintenance.
The title text suggests that the enemy's gate was sabotaged by Bean, another, possibly even smarter, friend of Ender's, for the sole reason of allowing Dink to make the joke. This reflects the developments in Ender's Shadow , the parallel story to Ender's Game , which showed that Bean was manipulating many of the events of the original book.
[A scene is depicted from the Battle Room of the novel Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. The boys are floating in a room with random cubes.] Dink: Sorry, Ender — seems like there were some system crashes. The battle's gotta be cut short. Ender: The lasers still work. Dink: Yeah, but the enemy's gate is down.


The Difference

Explanation:
Cueball pulls a lever. A bolt of lightning comes down and strikes him.
After being dazed for a moment, the comic then takes one of two routes; the first is that of a normal person, the second that of a scientist.
In Randall 's example, the normal person would decide not to pull the lever anymore, because it seems to cause him to get struck by a bolt of lightning.
But the scientist would pull the lever again to see if it was just a coincidence or if the lever actually caused the bolt of lightning. A scientist requires that results be repeatable before he accepts the results.
The title text refers to the scientist's method of pulling the lever again and again, trying to understand how the machine works, as opposed to the normal person, just avoiding pain. This could be a nod towards how scientists sometimes go to extreme measures for knowledge.
For a different view on the topic of repetition in experimentation, see 1657: Insanity .
[All the panels are circular.]
[Cueball pulls a lever.] Pull
[Lightning hits Cueball.] ZAP
[Cueball still stands, obviously battered.]
[An arrow labelled "normal person" points to a panel of Cueball thinking.] Cueball (thinking): I guess I shouldn't do that.
[An arrow labelled "scientist" points to a panel of Cueball about to pull the level again.] Cueball (thinking): I wonder if that happens every time.


Appropriate Term

Explanation:
This is a simple comic offering increasingly not-safe-for-work names for a laptop's pointing device . This stick was an alternative to a mouse, but has largely been supplanted by the touchpad.
"TrackPoint" is the trademarked term used by IBM (and later Lenovo) for the pointing stick implemented on ThinkPad laptops. They are usually colored red, as in the comic.  Other manufacturers have alternative names for their implementations, and typically use diferent colors. It is obviously the most formal of the four names. The more informal two are nub and nipple mouse (referencing breasts), with the last, most informal being clit mouse, a reference to clitoris (part of the female genitalia).
The title text notes that Randall prefers pointing sticks to touchpads.
[A diagram of a TrackPoint pointer on a keyboard, under which is a continuous line labeled "Tone of Conversation-Formal to Informal." There are four boxes under this line.] How to refer to the pointer thing on laptop keyboards: Very formal: TrackPoint™-style pointer Formal: Nub Informal: Nipple mouse Very informal: Clit mouse


Tabletop Roleplaying

Explanation:
Four people are playing a role-playing game . Megan is the game master (GM), describing the events of the adventure and what happens. The other people control imaginary characters in the game. Cueball attempts to have his character lead other characters in the imaginary construction of dice and gaming sheets. This would allow his character to become the GM of a new game inside the game they're currently playing, effectively taking control of the game away from Megan (at least temporarily). To "recurse" refers to recursion , a concept of computer programming where a piece of code calls itself, essentially making the code run multiple times "within" itself. This may be the simplest way to implement an otherwise long and complicated action. (For example, a folder may contain files inside, but also more folders inside. Asking a computer to 'search through everything' in a folder may involve first checking the files in that folder, and then checking the folders in that folder and 'searching through everything' again in those folders. The single command to 'search through everything' may cause numerous additional 'search through everything' commands to trigger on increasingly nested folders, stopping only once a folder(s) with only files inside (and no folders inside) is found.)
It should be noted that Megan, the current GM, has multiple ways of dealing with this scene to prevent Cueball from attempting to take control of the game. She could simply allude to the success or failure of the recursive game and "skip to the next scene." She could also allow the roleplaying to continue more literally, with crafting checks determining the quality of the miniatures and a gambling check determining the outcome of the in-universe RPG session. Finally, she could simply have the party's plans be interrupted by some sort of threat , or just drop huge rocks on the party .
The title text refers to a pair of fictional rings. Anything passing through one gets teleported instantly to the other, as if the two rings were next to each other. There's an old gamer theory that, if you drop one of the rings in the ocean, water will naturally pass through it and out the other ring, potentially draining the entire ocean, or at least creating a perpetual seawater fountain out of the other ring. And if you teleported one ring directly to the bottom of the ocean, the amount of pressure pushing the water through would cause a gigantic, never-ending torrent, obliterating anything placed in its path. That idea is drawn out in 969: Delta-P . A similar concept is addressed in What If? 53, "Drain the Oceans , where a reader asked "How quickly would the oceans drain if a circular portal 10 meters in radius leading into space was created at the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in the ocean? How would the Earth change as the water is being drained?" . This question may have been inspired by the mention of throwing teleport rings into the ocean in this cartoon.
The rings themselves are most likely inspired by the "Ring Gates" item from the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide (the most recent edition of Dungeons and Dragons at the time this comic was published), which had a similar function. However, a key thing to note is that the rings only allow 100 lbs of material to pass through them each day, meaning that your geyser would only erupt every 24 hours (though this may still qualify as an "interesting result").
[Four people sit around a table. Megan has an open gamebook in front of her.] Megan: Your party enters the tavern. Cueball: I gather everyone around a table. I have the elves start whittling dice and get out some parchment for character sheets. Megan: Hey, no recursing.


Floor Tiles

Explanation:
Cueball is walking according to a certain pattern of floor tiles, which makes sense to him in his head (the same pattern was first introduced in 207: What xkcd Means ). But as his friend asks him why he is walking funny, he realizes that the algorithm he is using for walking on floor tiles would be so tedious and time-consuming to explain to his friend that he decides instead to simply defend himself and say that he isn't walking funny, this being far simpler than trying to show his friend exactly how his logic works.  Alternatively, he is too embarrassed to explain his algorithm.
Cueball has imagined a complex diagram in his head. However, the diagram does not accurately reflect the floor, as the two main rows with black tiles in the foreground are only separated by one row of white tiles instead of two. This could possibly be an error on Randall's part, as the tiles in the background follow the pattern shown in the imagined diagram.
The title text refers to a common compulsion that leads people to place their feet either exactly between sidewalk cracks or directly on top of them while walking. Indeed, if the cracks are out of sync with one's natural stride, this will cause some people to "walk funny" as they stumble to correct their foot placement.
[Two characters walk on a floor tiled in black and white.] Friend: Why are you walking funny? [Second panel consists of Cueball's thought cloud in which he points to an easel mounted diagram of the floor tile pattern.] Cueball, thinking: Well, my instinct is to step only on black tiles, but they're too far apart. So I'm letting myself walk on the tiles directly in line with the black ones, but that means that when we walk diagonally, I have to step in a pattern where... [Returns to situation in first panel.] Cueball: I'm not walking funny.


Labyrinth Puzzle

Explanation:
This comic alludes to a famous Knights and Knaves logic puzzle, and specifically to the version featured in the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth , with two doors and two guards. One guard always lies, and the other always tells the truth. One of the doors leads to freedom, and you can only ask one guard one question. The solutions to this riddle (and there are several, though all are somewhat similar) involve a tricky question indeed. If you want to give the original puzzle a try for yourself, don't read the spoilers below.
Notably enough, both solutions require that the guards be aware of each other's practice regarding truth and lies, which is not stated in the riddle itself. There's another unspoken rule: that the lie is either a yes or a no. If you asked the liar something, he could lie and say, "I don't know," which would leave you with nothing.
Black Hat added a third guard here who would stab his spear to Cueball on every tricky question. But even if the questions from before are not tricky enough to get stabbed, there would be no helpful answer. And if Cueball asks one of the other guards, the answers can't help to find the correct door. The only saving grace is that Black Hat has seemingly forgotten to impose the limit of a single question, but depending on how stab-happy the third guard is or is not, this may not be enough.
The title text presents a typical behavior of Black Hat — no door in fact does lead out of this labyrinth. (Neither door is correct in Labyrinth , either; people paying close attention will note that since the guards themselves explain the premise, even though one of them supposedly always lies, they can't possibly be taken at face value.)
[Three guards with spears stand in front of three doors. Black Hat and Cueball stand in front of the guards.] Black Hat: And over here we have the labyrinth guards. One always lies, one always tells the truth, and one stabs people who ask tricky questions.


