DFS

Explanation:
In this comic Hairy is preparing for his date with Ponytail , and has just finished with a shower, as seen from the fact that he is wearing a towel around his waist.
He is also preparing mentally by thinking about which situations he might encounter during the date. Since he cannot know for sure he is performing a "blind search" in his head. When doing a blind search in computing, there are two main tactics— depth-first search (DFS), and breadth-first search (BFS).
Hairy uses the DFS technique, as indicated in the comic title, which means going as far as you possibly can down one path before looking at other possibilities. This turns out to be a bad idea, as Hairy's searches takes him out on a tangent. Instead of preparing for his date, Hairy instead spent the whole time doing research on snake venom , to the exclusion of even getting dressed in time for the arrival of his date. The way the last panel is the only panel and at the far right in the second row vs. four panels in the top row, indicates all the time he has used on DFS. And although he may realize his mistake, throwing up his arms, he has to tell Ponytail the fact he has found out that the inland taipan 's has the deadliest venom of any snake (see more below).
By contrast, a breadth-first search will look only minimally into a topic before moving on to another; any new depth exposed by this minimal check will be added to a list of stuff to do later. This would have allowed Hairy to briefly check many more things within the time allotted, and probably still have been able to get dressed if, in dealing breadth-first in the first layer of concerns, he quickly identified (and prioritised/satisfied) the need to be properly dressed and ready to go out.
The relationship advice given in the title text on using breadth-first search may not be meant too seriously. However, one might be more sure about what kind of person one is looking for after already having dated a few people. But then the right one, might have slipped by. It is by no means certain that you can return to one of the first persons you dated after having dated another dozen.
It is, however, not very useful, if you wish to have a stable family life, to "only" be with a person for five years. So DFS is for sure a bad way to find out who you wish to spend you life with. One might conclude that blind search is not a good way to find your significant other. But for most people, there is no other way to search.
DFS and BFS make another appearance in 2407: Depth and Breadth , together with variations based on them.
Hairy begins to think of several situations to prepares for.
In the first panel there are four situations:
In the second panel there are also four situations continuing the first option from the first panel:
In the third panel there are four types of snakes with questions marks as to whether they are dangerous. This is a continuation of the first option from the second panel:
This third step takes him to his computer in the fourth panel where he does lots of research on snake venom .
LD 50 , or median lethal dose, is the dose of a toxin required to kill 50% of the population studied, usually expressed in milligrams of toxin per kilogram of body mass, and most often for rats or another type of guinea pig .
The inland taipan 's venom does, indeed, have the lowest median lethal dose among snake venoms. Fortunately, it is extremely shy in temperament, and will always escape danger rather than bite if it can, which is why it isn't considered to be a particularly dangerous snake.  It also resides only in inland Australia, unlike any of the snakes that Hairy enumerated as potential risks.  (If he does happen to live in Australia, he should be more concerned about the much deadlier eastern brown snake and coastal taipan .)
Incidentally, corn snakes and garter snakes are not even remotely dangerous to humans (in fact they're the most popular pet snakes), and of the four different species commonly known as " copperheads ," the only dangerously venomous one is deinagkistrodon acutus or sharp-nosed viper that only lives in Southeast Asia. In the US, the snake going by the name of copperhead is the agkistrodon contortrix .
The item that is almost entirely cut off by the thought bubble seems to be " coral snake ".  Coral snakes are in a similar position as the inland taipan: they are extremely venomous, but also extremely reclusive.
[In a caption that breaks the top of the first panels frame:] Preparing for a date:
[Hairy with wet hair and a towel around his waist thinks with his hand to his chin. There are four situations, but it is not possible to read the fourth line.] Hairy: What situations might I prepare for? 1) Medical emergency 2) Dancing 3) Food too expensive
[Close-up on Hairy's face, who is still thinking.  There are again four situations, but again it is not possible to read the fourth line.] Hairy: Okay, what kind of emergencies can happen? 1)   A) Snakebite B) Lightning strike C) Fall from chair
[Zoooming out again to full figure of Hairy. He is still thinking... There are four snakes mentioned, but again it is not possible to read the fourth line. The word Danger stands beneath the three dots above the "?" after each snake.] Hairy: Hmm. Which snakes are dangerous? Let's see... Danger 1)A)a) Corn snake ? b) Garter snake ? c) Copperhead ?
[Hairy is sitting down in a chair with a laptop in his lap, while still wearing the towel.] Hairy: The research comparing snake venoms is scattered and inconsistent. I'll make a spreadsheet to organize it.
[Bottom panel is larger than top four, and aligned to right. Ponytail meets Hairy on his front stoop. She is carrying a purse, and looks down at the towel he is still wearing. Hairy holds his arms in the air.] Ponytail: I'm here to pick you up. You're not dressed? Hairy: By LD 50 , the inland taipan has the deadliest venom of any snake!
[Below this last panel is the following caption:] I really need to stop using depth-first searches.


Analogies

Explanation:
This comic revolves around the similarities (and differences) between the concepts of "analogy", "simile" and "metaphor" (as well as "synecdoche", "sandwich" and "sex.")
When Megan stands up and asks Cueball and his Cueball-like friend if anyone would like a sandwich, she is very literally meaning that she will would go an make a sandwich in the kitchen, and she would make one for either of them if they wished.
Cueball is thus cheeky when he asks if this is a metaphor, because in that case the metaphor would be a reference to sex sandwich , in which case the two Cueball's would make up the bread in the sandwich with Megan as the meat in the middle, in a special kind of threesome (NSFW).
Megan effectively turns him down by saying she is bad at metaphors, thus indirectly saying that she is determined not to understand his innuendo, rather than actually understanding it and having to reply to his smart remark. As she probably also knows him rather well, she also knows that by introducing the similar word simile, she immediately turns the focus off the poor sexual joke to a discussion of language, and she is able to leave the room while the guys are discussing this rather than smirking over the sexual joke.
She also manages to make the punch line after the friend introduces analogy, as she is now actually making a sandwich and using this sentence to make an analogy.
The dictionary defines a " metaphor " as a figure of speech that uses one thing to mean another and makes a comparison between the two. For example, Shakespeare's line, "All the world's a stage," is a metaphor comparing the whole world to a theater stage. Metaphors can be very simple, and they can function as most any part of speech. "The spy shadowed the woman" is a verb metaphor. The spy is not literally her shadow, but he follows her so closely and quietly that he resembles one.
A " simile ", also called an open comparison, is a form of metaphor that compares two different things to create a new meaning. But a simile always uses "like" or "as" within the phrase and the comparison is more explicit than a metaphor. For example, Shakespeare's line could be rewritten as a simile to read: "The world is like a stage." Another simile would be: "The spy was close as a shadow." Both metaphor and simile can be used to enhance writing.
An " analogy " is a bit more complicated. At the most basic level, an analogy shows similarity between things that might seem different — much like an extended metaphor or simile. But analogy isn't just a form of speech. It can be a logical argument: if two things are alike in some ways, they are alike in some other ways as well. Analogy is often used to help provide insight by comparing an unknown subject to one that is more familiar. It can also show a relationship between pairs of things. This form of analogy is often used on standardized tests in the form "A is to B as C is to D".
There is a famously confusing analogy, often falsely attributed to Einstein, that attempts to explain how radio works: "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”
" Synecdoche " (from the title text) is the naming the whole of something by referring to a part, or vice versa. E.g. using "the Internet" when meaning "the World Wide Web", which is only a part of it; or using "Band-Aid" when referring to any adhesive bandage. Randall is saying that he doesn't really understand the difference between them, but instead of using one of the names as a placeholder for them all (that is, as a synecdoche), he actually uses the word 'synecdoche'.  What a mind he has.
[Megan stands by a TV set and addresses Cueball in the couch and his Cueball-like friend who sits in front of the TV on the floor.] Megan: While I'm up, does anyone want a sandwich? Cueball: Is "sandwich" a metaphor?
[A frame-less panel with the same scene, without the TV. Cueball has taken a hand to his chin and the friend on the floor looks down.] Megan: No, I'm bad at metaphors. But I could try a simile. Cueball: I guess that's like a metaphor. Cueball: Sure.
[While Megan walks past them, Cueball leans forward and his friends looks back up at him as they continue to speak.] Friend: Well, "a simile is like a metaphor" is a simile. Cueball: Is that simile itself a metaphor for something? Friend: Maybe it's a metaphor for analogy.
[Cueball and his friend are still sitting and talking while Megan replies from off-panel.] Cueball: Similes are like metaphors in that they're both analogies. Megan (off-panel): Analogies are like sandwiches in that I'm making one now.


