Is It Worth the Time?

Explanation:
The comic is a straightforward chart showing the amount of work (time) one can dedicate to making a task more efficient, in order not to spend more time optimizing the task than the total time saved. This may illustrate the fact that computer scientists often try to optimize tasks they are likely to perform again in the future - a common goal in their work - even though the work needed for that optimization can itself prove much longer than the time saved when doing the task again; this was previously referenced in 974: The General Problem .
E.g. if you do some task every week once, and you are able to save 1 minute of time by doing some preparatory work (e.g. build or buy a tool), you can spend 4 hours doing this preparatory work, and you will, across five-years time, come even. Any less time spent doing the preparatory work, and you will profit from it.
The calculation on which the chart is based, for this example:
5 years / 1 week = 260 occurrences of the task 260 occurrences × 1 saved minute = 260 saved minutes = 4.3 hours
Therefore, 1 minute saved every week would, across five years, save over 4 hours of your time.
Or, in algebraic form:
Total time shaved off across 5 years = 5 × "How often you do the task every year" × "How much time you shave off"
The grayed out areas represent times which are either impossible to save, or where, if you could save this much (say 6 hours on one day), it would almost be worth it no matter how long it takes. For instance it is impossible to shave 1 hour off a task if you perform it more than 24 times a day – the total time shaved off per day would amount to more than one day, and thus you could not have performed the task this many times in a day to begin with. On the other hand, 6 hours shaved off for one day is not impossible, but the net benefit would be so great, that it would very quickly earn itself back again almost no matter how long it takes. If the assumption is that a work day is 8 hours, then even if it took 2 years to do the improvement, you would already have earned it in after less than five years in total - both with the 2 years to make it and the time it takes to save 2 years (2.67 years in this case for at total of 4.67 years).
The comic assumes that equal amounts of time have equal value, which is not necessarily true. For an extreme example, consider programming a telephone with speed dials to be used when there is a fire or to call an ambulance or the police. This may take longer than the time saved when the call is placed, but it is worthwhile to spend a large amount of free time to save any time during an emergency.
Of course, all these conclusions presume you are the only one that benefits. If the savings can be easily adapted by others - for example, computer code for a program that automates a task for hundreds of people - then the amount of time that can be spent increases. Indeed, in some cases, when optimizing for others, spending far more time than they save can be worth it, if the people you're working for are paying you for the product and the time savings keep them happy and likely to keep paying you. And if what you're optimizing is a business process that's unlikely to go out of date with your employer's current tools or its current products, then you may have more than 5 years to amortize the improvement.
The title text points out the time you spend studying this comic detracts from your overall efficiency, and concludes that maximizing efficiency would require optimal use of every second and finishes very philosophically by pointing out that every second you use counts towards your life total - also those you spend reading and/or editing a wiki about a web comic...
The comic derives humor from the absurd conclusions of hyper-efficiency, which have been examined in What if? - Cost of Pennies , and also in 951: Working which is devoted to insufficient economy, where the money saved is compared to the time wasted while looking for a bargain. In 1319: Automation Randall investigates how bad it really goes when you decide to automate a program to save you time... See also the Time management category .
[Above the frame is written the following text:] How long can you work on making a routine task more efficient before you're spending more time than you save? (across five years)
[The rest of the the comic is given in a tabular format. At the top of the table is how often you do the task, with six time increments underneath, and then at the side is written How much time do you shave off at the leftmost part of the page, with 9 lengths of time to the left. The empty fields in the calendar are shaded dark gray.] [The first row is for 1 second, where the table values are 1 day (for 50 per day), 2 hours (for 5 per day), 30 minutes (for daily), 4 minutes (for weekly), 1 minute (for monthly), and 5 seconds (for yearly).] [The second row is for 5 seconds, where the table values are 5 days (for 50 per day), 12 hours (for 5 per day), 2 hours (for daily), 21 minutes (for weekly), 5 minutes (for monthly), and 25 seconds (for yearly).] [The third row is for 30 seconds, where the table values are 4 weeks (for 50 per day), 3 days (for 5 per day), 12 hours (for daily), 2 hours (for weekly), 30 minutes (for monthly), and 2 minutes (for yearly).] [The fourth row is for 1 minute, where the table values are 8 weeks (for 50 per day), 6 days (for 5 per day), 1 day (for daily), 4 hours (for weekly), 1 hour (for monthly), and 5 minutes (for yearly).] [The fifth row is for 5 minutes, where the table values are 9 months (for 50 per day), 4 weeks (for 5 per day), 6 days (for daily), 21 hours (for weekly), 5 hours (for monthly), and 25 minutes (for yearly).] [The sixth row is for 30 minutes, where the table values are greyed out (for 50 per day), 6 months (for 5 per day), 5 weeks (for daily), 5 days (for weekly), 1 day (for monthly), and 2 hours (for yearly).] [The seventh row is for 1 hour, where the table values are greyed out (for 50 per day), 10 months (for 5 per day), 2 months (for daily), 10 days (for weekly), 2 days (for monthly), and 5 hours (for yearly).] [The eighth row is for 6 hours, where the table values are greyed out (for 50 per day, 5 per day and daily), 2 months (for weekly), 2 weeks (for monthly), and 1 day (for yearly).] [The ninth and final row is for 1 day, where the table values are greyed out (for 50 per day, 5 per day, daily and weekly), 8 weeks (for monthly), and 5 days (for yearly).]