Factoring the Time

Explanation:
In this comic, Cueball is bored, so he is calculating the prime factors of the time shown on the clock. Cueball has been doing this for almost two hours (from 1:00 pm to 2:53 pm). The number 2 is the smallest prime but is not a factor of 253, which is an odd number. The smallest prime factor of 253 is 11, which makes the other factor 23.
His co-worker decides to mess with Cueball, so he switches the clock from 12-hour time (2:53 pm) to 24-hour time (14:53). This makes factorization more difficult, as the time now shown is a four digit number rather than a three digit number. The number 1,453 is actually a prime number, and so has no factors but one and itself. Cueball has less than one minute to determine this, which is nearly impossible to do without practice. In this time, Cueball would have to calculate if 1,453 is divisible by all primes between 2 and the square root of 1,453, which are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, and 37. However, there are tricks to help you do this more quickly than doing long divisions .
In the title text, Randall claims that he applies the same challenge to highway location markers . At highway speeds (60+ mph), they would show up at least once per minute. Combined with the need to also concentrate on driving, factorizing numbers in the allowed time becomes much more difficult despite the lower numbers on the markers. Also, paying attention to the road markers instead of the road itself would be quite terrifying, and could cause a car crash at more than 60 mph. Obviously, this would be bad. [ citation needed ]
An additional challenge would be to change the mile markers to kilometer markers (because as with the clock format, the latter is more common outside of the USA). That would result in the marker being a 1.6 times larger number, and thus harder to factor. Of course, factoring is now a secondary problem, as markers would appear 1.6 times as frequently.
[One man is sitting at a computer. Cueball sits at a separate desk. There is a clock that reads 2:53.] Cueball: 253 is 11x23 Man at computer: What? Cueball: I'm factoring the time.
[Zoomed in on Cueball, who explains himself.] Cueball: I have nothing to do, so I'm trying to calculate the prime factors of the time each minute before it changes. Cueball: It was easy when I started at 1:00, but with each hour the number gets bigger Cueball: I wonder how long I can keep up.
[Zoomed back out on the man and Cueball. The man at the desk reaches back and touches the clock.] BEEP
[Clock now reads 14:53.] Cueball: Hey! Man at computer: Think fast.


Hypotheticals

Explanation:
The comic is, in short, a new take on the common comedy trope in which characters in a thought bubble will sometimes look out of the bubble and talk directly to the person thinking it, another person nearby, or even the viewer. In this comic, however, it features Cueball and Beret Guy in a conversation together, in which Beret Guy talks of a hypothetical situation by imagining he had ice cream. This then, to Cueball's dismay, creates a hypothetical situation in which Beret Guy has ice cream, which he promptly begins to eat. Cueball then creates a hypothetical situation in which his hypothetical self has a knife to 'cut' out of the thought. He then gives this knife to Cueball, who supposedly will use it to cut out of his hypothetical situation.
The title text puts the comic into context, noting the unlikely possibility — and your most likely surprised reaction — if a person in a hypothetical situation you'd involuntarily created managed to break out of it and suddenly appear in your room. Or it could be understood the other way, that a person you have forced into your hypothetical situation breaks free from it, and disappears from your room. Also, it points out that the situation is in fact a hypothetical situation itself, creating some irony.
Another "thought bubble comic" can be seen in 429: Fantasy , and the topic of people escaping from hypothetical situations appears again in 1582: Picture a Grassy Field .
[Cueball is holding up his hand towards Beret Guy, who talks to him. From Beret Guy's head go three bubbles to a big thought bubble, where the next part of the comic takes place.] Beret Guy: What if I had some ice cream? Wouldn't that be awesome? Cueball: No, stop-
[The comic continues inside Beret Guy's thought bubble. The two characters have switched places, and Beret Guy is now eating from an ice cream cone. Cueball is holding his hand to his chin, and from his head go four bubbles to a thought bubble in the lower right corner, where the last part of the comic takes place.] Cueball: Great, you've trapped us in a hypothetical situation! Beret Guy: Mmm, ice cream. Cueball: Maybe if I had a knife I could cut our way free...
[Inside Cueball's  thought bubble, Beret Guy continues to eat his ice cream, but Cueball has cut a hole through the last thought bubble with a knife and is handing it to the Cueball who thinks about this]. Beret Guy: Mmm, ice cream! Cueball: Here, take this one.


Chess Photo

Explanation:
A roller coaster is a kind of thrill ride where a small train carries people through a number of twists, turns, and hills at a high speed to the occupants' great delight. Such rides are popular at amusement parks, where people have to wait in long lines to get on a ride that can last less than two minutes.
Many amusement parks have a spot where they take souvenir pictures as you are experiencing the ride. After you get off the ride, you can buy one picture or a set of pictures to commemorate riding the roller coaster. These pictures usually have people with their hands up, yelling and screaming. Wind may be going through their hair as they pass through the air at high speeds.
Cueball is subverting the usual 'souvenir picture pose' by gluing chess pieces to a board and then staring at the board when the picture is taken. He stands out in the picture as a calm person studiously studying a chess problem while everyone else yelps and whoops with excitement.
The title text refers to blindfold chess, which doesn't require any actual blindfold, it's just called that because the two players don't need a board and just communicate their moves. This would of course be impossible to photograph. This might also be a pun on actually not being able to see while playing chess, as the Aerosmith ride (officially the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith ) is indoors and not lit up, making it extremely hard to see anything while on the ride.
[Cueball sits at a desk with glue, chess pieces, and a chessboard, while his Cueball-like friend looks over his shoulder.] Friend: What are you doing? Cueball: Gluing down chess pieces. Friend: Why? Cueball: Because there's a picture I've always wanted... I'll need your coat to sneak this onto the ride. [A photograph of a roller coaster ride with Cueball sitting in the first car, chin in hand, thinking over the chessboard and the rest of the people screaming with their hands up. The photograph has "Mega Coaster 3000 souvenir photo" written on the bottom margin.]


Snopes

Explanation:
Snopes is a popular website for checking the validity of urban legends . Here, one Cueball asks the other to check before sending him urban legends. Cueball replies with another urban legend saying that Snopes, the website the first Cueball asks him to check, uses spam to keep their audience.
Naturally, it didn't take long for an urban legend to suggest that the proprietors of Snopes also direct a spam operation to create more urban legends and disseminate them, just so they'll continue to have an audience. One of the Cueballs tries to come to Snopes' defense, only to realize that the debunking was done by Snopes itself, creating a circular, invalid argument.
The title text suggests that MythBusters , another group that debunks myths, also participate in the practice of spreading misinformation for the opportunity to test it. Indeed, the show has occasionally been accused of spending undue attention on unnecessary filler "myths" just for the sake of filling out the season.
[Two Cueballs sit at a table across from each other, typing on their laptops.] Cueball: Another urban legend? You should check out Snopes before sending me this stuff. Friend: Oops; yeah. Cueball: Man, Snopes is really great--independent fact-checkers trawling our collective discourse, filtering out misinformation.
[The Cueballs are still sitting at the table across from each other, looking at each other.] Friend: Yeah, but they have their dark side. The couple that runs snopes.com also runs a network of spam servers that start many of those forwarded stories in the first place, ensuring they'll always have business.
[Cueball on the left is typing on his laptop, while the second Cueball is sitting, stunned.] Cueball: That's absurd. Plus, it's definitely not true--it was debunked by... Friend: Yes? Cueball: ...Oh my God.
Snopes is also mentioned in the much later comic 1081: Argument Victory in a much more positive light.


CD Tray Fight

Explanation:
This comic refers to the behavior of a tray loading optical disc drive of a desktop computer. When the tray is opened and the user is reaching for the disc, a process or task on the computer can, at that exact inopportune time, request that the disc drive close its tray. Alternatively, accidentally bumping the open tray may engage the auto-close feature, resulting in the same scenario.
This results in a sort of "tug of war" between the user who is trying to remove the disc and the CD drive trying to retract, and it is this tug of war that worries Cueball (or, more likely, Randall) that the "Robot War" is impending. The title text, however, points out that this fear is irrational, not because we'll always be able to win the tug of war (even if the computer reprograms itself to ignore our pull, we are physically stronger than the retraction mechanism) or because the act is ultimately pointless (it's an indignant protest at best), but because any robot war will, necessarily, have to start in "the network" to get any traction.
A Robot War is a recurring theme in science fiction where humans develop robots that become self-aware and start a war against humanity. A well-known example of this theme is found in the Terminator franchise where, as the title text suggests, a military computer network ( Skynet ) becomes self-aware and starts a world war to kill all humans. This event is also parodied in 1046: Skynet , but with Skynet failing due to semantic satiation .
[Cueball is standing, holding a CD tray that is half-in his computer. There are other CDs on the floor.] Cueball: Hey. Hey! Stop retracting my CD! I feel uncomfortable when my computer physically struggles with me. Sure, I can overpower it now , but it feels like a few short steps from here to the robot war.