Workaround

Explanation:
A relative of Cueball is depicted, who explains how he goes about sending a YouTube video to someone. The relative appears to be a stereotypical 'non-computer person', perhaps the father or grandfather of Cueball. The relative explains how he first saves a web page and opens it in Microsoft Word, then uses the 'Share' feature in Word to generate an email that contains the web page reformatted as a Word document, then sends that email to a service that extracts YouTube videos. Perhaps this service would then email back a link to some extracted file on some server, and this link could in turn be copied and pasted in another email, which could finally be sent to the intended recipient. It's all very complicated.
The premise is that non-computer-literate people will find a clumsy, highly elaborate way of achieving some task on a computer. They will do this by stringing together the functions they stumble upon in the few software packages they have limited familiarity with, rather than taking a more sensible, straightforward route. In this case, a much faster and simpler route would be to copy the address of the YouTube video from the address bar in the browser, then paste the address in an email to the intended recipient.
The caption says that though Randall encourages his relatives to solve their computer problems on their own, by trial and error, he has to resist the urge of asking them the method they used. That method is likely to be unnecessarily complicated. Perhaps this complexity, inefficiency or illogicality will cause Randall to be exasperated, or perhaps Randall feels it is unwise to tell them why their method is inefficient because of the possibility of humiliating or upsetting them, especially after they have spent a long time experimenting to arrive at this suboptimal solution; it would be disrespectful to correct them. Or perhaps it would take too long to explain an alternative, even a much simpler one, because of the questions that it would lead to or because of the further misconceptions that would be exposed of which the relative should be disabused.
The title text just explains another example of a complicated and elaborate way of working that people who don't understand computers can create. Partitions on a hard drive are separately managed regions of storage. Partitions are usually used for recovery purposes or to load different operating systems. It seems that Randall's friend's dad has created 6 partitions for no real purpose, and files are arbitrarily being saved to a random partition.
[A relative stands at a computer terminal. Cueball stands behind him with his head in his hands, double-facepalming.]
Relative: See, I've got a really good system: if I want to send a YouTube video to someone, I go to File → Save, then import the saved page into Word. Then I go to "Share this Document" and under "recipient" I put the email of this video extraction service...
[Caption below the panel:] I'll often encourage relatives to try to solve computer problems themselves by trial and error. However, I've learned an important lesson: if they say they've solved their problem, never ask how.


One Two

Explanation:
The comic parodies Sesame Street , an American children's TV show. The Count is a character in Sesame Street who teaches counting to viewers. The Count usually laughs after counting numbers, an innocent version of the sinister laugh that is a stereotype of old Hollywood horror films. In the book One Two Three ... Infinity , the writer describes African tribes that only have words for numbers up to three and their inability to distinguish or comprehend larger numbers. The Pirahã language of Brazil was originally thought to only have numerical terms for one, two, and many, although it is now thought these words are relative terms like "few" rather than absolute terms like "one." Similarly, see Edmund Blackadder try to teach Baldrick to count beans .
In the title text Randall predicts that anthropology majors will write to complain that this view of primitive tribes is a myth no longer held true by today's anthropologists. He makes a jab at them saying they would have time to write letters to complain about things because they don't have to spend time doing real science and thus real research.
[A television set with The Count from 'Sesame Street'.] The Count: One! Ah ah ah... Two! Ah ah ah... ...Many! ah ah ah... Primitive cultures develop Sesame Street.


Dilution

Explanation:
Homeopathy is the belief that poisons, bacteria, and other harmful substances can actually cure the diseases they normally cause, if they are administered in sufficiently dilute form. The normal procedure is to prepare a solution, then successively dilute it with water or alcohol by multiple factors of 10. (There's also a "succussion" step between rounds, which basically consists of shaking or striking the mixture, but no serious mechanism for how this would affect anything has been provided.) In the medical world, it's known to be total bunk , with countless scientific studies repeatedly showing it to have no more effectiveness than a placebo .
Here we find Cueball , a firm believer in homeopathy, applying the idea to fertility by diluting his semen. 30X means that the semen has been diluted with water at a 1:10 ratio 30 times, so the solution contains 1 part semen to one-nonillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) parts water. Since the average ejaculation contains 200 to 500 million sperm cells, this means the solution Cueball is holding has a 3.5x10 -20 % chance of containing even a single sperm cell. Clearly, Megan will not be getting pregnant from this, so she and Cueball will not be passing on their genes, which is why the comic states that the belief in homeopathy is not selected for.
According to the belief of homeopathy, diluted sperm should not help in getting pregnant, but help to cure the symptoms, e.g. pregnancy, caused by it. So even if diluting it 30X, would have a homeopathic effect, it would be the opposite of the one Cueball states he wants to achieve.
Echinacea is a genus of flowers commonly used in herbal remedies to stimulate the immune system. Scientific studies have not shown that such an effect exists. The title text is intended to represent a letter to the editors of fictitious journal 'Homeopathy Monthly', starting with a minor complaint that they seem unable to perform the basic proof-reading and fact-checking necessary to correctly spell one of the most well-known herbal remedies. This is followed up by a complete dismissal of homeopathy as a whole and the magazine in particular.
[Cueball stands at a desk with a beaker in one hand and a turkey baster in the other. Megan lies in a bed in the same room.]
Cueball: Okay, this time I've diluted the semen 30x. Megan: We'll be sure to get pregnant now!
Belief in homeopathy is not, evolutionarily, selected for.


Green Flash

Explanation:
Green flash refers to an optical phenomenon which occurs at twilight (early dawn or late dusk ), where a flash of green light can be seen at the very edge of the sun. Black Hat attempts to distract Cueball with this event so that he may knock out Cueball with the bottle in his hand and steal his new car, a Tesla Roadster . If the bottle is green, it would also be the cause of the green flash.
The title text simply continues this, wherein Black Hat jokes that Green Flashes are actually caused, at least in part, by the fact that he has a cool car worth stealing.
[Black Hat and Cueball are standing on the beach, watching the sun set. Black Hat is holding something in his left hand.] Black Hat: Did you know that if you stare at the sun just as it sets, you can see a green flash? Black Hat: And feel a sharp blow to the head, and hear the faint hum of me driving away in your new Tesla Roadster?


Temper

Explanation:
Actor Mel Gibson was the subject of controversy a few days before this comic came out because a telephone rant was taped and released to the public. He laughed off the call, saying simply "I have a bit of a temper."
Fred Rogers was a minister and television personality best known for his children's educational show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood . He's also famous for his testimony before the US Senate Communications subcommittee to secure a much-needed increase in funding for public educational broadcasting. He died of stomach cancer on February 27, 2003, but the legacy he left is substantial; to quote Wikipedia: "Rogers received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, some forty honorary degrees, and a Peabody Award. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, was recognized by two Congressional resolutions, and was ranked No. 35 among TV Guide's Fifty Greatest TV Stars of All Time. Several buildings and artworks in Pennsylvania are dedicated to his memory, and the Smithsonian Institution displays one of his trademark sweaters as a 'Treasure of American History'."
Part of what made Fred Rogers (and, by extension, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood ) so successful was the perpetually cheerful, genuine way he presented himself. He was always sincere, but he was polite and gentle in his sincerity. Additionally, in stark contrast to the celebrity stereotype, he was an enormously compassionate and kind-hearted person even when off the screen. People who knew him in real life often observed that the Mister Rogers shown on TV wasn't just a character, it was Fred Rogers himself - as the title text notes. This counterstereotype has fueled urban legends that he was a former child molester, that he served in the military and killed many, etc., none of which are true.
This comic subverts these false suspicions. Fred Rogers is fictionally recorded having a fight with his wife, but instead of a Mel Gibson-style explosive rage, he approaches it with a calm, diplomatic, and loving attitude consistent with his real personality. The title text does the same, setting up for a shocking reveal and failing to meet it.
[A black frame with the text [NO VIDEO] in the center, speech is in bubbles.] Voice: Sometimes, when we disagree, I feel frustrated. But I never forget how lucky I am to have you in my family. Voice: Always remember how special you are.
[Caption below the panel]: 1981: An audio recorder on the set catches Fred Rogers fighting with his wife.


1996

Explanation:
There has been a stunning amount of progress in pretty much any measurable dimension of technology since 1996. We laugh at our prior naivete, pointing out that what would be a non-functionally awful computer now was considered state of the art at that time. Likewise with a Palm Pilot , arguably a precursor to today's omnipresent smartphones. Texas Instrument (TI) calculators, however, appear to have been left behind, not having made any significant advances (or price drops) since the newly discovered issues of the US computer magazine Computer Shopper were published. Thus, while we groan at how awful our state of the art technologies truly were in 1996, we are reminded that some technologies have remained in relative stasis over the years.
The title text, after alluding to the fact that academia's practice of only allowing (or requiring) specific models is at the root of how TI can charge high prices for stagnant technology, reminds us that when they were new, TI calculators were relatively powerful tools if you knew how to use them. TI-Basic was a fairly versatile programming language that could be used to make anything from games to reference files to computational programs.
The second half of the title text is a reminder to those of us who felt like gods for knowing how to program that power comes at a price—in this case, the power to program a calculator costs friends . Since, as of this comic's publication date, no program yet devised had truly passed a Turing test, even the most sophisticated Chatterbot (program designed to mimic conversation) couldn't quite qualify as a friend. As of June 2014, however, a computer convinced 33% of the people who spoke to it that it was a human, qualifying it to pass the Turing Test . Though some skepticism on this point is needed , as it only passed the University's contest, not the actual Turing test .
Being unable to "make" friends was also later mentioned in 866: Compass and Straightedge .
While many people aren't aware of them, TI does make more modern calculators in their TI-Nspire series , although they were introduced after this comic was published. The newest versions have color screens and ( finally! ) non-BASIC programming support through Lua and Python .
[Cueball is going through a cardboard box marked "MISC", and finds a catalog. Megan looks on.] Cueball: Check it out - old Computer Shoppers! Wow - in 1996, $3,000 would get you a 100 MHz Pentium system with a parallel port, two serial ports, a 2MB video card, and "MS-Windows" Megan: Nice!
[The two are face-to-face, and they each have a separate copy of Computer Shopper.] Megan: And $299 would get you a Palm Pilot 100- - 16MHz, 128Kb storage, and a memo pad, calendar, and state-of-the-art address book that can store over 100 names! Cueball: Oooh!
[Cueball continues to read from his.] Cueball: And $110 would get you a bulky TI graphing calculator with around 10MHz CPU, 24Kb RAM, and a 96x64-pixel B/W display! Megan: Times sure have... ...have... uh.
[They both put down their catalogs.] Cueball: Okay, what the hell, T.I.? Megan: Maybe they cost so much now because there's only one engineer left who remembers how to make displays that crappy.