Einstein

Explanation:
In this comic Randall is playing with the notion that since Einstein contributed so much to society, and many of his works have withstood testing, disproving Einstein must be a difficult task. This is proven false by taking a mundane declaration by Einstein and proving it false with a simple task.
Nobel laureate and Time Person of the Century Albert Einstein is often considered one of the smartest and most influential people in world history. His theories have revolutionized our understanding of the universe and inspired generations of scientists. In this comic, Cueball indicates to a friend that he is working on an experiment that may disprove Einstein. The implication is that Cueball is conducting a serious scientific experiment which may disprove one of Einstein's scientific theories. The second frame, however, implies that the Einsteinian "theory" Cueball's experiment may disprove is an offhand (and subjective) remark by Einstein about the availability of good sandwiches; this is not to mention the possible changing in quality of said sandwiches over time.
The experiment Cueball is "currently conducting" probably refers to the fact that he is currently eating a sandwich, and if that sandwich was indeed a good one, Einstein would be proved wrong. Part of the humor here is that Cueball's friend probably assumes that when Cueball says "currently," he means the experiment is part of Cueball's work, not what he is doing at that exact moment.
In 947: Investing , Randall comments on how people put too much credence in a joke Einstein made in passing, and in 799: Stephen Hawking we see Stephen Hawking in a similar predicament, every word he says taken as a major declaration.
The title text demonstrates the ability to "disprove" Einstein while not challenging his scientific work but rather one of his decisions in his capacity as a patent clerk at the Swiss Patent Office at the time he published his first major papers (previously alluded to in 1067: Pressures ). According to the Einstein FAQ on the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property's website, patent #39561 is one of several patents that "we can assume ... were personally examined by Einstein". A PDF of the patent, which was indeed a gravel sorter ( trommel ), can be found here in German.
[Cueball and friend eating at a table.] Cueball: I'm currently conducting an experiment which may prove Einstein wrong! Friend: Ooh, exciting!
1947: [Einstein and Cueball walking.] Einstein: It's impossible to find a good sandwich in this town.


AirAware

Explanation:
Upon being asked by Cueball , Black Hat reveals his new 'business', AirAware. He explains it uses a Quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle ( UAV ) that flies and records a person's daily schedule. If that person either deviates, forgets an appointment, or tells somebody incorrect information, the drone alerts the 'client' with an annoying "WRONG!".
Cueball is skeptical of the 'business plan' and questions its potential. Black Hat expands, saying that his intention is not personal profit, and he is simply releasing them himself. Cueball starts to argue that it is not a business, since there is no monetary gain, before being abruptly interrupted by the AirAware drone, declaring that his previous sentence was incorrect. This implies that Black Hat's business is not for profit; it's just another one of his sadistic schemes to torture people, and Cueball is his latest victim.
Although the Wikipedia page for business states that a business "may also be not-for-profit", this isn't really relevant, as 'making money' and 'making a profit' are different things. It would be better classified as a different type of organization, or even as a hobby .
Google Now is software by Google, shipped with newer Android devices. It shows you important information when you need it, like traffic on your way to work or home and upcoming events from your calendar. It also reminds you when to leave in order to reach an appointment in time. In the title text, Black Hat has modified this to tell you when you're too late to get there, instead.
It can also refer to a bug in Google Now , which is that Google Now incorrectly calculates the time you have to leave, and it always calculates that what it calculated will be 1 minute too late, so it shows "The transportation mode you selected will not let you arrive on time" almost always, unless you refresh.
An alternate explanation for the pronouncement of "WRONG!" by the quadcopter in the last panel is that it is referring to the plethora of companies in the electronic era, and even today, that don't actually make much (or any) money, but are still considered successful businesses.
[Cueball and Black Hat looking at a remote-controlled flying object.] Cueball: What's that? Black Hat: It's a drone for my new business, AirAware .
Black Hat (narrating): Our UAVs follow you and learn your schedule. If you miss a turn, forget an appointment, or give someone inaccurate information, they alert you. Megan (on phone): I'll be there in five. Booming voice from the sky: WRONG! Megan: Augh!
Cueball: That sounds annoying. Who would pay for that? Black Hat: Huh? Nobody pays. I'm just making these and releasing them.
Cueball: That's not a business. You're just yelling at strangers from the sky. Cueball: A business has to make money somehow. Booming voice from the sky: WRONG! Cueball: Augh!!