Escalators

Explanation:
This comic shows two simple line graphs on the same chart. One shows society's expectations, the other what Randall actually felt. The visual joke is that the societal expectation graph is treated like an actual down-moving escalator, with people on it.
An escalator is a continuously moving mechanized stairway that travels in a particular direction, either up or down. Traditionally, people stop walking when riding the escalator and simply stand (perhaps holding the hand-rail) until they reach the destination and then step off.  However, if you are in a hurry or impatient, it is possible to also climb the stairs manually, increasing your effective speed of ascent or descent.
Young children are typically fascinated by escalators, and they will often want to run up and down them just for fun. A variation is to travel the escalators in the opposite to the intended direction.  Running up the down escalator is type of physical challenge, especially for younger children, as they are fighting gravity and the downward motion of the escalator to reach the top.  If they pause or cannot keep up sufficient speed, the escalator will impersonally return them to their starting position.
The curved graph on the chart shows how the urge to run up the down escalator is expected to peak at about age 7 and then decline steeply as you approach adulthood, although never quite reaching zero. For Randall (it seems to be Randall who is speaking), the urge has not diminished in any way, and it even seems to be showing an upward trend as the graph approaches 24 years of age.
He does not appear to have acted upon this urge very often - in fact he claims only once.
The title text refers to the Slinky toy, a coiled spring that is designed to go down stairs by itself in an amusing manner. Since the Slinky is moving with the flow , its effective speed is increased. A normal Slinky is very small and would not be able to halt an average human being through its inertia, but it could tangle up in their feet or otherwise trip them up, and it would at least be a surprising encounter.
[A graph with y-axis titled "Urge to try running up the down escalator," with "weak" by the bottom and "strong" by the top. The x-axis has every two years labeled and every year signified by a smaller mark, which stops at 24. A red line with "What I was supposed to feel" with points at every line rises, peaks at 7 years old, then falls "tangent graph" shaped until the end. Along this line are shown various Cueball-like figures at 12, 14, 20, and 24. A second red line runs "What I've actually felt," which stays consistently high.]
Escalators were also the subject of the later comic 954: Chin-Up Bar , a rather more sinister take on those funny devices.


Highway Engineer Pranks

Explanation:
Some classical but inaccurate interchanges are shown. In general, these interchanges are designed to allow the traffic to flow without directly crossing any other traffic stream. But here we can see some different approaches:
In the title text, Boston is mentioned, a slightly more complicated prank in itself. A common fiction is that the streets evolved from old cowpaths, but in the 17th century, they avoided swamps and marshes and followed shorelines before the original peninsula comprising the city was expanded with landfill in the 19th century. Boston's road infrastructure in general lacks a street grid like most other US cities have. On top of that, roads change names and lose and add lanes seemingly at random. Randall himself lives in Boston.
Highway engineers were also the subject of 781: Ahead Stop and 1726: Unicode .
[Each panel depicts a highway intersection.] The Inescapable Cloverleaf: [Roads lead onto the rings for each leaf, but then are trapped in the circles. Minor roads also allow travel between the rings.]
The Zero-Choice Interchange: [On- and off-ramps exist, but they lead back to the same lane they disconnected from.]
The Rotary Supercollider: [The roads lead into a traffic circle, and then a loop reverses the direction of flow so all the roads run into each other.]


Comic Fragment

Explanation:
In this comic, Randall has gone missing from the office, and his 'editors' have found only this panel from an unfinished project (of which he has labeled 'best idea ever'). The panel depicts an amalgam of science fiction disasters.
Janeane Garofalo is an actress and comedian associated with strong feminist roles and opinions. She is an unlikely choice for an action hero, but she has fringe appeal. It should be noted that in the panel it is Janeane Garofalo herself on the motorcycle, not a character played by Janeane Garofalo, meaning she is the character.
Randall is parodying a mode of self-indulgence common among artists and writers, particularly those who have been prolific and have gained mass appeal. A writer might have a project he thinks of as his "best idea ever," but upon examination, it is just a mish-mash of ideas the writer thinks are cool, which don't add up to a coherent story.
This type of project is self-indulgent because it allows the writer to feel like he's exercising creative impulses he can't use in his regular work, even though the actual project has little artistic merit and is unlikely to appeal to a popular audience.
In this strip, Randall winks at a lot of the hallmarks of this sort of "project:"
Some of the ideas (dinosaurs, spacecraft) are derivative of Randall's prior work; others (volcanoes, Janeane Garofalo) are not. It is telling, though, that the closeup inset of the woman on the motorcycle, while referred to as Janeane Garofalo in the text, looks an awful lot like Megan .
The title text is written from the 'editors' perspective, expressing their extreme puzzlement - outshone only by Ms. Garofalo's confusion.
Later on, in December 2007, Randall Munroe suggested in a speech at Google that a motivation to draw this comic was to put an end to reenactments of his comics (such as the Richard Stallman and Cory Doctorow comics, which inspired real-life happenings )... or challenge anyone to reenact such a complex one:
I've been doing these comics, and people have a habit of acting out the comics. I first — I did a comic about Cory Doctorow; you know, he wears red cape and goggles when he blogs and a week or so later, he was given an award. And he went up on the stage; they presented him with a red cape and goggles. I have done a comic little before that about Richard Stallman suggesting that he sleeps with the katana, you know, just in case. And, sure enough, they sent him, some fans pitched in together and sent him a katana. He had never heard of the comic. He was very confused. And I decided, okay, this is going to get out of hand. So, shortly after all that, I did a comic about Janeane Garofalo jumping a motorcycle off of the International Space Station as it crashes over an island with a volcanic eruption and Tyrannosaurus. And I said, okay, if someone can make that happen, but until they do that...
Editor's note: Mr. Munroe has been missing for several days. We have recieved no submissions from him for some time, but we found this single panel on his desk in a folder labeled 'MY BEST IDEA EVER'. It is clearly part of a work in progress, but we have decided to post it in lieu of a complete comic. [Single panel illustration in color with one small panel embedded within, showing a zoomed-in version of Janeane Garafolo on a motorcycle.  The background is a gray landscape beneath a falling space station, a large volcano with smoke rising the only discernible feature of the landscape below.] As the damaged space station fell deeper into the atmosphere and started to break up around her, Janeane Garofalo tightened her grip on the motorcycle. The volcano was looming ahead, and her tranquilizer pistol only had six darts left - barely enough to bring down even one Tyrannosaur.


Subjectivity

Explanation:
Parodying the experience of finding that things you saw as a child are much smaller than you'd perceived them to be, Cueball is convinced that this will be the case with his childhood slide, only to find that it is indeed quite large. (As a child, it's roughly nine times his height; as an adult, it's only about triple.)
The title text references Aslan , a character from The Chronicles of Narnia . Aslan is often regarded as a Christ figure, but since Narnia is a children's series, many readers don't realize this until long after they've read the books – another instance of how perspective changes with age, and of the comic's title, "subjectivity."
[A tall slide, seen from the ground.] When I was a kid, my school playground had a really tall slide that always made me nervous.
[A tall slide, seen from the side.] We moved away, but the slide stuck in my memory, becoming a skyscraping monster.
[A car and a sign pointing to school zone.] Years later, I was passing through my old town and remembered the playground. I drove to the school to see the slide that my inner six-year-old thought was so towering.
[A huge slide, Cueball beside it.] AND IT WAS HUGE! I KNEW IT!


Online Communities

Explanation:
Note: This comic dates from Spring 2007. The internet has changed a lot since that time.
This is Randall's first map of online communities, with a successor (showing some zoomed-in highlights of the map) at 802: Online Communities 2 . As Randall says on the map, the area of each "country" is roughly proportional to its membership, at least in 2007. Geographic location means a bit more, however, as the Compass-Rose-Shaped Island points out. North-south corresponds to a spectrum from practical to intellectual, and east-west corresponds to one from web-focused to real-life-focused. The map also bears a slight resemblance to South East Asia .
Randall likes to draw maps in a manner like this. Each "country" is represented by size and related points of interest. We also have a "Sea of Memes" and a small "Straits of WEB 2.0."
This is a joke located near the middle of the map, that nonetheless serves to organize the illustration. A Compass Rose —the name for the multi-pointed star that shows where North is on the map— appears on most maps; however, here, it's actually land that just coincidentally looks like a compass rose.
The "points" of the island do, however, roughly organize the map. Left is "Focus on Real Life," labelled "IRL," an abbreviation for "In Real Life." Right is "Focus on Web," labelled ".com." Up is "Practicals," labelled "N," as in "North," but with small letters making it spell "Noob," slang for a "Newbie" or "New user" — a person less experienced with the internet, as many of the sites to the top of the map are ones infamous for having large numbers of largely computer-illiterate people. Down is "Intellectuals," labelled "π," an important constant in mathematics approximately equal to 3.14159265358979323846264338.
These are communities that were once major players, but now in a much reduced role. While some are still fairly large, they're somewhat relics of older times, hence the "Mountains of Web 1.0" that run through them — Web 1.0 is the first major generation of websites.
These are sites mainly used to communicate with friends, such as Facebook and Myspace. The first large one was Friendster , but this has largely become a social gaming site primarily used in Southeast Asia, as discussed in The Icy North, above. Other social media sites listed are:
This is a portmanteau of blog and archipelago. Sulawesi is a real island in the Indonesian archipelago, implying that this region's similarity to Indonesia is probably intentional.
Sites for sharing and showing off music and images, most focusing on self-created content.
Straits of Web 2.0 : A strait is a narrow passage between two outcroppings. Web 2.0 is a term used to describe new internet architectures, which these programs and Wikipedia (the other side of the strait) are examples of. Gays of Web 2.0 is a pun: The opposite of a gay person (homosexual) is a straight person (heterosexual).
Sites such as Wikipedia and chat programs such as IRC.
Need descriptions
Sites related to smaller internet communities, a.k.a. "Subcultures." Also, a whole lot of internet memes, unsurprisingly. The "Viral Straits" references the idea of something "going viral," i.e. spreading quickly to huge numbers of people on the internet. These sites are often responsible for things going viral, and the memes listed are ones that went viral in the past.
Sites
Memes and related
An area dedicated to MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games), large-scale games with huge numbers of players put into the same world. The label "Here there be anthromorphic dragons" references a common marking on old maps ("Here there be dragons") but updates it to joke about the more humanoid dragons seen in many games, or again, how dragons, especilally anthropomorphic dragons, are very-very popular in the furry community.
[Hand-drawn fantasy style map with land and sea areas representing populations of online communities. Each area or item is labeled.] Map of Online Communities and related points of interest Geographic area represents estimated size of membership
[Land Area Labels:] The Icy North (Yahoo, Windows Live), AOL, Chat Rooms Reunion dot com, Classmates dot com, E-harmony, Friendster, Faceparty, Chasm, Qwghlm, Yahoo Games, Mountains of Web 1.0, The Lonely Island, MySpace, Attractive MySpace Pages, The Series of Tubes, Myspace Bands, WOW, Lineage, Second Life, Third Life, UO, EQ, FFXI, 2channel, 4chan, LJ, Xanga, Orkut, Cyworld, Blurty, OK Cupid, Facebook, Piczo, The Compass-Rose-Shaped Island, Practicals (Noob) Focus on Real Life (IRL) Focus on Web (.com) Intellectuals (π) Broadcaster, The Bit Torrent, Flickr, Last.fm, DeviantArt, Isle of Slash, Numa, Digg, Fark, Reddit, Something Awful, Your Base, Soviet Russia, /. [Slashdot], Spaaarta (YTMND), StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, The Blogipelago, Sulawesi, Xu Jinglei, Post Secret, Technocrati, [Hard to read label: Probably JWB, TWB, or TMZ] BoingBoing, Huffington Post, Gays of Web 2.0, The Wikipedia project, MIT, Engadget, Gizmodo, Usenet, MAKE Blog, IRC Isles, Sourceforge.
[Sea Area Labels:] NOOB Sea, Gulf of YouTube, Bay of Angst, Sea of Culture, Ocean of Subculture, P2P Shoals, Straits of Web 2.0, Here Be Anthropomorphic Dragons, Bay of Trolls, Viral Straits, Sea of Memes, The Wet Sea Item Labels: Shipwreck of the SS Howard Dean, Cory Doctrow's Balloon, Stallman's airship, Google's volcano fortress
(Not a complete survey. Sizes based on the best figures I could find but involved some guesswork. Do not use for navigation.) Spring 2007