War

Explanation:
This comic seems to be a parable about the perils of love during wartime. Our protagonist is seen here leaning against his pack behind a low wall, surely a good hiding spot for any gentleman with a rifle and scope. Judging by the letter he's in the midst of writing, he has a complex relationship with Cordelia. On the one hand, she's attractive. On the other hand, she's a hostile combatant, as evidenced by the shots fired mid-missive. Cordelia's fire works against her, though, as her volley of shots has revealed her own position atop the maintenance shed. We can presume that in a matter of minutes, this love affair will go sour as the love letter is wrapped around a live grenade and "delivered," so to speak. War is indeed hell.
As to the title text, the green berets are worn only by Special Forces soldiers. It takes a lot of training to become a green beret, and as evidenced by our protagonist's clever use of decoys to outwit a sniper, he may be qualified for the honor. However, evidence for his naiveté is given immediately thereafter, as he confesses that he wears a beret under his helmet — thus revealing our protagonist's true identity (and explaining how he fell in love with an enemy soldier actively trying to kill him): Beret Guy . Then again, he does not have a choice, since he has stapled the beret on his head.
"Cordelia" is possibly a reference to Cordelia Rosalind —the sniper from the miniature game Anima: Tactics . Alternatively, it may be a reference to Cordelia Naismith from Lois McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor . In the book, Cordelia Naismith and Lord Aral Vorkosigan are on opposite sides of the Beta-Barrayar war, and fall in love while forced to spend a week in each other's company on an unpopulated planet. This may be further corroborated by the green color of Beret Guy's uniform, which is very similar to the color used for the uniforms of the Barrayan Imperial Service.
[A soldier is sitting on the ground behind a low wall, leaning against his pack and writing a letter.] My Dearest Cordelia, it has been far too long since I last gazed upon your lithe and supple body through my telescopic sights, and I fear you may have found a superior vantage poin—
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
—a splendid effort, my love, but your shots find only a decoy, and reveal your position atop the maintenance shed.
I pray this missive and my grenades find you well.
War is hell.


All the Girls

Explanation:
A young couple ( Cueball and Megan ) are in love. In the first panel, Cueball says he's lucky to have Megan, a perfectly fine thing to say to someone when you're in love. In the second panel, Cueball tells Megan he loves her most out of all the girls in the world, which is again a perfectly fine thing to say when you're in love. Trouble sets in, however, in the third panel, where Cueball offers his qualifying statement, that he loves Megan the most of the subset of girls who also love Cueball back.
In the title text, written in Cueball's voice, we have another compliment/qualifier pair. Cueball assures Megan that he'll never leave her—so long as some other girl is with someone. Cueball clearly has an unrequited love for another, and so really is being as shitty as we all thought he was originally. The world can be a cruel place.
This comic is related with stable marriage problem , which is usually stated as: Given n men and n women, can they all be married off in such a way that there is no possible "adulterous" pairing that both the man and woman would prefer over their current partner? It turns out the answer is yes, and there are even algorithms that can be used to find such a set of marriages. However, such algorithms don't usually give people their first choice, just their first choice among potential partners who prefer them to all the alternatives. The algorithms also favor either the men or the women, so one side will typically get closer to their ideal preferences than the other. Such algorithms do get in used in situations like assigning medical students to residencies (technically it's a polygamous generalization, but it's basically the same idea), in which case it's biased in favor of the medical students.
In the comic Cueball and Megan could be a couple arranged through a stable marriage algorithm. In most cases that would mean that they both have potential partners that they would prefer over the one they're with, and the only reason that they aren't with that person is that their love was unrequited. That leaves both of them with a certain amount of emotional baggage that most people would consider detrimental to stable marriage. In short, while a stable marriage algorithm may provide good solutions to certain matching problems, it may not be the best way to produce actual stable marriages.
[Cueball and Megan are standing together.] Cueball: I'm so lucky to have you.
Cueball: I love you most out of all the girls in all the world
[They embrace.] Cueball: who love me back.


Period Speech

Explanation:
The actors on this stage are using language and technology from wildly different time periods:
Put together, the exchange roughly translates to "Do you truly understand what I'm saying, my friends?"/"Yes, we understand!".) The characters also combine archaic weapons like a spear and a sword with a presumably modern handgun and a laptop, adding to the growing heap of anachronisms.
Randall 's contention is that hundreds of years from now, people will make similar errors that we do today when depicting historical items and language. Modern movies, fiction, and other forms of media that depict history often confuse terms, items, and equipment that were in one place and time period and place them in another, but few people notice because to them, all of it fits under the very broad category of "old, historical things" - only those with an interest in history really notice or seem to care. Thus following this trend, in the future, things like laptop computers and "grok my jive" will seem just as historical and "old-timey" as a spear or the saying "Forsooth!", except to those who participate in such things like "Blogger Reenactment Festivals", as mentioned in the title text.
For instance, take a suit of full plate armor. To most people, plate armor is a "Medieval thing". So thus, when depicting King Arthur, a figure from 500 to 800 AD (if he even existed at all), one would (and has) put him in a suit of full plate because he is "medieval" and that is the stereotypical equipment of a Medieval figure. In actual fact, plate armor only came about after 1350, many centuries after King Arthur would have lived, and it coexisted alongside firearms for a very long time. King Arthur would have worn chainmail, but all of this would be lost on an average person watching a movie about King Arthur, to whom chainmail and full plate are interchangeable under the label of "historical armor" in their minds. It is not much of a jump from a span of 500 to 800 years of equipment being considered interchangeable to 1500 years of equipment and language being interchangeable. A similar confusion of "interchangeably old things" is seen in the title text to 2396: Wonder Woman 1984 .
The title text likely refers to 239: Blagofaire , which features the said "Blogger Reenactment Festivals".
[A sword-wielding Cueball on a stage addresses three others; one has a spear, another a handgun and a knife, and the third a laptop.] Cueball: Forsooth, do you grok my jive, me hearties? Actors: Ten-four! [The caption below.] A few centuries from now, all the English of the past 400 years will sound equally old-timey and interchangeable.


Frogger

Explanation:
Frogger is a classic video game introduced in 1981. The aim of the game is to safely get a frog across a busy road and a river to a lily pad at the top of the screen.
The title text reveals that a team of programmers misinterpreted a task to make the game "more realistic", i.e. with better graphics, and instead made the trucks swerve to avoid the car-sized frog, causing another vehicle to crash into the truck resulting in a serious road accident. This is instead of the traffic just inexorably moving at a constant rate in their assigned lanes and disregarding the movements of the frog, who is normally the only one who ever needs to take evasive action or suffer the consequences.
The game continues to introduce increasing drama with the reactions of off-panel bystanders.
This is similar to the idea behind the modification of the game in 873: FPS Mod , in which realism makes a video game much less enjoyable.
[The dark green frog, Frogger, is standing in the middle of the panel on the green grass by the side of a light gray road with at least four tracks divided by black midlines. The last track being mainly outside the top frame of the panel. It is looking out into the traffic, which includes three trucks (two in the nearest lane one in the third) with different color of the cabin (one blue and two dark gray) and white behind the cabin. There is also a red car in the second lane. All four vehicles are driving towards left.]
[Lines behind the frog and sound indicates that Frogger hops, and it moves out right in front of the right truck which is now close to it. The left truck is partly outside the panel, and the other two have moved further left and a new gray car has entered from the right in the second lane.] Hop
[The truck in the inner lane swerves into the second lane to avoid Frogger, which takes the truck out in front of the gray car. The other truck in the inner lane has exited the panel and the red car only shows the rear part. ]
[The truck and the car collide with a great noise displayed with shaky letters above them. The car and the cabin of the truck both crumples. Behind the car is two lines of skid marks. Frogger is left unharmed in the inner lane. The red car is gone and the third lane truck is leaving the panel to the left, the cabin just outside the frame.] Boom
[Only the two crashed vehicles are left on the road with smoke pouring out of their hoods. The trucks rear end also seems to have crumbled more than in the previous image, and strangely enough the skid marks of the car now stretches longer towards the right than before... Frogger turns around and hops back to the side of the road, again indicated with lines and sound. At the bottom of the panel three off-panel voices calls out:] Hop Off-panel voice 1: Oh god! Off-panel voice 2: Someone call 911! Off-panel voice 3: Mom!
Randall made a mistake in the last panel, where the skid marks of the car stretches longer towards the right than in the panel before, even though the car and truck did not move (and the view has also stayed the same through out the comic.) However, this could just be smoke plumes.


University Website

Explanation:
This comic uses a Venn diagram to point out that there is often a significant disparity between what a university displays on the front page of its website and what users — particularly prospective students — are primarily interested in finding there.
This is often because those who are making the university website instinctively believe, from their perspective, that the website should contain things that the university is proud of, or that they personally find useful, so they are unable to look at it from the perspective of a person who is new on campus and simply wants to know what number to call for campus security. Thus, simple details like contact information and university data are often overlooked.
The title text presents a satirical response from the school defending their site design, consisting mostly of PR worthy of an alumni magazine (a publication that is seldom anticipated so eagerly). It also uses sarcasm to make fun of university websites that have wildly out of date site design (web technology was relatively primitive in 2001 [ citation needed ] ) and a CS (Computer Science) student built it instead of a professional.
[A venn diagram.] [The left circle is labeled "Things on the front page of a university website" and contains:] "campus photo slideshow" "alumni in the news" "promotions for campus events" "press releases" "statement of the school's philosophy" "letter from the president" "virtual tour"
[The right circle is labeled "Things people go to the site looking for" and contains:] "list of faculty phone numbers and emails" "campus address" "application forms" "academic calendar" "campus police phone number" "department course lists" "parking information" "usable campus map"
[The only item in the overlapping section is:] "full name of school"


Atheists

Explanation:
In public debates, some fundamentalist Christians and some atheists , while having different opinions, can behave surprisingly similar. Both can be very dogmatic about their beliefs, and be very disrespectful and accusative towards people of the other standpoint. Cueball is blaming both parties for being annoying. Megan sarcastically remarks that Cueball then must feel superior to just about everyone.
The title text takes this one step further when Cueball realizes that Megan's reply is just as smugly superior as his. For practical reasons (that is, the prevention of an endless, useless thought loop about your own thought process), Megan stops the tactic, by humorously stating that the statement expires after one use in a conversation. Of course, statements cannot expire. [ citation needed ]
[Cueball and Megan talking. Cueball has his palm out.] Cueball: Personally, I find atheists just as annoying as fundamentalist Christians. Megan: Well, the important thing is that you've found a way to feel superior to both.