Footnote Labyrinths

Explanation:
This is a logic puzzle where the reader has to follow a confusing network of footnotes to determine whether the word "no" is to be ignored or not.
In the following solutions, "right-associative" means that the footnotes are evaluated from right to left or top to bottom, and left-associative from left to right or bottom to top (e.g. (2 6 ) 3 is left-associative, and 2 (6 3 ) is right-associative).
The term "ibid." is short for "ibidem", or "at the same place", meaning the reference was noted on the same page just before.
Interpreting nested footnotes as footnotes on footnotes, left-associative no 1 2 = (no 1 ) 2 = "ignore this" (it is meaningless to increment a phrase by 2), so the correct statement is "we found evidence for it in our data".
Interpreting nested footnotes as footnotes on footnotes, right-associative "no 1 2 " = "no 1 + 2 " = "no 3 ". We turn to the definition of 3 , which is "not true 3 2 " = "not true 3 + 2 " = "not true 5 ". Now 5 is "true 2 6 3 ". The 6 says that the 2 footnote is really 1 2 2 = 1 (4. ibid.) = 1 3 , but the 3 tells us that the 6 is "not true 5 ", getting us into an infinite loop, meaning there is no solution.
The title text suggests interpreting footnotes as exponents (minus one, modulo 6, plus 1). Because applying the operations "minus one, modulo 6, plus 1" to an integer always results in an integer between one and six (inclusive), no sequence of integer exponents will ever end up referencing a footnote that does not exist. In mathematics, nested exponents are exclusively right-associative. "no 1 2 " = "no 1 ", so we ignore the "no" and the correct statement is "we found evidence for the data." Meanwhile, 3 becomes "not true 3 ", an infinite recursion , and since 2 6 3 mod 6 = 4, we just get "ibid" and the 5 refers back to the 3. Footnote 6 is equivalent to 1 4 = 1 = "ignore this".
The comic 1184: Circumference Formula is also playing on the typographical similarity between footnotes and exponents, as well as adding even more ridiculous rules.
[Excerpt from what appears to be an academic paper with footnotes.] experiments to observe this and we found no 1 2 evidence for it in our data.
1 Ignore this 2 Increment by 2 before following 3 Not true 3 2 4 Ibid. 5 True 2 6 3 6 Actually a 1 2 2


Encoding

Explanation:
Skywriting is using an airplane to write words in the sky with controlled releases of smoke. Unicode is a standard for digitally encoding text which supports a huge variety of characters and modifiers.
Cueball and Megan hired a skywriter to write some text which they provided in Unicode, but now they are dissatisfied with the result and Cueball is using one of their walkie-talkies to tell the pilot about his mistake—with the result that the pilot seems to lose control (presumably control of the plane, not the text).
An interrobang (‽) is a combination question mark and exclamation mark. A diacritic is any symbol added to a character (for instance ´, ˘, ˇ, ¨), usually an accent mark added to a letter. In Unicode, combining diacritics are represented as separate characters, but computer programs that render text graphically treat them as modifications to the previous character. The request to modify the interrobang is strange, given that diacritics are supposed to modify letters , not punctuation marks, and given that an interrobang is already conceptually a character combination. On the other hand, combining diacritics can technically be used on any character, so the intended result will be something like:

‽̃ͦ̀̏͆̐̋̿ͣͭ́ͯ͒
The skywriter's errors and the phrase "Unicode support" play off the common issue of software rendering Unicode symbols incorrectly . But here the error does not seem to make the text unintelligible: all the skywriter has apparently done is put a diacritic underneath (or perhaps next to) the interrobang instead of above it. If this is the only problem with the text (which is likely, given that an interrobang would probably be at the end), then the comment that the skywriter has "terrible Unicode support" makes Cueball and Megan seem fastidious and unforgiving. The comic points up computer users' tendency to use hyperbole when describing minor problems, exaggerating their relative seriousness. Here Cueball and Megan seem concerned more about their incorrectly rendered text than about the skywriter's safety.
The title text is presumably Cueball's reply, in which he appears to have misunderstood Megan: he is baffled as to how the pilot could have "lost" the Unicode control characters , which are the first 32 character codes in Unicode, but Megan was actually referring to the pilot losing control of the plane .
Comic 1647: Diacritics also references an absurd use of diacritics.
[Cueball and Megan are both holding walkie-talkies. Cueball is talking into his, Megan is holding hers down. Both are looking up in the sky.] Cueball: No, the combining diacritics go over the interrobang! Megan: Oh jeez, I think he's lost control.
[Caption below the panel:] The skywriter we hired has terrible Unicode support.