Code Talkers

Explanation:
Code talkers are people who communicate using their native language not known by the enemies. The most well-known code talkers were the Navajo-speaking Marines serving during World War II.
This comic shows a Navajo code talker transmitting an encrypted binary file by speaking "one" and "zero" (actually "neutral," as explained in the title text) into a microphone. By using only two words, the code is easily cracked. Unlike the Navajo Marines, this process does not add security, because it easily can be decrypted and is also much slower than simply transmitting the file over a network.
Note that (probably unbeknownst to Randall) the actual code used by the Navajo code talkers was not so far removed from the depiction in the comics: The Navajos used a mostly alphabetic code, with one Navajo word for each English letter. (This meant that even though the Axis captured at least one native Navajo speaker, he could not make any sense of what was said.) However, several important terms were given their own Navajo idioms, so the entropy would be somewhat higher than depicted in the comic.
The title text is a disclaimer from Randall about using "neutral" instead of "zero" — Navajo has words for the concept of nothing, but not for the numeral zero. Most number systems are not positional , and therefore may lack the number zero. The Arabic numeral system used in the West required the invention of the zero as a placeholder, so that numbers could retain their position when one column has nothing in it.
[A man is looking at a computer monitor and speaking into a microphone.] Code talker: A'la'ih, do'neh'lini, do'neh'lini, a'la'ih, a'la'ih, do'neh'lini, do'neh'lini, do'neh'lini, a'la'ih, a'la'ih, do'neh'lini, a'la'ih, do'neh'lini,do'neh'lini, do'neh'lini... [Two men are talking nearby.] Cueball: For added security, after we encrypt the data stream, we send it through our Navajo code talker. Friend: ...Is he just using Navajo words for "Zero" and "One"? Cueball: Whoa, hey, keep your voice down!


Conspiracy Theories

Explanation:
A conspiracy theory purports to explain a social, political, or economic event as being caused or covered up by a covert group or organization. A typical example is the moon landing conspiracy , which asserts that no human has ever reached the moon.
Once a conspiracy theory starts, it often grows stronger. Facts agreeing with the theory are, of course, evidence for the theory. Facts disagreeing with the theory are considered part of the cover-up and thus prove there is, in fact, a cover-up, so they're also evidence for the theory. In the Moon landing case, videos of men walking on the Moon are assumed to be faked by Hollywood studios, so the existence of the assumed fake videos proves the cover-up. Also, the absence of filming crew or anything else needed for faking a video is considered further proof of how carefully the cover-up was planned. No matter what happens next, it will be evidence for the conspiracy theory. As one person put it: "To a conspiracy theorist, there are only two kinds of evidence: evidence that proves their theory correct, and evidence that proves the conspiracy goes deeper than they ever imagined ."
People promoting these theories belong to a small minority, but they gain attention from many people — often without much knowledge on that specific matter. People who have actual knowledge about a given subject just get frustrated by this, because it seems like smart or educated people should reject conspiracy theories for lack of proof (if a conspiracy theory has proof, it's really science or investigative journalism). In the comic, Hairy (who is considered "smart" by Cueball ) starts pointing out "errors" in the "official" 9/11 story , obviously starting to describe the 9/11 conspiracy theory . Cueball cuts his speech sharply, and his heart is broken because he's seeing his smart friend wasting his great intelligence in a foolish conspiracy theory, instead of doing something useful.
In the second panel, Cueball rants about conspiracy theories in general. He mentions Young Earth creationism , the Moon landing , and Perpetual motion machines. In the third panel, Hairy mentions that of course we never landed on the moon. This frustrates Cueball so much that he just walks away with no further comment.
In the last panel, Cueball asks God to fix the bug he committed when creating smart beings capable of believing such foolish things as conspiracy theories. This is a not-so-subtle joke as, to atheists, God himself is quite similar to a conspiracy theory. Indeed, a good portion of evidence against God's existence put forward by an atheist is met with a "whatever happens, it's God's will" by a believer. This is much like any other conspiracy theory, so in this last panel, to a subset of atheists, Cueball is pictured as contradicting himself by complaining that other people believe in foolish conspiracy theories while the atheist may think that Cueball himself is very plainly believing his own foolish conspiracy theory.
Of course, from the believers' perspective, some such schools of atheistic thought also have many characteristics of a conspiracy theory. In particular, atheism and agnosticism are a small subculture — actually smaller in the U.S. than the 9/11 Truth movement — of which many believe that a large majority of people (about 95% of Americans believe in God ) have been deluded into believing something ridiculous by conspiracies (e.g. churches and conservative politicians) that benefit from the spreading of misinformation on the subject.
A "bug report" is a description of some error that occurred when using a computer program, to inform the developer of a problem that needs to be fixed. Filing a "bug report" to God should be unnecessary, as God is generally understood by believers to be omniscient, and thus already aware of the problem. God allows it to exist for explicable reasons of "God's will."
The title text refers the large number of educated people who believe in Young Earth creationism , stating that the earth is only thousands of years old, instead of the billions of years evolutionary scientists suggest.
Hairy: The official story of 9-11 is full of holes. Take the— Cueball: Please, stop, because seeing this happen to you breaks my heart.
Cueball: Conspiracy theories represent a known glitch in human reasoning. The theories are of course occasionally true, but their truth is completely uncorrelated with the believer's certainty. For some reason, sometimes when people think they've uncovered a lie, they raise confirmation bias to an art form. They cut context away from facts and arguments and assemble them into reassuring litanies. And over and over I've argued helplessly with smart people consumed by theories they were sure were irrefutable, theories that in the end proved complete fictions. Cueball: Young-Earth Creationists, the Moon Landing people, the Perpetual Motion subculture — can't you see you're falling into the same pattern?
Hairy: You don't seriously believe we landed on the moon, do you?
[Cueball walks away, frustrated.]
[Cueball kneels down with folded hands, praying:] Cueball: Dear God. [Booming from the sky:] God: YES, MY CHILD? Cueball: I would like to file a bug report.


Clichéd Exchanges

Explanation:
Another entry into the My Hobby series.
" O RLY? " is an Internet meme typically used to express sarcastic agreement with or feigned surprise at a statement. The typical response to "O RLY" is usually "YA RLY," "NO WAI," or "SRSLY?" These exchanges are memetic variatons of "Oh really?", "Yeah really," "No way!", and "Seriously?" respectively.
However, Cueball 's response avoids this typical exchange, instead replying with another cliché, derived from a classic double entendre.
In this cliché, the speaker responds to a statement containing a word ending with '-er' and turns it into a sexual reference. The setup is as follows:
Alice: "Do you want to come over to my house? My wife and I are playing poker." Bob: "Poker? I hardly KNOW her!"
Such a double entendre makes no sense in the context of an O RLY exchange. In the case of the comic, the non-sequitur will likely baffle the person setting up the meme and derail the conversation, to the amusement of the replying person. The reason Randall makes this a hobby is, presumably, that it bores him when people fall back on clichés for comedy, and he seeks inventive ways to humor himself in these situations. This view has already been expressed early in 16: Monty Python -- Enough
The title text takes the real cliché "fight fire with fire" and combines it with the more literal "fight clichés with clichés." The resulting statement follows a very similar principle to the situation in the comic proper.
My Hobby: Derailing clichéd exchanges by using the wrong replies
Friend: O RLY? Cueball: O RLY? I 'ardly know 'er!