Savannah Ancestry

Explanation:
Savannah ancestry usually means our ancestors in the African savanna , millions of years ago.
Evo-psych means evolutionary psychology .
Cueball is apparently trying to teach Megan something mathematical, feels frustrated at his lack of success, blames that lack of success entirely on his student, and appears to use evolutionary psychology, specifically a popular trope/myth about women being bad at abstract thinking, as an excuse. Evolutionary excuses in this context are trying to lay blame somewhere other than either participant, and so can be seen as comforting, but of course they falsely place all women in an inferior position to all men, at least when it comes to "abstract math". She naturally objects to the excuse, rightly calls it bullshit sexism, and, depending on how you interpret it, may indicate this isn't the first time she's heard him say something similar.
But the twist is that he turns out not to be talking about her lower-case savannah ancestors, the ones in the African savannah of eons ago, but rather of her very recent "Savannah ancestors", better called parents, who live in the city of Savannah, Georgia, USA . They apparently know each other well. The implication is now much more personal: that her mother didn't prepare her. Of course, Randall uses only upper case everywhere, so he has avoided giving the reader a clue about the misdirect-joke he is working toward.
Teasing people about their mothers in the USA, specifically about their mothers' stupidity or fatness, is a common enough theme in popular culture that there is a series of jokes that start with the words "Yo mama" that exemplify the genre. There is also an extremely common theme that the South's education system is failing; the comic combines the two.
The title text is apparently Megan starting to defend her mother, but then lapsing into a Yo Mama joke without the introducing words, showing that her mother is stupid enough to think that a quarterback (one of the positions played in American football) would be a river in Egypt. This is a conflation of the Yo Mama joke "Yo mama so stupid she thinks a quarterback is a refund!" and the common pun, "Denial (sounds like "The Nile") is not just a river in Egypt".
[Cueball and Megan are at a blackboard with equations and graphs on it.] Cueball: Look, I'm doing my best, but the fact is your savannah ancestors just didn't prepare you for doing abstract math. Megan: See, that's just the kind of bullshit sexism that discredits evo-psych. Your "evolutionary histories" always seem tuned to produce 1950's gender roles. Cueball: Evolutionary? What? I meant Savannah, Georgia. Megan: ...Hey! Let's leave my mom out of this.


Still No Sleep

Explanation:
Lack of sleep causes hallucinations different from insanity — insane people find it very difficult or impossible to distinguish between a hallucination and reality because the part of their brain that checks for normality in a situation is also broken. Level-1 sleep hallucinations do not make it through this "sanity filter" in a sane human being.
Cueball has been sleep deprived for quite a while now, and he begins questioning his reality. He wonders if he is awake, or he is dreaming. He also wonders whether or not he is hallucinating a tree, then proceeding to question whether his hallucination might be a hallucination, and he might actually be sane. This double negative would not work mainly due to the fact that if you are hallucinating a hallucination, you are still hallucinating, and most likely you are not completely sane. In the end a squirrel comes up to him, and tells him not to worry about the possibility that he might be sane, thereby proving that Cueball is at the very least, hallucinating.
In the title text, Cueball doesn't want to listen to the squirrel because, "what does a SQUIRREL know about mental health?" This is final proof that Cueball is insane, because he cannot distinguish between a hallucination and reality (talking to a squirrel).
[Woozy Cueball walks and speaks.] Cueball: The sleep deprivation madness worsens.
[Cueball examines his hands.] Cueball: Things seem unreal. Am I even awake? Maybe I'm dreaming.
[Cueball approaches a tree with a squirrel on it.] Cueball: I'm pretty sure I'm hallucinating this tree.
[Cueball is now in front of the tree, and the squirrel is on the ground. Cueball has his arms open.] Cueball: But what if I'm hallucinating that I'm hallucinating, and I'm actually totally sane? Squirrel: Listen. Squirrel: I wouldn't worry about that.


Pore Strips

Explanation:
This comic shows a box of "Deep-cleaning pore strips," which are a skin-care product designed to clean your pores. You stick them on your face, wait a while, and then rip them off. When they come off, a whole lot of disgusting gunk, like dirt and body oils, is lifted out of your pores with them. The kind shown in the comic, however, is "deep cleaning", and rips out not only the user's pore gunk, but also his entire skull.
The title text indicates that while Randall is aware that pore-cleaning strips are useless and possibly harmful products created to make money by "solving" something that isn't actually a problem, they are quite effective at getting things out of the pores on a person's nose.
The title text also refers to the cosmetics industry as the "cosmetics-industrial complex", which is a play on the term " military-industrial complex ", coined by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States.
[A box of pore strips, marked "deep cleaning."]
[Cueball examines the box.]
[Cueball applies strip to face.]
[Cueball pulls on strip.]
[Cueball pulls skull out of head with pore strip.]


Scheduling

Explanation:
This comic is a take on the common plots of pornographic movies. There are several "stereotypical" setups for porn videos - the suggestive pizza deliveryman ("hot sausage" being a suggestive pun), the French maid who finds out her master is home early and the wife is still away, and the plumber who, while performing routine repairs on a woman's house, becomes enamored with her (while quoting "woman in need of plumbing" as another suggestive pun). In all cases, it is usually a simple plot in order to set up a scenario for the pornography. In this comic, all three of these common stereotypical plots seem to have occurred at once. Realizing that none of their intended targets for sex (ostensibly, members of the Jones family) are at home, and thus they are all in the house alone with nothing to do, one of them grabs a game of Agricola off of the shelf, and they sit down to play, their confusion about this mixing of scenarios forgotten. Then the Joneses come home and are baffled by the assemblage of random professionals playing Agricola on their floor.
Agricola's objective is to build a stable family farm, contrasting with the apparently dysfunctional family in the comic.
In Agricola, one can choose among certain actions with your (very limited) "workers" (Thus it's called a worker placement game). Those actions contain for instance "Take a grain" and "Be starting player (the next round)". Other examples are "Build a fence", "Take a cow", "Plowing" and other farm-related things.
The starting player has the advantage of choosing the first item/resource/action in the next round. Once an item/action/resource is occupied by a player it can't be chosen by another player in that round. The game is easy to learn and hard to master since it needs a lot of planning and anticipating the other player's next moves. As such "scheduling" is a very important part of the game.
In the game shown, it appears that Pizza-guy has used his first move to choose "Starting Player" (for the next round), followed by Maid choosing "Take grain". Pizza-guy had previously planned to take that grain with his second action, which has now been denied by Maid. Essentially Maid is telling Pizza-guy to stop complaining, he made his decision, and too bad that his plan isn't going to work as he'd hoped.
The title text references "family growth", which could be interpreted as a cheesy euphemism for sex (in the porn-movie-plot context) or as a game mechanic for gaining another worker (in the Agricola-game context). The "not until round two" response could be used for either interpretation.
[A pizza delivery guy enters through a door and a maid is dusting.] Pizza guy: Pizza delivery! Did someone order a hot sausag— Maid: Mon dieu! Monsieur is home early— Both: Wait, who are you ?
Pizza guy: Wait, this is the Joneses', right? Their daughter was supposed to be having a party! Maid: No, I thought Mr. Jones was coming home early.
[The pizza guy is off-panel left as a plumber enters from the right.] Pizza guy: But I thought— Plumber: Howdy, Mrs. Jones. I hear you need some plumbi — Who are you?
[The pizza guy looks in a cabinet; the others are off-panel right.] Maid: Sorry, big mixup. Pizza guy: Hey, check it out—the Joneses have Agricola ! Plumber: I love that game!
[Mr. Jones and Mrs. Jones arrive home. The pizza guy, the maid, and the plumber are sitting on the floor playing Agricola.] Mr. Jones: What in the name of... Pizza guy: Dammit, I wanted that grain. Maid: Hush, you have starting player.


Anxiety

Explanation:
Some people are upset about airport security policies that mandate the use of backscatter X-ray machines, since the machines can create an image of the subject naked. In protest, the travellers in the lineup (or at least the male ones) are taking Viagra , sold to them by Black Hat ; there is a heteronormative expectation that the male security guard will be disgusted at being forced to look at erect penises. (An expectation which is supported by the guard's thought bubble of 'Oh god', which could either be in response to seeing what Black Hat is doing or in response to an unseen person, presumably sporting such an erection, already in the scanner.)
Given Black Hat's personality, it is unlikely he himself is doing this in protest; rather he is monetizing the opportunity, a supposition reinforced by the inflated price ($20 for a single dose) at which he is selling the medication.
An alternate interpretation is that many men feel self-conscious (or anxious, as the name puts it) about their size when flaccid, [ citation needed ] and thus might wish to "put their best foot forward" and look their best, as it were.
Realistically, given the size of the line, there would be insufficient time between consuming the pills and entering the scanner for them to take effect.
In the title text, one of the people in the line explains he has a fetish with being X-ray scanned, and thus doesn't need Viagra to achieve the above effect.
[There is an airport security checkpoint where a queue of ten passengers is waiting to go through a backscatter x-ray scanner. Near the back of the line, Black Hat is standing next to a stand and a sign which says "Viagra $20". One passenger next to him is drinking a glass of water, probably just before taking the pills; another is contemplating the sign.] Security Guard (thinking): Oh god.