I'm So Random

Explanation:
A child Hairy walks up to Black Hat , utters a nonsense phrase ("monkey tacos"), and then proclaims that he is "so random". This is a fairly common modern phenomenon in which children (hopefully only children) make "random" statements, and somehow imagine themselves to be funny and interesting because of this. Black Hat, never one to hesitate over bringing someone down, replies that he is also random. He then proves this by pouring forth a torrential stream of truly random numbers that overcomes poor Hairy. Black Hat then resumes his posture at the computer, as if nothing has happened.
It is true that when brilliant and creative people speak passionately about a subject, they can make mental leaps and changes of context that might seem bewildering to an outsider. The conversation may even seem to be "random". However, simply vocalizing nonsense is not analogous, or even desirable; it is more likely a character trait of someone who is immature or has difficulty in following or adding to a normal human conversation.
Black Hat's "random" numbers are actually quoted from the first lines of A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates making it both "officially random", but also essentially not. This book is also referenced in 1751: Movie Folder . See also: 221: Random Number .
A side note is that "Monkey tacos" is a phrase that contains two trochees. A trochee is a metric foot with one stressed beat and one unstressed beat; it may be a reference to or an unconscious allusion to 856: Trochee Fixation .
The title text deals with the connotations of the word "interesting" in different contexts. On one hand, children may be easily amused by behavior that lies outside of conventional social norms and defies expectations. Children may attempt to add whimsy to a situation they perceive as dull by interjecting words that have no significant meaning or relationship whatsoever to anything around them, merely to make things seem different and therefore "interesting" (at least to them.) There is some merit to this perspective: human social norms developed largely as a way to make social interaction more predictable and manageable and correspondingly less interesting, to free up our attention for other, more pressing matters. Someone who is indeed behaving "randomly" often does command interest and attention, if only because their unpredictability makes them potentially dangerous. However, to a child, social conventions may seem arbitrary and needlessly inhibitive, and they will often test the limits of such conventions by deliberately acting in violation of them and seeing what happens. "Random outbursts" of nonsense phrases are a fairly harmless way of doing this, and often do not incur sharply negative responses beyond annoyance (Hairy's experience being an exception), so children (including Randall in his youth) might do this very frequently until they mature out of it.
However, "interesting" in information theory is quite a different matter. Information theory is " the mathematical treatment of the concepts, parameters and rules governing the transmission of messages through communication systems. " It is therefore very concerned with the meanings of the words and phrases people use to convey information, and it would regard something as "interesting" if it exhibited a notably consistent and predictable pattern that pointed towards greater significance. As such, "the opposite of interesting" would be expressions that hold no meaning, convey no information, and do not indicate any recognizable patterns or significance - such as the "random outbursts" that Randall once believed made him seem interesting as a child.
He characterizes these interjections of random words as "lexical white noise," "lexical" meaning " relating to words or vocabulary of a language. " White noise is essentially random sound waves which, taken en masse, blend into audio static that takes on a macroscopically uniform sound experience despite their random nature. This can be used in some sleep or relaxation therapies, which foils well with the random assault experienced in the comic. There are also other colors of noise , and yes, people have strong opinions as to which one is better .
[Black Hat is sitting in an office chair at a desk when Hairy runs up behind him with his arms raised up.] Hairy: Monkey tacos! Hairy: I'm so random.
[A frame-less panel pans to Black Hat and his desk, showing there is a computer on his desk and that he is actually typing on a keyboard in front of him on a lowered shelf.] Black Hat: Yeah, me too.
[Black Hat swivels his chair around (as shown with a gray curved line beneath the chair at his feet) to face Hairy. He then emits from his mouth a massive speech bubble filled with random numbers in gray. This torrent of random numbers knocks Hairy to the ground as he shields his face with one arm while the other grasps for the floor to cushion his fall (it is notable that speech bubbles are not normally used in xkcd.) The numbers themselves are written deliberately haphazardly and in varying sizes, which makes it difficult to read them in any consistent manner; however, for reasons explained above, there is actually some order, and using that order they would appear like this:] Black Hat:

100973253376520135863467354 876809590911739292749453754 204805648947429624805240372 063610402002291665084226895 319645093032320902560159533 476435080336069901902529093

[With Hairy gone, Black Hat has turned back and resumed working at his computer.]


Birds and Dinosaurs

Explanation:
Birds are commonly considered to be a separate class of tetrapods . However, this classification is false according to phylogenetic taxonomy . Taking into account that birds developed around 150 million years ago out of small theropod dinosaurs, birds along with crocodiles are indeed the remaining representatives of the archosaur clade . This premise appeared also in comic 867: Herpetology .
This relation between birds and dinosaurs is depicted in the comic in a cladogram which shows that Tyrannosaurus rex is more closely related to the common sparrow than to Stegosaurus . Not only do the former share a phylogenetic branch, but T. rex also lived around 80 million years after Stegosaurus . The concurrence of both species in popular culture is a widespread error. T. rex is also much more alike to modern birds than to other dinosaurs in terms of anatomy. This relationship was pointed out on the Science journal the week of the comic.
The comic draws the conclusion that if birds must in fact be considered modern dinosaurs, the hunting practice of birds of prey (specifically, the Peregrine Falcon ) is consequently a dinosaur fight. For an inveterate dinosaur aficionado like Randall , this fact must make the modern world much more attractive.
The line "This is a good world." could also possibly refer to a famous scene from the pilot episode of the television series Firefly featuring two plastic dinosaurs in a somewhat philosophic dialogue. Randall is known to be a fan of the series .
The title text is a sidesweep to the webcomic Dinosaur Comics drawn by Ryan North , who stands 6'6.5" (199 cm) tall. At that page the title text of the comic strip from the same day refers to Randall and xkcd .
The conclusion of this comic is referenced in the title text of the last image in the Plastic Dinosaurs What if?
By any reasonable definition, T. rex is more closely related to sparrows than to Stegosaurus . [Diagram showing that Stegosaurus came earlier than T. rex , along with it showing that T. rex came closer in time to sparrows. Evaluation criteria "separation by time", "phylogenetic distance" and "physical similarity" are highlighted in red.] Birds aren't descended from dinosaurs, they are dinosaurs. Which means that the fastest animal alive today is a small carnivorous dinosaur, Falco peregrinus . [A picture of two birds is shown.] It preys mainly on other dinosaurs, which it strikes and kills in midair with its claws. [In red:] This is a good world.