The Glass Necklace

Explanation:
This is one of the most romantic comics published in xkcd.
The heat from a lightning strike can fuse sand into glass . When this occurs in nature, hollow tubes called fulgurites are formed. Cueball uses this knowledge and a spark of handiness and ingenuity to create an entirely homemade glass necklace for Megan . Here is some inspiration to do it yourself.
The title text represents an answer to the logical question prompted by this comic, which is "Would this actually work?"  The implied answer is "Yes," but only "for some value of 'actually work'."
This is a play on the phrase "for some value of x," used frequently in physics or mathematics when it's not necessary (nor easy, maybe not even possible) to calculate a suitable value of x.  For example, if you supply energy to a Flux Capacitor , could it turn a DeLorean into a time machine?  The answer is yes, if you have sufficient energy (the 'some value of x' in this case).
Most people would take the title text to mean that the process most likely "doesn't actually work." But a romantic person (who may be in love and thus not as sensible) might give it a try anyway. Well, at least it worked for Cueball....
[There is only one large panel in this comic, but it is still divided up into 19 individual scenes, one following the other, but of very different size and details. In every scene, there is at least one word noted, mainly just stating what Cueball does. The first row has four scenes (1-4), the second row only two (5-6), the third row has three (7-9), the fourth four (10-13), the fifth five (14-18), and then the last scene takes up the middle of the sixth row (19).]
[Scene 1: Cueball is seen sitting behind a table facing out of the panel drawing on a paper with a cup next to him on the table. An arrow points down to the paper from above where the sketch he is drawing is shown on a zoom in on the paper. He has drawn a cylinder shown in the top left, next to it is a detailed diagram of the cylinder in a cross section down its length, showing that it is hollow, with electrical terminals on either end. The dimensions of the cylinders length, both inner and outer, are indicated on each side of this diagram. Below right is a cross section through circular section indicating the diameter. At the bottom left, there is an instruction showing that the cylinder can be opened in one end, and and an arrow with a label points into the open cylinder. The label can be read, but the dimensions are unreadable.] Draw Label: Sand
[Scene 2: Cueball is at a workbench making the device in a workshop. The main part of the cylinder can already be seen lying on the table, as Cueball works on another part. His sketch is also resting on the table leaning up against the rear part of the workbench where four rows with three small drawers in each row are closed, except the second row from the top, where there are only two drawers, the left of those two drawers standing open. On the edge of the table, two tools looking like hammers hang down. On the floor lie three small rectangular items.] Make Make
[Scene 3: Cueball kneels down on a beach and scoops up sand in a beaker. To the left, a fairly large wave (the surf) can be seen far down along the beach. Above the sea, there are a large cloud and a smaller one. To the right of the beach is a dense forest growing close to the surf. The tree trunks are visible, as are the leaves, but most trees and trunks are not possible to single out, except one large tree standing a little further out than the rest just behind Cueball. The trunk of this tree looks a little like a palm tree trunk, but it has a regular crown of normal leaves.] Scoop
[Scene 4: Cueball, sitting behind a table, pours the sand from the beaker into the cylinder. The lid of the cylinder lies on the table next to a full glass. It is not clear if it is full of water or just more sand. The beaker used to pour sand is not transparent like the glass on the table is.] Pour
[Scene 5: Cueball ties a spool of string to one end of the cylinder and ties a deflated weather balloon, lying on the ground to the right, to the other end. The spool lies on the ground to the left.] Tie
[Scene 6: The weather balloon is inflated, and Cueball raises it up into the clouds as thunder rumbles in the huge dark clouds to the right. The cylinder is clearly visible just below the balloon. To the left towards the horizon, there is something that may be a distant city, but there are some lines going away from it away from the horizon, the meaning of which is unclear, could be electrical wires in the air for transporting electricity.] Rumble
[Scene 7: Cueball has left after having tied the end of the string to a stake in the ground. The sky is completely covered with clouds, and the first lightning is flashing in the background, thunder following. The balloon hangs close to the clouds, the cylinder barely visible at this distance.] Boom
[Scene 8: Lightning hits the balloon and travels all the way down to the rod, which can just be seen at the bottom. There is a loud crack, and the incandescent balloon inside the lightning hisses.] Crack TSSS
[Scene 9: A slim image with a zoom-in just of the cylinder as the lightning hits, showing it attached to the wires going up and down from each of the two terminals. The lightning travels along the wire through the cylinder and out the other wire, fusing the sand contents within.] Fuse
[Scene 10: The clouds are disappearing to the left, and the sun is out again to the left. Two birds fly in the distance near the sun, and below them there is a hill in the horizon. Cueball, holding onto the string with one hand, follows the string to the cylinder lying on the ground. Above this scene, there is a frame with a caption:] Later Follow
[Scene 11: Cueball detaches the cylinder from the wire that goes to the remains of the burned out balloon lying on the ground to the right. The other part of the wire still hangs down from the cylinder's other end.] Detach
[Scene 12: Zoom in on Cueball as he opens the cylinder, letting a wisp of smoke out. The cylinder has clearly been exposed to some rough condition, its surface flaking off. Cueball's hands are clearly visible, which is an unusual style in xkcd.] Open
[Scene 13: Cueball puts his hands into the cylinder and removes a piece of glass with a zigzag shape. Leftover sand pouts out as he draws it out of the open cylinder.] Remove
[Scene 14: Back at his table (with only the surface shown), Cueball admires the piece of glass, holding it between both of his hands. The broken and open cylinder lies on the table, sand pouring out, while the lid lies to the left.] Admire
[Scene 15: Cueball is looking at White Hat (a jeweler) standing behind his desk under a large sign hanging from a string put over a peck in the wall above the desk. White Hat examines the glass, holding it up in his hand and looking at it with a magnifying glass he is holding up to his eye. A lamp is standing on the table.] Sign: Jeweler Examine
[Scene 16: White Hat, only, grinds the glass on a grindstone he has put on his desk, pieces of glass seeming to fly away from the stone. There are four indeterminate tools lying on the table.] Grind
[Scene 17: White Hat, only, sets the now-shining glass in a necklace, having cleared the table from any other items.] Set
[Scene 18: Cueball holds the glass necklace in both hands, looks at it, and approves the final result, while White Hat stands behind his desk with something small and rectangular in his hand, probably the money Cueball paid for his service.] Approve
[Scene 19: Cueball gives the glass necklace to Megan, almost touching it and her hands with an outstretched hand. Megan admires the shining piece of glass she now holds in her hands, the string hanging down from her hands.] Give


Regarding Mussolini

Explanation:
Godwin's Law states that all debates on the Internet, given enough time, will devolve into ad hominem attacks in the form of comparisons of one's opponents to Hitler or the Nazis. A common expansion on this law dictates that, when such a comparison is brought up, the debate immediately ends and the person who made the reference is declared the loser. This is meant to dissuade ad hominem (or in this case " Ad hitlerum ") attacks on other people/subjects, where their views are unreasonably compared to those held by the Nazis, and should not apply to relevant discussions regarding Nazis.
The scene in the comic shows generals of the British and Commonwealth forces discussing Benito Mussolini 's invasion of Egypt. Mussolini and Hitler were each commanders of Axis powers during World War II , so comparisons between them are almost certain to arise.
The joke is that in this situation, because the conversation is taking place in World War II, Hitler is relevant to the discussion, and, therefore, comparisons made to Hitler are actually valid and not an ad hominem attack. This means that in this case, Godwin's Law should not apply.
As the title text suggests, it would have been detrimental to the war effort if the expanded version of Godwin's Law had been enforced by actually ending meetings to plan war strategy whenever Hitler was appropriately mentioned.
[Three people are standing around a map. One of them is pushing something with a stick.] [A messenger arrives.] Messenger: General, Italian forces have entered Egypt. General: As I expected. This is a foolish move by Mussolini, but like Hitler he will no doubt force his commanders to— Messenger: Hey. Godwin's Law. General: Dammit. General: You know, this may become a problem.