Sample

Explanation:
This strip suggests that even a band with the most brilliant and catchy music would soon become the most hated band in the world if it included sound effects of car horns, cell phones, or alarm clocks in its songs. Listeners would most likely mistake the sound effects for the real thing, which could cause havoc.
For comparison, " Indiana Wants Me ", a 1970 hit single by R. Dean Taylor , had the sound of police sirens removed from later pressings because drivers were reportedly mistaking the sound effects for actual police cars and pulling over.
This can also be a reference to an unusual anti-piracy method, where P2P and Torrent networks are seeded with altered copies of songs that contain obnoxious sounds at random points.
The title text refers to the common sensation of having sounds from the real-world incorporated into a dream, especially as one is waking up. This gives a (false) sensation that is the reverse of the dream described in 557: Students . It implies that the author has been dreaming his entire life since his junior year of high school, which is obviously not true. [ citation needed ]
[Caption above the panel:] How to become the most hat ed band in the wo rld: Record an album that's nothing but brilliant, catchy instant classics guaranteed popularity and airtime, [Cueball is at the steering wheel of a car.] Music: So far from hooome but I can't sto— HONK Cueball: AUGH! WHAT? [Caption below the panel:] with a sample of a car horn, cell phone, or alarm clock inserted randomly in each song.


Ahead Stop

Explanation:
This comic refers to how, in some countries including the US, words or instructions written on the highway are always backwards from how you would read them. It seems that the "highway" engineers write the words as if you would read them as your car goes over them. Sometimes this approach works, other times (probably most of the time) it is terribly confusing. The sentence on the comic is: Highway Engineers Think I Read Backward. Adding the period is a perfectly hilarious touch, as there are probably not too many periods on the highways.
The title text is referring to how the words of the opening sequence of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (released in 1977) move from the bottom of the screen to the top so that it can be read by a normal human being. However, the image text says the engineers initially reversed the text because people were driving BACKWARDS down the highway trying to re-enact the opening sequence, so they started reversing the word order to get people to drive the "correct" direction.
The title of the comic ("Ahead Stop") is also a reference to this phenomenon because the common "Stop Ahead" instruction would be written on the highway as "Ahead" and then "Stop".
This could also be a reference to Top-posting in email threads and online discussion forums, as summarized in the following comedic signature line:
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
[Words are painted in white on a black road with green grass on each side and a gray sidewalk along the road to the left with a single flagstone going of from the sidewalk and out of the frame to the left. The words get smaller towards the top due to the perspective.] BACKWARD. I READ THINK ENGINEERS HIGHWAY


Desecration

Explanation:
Megan and Rob are horrified to discover that the bones they had dug up and turned into puppets were actually buried over an ancient Indian or presumably Native American 's burial ground. The joke is that they weren't concerned about repercussions from the Indian bones themselves, but since they were OVER an Indian burial ground that they're just as haunted or cursed, as houses built on such grounds usually are in Hollywood tropes and other fiction. They didn't consider it desecrating something holy, as per the title, until they discovered this fact. The humor comes from the fact that "digging up Indian bones" obviously makes it already an Indian Burial Ground itself, but apparently it didn't occur to Megan until after she and Rob knowingly desecrated a site at which Indians had been buried that they discovered that it was over another Indian Burial Ground, which is a common site of mystery and negative supernatural occurrences in horror films, etc. Such stories usually involve a building built on top of (over) the burial ground becoming haunted, which is why Megan uses the phrase above.
A common trope in horror fiction is that anyone defiling an ancient Indian burial ground will have a horrible curse cast upon them. Another common trope is having a curse cast upon oneself by a gypsy or voodoo woman, or a wizened wizard or monk as mentioned in the title text.
Megan and Rob seem to be unknowingly, and stupidly, angering every supernatural being and force in their entire town, thus setting themselves up for at least a dozen potential horror plots at the same time.
A common complaint about many horror stories is that the protagonists are flat out stupid in order to make the plot and horror work. This comic deliberately targets and makes fun of this, mocking the obliviousness that many stock horror characters show as to getting themselves into trouble with supernatural forces.
[Megan is running towards Rob.] Megan: Rob! Rob! Rob: You look terrified! What's wrong? Megan: We've made a huge mistake!
[In a frame-less panel Megan holds her hands up in an explaining gesture in front of Rob.] Megan: Remember last week when we dug up all those Indian bones and made puppets out of them? Rob: Sure...
[Megan is throwing her arms out to the sides while Rob holds both hands to his mouth.] Megan: It turns out they were buried over an ancient Indian burial ground! Rob: Oh my God!


I Don't Want Directions

Explanation:
Cueball wants to use his GPS device to find an individual's house, and therefore needs the house's address. The person on the phone is giving him directions, something that is useless because by giving Cueball the address, the GPS can give directions to the address, possibly better than the ones he is getting over the phone. Cueball then decides to tell the person that he would like to mail something to their house, hoping they will give him the address, because you must have the address to mail something. [ citation needed ]
The title text is a continuation of the comic's joke. By the end of the comic, Cueball has got the information he needs, and has just ignored the directions he did not want. However, if the person on the phone insists on checking Cueball has remembered the directions correctly, Cueball has to be able to learn the useless information he did not want in the first place, and has been mostly ignoring, at least well enough to repeat it once.
Judging by the roads mentioned in the comic (Highland Rd and presumably I-495 and MA-18 ), the person on the phone lives somewhere around southern Lakeville, Massachusetts , and Cueball is starting from the Boston area.
[Cueball on phone.] Cueball: Looking forward to seeing your new place! What's the address? Cueball: Mm hmm. Yes, I'm taking 495, but I have a GPS, so I really just need the street address.
[Close up.] Cueball: ...then south on 18, okay, but I have a GPS, so if you just want to skip to the street address, I can...
[Full body shot, facing other direction.] Cueball: Thanks, I'm glad to know Highland Road comes a mile after the big intersection, but I keep saying I have a GPS , can you tell me the street address? Cueball: ... Cueball: Technically that's just more information on how to get to your place, not the address itself. If you could-
[Close up again, Cueball writing on pad.] Cueball: ...I appreciate that you want to help, but I'm ignoring you and just waiting for the... Cueball: Listen, I just remembered I need to mail you a letter. What's your address? Cueball: Mhm... okay... Cueball: Great, thanks! I'll see you in an hour!


Falling Asleep

Explanation:
The first few panels of this strip seem romantic and sentimental, as it's common to hear that people sleep better next to people they love. The last panel reveals that Cueball and Megan are actually going through some relationship trouble, because Cueball uses her presence as a good reason for leaving this world behind. He does, however, not intend to commit suicide to escape from her and the world; he just wishes to escape by falling asleep (either that, or it's a double-meaning joke based on the fact that he's about to fall out of the bed).
As the title text reveals, he also wishes to avoid her in his dreams, as he wishes their dreams do not intersect - i.e. he hopes he will not dream of her (and vice versa). The opposite of "I'll see you in my dreams".
The cartoon seems to be a homage to the webcomic a softer world , which takes the same format.
[Cueball gets into bed.] It's so much easier falling asleep
[Megan is lying in bed, gripping her pillow.] With you beside me—
[Cueball is lying on his back in bed.] All the incentive I need
[Full shot of the bed, Megan is on the left, gripping the pillow, Cueball is as far to the right as possible, nearly falling off, facing away from her.] To leave the world behind.


Open Mic Night

Explanation:
The comic depicts four acts at an open mic night , where performances typically include comedy, poetry, music and other similar performance arts.
Megan confidently introduces herself as M.C. Aphasia, and starts to talk to the audience. Midway through her sentence however, she appears unable to continue to talk, ending with a sheepish "Hi?". Aphasia is a language disorder, symptomized by disturbance in formulation and comprehension of language. This class of language disorder ranges from having difficulty remembering words to being completely unable to speak, read, or write. M. C. stands for Master of Ceremonies - in the context of hip-hop performance, it means a rapper. Because a rapper's delivery depends on the ability to deliver lyrics fluently at high speed, aphasia would render an MC unable to perform.
The second panel shows Black Hat on the stage, just after a heckler in the audience fired a 'Yo Mama' joke at Black Hat (probably "when yo mama sits around the house, she sits around the house"). A heckler's aim is usually to put the performer off of their routine, and appear funny themselves. Responses from the performer vary from simply ignoring the heckler to replying with a witty put down to get the audience back on the comedian's side and dissuade the heckler from continuing. Rather than a short witty over-the-top reply in the typical style of Yo Mama jokes, Black Hat's response is a dark, detailed, realistic insult, implying that the heckler's mother is a failure and isn't proud of the heckler.
The third panel is a reference to the Quine paradox , whereby a sentence repeated twice in succession proves to be paradoxical. For example:
"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation" yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.
The sentence is another way of saying "this statement is false" but without the explicit self-reference. Named after the paradox, a quine is also a computer program which outputs its own source code.
The first sentence uses the word "say" in the normal way, as a transitive verb, with the second sentence in quotation marks as its object. The second sentence has the same words as the first, but now the word "say" is used as an intransitive verb: a non-standard usage approximately meaning "speak impressively".
In the fourth panel, Beret Guy 's speech begins as if with the common observation, "Ever notice how men go to the restroom alone, while women go in groups", but somehow gets derailed through the use of the word hordes instead of groups, and a confusion between women and orcs. When an audience member (or heckler) points this out, Beret Guy's response shows that his observations weren't intended as comedy in the first place.
The title text continues the riff on different kinds of stand-up comedians, commonly referred to as comics. Observational humor is a joke that presents a typical real-life situation humorously, often with a touch of exaggeration. The title text is likely referring to stand-up comedians, like Jerry Seinfeld , who use observational humor. When an observational comic becomes more successful, they  will probably "go on tour" resulting in a great deal of travel. This gives them lots of experience with airplanes and hotels, and more jokes about them will show up in the routine. Furthermore, the title text is itself an observational joke.
[Megan on stage, holding microphone, hip-hop stance.] Megan: Yo, I'm M.C. Aphasia and I'm here to say that, I... Uh... Megan: ...Um... Megan: ...Hi?
[Black Hat on stage, holding microphone.] Black Hat: So I... oh? Does she? Well, when yo mama sits around the house, she finds herself wishing she'd finished her degree instead of having kids right away, maybe started that business. Then she might have created something she's proud of.
[Cueball on stage, holding microphone, fist pumping toward audience.] Cueball: Yo, I'm M.C. Quine and I'm here to say, "Yo, I'm M.C. Quine and I'm here to say!"
[Beret Guy on stage, holding microphone.] Beret Guy: Ever notice how men go to the restroom alone, while women go in hordes ten thousand strong, clad all in sable armor and bristling with swords and spears? Audience member (off-screen): Those are orcs. Beret Guy: Oh.