Interstellar Memes

Explanation:
Randall highlights various memes from popular culture. A meme is a phenomenon, often in this scenario in the form of a movie quote, a musical reference, a catchphrase or other notable saying that spreads quickly by word-of-mouth. Memes become popular because people hear about them and repeat them to others. Randall points out that if the assumed intelligent life from other star systems were listening to the things we said, then they would just now be hearing and popularizing memes started years ago on earth. The delay is due to the time that it takes for expressions of the meme to travel (presumably via radio waves) to distant star systems.
Our solar system, from where the electromagnetic waves are emitted, is located just left of the center of the picture. The other star systems are arranged roughly according to their distance from the sun, while their size corresponds to the size of the star compared with that of the sun.
The meme for Sirius is a pun; it refers to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, in which Bellatrix Lestrange kills Sirius Black.
Radio waves travel at the speed of light . The title text jokes that these memes are so annoying that it would give us further incentive to develop the technology to travel faster than light , just simply to be able to outrun the radio waves, reach a distant star system, and apologize in advance to the "residents" about the memes, before the memes arrive.
The table below lists all the memes described, and the star at which the comics states those memes should be heard by the time when the comic was released in 2013. The year of the meme plus the number of light years to the star should end up close to 2013.
Most end up within the range 2011-2013 which may indicate the meme became popular one or two years later (on Earth or at the distant star system.) Two memes reach the targets in 2014. Some of those errors may be caused by the inaccuracy of the distances.
The The Spanish Inquisition from Monty Python would have reached its destination in 2006. Because they're still watching Monty Python's Flying Circus in 2013 it must be very popular or maybe it took seven years to decipher that British humour .
[On a black background yellow circles and white bubbles are shown. Caption above the picture:] If other star systems are listening in on our pop culture, given the speed-of-light delay, these are the jokes and catchphrases they just learned about and are currently repeating way too much:
[On a black background a map of star systems in relation to the Sun, which is roughly in the center, sending out radio waves is shown. Each star is a yellow circle of differing sizes, with a speech bubble (or more). The list is ordered from closest to furthest.] Proxima Centauri: I'm on a boat! Alpha Centauri A B: The cake is a lie! – ♪ Never gonna give you up ♫ Luhman 16: I can haz? Barnard's star: Leave Britney alone! – ♫ Chocolate Raaaiiin ♫ Wolf 359: Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He waits. Lalande 21185: ♬ Numa numa ♪ Sirius: I still can't believe Bellatrix– – Dude, get over it. Gliese 65:  INTERNETS! Epsilon Eridani: Ninjas fight all the time! Procyon: ...God kills a kitten! – A what? Epsilon Indi: You're the man now, dog! Tau Ceti: All your base are belong to us. Luyten's Star: Peanut Butter Jelly Time! Kapteyn's star: My spoon is too big! Kruger 60: MORE COWBELL! Gliese 1: Look at the tiny dancing Earth mammals! Van Maanen's star: WASSSUUP!?! Ad Leonis: Oh my God, they killed Kenny! – You bastards! 70 Ophiuchi: Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger. – What's a burger? – I don't know. Altair: Mr. T ate my balls! Sigma Draconis: Oh ... my ... gaawd. Delta Pavonis: I want the truth. – You can't handle the truth! Gliese 892: Hasta la vista, baby. Xi Boötis: Did I do that? HR 753: D'oh! Beta Hydri: Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker. Vega: Resistance is futile. Zeta Tucanae: Let's get ready to ruuumble! HR 1614: Where's the beef? Groombridge 1830: I pity the fool! Delta Trianguli: May the Force be with you. Beta Virginis: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Arcturus: You talkin' to me ? Beta Trianguli Australis: I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse. Lamda Aurigae: You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Capella: And now for something completely different. HD 211415: Live long and prosper. – Ok. Alderamin: EXTERMINATE! 51 Pegasi: Name's bond. James Bond. Caph: Take me to your leader! – No, Steve. Kappa Reticuli: Here's lookin' at you, kid. Alpha Hydri: Rosebud. Gienah: Ehh, what's up doc? Alpha Serpentis: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.