IN UR REALITY

Explanation:
The LOLcat meme genre involves pictures of cats in various poses and facial contortions accompanied by deliberately misspelled captions. Black Hat claims to be from the Internet and is thus creating LOLcat memes by literally gluing captions to Cueball's cats.
The title text suggests that Black Hat is using glue only because he ran out of staples; fortunately for the cats in the picture, glue is much less painful than a staple. The title text suggests that Black Hat was stapling captions to cats earlier. This either means that Black Hat has injured some of Cueball's cats, just not the ones on screen (which would imply that Cueball has very many cats, since Black Hat would have brought a fair number of staples to begin with) or that Black Hat injured other people's cats before going to Cueball's house in order to caption the cats there. The title is also a reference to the "I'm in ur base killing ur d00dz" catchphrase from real-time-strategy games.
Stapling things to other things has also been referenced in 291: Dignified and 478: The Staple Madness . Being "from the Internet" was spoken of in the title text of 256: Online Communities .
[Black Hat is holding a cat and a piece of paper. Cueball has raised his arms. There are three cats with captions stuck to them.] Black Hat: Oh hi; I'm here from the Internet. Cueball: What are you doing!? Black Hat: Gluing captions to your cats. Cat: RRRR


Certainty

Explanation:
Megan and Cueball are teachers in this comic, talking about their students and the political discussions with them. They outline that it's not possible to find the real truth. But then Cueball, interrupted by a harrumph of the mathematics teacher Miss Lenhart , states that Mathematics is an exception (because math can actually be proved , conclusively). Randall likes mathematics because mathematical political discussions are not possible.
The title text shows a simple valid mathematical equation, the distributive property , and Randall is daring one to politicize it. Though this happened years after the comic was published, people have in fact politicized the distributive property , claiming that teaching it promoted socialism.
[A door seen from a hallway, with "Teachers' Lounge" on the glass, next to the door is a sign reading "Award." Inside the door are two teachers talking.] Megan: My students drew me into another political argument. Cueball: Eh; it happens. Megan: Lately, political debates bother me. They just show how good smart people are at rationalizing. [The two teachers continue talking. A third one is seen reading a book on a sofa.] Megan: The world is so complicated - the more I learn, the less clear anything gets. There are too many ideas and arguments to pick and choose from. How can I trust myself to know the truth about anything? And if everything I know is so shaky, what on Earth am I doing teaching? Cueball: I guess you just do your best. No one can impart perfect universal truths to their students. Miss Lenhart: *ahem* Cueball: ...Except math teachers. Miss Lenhart: Thank you.


Choices Part 1

Explanation:
Megan is sitting at her computer, not waiting for a particular mail, but still refreshing every few seconds. This is an illustration of boredom and pointlessness in life. But suddenly the wall in front of her is opening. She considers running for the door, but curiosity overtakes her. She enters the hole, closes it behind her, and with that, she enters a different world. The hole appears as if it is a rip in a sheet of paper, implying that since they are drawings (which they are), this would be essentially a hole in space-time from their perspective. Most people would run away from such a thing, but Megan seems to feel that since she is currently bored (shown by the fact that she is constantly refreshing her E-mail), this is a break from her normal life, and she may not fully be realizing/acknowledging the inherent dangers of leaving her realm into an unknown universe.
She does worry that she is missing an email, though, much as a person often does resist breaking from routine.
This starts out a metaphoric five-part adventure that celebrates, marvels at, and reminds of human freedom.
The series was released on 5 consecutive days (Monday-Friday). All parts of " Choices ":
[Megan sits at a desk, using a computer, refreshing the page.] *Refresh* Click [She sits back and looks at the monitor.] [She refreshes the page on the computer.] *Refresh* Click [She sits back and looks at the monitor.] [Megan leans forward and clicks the mouse.] Click [A hole opens up in the panel. It appears to be the torn paper of the comic itself. A light-blue, sky-like background is revealed. Megan jumps in surprise, nearly tipping over her chair.] [Megan stands up as the chair falls over completely.] [Wide view. Megan looks back at the door furtively.] [She begins to climb into the hole.] [By now, Megan is entirely inside the hole. She is closing it behind her.] [Only her head and arms are visible.] [The hole is closed, revealing a formation of ripped paper.] [Large frame, where Megan appears to be in space, with blue not black background. Stars dot the sky, and rays of light seem to originate from a point to the right, and then traverse the frame both horizontally and vertically, almost like lightning. Megan is in a bubble, floating disconnectedly. Both she and the bubble have become white, tinged against the backdrop.]


Choices Part 2

Explanation:
The "Choices" series was released on 5 consecutive days (Monday-Friday). It explores and marvels at human freedom. This is, however, a little sidetrack from the "Choices" narrative. Cueball is studying special relativity . The speed of light in a vacuum (299,792,458 m/s) is denoted as c . Megan and the spaceship are shown traveling at 0.2 c in opposite directions. This would mean (in Newtonian mechanics) 0.4 c relative to each other. But due to relativistic effects, their velocities do not simply add when the spaceship observes Megan; in reality, both would measure only 0.385 c ( = (u + v)/(1 + uv/c 2 ) ) from the other's point of view. Also, time dilation influences the way time is observed with reference to the two frames of reference. Megan, however, has other concerns. (This text and part of the image were completely reused in the space part of the interactive 1350: Lorenz (see image here ).
In the title text, Megan thinks about writing about this after-worldly place in Wikipedia, but then realizes that the content would be removed, due to the Wikipedia policy on original research , meaning that you are discouraged from writing your own thoughts, the preference being that you have a source you're paraphrasing. Even though her claims would be true, she would need reliable written sources to support them.
The series was released on 5 consecutive days (Monday-Friday). All parts of " Choices ":
As this was the second in the series, it was released on a Tuesday.
[Cueball is doing some exercises in a book. The clock on the wall says 12:50.] Chapter 15: Special Relativity Problem 1: Two spacecraft transmit messages to each other while passing at constant velocities of... Cueball: sigh
Meanwhile: [Megan in a bubble and a spacecraft are moving towards each other. Each one has a velocity vector drawn before themselves, each showing a velocity of 0.2c.]
[They pass each other.] Spacecraft: We observe your speed to be 38.5%c, and your time is passing at 92.3% the rate of ours. Does this mirror your observations? Megan: Please help me. I think I'm lost.
[They continue with the same velocity vectors. Megan is looking back at the spacecraft.]


Choices Part 3

Explanation:
Megan is very unsure about what to think of her situation. Is it a dream? Is she in danger? She should be scared but isn't, and it does not feel like a dream, i.e. it feels real even though she suspects it is a dream. This would usually never be the case. If your dream feels realistic, you do not usually consider that you are dreaming.
Suddenly someone talks off-panel and tells Megan that she has been found. When Megan asks the speaker who it is, reality becomes even more distorted, and suddenly she finds that she is looking at herself outside the sphere. And the two Megans say hi....
This could be an allusion to The Matrix. The Megan outside the sphere was looking for and has found the Megan inside the sphere, as in The Matrix, Morpheus has been looking for and has found Neo; then Morpheus/outer Megan pulls their target out of the target's reality and comment similarly on how this experience is likely to feel. Outer Megan, as she manifests before Inner Megan: "This next part might be a little weird"; Morpheus, as he is about to plug in Neo for the first time and explain what the Matrix is: "This will feel a little weird." If true, this would not be the only time Randall used The Matrix in xkcd ( e.g. , 566: Matrix Revisited ).
In the title text, she realizes that if she were in real space, she wouldn't be able to hear any sound , like the voice talking to her, due to the lack of atmosphere. As an afterthought, she decides to ask about the hole in reality (which many people would consider to be more unusual than sound in space).
The series was released on 5 consecutive days (Monday-Friday). All parts of " Choices ":
[A white Megan floats in a bubble against a dark blue space backdrop. She is at the top of the bubble. Her thoughts (not connected to her by a speak line) are shown above her in white.] Megan (thinking): I should feel scared.
[She falls from the top of the bubble, the bubble rises, or both.] Megan (thinking): But I don't.
[She hits the bottom of the bubble, and the bubble begins to fall down.] Megan (thinking): Maybe this is a dream.
[She floats over the top of the now still bubble.] Megan (thinking): But it doesn't feel like one.
[She now floats in the middle of the still bubble, in a larger panel. The sky behind her now has many stars and light effect. A voice speaks from off-panel above.] Voice (off panel): Okay, found you. Megan: Who are you? Voice (off panel): Er, hang on. Voice (off panel): This next part might be a little weird.
[Beat panel, where Megan just floats in her bubble on the same background, but in a smaller panel.]
[A large panel where many distorted copies of Megan whirl around the original Megan in her bubble; she also bends backwards. The stars and light display in the background is more clear around her bubble, that now creates a lens effect, that even distorts the distorted Megans even more. Around her bubbles edge and the lens edge, there are three places where brown lines appear on both these edges.]
[All the copies have disappeared except for one who is hanging suspended outside Megan in her bubble. The new one is almost a mirror image, but not quite. The background is more dark blue, with fewer features.]
[The Megan copy raises her hand and speaks. There are again more stars in the background.] Megan copy: Sorry — hi, me. Megan: ...Hi.