Exoplanets

Explanation:
Beret Guy runs to wake up Cueball , who is probably under the covers in bed, with his potentially middle of the night revelation that Humankind is discovering " exoplanets " or planets that exist outside of our solar system. The indication is that these planets are habitable enough for humans, even if just for a visit.
Then Beret Guy takes it a bit further thinking that one of the countries on Earth could restart Project Orion . As Beret suggests, Project Orion was an early project to come up with a spacecraft that would ride the shockwave from a series of nuclear bombs it dropped in order to travel very, very fast. However, the one major downside of Project Orion was the fallout that the launching of any such craft would present on Earth. One could try to boost the Orion spacecraft into orbit with conventional rockets, but Orion spacecraft are heavy — being composed of giant pusher plates and rows upon rows of nuclear bombs, they are hard to lift. On top of this, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty means that the craft would be flatly illegal to build and launch on Earth, no matter what you did. However, if an asteroid mining project were to be started, the Orion drive spacecraft, the nuclear bombs, and all the infrastructure needed to man, build, and crew it could all be built safely in space, well away from the Earth's fragile biosphere, where little harm could be done. Some commercial spaceflight programs are interested in starting asteroid mining in the future, or even now: For example, see: https://www.planetaryresources.com .
In summary, Beret is very excited that we can see (with the Hubble telescope and other earth-bound telescopes) and find exoplanets. Then with some advances in space technology we can create nuclear propulsion in space to reach these planets, and it will all be happening quite possibly within a few decades. He is thus worried that Cueball will miss all of this ongoing excitement.
Cueball would just rather snooze, as he is not impressed. Beret Guy gives him only one snooze because as is apparent in the title text he is afraid that Cueball will be be left behind if he snoozes too long! Giving the fact that he just stated that it may take hundreds of years this is of course silly, but fits well with Beret Guy's behavior.
Exoplanets have been discovered starting in 1996, but there are still only a few confirmed planet candidates in the habitable zone at a distant star. This did change fast after that time since new ways of finding planets are created — see 1071: Exoplanets , which was posted with the same title. At that point, there were exactly 786 Exoplanets confirmed — the number of this comic - probably not a coincidence when it comes to Randall .
Part of the humor of this particular strip is that Beret Guy seems to have a sense of urgency and immediacy about something that is actually occurring at a snail's pace over decades, where Cueball finishing sleeping, or hitting snooze twice, couldn't possibly make one crystalline erg of difference.
1624: 2016 is similar to this comic in that in each case, one character wakes up another character in order to inform that character about an event that is neither immediately relevant to that character nor short/urgent enough that that character could miss it if he slept until the morning.
[Beret Guy runs into a bedroom arms up calling to someone who is in the bed under the covers. Only part of the bed is visible. The person under the covers speaks. Later part of his face can be seen, and it could be Cueball.] Beret guy: Wake up! Wake up! Cueball (under the cover): What is it?
[Beret Guy stands with his arms out talking to Cueball hiding under the covers of the bed now completely inside the panel.] Beret guy: We're alive during the time when they're first discovering other planetary systems! They're finding them as fast as they can build new instruments to look for them!
[In this frame-less panel only Beret Guy is shown standing with one arm out and one arm up looking left away from the off-panel bed.] Beret Guy: And if one of Earth's cultures advances its space program enough to start enriching uranium on asteroids, we'll lose the main barrier to restarting Project Orion and building nuke-riding city-ships!
[Beret Guy bends down, hands on his knees, to eye level with Cueball in the bed, who is finally peaking out from the covers, only showing part of his face (so it could be any character, as any hair could be hidden and the hat could be on the bed stand).] Beret Guy: The only known technology capable of fast interstellar travel could be operational within just a few generations, and we're discovering all these destinations to pick from! Beret Guy: Come on! Cueball: Can I hit "snooze"? Beret Guy: Okay, but just once!


Orbiter

Explanation:
This comic is about disputed territories and low Earth orbits .
In the early days of manned spaceflight and also the Space Shuttle the communication to the mission control center in Houston required many ground stations all around the Earth. Each station could provide a link for only a few minutes and there were still gaps between them. After 1989/90, when the geostationary TDRS system became fully operational, these ground stations became obsolete.
In this comic Cueball , the main controller at mission control, is planning the next check-in with the Space Shuttle (also called orbiter), which is set to occur at 32.0N 35.5E , approx 20 miles north-east of Jerusalem, over the hotly contested Israeli-Palestinian territories . Frank and the other off-screen character start to dispute the ownership of this geographical location, and rather than becoming involved in an argument, Cueball decides to change the check-in location to 35.2N 96.6W , approximately 50 miles east of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, which he considers to be a neutral, non-disputed location. Unfortunately, Frank is being a dick, and he then starts to make the claim that part of Oklahoma in fact should belong to Texas .
In the title text Randall incorrectly states that the orbiter would require a different orbit to reach both Palestine and Oklahoma, which cannot be achieved from a launch at Cape Canaveral . Thus, Randall proposes that the comic exists in an alternate history in which the Space Shuttles launch from Vandenberg . This is a reference to the plans to launch shuttles from there before the Challenger accident occurred. After Challenger was lost, the Vandenberg missions were scrapped and Cape Canaveral became the sole launch site for the Space Shuttle. Another possibility in this alternate history is that the rules forbidding orbital launches from Cape Canaveral to a northern direction don't exist, because nobody likes the Outer Banks (which would be in the flight path) and thus don't care about space debris falling on them.
Randall's incorrectness was discussed in many forums and probably based on the wrong assumption that the inclination cannot be higher than the latitude of the launch site (28° at Cape Canaveral). But this is only the optimal inclination, actually all shuttle launches to the Mir station and the International Space Station did reach an inclination of 51.6°, with the cost of some payload mass. And following the ISS at Heavens above when it moves over Israel to the south it will pass over Texas approximately an hour later. Nevertheless this orbit is not possible at the first orbit after a launch in Cape Canaveral.
The title text doesn't mention the region south of Iceland from the beginning of the comic. This is roughly at 64° North or less (if more south) and the distance from the highest possible orbital inclination of 57° from the Cape is 780 km. But even 1,000 km south of Iceland is only the Atlantic Ocean and the nearest landmass is still Iceland, which could explain this vague location.
Cueball: Okay, people. The orbiter is passing south of Iceland. The next scheduled check-in will be at 32.0N 35.5E, over the Palestinian territories. Off-screen character: You mean over the state of Palestine? Frank (off-screen): You mean over Israel? [Frameless beat panel.] Cueball: I've rescheduled the check-in for 35.2N 96.6W, over Oklahoma. Frank (off-screen): You mean occupied North Texas? Cueball: Dammit, Frank.


The Carriage

Explanation:
Emily Dickinson is a famous American poet, who wrote a poem called " Death ", about the personification of Death kindly stopping for her to pick her up.
Grand Theft Auto is a well known video game series where players commonly steal cars by grabbing the driver and throwing them out of the vehicle. In the lower left corner of the second panel, there is a picture of the Y-button used to enter (and steal) vehicles in the Xbox versions of the game.
The proposed Emily Dickinson edition of Grand Theft Auto mashes up these two concepts. When Death stops to pick up the protagonist ( Hairbun , possibly representing Dickinson herself), she violently carriage-jacks him and takes over his carriage to use for her own purposes.
The title text refers to this strip from the webcomic Achewood where it is pointed out that poems written in ballad metre can be sung to the same tune as the theme song of Gilligan's Island , a 1960s sitcom. Upon learning this it can (as it seemingly has for Randall) become difficult to read Dickinson's poem without singing it.
[Death with his scythe is driving a horse-drawn carriage. The text is written in two frames above and below the carriage:] Because I could not stop for death He kindly stopped for me
[Hairbun grabs Death by the arm and pulls him off the carriage. There is a circle with the letter Y in the lower left corner. The text above the carriage is in a frame.] The carriage held but just oursel- Death: Hey! Hands holding Death: Grab Circle: Y
[Hairbun takes off in the carriage with the scythe, leaving Death behind on the ground in the dust from the carriage taking off.] Hairbun: Hyah!
[Hairbun stands with her arms crossed, and Death's scythe next to her. The first text above her is printed as the official logo and the text below is in a type of square brackets.] Grand Theft Auto Emily Dickinson Edition