Combination Vision Test

Explanation:
Synesthesia is a condition in which perception in one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. Common examples are experiencing colors when seeing numbers or words ( Grapheme-color synesthesia ), hearing tones or music while reading words or text, seeing sequences of numbers or month names in a distinct and fixed shape ( Number form ), etc. In 1608: Hoverboard Megan stands at the end of the Star Destroyer and wishes she had synesthesia so bad she can taste it...
Color-blindness is one of a number of conditions in which a person cannot distinguish certain pairs of colors that other people without color-blindness might find easy to distinguish. There are many different forms of color-blindness; the most common is an inability to separate the colors red and green.
There are two numbers embedded in the big circle of numbers, in a similar way to a common color perception test . But this test can not work for colors because it is just a black-and-white picture. Nobody can see it. However, the joke lies in the fact that those with one common form of synesthesia see colors associated with numbers. Randall implies that a synesthete will see colors connected to each number, and thus a color perception test will work after all - thus distinguishing synesthetes with color-blindness from those with normal color perception.
The comic playfully suggests that if you have synesthesia as well as colorblindness , then some of the colors might appear identical and so one number would not be visible, only leaving the other number.
The title text brings in two more conditions: diplopia , or double vision, and myopia , or near-sightedness. Those who are near-sighted sometimes see distant objects more clearly while squinting. Then they would be able to see the one large number still visible from the synesthesia/colorblindness combination, but because of double vision they see a second copy of it, hence two numbers that are the same.
If we color the numbers in the circle in a consistent way (and leave the 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9s black) we can reveal the large numbers:
The numbers are four and two, forming the number 42 , which is the famous " Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything ", according to the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . The number 4 is formed by digits 2, 3, 5 and 7 (the single digit primes) while the number 2 is formed by digits 3, 5, 7 and 9 (the single digit odds, excluding 1).
For Randall's test to work (i.e. for either the large 4 or the large 2 in '42' to get lost in the noise to those with a given color-blindness), either the little number 2 or the little number 9 would have to be lost in the background noise. So, for example, if the background appeared in shades of red and the little number 2 was a shade of green, then the large number 4 would be less visible to those with red-green color-blindness than to others.
While it makes for a good joke, there are three reasons this kind of test wouldn't work in real life.
The first is that there is no one set of color-number associations seen by all synesthetes. So while some synesthete might see '2' as green and '0' as red (so a red-green color-blind person would lose anything made up of '2's against a background of '0's), others might see '2' as yellow and '0' as blue, or any other association imaginable.
The second reason it wouldn't work is that synesthetes do not (always) automatically see a 1:1 overlay of color on top of a number - they still need to read the number legibly. Randall's circle is very chaotic, so one wouldn't intuitively identify each single number. For a synesthete the color is produced after the number is recognized by the brain and lost when the focus shifts to the next number. However, some synesthetes may find if they pay attention to the numbers one by one they can make something out. However, as noted by a user in the discussion, who states that he has a type of synesthesia, he did indeed see the numbers ! Furthermore, in his blog's discussion section, one person commented they could see the large '2' but not the large '4' ! This was not because the person was colorblind, but because the '4' was mostly composed of numbers ('2's and '7's) whose colors blended in with the background, while the '2' contained an even mix of numbers, some of which (presumably '3's, '5's, and '9's) starkly stood out, making the large '2' easily visible. However, one could easily imagine this scenario pertaining to colorblindness: for example, a colorblind synesthete, in theory (although the third reason makes it clear why this would be extremely unlikely), might perceive most of the background numbers as shades of green (similar to the picture below) and see the '2's and '7's in shades of red, which would make it difficult to differentiate between the giant reddish '4' and the greenish background.
The third reason the test would not work is that color-blindness is an inability to distinguish colors of light hitting the retina, it's nonsensical to imagine a synesthete would perceive two separate colors that they cannot normally separate anyway. But again in the above mentioned link this particular person did see the colors in a way where people with red/green color-blindness might have a harder time seeing the 4 than the 2 in 42.
The next image shows all of the numbers, including 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9, colored in, in such a way as to ensure the number 42 is clearly visible to those with no particular blue-yellow color-blindness:
The "real problem" is actually that if a synesthete does indeed see the digits as colors that resolve into either one or two numbers, then what color would these new "color-numbers" then appear to be? If a synesthete could see both large numbers AND they appeared as the same color as the small numbers as soon the synesthete perceived the numbers, then what would this meta-synesthete see? The '4' would blend in with the background '4's, while the '2' would stand out (as '2' was not used in the background). Would that mean that as soon as they noticed the giant '4', it would suddenly disappear into the background? Is this sort of layered synesthesia even possible?
Keep in mind, as noted above, that synesthetes do not all see the same color-number associations. They also do not necessarily see every number in a different color, as depicted here, and may even see some numbers as purely black.
[Caption above the drawing:] Combination Vision Test
[Below the caption is a circle formed by several hundred numeric digits from 0-9.]
[Caption below the panel:] If you can see one big number but not the other, you have synesthesia and colorblindness.


Geoguessr

Explanation:
Geoguessr is a game in which the player is given a location in Google Street View and asked to guess precisely where in the world they are, by clicking on a map of the world, based only on the 360-degree view in the Street View display.
Cueball is upset because he keeps making his guesses based on landmarks and his guesses end up being wrong. After all, the landmark he based his guess off of was a replica of the real one (the Parthenon in Nashville , which is more than 9000 kilometers or 5600 miles away from the Greek original ).
Of course, from a statistical perspective, this makes sense. For every famous object, there are countless replicas; however, most people will be familiar with the specific location of the original object, and the vast majority of famous objects (except a few notable works of art) exist in only one place in the world. Take the Statue of Liberty , for instance — although the original is based in New York (well, actually, the original maquette is in Paris ...), it has hundreds of replicas all over the planet .
Epcot is a Disney theme park in Florida which among other attractions includes pavilions of various countries, including Germany , which are built to resemble the typical style (architecture, vegetation, etc.) of the countries. Therefore, similarly to the replicas of landmarks, in this specific case, recognizing classic German architecture would put you on the wrong continent.
However, as the title text alludes to, you're far more likely to find a dirt road than to find anything recognizable, since Google Street View maps roads more than anything else (hence its name). Becoming a connoisseur of such a mundane thing bears similarity to 915: Connoisseur .
Anyone who's ever played with Geoguessr knows, also, that seemingly helpful clues can sometimes be useless. For instance, if you recognize the Cyrillic script on a sign, the countries using the Cyrillic script such as Bulgaria, Mongolia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia encompasses an enormous area, so unless you can recognize a specific region, there's no obvious place to guess where you can hope to get high points. Unlike somewhere like England, where guessing London is guaranteed to put you within a reasonable distance from a global perspective. Legoland is a good example of this: If you can't tell if you're in Denmark or California (or any of the other locations ), it's not like you can just guess halfway between and do well.
[Cueball is using a laptop, playing a game.] Cueball: This one's easy; There's the Parthenon. Athens. * CLICK * Cueball: What!? Why the hell is there a Parthenon in Nashville ? * CLICK * Cueball: OK, I'm clearly in Germany. * CLICK * Cueball: Dammit, Germany Pavilion at Epcot. [Caption below the panel:] My scores in Geoguessr would be higher if people quit building replicas of everything.