Choices Part 4

Explanation:
This is the existentialistic climax of the Choices series. It takes up the recurring xkcd -theme how people tend to be blind towards the staggering amount of possibilities that each day holds, with routine and boredom as a result. (See e.g. 137: Dreams and 706: Freedom .)
The Megan -clone implies that Megan has been taken to some kind of afterlife or parallel universe outside reality. It's not a dream, but she will not remember this place when she goes back. But the clone hopes that these hints will stay with her. Realizing that she would not remember being here, Megan suddenly realizes that she might already have been here before. And the clone admits that she has taken her to this place once before. Although not for another hint; actually it was to make out with herself. And then she quickly says bye .
The title text makes it clear that the Megan-clone did actually bring her previously into this place just to make out, and then refers to this being the second time this has been a theme, 105: Parallel Universe being the first. Randall appears to find this a little troubling (or it may be that he suspects his readers will).
The series was released on 5 consecutive days (Monday-Friday). All parts of " Choices ":
As this was the fourth in the series, it was released on a Thursday.
[Megan in a bubble is floating in outer space (on a dark blue background) next to her clone outside the bubble. Megan is simulating sitting down in the middle of the bubble. The clone reaches one arm out toward the bubble. There is no line from the first part of the clone's text to the rest of the text. It is given from the context who speaks. There are always more stars in the panels to the left than those to the left.] Clone: I shouldn't do this, but I pulled you out for a moment to give you a hint. Megan: A hint? Clone: Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they're doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out.
[Megan leans towards the clone, the clone "lies" on her tummy with arms forward and legs lifted up.] Megan: Why tell me this? Clone: You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are al ways making up the future as you go.
[Megan is "sitting" down with her hands on her knees. The clone stands and lifts an arm up.] Megan: So, wait, what is this place? Am I going to wake up thinking this was a dream? Clone: This is... Think of this as after the game, outside the theatre. To go in, I had to suspend disbelief, forget the outside.
[Megan again leans towards the clone; the clone spreads out her arms.] Megan: So you... Huh. Why give me hints I'm going to forget? Clone: You'll forget this trip but I think the hints should stay with you. Megan: ...If this is a game, are you— are we — cheating? Clone: Yup.
[Megan still leans towards the clone. The clone leans a little back, her arms down.] Megan: Is that a good idea? Clone: Well it's an interesting one.  We'll see how it goes. Megan: Well, I guess I'll see you aroun—
[Megan leans towards the clone with a hand up, the clone leaning even more back, almost like she is falling backwards.] Megan: Wait a minute; have you brought me here before? Clone: I ... Maybe. Once. Megan: For another hint? Clone: Er. Clone: Actually we just made out. Megan: We wh— Clone: Bye!


Choices Part 5

Explanation:
In the final part of Choices , Megan is back to real life, and has forgotten about her trip, as afterlife-Megan said. However, she has an epiphany , and in the spirit of what she told her, she talks to the stranger on the street. The stranger is likely Cueball who studied the physics problem she encountered from part 2 , as they both use a similar backpack.
The urge to talk to strangers in awkward situations has been touched on in 235: Kite and can also be used when you are already flying a kite (see 1614: Kites .)
The title text suggests a weird sociological investigation. The capital "S" in "Science" suggests a personification .
The series was released on 5 consecutive days (Monday-Friday).
All parts of " Choices ":
[Megan is walking towards the right of the panel.]
[Cueball wearing a backpack is walking towards the left of the panel.]
[They walk past each other.]
[Megan has a sudden thought, in a drawing without a frame between two panels.]
[Megan turns, lifts her arm, and calls out to Cueball, who then turn towards her.] Megan: Hi. Cueball: Uh, hi.
[Only Megan is shown.] Megan: Sorry if this is weird, but Megan: Do you like flying kites?


TCMP

Explanation:
Cueball trained himself to type while asleep, so he could communicate from inside his dreams. He calls this Trans-Consciousness Messaging Protocol , or TCMP . He succeeds in using this system to send a message from inside his dream, but his friends, Megan and another Cueball, are disappointed when that first message is a trollish "F1rst p0st!!", in this case, "trans-reality trolling", instead of something constructive.
Firstposting, or thread sniping , is the practice of posting short messages to brag to others that you found and saw this content first. This practice was far more common at the time this comic was written, when high-traffic and poorly-moderated social media sites tended to display comments in increasing chronological order by default; as such, the oldest comments would be most prominently displayed at the top, while the newest comments would be buried at the bottom. These days, while low-traffic and closely-monitored forums still use this approach, social media sites instead tend to sort comments by rating, so that the most appreciated comments are given the most prominence and trollish comments like the cliche "F1rst p0st!!" are buried. See also 1019: First Post and 1258: First and regarding trolling 493: Actuarial .
"Bell & Watson" refers to Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas A. Watson . Bell is traditionally credited with inventing the telephone , because he was awarded the patent for it, although that is still controversial . His first phone call was to Watson in another part of their lab.
The name "TCMP" is likely to be a portmanteau of TCP ( Transmission Control Protocol ) and ICMP ( Internet Control Message Protocol ), which are actual protocols used in computer networking.
The title text explains how this protocol, if real, would be of great value in dream research, since you then would not have to worry about forgetting the dreams after waking up like as in 430: Every Damn Morning . You can relay the dreams as you experience them.
A possible downside is that in order for this to work, the dream has to be lucid , where the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming. This type of dream is very fascinating to Randall , as mentioned in the title text of 203: Hallucinations . Because this method could not be used to study regular dreams, some possibilities for studying dreams would be limited.
[Cueball stand with a keyboard next to a bed. The keyboard is connected with a wire to a computer on a desk to the right. He talks to Megan and a Cueball-like friend.] Cueball: Hey, help me test the Trans-Consciousness Messaging Protocol. Friend: What's that? Cueball: I've been training myself to keep my fingers moving slightly as I fall asleep. So I can type from inside dreams.
[Cueball sits with the keyboard on the bed.] Cueball: I'm going to sleep now. My computer will relay my messages to you as I explore the dream world.
[Cueball stand with the keyboard in a forest with tall trees. The leaves are not visible; they are above the top of the drawing. At the top, there is a frame with text:] In the dream: Cueball (thinking): So strange to think none of this is real. Cueball (thinking): And yet I have this lifeline to the internet back home.
[Cueball places the keyboard on a stone, bends down, and types.] Cueball (thinking): A chance to speak from one reality to another. Cueball (thinking): I feel like Bell & Watson. I get to write the inaugural TCMP message. Cueball (thinking): Let's see... Keyboard: *Type type type*
[Megan is at the computer, and the Cueball-like friend behind her looks at his message from the dream. At the top, there is a frame with text:] Outside: Megan: "F1RST P0ST!!"? Friend: Great. He's jumped straight to trans-reality trolling.


Merlin

Explanation:
Merlin is a wizard who features prominently in various retelling of the legend of King Arthur. The Once and Future King by author T. H. White is one of the most popular versions of the legend, and in it, Merlin is described as living backwards through time, as Cueball and Megan discuss in this comic (this is also briefly mentioned in the musical Camelot , which is based on this version of the story).
In the comic, Cueball is speculating philosophically on how this would have affected Merlin's life as he started life with all his memories, and gradually lost them, comparing this to Megan's own sense of unreality at goodbyes.
Many old people do, however, end up alone without friends or family. And they may do nothing but watch TV all day. They might also lose their memory. So in this respect, Merlin's last days may not be so different from many real people's, except of course that Merlin was supposed to live in the late 5th and early 6th centuries with no access to DVDs or even TV.
Memento is a movie telling the main parts of its story backwards, while a few black-and-white scenes are straightforward. So when Merlin watches the movie, he sees nearly the whole story in its actual order, and the title text drives home the joke by noting that these few scenes, which make more sense to someone with normal perceptions than the rest of the movie, would make less sense to him.
Normal old people would not be able to enjoy Memento like Merlin. Although he would of course always have remembered seeing it when he got old, until the day he saw it and then forgot it afterwards...
[Cueball and Megan standing by a train on a platform.] Megan: I'm bad at goodbyes. At some level I never think they're for real. Cueball: They make me think of T. H. White's Merlin.
[They are still standing at the edge of the platform, but the train is no longer in the frame.] Megan: Oh? Cueball: He lived backwards, remembering the future and not the past. To him, final goodbyes meant nothing, while first hellos were tearful and bittersweet.
[Zooming out, the rail closest to the platform becomes visible.] Megan: Huh - so over the years he'd forget all his friends. Megan: Must've been lonely. Cueball: Yeah. He ended up just sitting around at home watching DVDs all day. The best was the time he rented 'Memento'...
[Merlin with pointy hat and long white beard is sitting in a couch with the remote, watching TV which emits light and is clearly hooked up to a device (a DVD player).] Merlin: Well, that was straightforward.


Powers of One

Explanation:
This is a parody of the short documentary "Powers of 10," which can be found here .
As in the documentary, the comic features a man and a woman having a picnic on a blanket. In the documentary, the apparent distance from the scene, and thus the zoom level, gradually changes by a factor of ten every ten seconds (hence the name "Powers of 10": 1, 10, 100, ...). In the comic, powers of one are used. Since all powers of 1 are 1, the image doesn't change at all, showing a series of identical images.
The title text refers to the Zen meditation ( zazen ), in which the meditator is supposed to suspend all judgmental thinking and let thoughts pass by without eliciting them consciously and without getting involved in them.
Powers of One A mind-expanding look at our world [A sequence, presumably continuing endlessly in both directions, of identical images of a couple lying on a chequered blanket, with a picnic basket, on grass. Each image has a rule at the bottom giving measurements in meters, with the scale in terms of 1 to a particular power. The powers visible are the -1st (part), 0th-2nd, and 3rd (part).]