Showdown

Explanation:
Shootouts were common in many old Western films, most famously in spaghetti Westerns . Commonly, to accentuate the silence and dreariness of the scene before the fight, a tumbleweed would roll past the fighters. In this comic, the two gunmen, as per the cliche, stand quietly. The tumbleweed then rolls past, and pulls a pair of revolvers. It then shoots both of the gunfighters simultaneously, winning the duel. This is somewhat unusual. [ citation needed ]
The title text refers to a common trope in Westerns to have the hero (or in this case, the tumbleweed) ride (roll) into the sunset at the conclusion of the film. However, given that prevailing winds go from West to East, that means that the tumbleweed would be unable to tumble into the sunset, thus meaning it cannot reenact this trope no matter how hard it tries.
[Two cowboys face off silently in the desert, the blazing sun beating down.]
[They exchange steely glares, hands poised to reach their guns, as a tumbleweed rolls into frame.] TUMBLE
[Close-up on the tumbleweed. It draws two guns.] CLICK CLICK
[The tumbleweed shoots both cowboys simultaneously, and they fall backwards.] BLAM BLAM


Control

Explanation:
This is another in the My Hobby series. In a product experiment, two groups of people are given a certain pill or lotion. Some people are given the product to be tested, while others (the control group) are given a placebo; nobody is told which group they belong to. The control group acts as a norm for comparison against the others.
Randall has messed with this process by giving LSD ( lysergic acid diethylamide ) to the control group. LSD is a drug that causes hallucinations and distortions in the perception of time and space. Megan , apparently a control, is experiencing spiders in her hallucinations. Since the control group is supposed to reflect what "normally" happens, this is indeed very confusing to the scientists. While hallucinating in the comic Megan is drawn as if she has 8 limbs showing that she's waving her arms. Alternatively, although not especially likely, this could signify that she actually has grown four extra arms - which would be very confusing even if the scientists knew about the LSD. [ citation needed ]
However, given the scientists are confused, this means that they must know which person is in which group. This implies that the trial isn't double-blinded, which in and of itself would impact the veracity of the study. In a properly double-blinded study, the scientists would not know Cueball or Megan was the control and would only dutifully record their observations. (Alternatively, this is simply an unexpected result for either group.)
The title text suggests that, in a different study, this substitution was performed when the product being tested was itself LSD. This led to the conclusion that LSD is no more likely to cause hallucinations than a placebo, somehow implying that LSD is not a hallucinogen.  We can only hope they were able to redo the test, as in layman's terms "Nonsense MUST be wrong". If this were true, this would imply that Randall would only have needed to sneak placebo LSD into the studies to get the same effect.
[Caption above the frame:] My Hobby:
[Cueball looks down at his arm calmly, while next to him Megan is violently flailing around in terror. In the foreground a Cueball-like guy stands next to Ponytail who is holding a clipboard. They look on in puzzlement.] Cueball: My rash seems to have shrunk by about 20% today. Megan: OH GOD SPIDERS Cueball-like guy: ? ? Ponytail: ?
[Caption below the frame:] Sneaking into experiments and giving LSD to the control group.


Leaving

Explanation:
The caption below the frame tells us that Cueball is afraid that if someone were to die unexpectedly, then he is afraid that he will not be able to forget the last thing he said to that person. In the comic panel, Cueball has observed a mess on the floor, presumably cat vomit. He asks the second, off panel, character who is leaving to "pick up some spray cleaner that works on cat vomit." Cueball suddenly realizes that should the off-panel character die on that errand that this would be the last thing he said to them. Panicking slightly, Cueball interrupts their departure and says something more appropriate as last words - "You are in my heart always." The off-panel character is confused by this statement, not being aware of Cueball's fear.
In the title text, Cueball is realizing that if he hadn't have made this last-minute addition, and this person dies, his last memory of them might instead be that he was staring at cat vomit when he heard. This thought might in fact be the thought that prompted him to make his parting comment.
[Cueball looks down at a puddle on the floor and speaks to someone out-of-panel.] Cueball: Hey, while you're out, can you pick up some spray cleaner that works on cat vomit? Voice: Can do! Voice: Bye!
[Cueball extends his arm and faces the leaving person.] Cueball: ...Wait! Voice: Yes? Cueball: Uh. ...You are in my heart always. Voice: ...?
Sometimes, when people leave, I'm seized by a sudden fear that they'll die while they're out, and I'll never forget the last thing I said to them.


Password Reuse

Explanation:
This comic has three layers: hacking, philosophy, and Google satire.
It starts off on a practical level, with Black Hat describing to Cueball a devious social engineering scheme. It relies on the fact that people commonly reuse the same password on multiple websites, and tend to create accounts on new websites somewhat indiscriminately. Thus, one could create a simple Web service to collect users' usernames, email addresses, and passwords. Since many users will reuse this combination on other websites as well, the website owner can try to hack their accounts on other common sites, such as Amazon , PayPal or even people's banks, using the same login information.
In panel 7, the comic suddenly develops a philosophical and ethical bent. Black Hat reveals that he has already carried out step 1, through his numerous unprofitable Web services which he had been running for this very purpose. However, after successfully executing the hack, he realizes that he does not know what to do with all this power.
He reveals that he is already financially self-sufficient, and makes a point that money can't buy happiness once past that point, stating that research has proven this. He could use his power to realize his sadistic pleasures of messing with people, but he's already a serial classhole and does not need this information to continue that trend.
If he had any beliefs or ideology, he could use this power to try to spread them. However, he reveals that "since March of 1997 " he doesn't really believe in anything. While he doesn't reveal specifically what in March of 1997 caused this, it could possibly refer to the March 26, 1997 incident in San Diego, California, where 39 Heaven's Gate cultists committed mass suicide at their compound. One of the cultists was the brother of Nichelle Nichols (a Star Trek actress), so the event got a big resonance in nerd circles (and Randall often references Star Trek in xkcd). However, given Black Hat's strange behavior, it could be anything, from Bill Clinton banning federal funding for human cloning research on the fourth, to the launch of Teletubbies on the thirty first. Later, in 1717: Pyramid Honey , Black Hat seems to finally find something to believe in.
The dilemma: Black Hat has cleverly executed a hack that has given him a lot of power, but he doesn't know what to do with it.
The last part of the comic now transitions to a satire on how Google has already gone through both the stages described above. It describes how all of Google's free services are simply a ploy to collect and control all the world's information, similar in concept but grander than the hack described in part 1. It satirizes the notion that behind Google's "Don't be evil" motto is actually an end-goal of using their powers eventually for evil. (Google has since removed the motto from their code of conduct, so maybe Randall's on to something...)
However, just like Black Hat, once Google reaches the stage where they are able to capitalize on their powers, the Cueball-like head-executive finds that there is nothing evil left for them to desire, except (as Hairbun states) make even more money. As they already make a lot of money this ploy is moot, and anything remaining that they wish to do, such as hosting Call of Duty (CoD) tournaments, isn't evil at all.
In the end, the secretary calls dibs on the TV in the lobby in order to play CoD4 on what (one can assume) is a large screen. The Cueball-like executive who wished to implement the evil plan in the first place facepalms when he realizes that Google just sucks at being evil.
In the title text, “The first few times this happens” may refer to the weekly CoD4 “tournament.” Alternatively, it could also mean the “first few times” a company decides to turn evil (but then has no idea how). It could also refer to the first couple of times an individual follows through on this plan but fails after the first part due to a lack of planning for the second part.
This comic was directly referenced in the title text of 1286: Encryptic .
[Black Hat is standing to the left behind Cueball, who is sitting in an office chair at his desk working on his computer. A message from the computer is indicated with a zigzag line from the screen.] Black Hat: Password entropy is rarely relevant. The real modern danger is password reuse. Cueball: How so? Computer: Password too weak
[Zoom in on Black Hat's upper part as he holds a hand up with the palm up.] Black Hat: Set up a Web service to do something simple, like image hosting or tweet syndication, so a few million people set up free accounts.
[Zoom out to Black Hat standing in front of Cueball who has turned in the chair facing Black Hat, the desk is not shown in the panel.] Black Hat: Bam, you've got a few million emails, default usernames, and passwords.
[Only Black Hat is shown as he holds out his arms.] Black Hat: Tons of people use one password, strong or not, for most accounts.
[The next panel is only half the height of the other panels. Above the panel is the text that Black Hat narrates. In the left part of the panel, there is a piece of paper that seems to have been torn off at the bottom resulting in a jagged edge, which could also indicate that it continues further down than shown. On the paper, there are three labeled columns, and below each of them about 18 lines of unreadable sentences (mostly just one word). The @ in the e-mail addresses may be indicated with a larger unreadable sign. To the right a broad line goes right from the paper and splits up in five lines that go up or down ending in five arrows to the right, pointing at five labels.] Black Hat (narrating): Use the list and some proxies to try automated logins to the 20 or 30 most popular sites, plus banks and PayPal and such. Labels on paper: Email User Pass Labels at arrows: Banks Facebook Gmail PayPal Twitter
[Same setting as panel 3 but Cueball has taken a hand to his chin.] Black Hat: You've now got a few hundred thousand real identities on a few dozen services, and nobody suspects a thing. Cueball: And then what?
[Same setting in a larger panel with more white space to the left, Cueball has his hand down again.] Black Hat: Well, that's where I got stuck. Cueball: You did this? Black Hat: Why do you think I hosted so many unprofitable web services?
[Zoom in on Black Hat's head now turned towards left.] Black Hat: I could probably net in a lot of money, one way or another, if I did things carefully. But research shows more money doesn't make people happier, once they make enough to avoid day-to-day financial stress.
[Zooming a bit out, but still only showing Black Hat's head in the bottom right corner, again facing right.] Black Hat: I could mess with people endlessly, but I do that already. I could get a political or religious idea out to most of the world, but since March of 1997 I don't really believe in anything.
[This panel is the last in this row, but it does not reach the end of the row above, an indication that this does not directly belong to the panels below. The same setting as panel 3 but Black Hat has his arms out.] Black Hat: So, here I sit, a puppetmaster who wants nothing from his puppets. Black Hat: It's the same problem Google has. Cueball: Oh?
[This panel is the first in the last row. It does not begin to the left, but has been shifted a bit to the right, just as the last panel above to the right, ended before reaching the right edge of the row above (and this one below). This is to indicate that this is row has a different story. A Cueball-like executive at Google is standing up leaning his arms on a table with Google's logo on the side. His office chair has been pushed to the left behind him and it is partly off-panel. He addresses the other executives at the table, two of which are shown. The first is Hairbun with glasses holding her head with both hands, elbows resting on the table. The other executive is also a Cueball-like guy, his head is partly outside the right edge of the panel. At the top of the panel to the left, there is a small frame breaking the panel's frame, inside which is a caption:] Google... Cueball executive: Okay, everyone, we control the world's information. Now it's time to turn evil. What's the plan? Hairbun: Make boatloads of money? Table: Google
[Only the Cueball-like executive standing at the end of the table is shown, the table is left out. He is face-palming. One of the executives at the table is speaking off-panel. Could be either of the two above or someone not shown before] Cueball executive: We already do! Executive (off-panel): Set up a companywide CoD4: Modern Warfare tournament each week? Cueball executive: That's not evil! Executive (off-panel): Ooh, Dibs on the lobby TV! Cueball executive: Okay, we suck at this.