Insight

Explanation:
White Hat is giving a profound insight into <Google Glass>. This insight, however, can be given, sounding just as profound, for any other new technology that comes around—hence the angled brackets around Google Glass , indicating that "Google Glass" is a placeholder. This, of course, means it is not profound at all, as it has no actual insight into Google Glass (or any other technology).
The title text highlights a common trait of human listeners. The above sentence is constructed in such a way as to trigger the listener's reservations about the new technology. The sentence sounds profound, not because it has any actual insights, but because it causes the listener to fill in the missing insights with his own pre-existing thoughts on the matter. This is a typical effect of Confirmation bias . Not only does this cause Cueball to regard White Hat as insightful, but it also causes Cueball to think that White Hat agrees with whatever it is that Cueball fears <Google Glass> for.
It seems no coincidence that Randall chose Google Glass as the placeholder. It seems generally that he is no fan of these, which was shown soon after in 1251: Anti-Glass and later again in 1304: Glass Trolling . This was the first time Google Glass was directly mentioned but since this comic Google Glass has become a recurring theme in xkcd.
The caption is reminiscent of Randall's tips , but since the word tip is left out, it is not itself a tip comic.
[White Hat is holding a finger up while talking to Cueball.] White Hat: Maybe before we rush to adopt < Google Glass > we should stop to consider the consequences of blithely giving this technology such a central position in our lives.
[Caption below the panel:] Don't have any insights about a new technology? Just use this sentence! It makes you sound wise and you can say it about virtually anything.


Sticks and Stones

Explanation:
Sticks and Stones is a nursery rhyme, which goes as follows:
The nursery rhyme often by parents and with some variation, to persuade an individual, usually a child, to ignore any name calling or mean taunts that were said by others in an attempt to hurt the individual's feelings.
The comic challenges this sentiment when the child responds that, although words can't harm you physically, they can change how you feel, and isn't that the most important thing of all? Cueball obviously sees the simple truth in this, but tries to deflect by claiming that the world really isn't that bad. The child refers again to the rhyme, observing that the physical world can be harsh enough, because there are things like sticks and stones that break your bones and presumably people who use them as weapons to do so. Or yet worse, that someone would think up such a gruesome saying in the first place. Upon reflection, Cueball agrees that this image is actually horrific.
The title text is rather dark, and is probably a reference to the currently active bullying and shaming culture. None of us deserves to be beaten or stoned, but words are powerful enough to make us think that we do.
In the long tradition of the science of the obvious, recent studies (for example: Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain ) have shown that, in fact, the brain's reactions to physical pain and emotional rejection are somewhat similar and even feed into each other.
[A child, who looks like a miniature Cueball, is running with arms outstretched toward Cueball.] Child: Did you hear what he said about me!? Cueball: Well, remember: sticks and stones may break my bones, but words—
Child: —can make someone else feel happy or sad, which is literally the only thing that matters in this stupid world?
[Brief pause.]
Child: Right? Cueball: The world isn't that bad. Child: Explain the line about sticks and stones? Cueball: ...OK, maybe it's kind of horrific.


Cells

Explanation:
Cancer is one of the most feared group of illnesses due to high mortality and a topic visited by Randall in past comics .
Whenever a study finds a hint of a cure, it is hyped up in media as major breakthrough. However, because research is done in a laboratory using cultivated cancer cell assays in petri dishes or well plates, it typically does not take interactions with other parts of a body into consideration, which is ultimately necessary for a patient to survive treatment without harmful side-effects. In order for a cancer treatment to be viable, it would have to primarily target only cancer cells; not healthy ones. Added to this is the issue that major cancer in the body quickly evolves resistance to most treatments, most treatments end up either unused or used as just one in a cocktail of cancer fighting drugs.
Here, Randall reminds us that there's no need to get excited upon hearing about a drug that kills cancer cells because it may very well harm healthy cells as well, just as a bullet fired from a handgun would. Alternatively, one could interpret the message that, since something as mundane as a handgun is capable of destroying cancer cells, it really is not too impressive for a drug to make that claim.
The title text suggests that even if a drug did only kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone, the human body still has many other complex processes that may render a drug that works in a petri dish insufficient. For instance, a drug that kills cancer cells in a petri dish may not be able to get at cancer cells deep within a human body. It is a long way from the laboratory to the pharmacy.
A more humorous interpretation of the title text is that it will only kill cancer cells if they are in petri dishes, and not anywhere else. The naming convention here is similar to "lung cancer", breast cancer", etc., but of course, petri dishes are not normally a part of human organism [ citation needed ] . Less probably, it might be about cancer cells that originated from, but are not necessarily located within, petri dishes, making the scenario even more oddly specific.
[Caption above the panel:] When you see a claim that a common drug or vitamin "kills cancer cells in a petri dish," Keep in mind:
[Cueball in a lab coat stands on a chair next to a desk, pointing a gun at a petri dish. There is a microscope on the desk.]
[Caption below the panel:] So does a handgun.