Linux User at Best Buy

Explanation:
Best Buy is an American chain of electronics and media stores. As with many such big box shops, they only sell pre-bundled software and boxed pre-built hardware, where the computers on offer are either Macs or other PCs , usually pre-installed with some variant of the Mac OS X or Windows NT operating system families. Most personal computer hackers/enthusiasts (as opposed merely to workaday computer users) wouldn't be caught dead buying a pre-made computer, preferring instead to build their own using self-selected hardware components and install and configure their own preferred operating systems and software. As such, the subtext is that somebody buying a complete pre-packaged home computer system at Best Buy wouldn't know or care much about computers.
The salesperson is trying to sell antivirus software to Cueball because selling such software (e.g. Norton or Kaspersky ) to prospective Windows PC owners is generally a good sales tactic. The vast majority of all computer malware is engineered specifically to exploit Windows, and Windows' inherent anti-malware protection might most charitably be described with the phrase "lacklustre, but not as bad as before." Windows users therefore will want antivirus protection, especially for use on a brand new machine that will soon be connected up to the Internet. Moreover, because the ecosystem of viruses and malware that thrive by infecting Windows PCs is constantly evolving (see 350: Network ) and being redesigned to take advantage of new exploits and fool last-month's antivirus software, it is quite prudent for a Windows PC owner to always keep their malware protection absolutely up-to-date, and many such security suites need to be regularly renewed with new versions.
While some viruses and malware can afflict Linux , in general Unix-like operating systems (including Linux distributions and BSD ) are far more robust and secure than Windows, with fewer exploitable vulnerabilities. Perhaps even more importantly, Linux (not counting Android, which was not yet released) has a far smaller consumer market share, therefore offers less incentive to malware makers to target it. Therefore, Cueball is confident (rightfully so) that he will be fine without additional security. Moreover, Linux is free software , which means that anyone is able to audit the code and fix security bugs. Although malware protection usually isn't necessary, if extra protection is desired by the user, such as for tasks requiring very high security standards (such as on servers and supercomputers), there are anti-malware solutions available such as ClamAV .
Back in 2007, when the less popular Windows Vista was released and with a stagnant Mac market, many in the Linux community believed that Linux would soon wipe out Windows as the operating system of choice for desktop PCs, after years of slow-but-steady growth. This explains the cheeky triumphalism of the final panels of the comic, in which Cueball hops on his quick, slick vehicle and speeds away. It's worth noting that this desktop reversal has not happened, though Linux did achieve a peak in popularity in 2011 , just as Windows users were laboriously switching from Windows XP to Windows 7 , with Linux peaking again in 2014 and Windows arguably in decline, and in any case, desktop PCs themselves have slowed in sales, losing ground first to laptops and most recently to embedded devices , where Linux use does indeed heavily exceed the competition, e.g. Android (which is loosely based on the Linux kernel) handily out-competing both the previously dominant iPhone (which was first released mere days after this comic) and the never-popular Windows Phone .
The title text makes sense in light of the fact that, like Linux, the software design of OS X (both are based on Unix, OS X through Darwin - see 676: Abstraction ) limits the amount of harm that can be done by malicious software, and Macs thus also have fewer viruses and malware than Windows. Apparently, Mac and Linux users flock together just waiting for some salesperson to come along and mistake them for someone gullible enough to use Windows. There is a notion that Macs can't get infected , but Mac malware is on the rise. This is taking the piss out of the smugness sometimes to be found among Mac and Linux users, who may view their preferred systems as hip and different from the "mainstream" Microsoft systems that they feel are manifestly inferior.
Salesman: Interested in updating your antivirus software? Cueball: Oh, I wouldn't need any of that.
[In a spiky speech bubble.] Cueball: I run Linux.
[Cueball does a backflip onto a motorcycle.] Flip
[Cueball performs a wheelie on the motorcycle.]
[Cueball does a hard, donut turn on the motorcycle, kicking up dirt into the salesman's face.]
[Cueball speeds off on the motorcycle, leaving the salesman in a cloud of black exhaust.]


Electromagnetic Spectrum

Explanation:
This panel is a play on the Electromagnetic spectrum , showing a large piece of the spectrum and examples of phenomena that absorb or emit light along the spectra. Such spectra are commonly used in physics or astronomy education contexts when discussing the nature of light. This comic extends it to absurd lengths by including examples that may be variously hyper-specific, humorous, or non-EM phenomena.
The first two scales at the bottom show the wavelength λ (in meters) and the frequency f (in Hertz) of the wave. The values are related as λ=c/f, where c is the speed of light. The last line showing Q(Gal²/Coloumb) is nonsense; Gal ( Gallon ) is a unit of liquid volume measurement, and Coloumb is a likely typo for Coulomb , the SI unit of electric charge. Photons do not have volume in the traditional sense of the word, and are electrically neutral (thus carrying no charge).
In 1887, the Michelson–Morley experiment proved for the first time that the aether theory was wrong. The year (1897) cited underneath the comic title may be an incorrectly-dated reference to this experiment. Nevertheless, after that time, many physicists like Hendrik Lorentz or Joseph Larmor were still working on some aether theories. Albert Einstein 's theory of Special Relativity in 1905 helped explain the theoretical basis for the lack of aether and was a definitive step in discarding previous work.
The wavelength starts at high values on the left and decreases in a logarithmic scale to the right. As a result of the inverse relationship between frequency and wavelength, the frequency scale starts at low values and increases logarithmically. The nonsense Q parameter does not change monotonically with either frequency or wavelength.
Both scales are labeled with powers of ten and with metric prefixes . For frequencies above 100 tera- Hertz, it just says "other entertaining Greek prefixes like peta- and exa- and zappa-." The last prefix should be zetta- (denoting a factor of 10 21 ), but is intentionally mislabeled, referencing musician Frank Zappa .
Other waves
Three drawings of other types of waves than the electromagnetic type:
Power and Telephone
Radio and TV
Microwaves
Toasters
IR (infrared)
Visible light
UV (ultraviolet)
Miller Light
Empty section
Censored under Patriot Act
X-rays
Gamma/Cosmic rays
And finally, the Title Text : Randall likes to speculate what the world would look like if humans could see radio waves, gamma waves, etc. Such a thought experiment would be pretty abstract due to the total lack of a frame of reference (since everything outside the visible light spectrum is by definition invisible and thus beyond human optical perception), but for many people, that's also what makes it enticing. Randall immediately turns this profound train of thought around with a crude joke that he wants to know what the viewer's sister would look like in the nude, an activity for which x-rays would be useful.
[Everything is one big panel.]
The Electromagnetic Spectrum
These waves travel through the electromagnetic field. They were formerly carried by the aether, which was decommissioned in 1897 due to budget cuts.
Other waves: Slinky waves [Cueball and Megan hold the ends of a tangled slinky.] Sound waves [There is a snippet of a frequency band. Between 20 Hz and 20 KHz is labeled "Audible Sound." Towards the top is a line labeled "That high-pitched noise in empty rooms."] The wave [A row of people does a wave.]
[Three parallel scales are across the bottom. The first is lambda (m), ranging from 100Mm to 100fm; second is f (Hz), which starts at 1 Hz and reaches 100 THz about 2/3 of the way along, after which the labels read "other entertaining greek prefixes like peta- exa- and zappa-;" last is Q (Gal^2/Coloumb), whose labels are 17, 117, pi, 17, 42, phi, e^pi-pi, -2, 540^50, and 11^2. Above the scales and lined up accurately with the first two are the following:]
Power & Telephone (100Mm to 1km) Radio & TV (1km to somewhere between 1m and 10cm); above that are many boxes showing subranges (AM, VHF, UHF, 24/7 NPR pledge drives, a very thin band for the space rays controlling Steve Ballmer, 99.3 "The Fox," 101.5 "The Badger," 106.3 "The Frightened Squirrel," cell phone cancer rays, CIA, ham radio, kosher radio, shouting car dealership commercials.) Microwaves (a bit more than 10cm to a bit more than 1mm); it also has subranges (aliens, just below SETI, wifi, FHF, brain waves, sulawesi, gravity) Toasters (about 1mm to about 100 micrometers) IR (about 100 micrometers to somewhere between 1 micrometer and 1 nm); above that is a bell graph labeled "Superman"s heat vision," with a motorcycle driving up the left side labeled "Jack Black's Heat Vision." Visible light (and, under it, visible dark); above that is a bell graph labeled "sunlight." There's a breakout chart above it showing the visible spectrum from 700nm (red) to 450nm (violet). There's an arrow pointing to where octarine would be, somewhere off to the side. Above that are bars showing the absorption spectra for hydrogen, helium, Depends(R) (yellow only), and Tampax(R) (red only). UV (about 100nm to about 10nm) Miller Light (a thin bar around 10nm) An unlabeled section with a thin line above it showing the frequency of the main death star laser A blocked-off portion labeled "Censored Under Patriot Act." X-rays (from about 1nm to about 10pm); a line above shows the frequency of mail-order x-ray glasses. Somewhere vaguely above the 10pm mark is a potato. Gamma/cosmic rays (10pm and smaller); above that is a bar marked Sinister Google Projects that also trails off into higher frequencies, and blogorays, which are slightly lower.