Physicists

Explanation:
This comic shows a view that many physics students, upon first encountering a well-known problem, think that it is not a difficult problem, since they think they can fix it using an extremely simplified model. The obvious problem with this is that if it was that simple to solve the problem to a useful degree, there wouldn't be an entire department studying the problem. This attitude leads to great annoyance from those who have probably spent years and years working on the problem, hence the Cueball with balled up fists, implying that he wants to punch the physics major.
This argument is similar to the spherical cow , an idea that basic models taught in early physics classes only work in frictionless vacuums, as shown in 669: Experiment .
The title text takes the dismissive attitude to its logical extreme. The comment "liberal-arts majors can be annoying sometimes" seems to be referencing the stereotype that they're all elitist know-it-alls.
Cueball later behaves similarly in 1831: Here to Help .
[Cueball stands at a blackboard covered in equations and diagrams, an open laptop and scattered paper at his feet. His fists are balled in anger and there is a little angry squiggle over his head. A Cueball-like physicist stands behind him, arms out in a shrug.] Physicist: You're trying to predict the behavior of <complicated system> ? Just model it as a <simple object> , and then add some secondary terms to account for <complications I just thought of> . Physicist: Easy, right? Physicist: So, why does <your field> need a whole journal, anyway?
[Caption below the panel:] Liberal-arts majors may be annoying sometimes, but there's nothing more obnoxious than a physicist first encountering a new subject.


Inside Joke

Explanation:
Inside jokes occur between friends and family members that live through a shared experience, which makes them laugh when they make reference to it later on. For people not "in the know", these inside jokes can come across as being completely incomprehensible, and in extreme cases just sound like random words strung together.
Randall posits the hypothesis that this has been going on throughout history and that historical figures probably had the same number of inside jokes as any modern group of high-school students. He probably chose to compare them to high-school students because that is a time of complex social interactions and cliques, which are conducive to the formation of inside jokes.
The title text says that there are several classic books that make pop-culture references to events that no modern reader was alive to see. Topicality sometimes has the unfortunate side-effect of the work being far less understood to later generations.  Suggested examples so far include Homer's Odyssey , Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing , and Lewis Carroll's Alice books, whose many nineteenth-century cultural references are enumerated in The Annotated Alice .
The inside joke presented in the comic appears to be a reference to the esoterically-named Buddha Jumps Over the Wall , a type of fish soup that allegedly smelled so delicious, Buddhist disciples would sneak out of their meditative ceremonies to eat it. In this case, the ham seller comments that his products are so delicious that even the monk nearby is climbing over the wall to get some ham after the buyer remarked that his product was too expensive.
[A man with a beard and a turban stands to the left of a crude wooden counter. On the right of the counter is a man with a beard and no turban. Both men are laughing. Further behind the counter is a woman with a bun kneeling on the ground and putting something into a box.] Turban man: Nine silvers for a ham? That's too much! No-turban man: Too much? There's a monk out back with a ladder!
Caption: There's no reason to think that people throughout history didn't have just as many inside jokes and catchphrases as any modern group of high-schoolers.


Conditional Risk

Explanation:
The comic deals with the difference between the general probability of a certain event based on history and the probability of the same event in particular circumstances. The chance of any American selected randomly from the general population to be killed by lightning is very low, but part of the reason for this is that an average American would seek shelter and safety when caught in a lightning storm. The joke is that someone armed with this particular statistical knowledge would not take the normal precautions and therefore leave themselves far more vulnerable.
In the title text, since the statistic provided talks only about Americans, the other character wrongly assumes that lightning strikes only happen to Americans, rather than the data for lightning strikes for other nationalities being simply not included in the discussion. Because of this, as a non-American, he believes his chance of being struck by lightning is nonexistent - which underlines the difference between knowing a certain event can't or didn't happen and not having any data about the event.
The "one in six" statistic is probably invented by the author - which also illuminates the danger of dealing with "statistical data" provided by random sources without any attribution to actual statistical surveys or hard data. And of course, now a lot of xkcd readers know the statistic, likely bringing down the death rate.
[Lightning strikes the ground, illuminating trees with a bright white light. Two people are standing near it. One has a walking stick.] CRACK BOOM First person: Whoa! We should get inside! Second person: It's okay! Lightning only kills about 45 Americans a year, so the chances of dying are only one in 7,000,000. Let's go on!
[Caption below the panel:] The annual death rate among people who know that statistic is one in six.


Bad Ex

Explanation:
Cueball has been betrayed by his girlfriend, and later found out that he's not the first one she betrayed. He thinks that the society should provide a service that collects reports about such notorious liars, warning future dates about their true nature.
Cueball's friend, White Hat , is concerned about the matter of personal integrity, comparing this proposed service to sex offender registries . Cueball, though, thinks that there are certain governments who would have no problem with personal integrity infringement.
In the last panel, we see such a notification being given to a woman at a date. One interpretation of this comic could be that the bearded man is not, in fact, a douchebag, but Cueball is calling him one because he likes her, and thus wants to separate them.
The "State of California" dialog is a reference to California Proposition 65 which requires specific products to state: "This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm." California is also known to be one of the states where liberal experimentation would occur.
The title text mentions a few " douchebag " warning signals that the woman should have observed, for instance his interest in the infamous filmmaker duo Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer , known for making shallow parody movies.
[Cueball and White Hat are walking.] Cueball: It just blows my mind. She seemed so genuine. I had no idea she was such a serial liar. Cueball: I just wish I had our six months back.
[The view focuses on Cueball.] Cueball: Her exes say the same thing happened to them. Cueball: Maybe what we need is a terrible-ex tracking and notification service.
[Cueball turns, thoughtfully.] White Hat: But after all the problems with sex offender registries, who would agree to run it? Cueball: Maybe one of the state governments more willing to experiment could try it out...
Soon... [Megan and a person with glasses and a goatee are sitting at a table, on which sit wine glasses and plates. Cueball approaches them carrying a clipboard and a license.] Cueball: Excuse me, ma'am. Megan: Yes? Cueball: This man is known to the state of California to be a total douchebag .


debian-main

Explanation:
Debian is a Linux distribution most notable for introducing APT (Advanced Packaging Tool). APT is a tool that functions as an automated general software installer for Linux systems; all one has to do is tell it what software package they would like to install, and the program will automatically fetch the software and all of its dependencies (other packages that a program relies on, such as a library for processing ZIP archives) from a central repository . It will also automatically handle upgrades by automatically checking if the repository version of a package is higher than the currently installed version, and it can even handle the use of multiple repositories and linking between them; for example, if a piece of software is deemed worthy of inclusion in Debian's main repository, but as a stable release, the software developers can provide their own repository to provide a more experimental version for users who want it, and once that repository is added to APT's source list, APT will automatically realize that it should use the experimental version, since it has a higher version than that of the main repository. Although this wasn't the first package management system for easy Linux installation (that honor goes to RPM ), it is the first one that seamlessly integrated online installation and upgrades into the mix.
Debian's main repository, debian-main, is included by default in all Debian installations. It's what you might call the "canon" of Debian, containing only those packages that have been approved by official Debian developers. Thus, getting a package on debian-main means that it, theoretically, conforms to a standard of quality.
In this case, however, the Debian developers seem to have not noticed that one of the dependencies for the package is "locusts." Locusts are real insects, the migratory forms of several grasshopper species, that are best known for breeding extremely quickly, swarming, and devouring all green plant matter they come across, resulting in crop devastation (some consider this a plague). In some parts of the world they are also considered a delicacy. Cueball probably does not appreciate this as they crawl over his body searching for food, apparently spontaneously generated by APT as it saw that it needed "locusts" to install the package.
The title text is an error line from dpkg , the program used to install/remove APT packages. Every package contains several scripts (although some of them may be empty) that are run on various events related to that package; these are used to perform any setup/cleanup tasks the package needs. This line is an error line indicating that one of those scripts has failed. The relevant portions are:
[A swarm of insects cover Cueball and his computer. They are leaning back on their chair, flailing to get away.] Cueball: AAAAAAAA
Caption below comic: My package made it into debian-main because it looked innocuous enough; no one noticed "locusts" in the dependency list.