Doors of Durin

Explanation:
The comic is based on the Lord of the Rings , specifically a scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring , where the eponymous fellowship is trapped outside the door to the Mines of Moria . There's a spoken password to open the doors, an Elvish inscription on them provides a clue: "Speak friend, and enter". The party leader ( Gandalf ) initially interprets this to mean that a friend could speak the password and enter. Only after many unsuccessful efforts does Gandalf realize it is actually a very simple riddle: The password is the Elvish word for "friend" ("mellon"), and the inscription should in fact be interpreted as "Speak [out loud the word] mellon [(the Elvish word for friend )], and [you will be able to] enter". See the Wikipedia article Use–mention distinction .
In this comic, Cueball, White Hat, and Megan reenact the scene, with Cueball taking the role of Gandalf. The doors apparently open off-panel when the password is spoken. White Hat then wonders aloud what the Elvish word for "frenemy" is, and Cueball postulates "mellogoth". This is a portmanteau of "mellon" and "goth", much like how "frenemy" is a portmanteau of "friend" and "enemy". The Elvish word-root goth is best known as part of the name of Morgoth (literally, "Black Enemy") of the Silmarillion . The doors apparently immediately slam shut the moment Cueball says mellogoth . It is unclear whether this is because the opposite of the password has been spoken, or because the doors take offense to the word/concept frenemy , of which xkcd has previously made fun in 919: Tween Bromance .
The title text ponders what would occur if the Sirannon, a stream running adjacent to the path leading to the doors, were to be completely blocked with the doors left open. The already partially blocked Sirannon had formed a pool before the doors; which contained some sort of monstrous horror from the depths of the Earth, referred to as the Watcher in the Water . Randall seems to think that the pond draining into the mines would connect the Watcher with another horror within: the Balrog (a high-level servant of Morgoth) living within the depths of the mines. Balrogs are primarily creatures of fire and shadow, so having a bunch of water dumped on it is unlikely to please it but may weaken it. He then goes on to wonder about the outcome of a battle between the two monsters.
[White Hat, Megan, and Cueball stand. Megan has her finger up.] Megan: I've got it! Megan: What's the elvish word for friend? Cueball: Mellon.
[The trio stand. A off-panel door opens.] RUMBLE
[White Hat has his palm out, while Cueball has his palm on his chin.] White Hat: So what's the elvish word for "frenemy"? Cueball: ...Mellogoth? SLAM!!


Reports

Explanation:
The quoted text of the report could (and indeed probably would , given the apparent contents) be stereotypically read out loud by the author, or internally by the reader, in an essentially monotonal manner, as exhibited by any number of popularised film and TV characters such as 'Arthur Pewtey' from the Monty Python sketch . But this comic asks us to imagine it instead voiced in the voice of an upset (soon-to-be-'ex-'?) spouse, presumably berating the project leader on various real or imagined infractions, and it works just as well. The jagged nature of the speech bubble indicates that the report has typed out on the computer's screen, but also helps to re-enforce the nagging internal voice.
The title text joke relates to an alternative plan, namely to proportionally exaggerate everything you read.  What would have been one serious accident that would have been prevented in the previous month had the speed limit been 25 mph, out of the three that actually occurred under the current limit, now becomes one thousand people saved!  And all those lives would have been saved by reducing the speed limit to a 'mere' 25,000 miles per hour. Of course, around 2000 accidents would not have been prevented because people still try to mess with vehicles that are moving at hypersonic velocities.
Note that the title text is inconsistent; if every number were to be multiplied by a thousand, then the speed limit would apply to 2000th Street. Somewhat surprisingly, there do exist streets of this name, mainly in Illinois. Although unlikely, the street may be 0.002th street, giving us 2 when multiplied per the title text. Though in this case 2nd St is a proper noun and thus should not be modified.
How to make boring technical reports more fun to read: Imagine they were written and sent in, unsolicited, by the estranged spouse of the head of the project. [Cueball is crouching alone over his computer in an empty room, typing on a laptop. He is surrounded by papers and books, apparently related to whatever project is working on. The laptop has a message on it, the text of which is displayed above the computer.] Computer: Six guard rails have erratic reflector placement, and one even lacks reflectors entirely, despite rule G31.02(b) clearly mandating consistent usage. Cueball: ...Sharon!
Originally the title text proposed a speed limit of 2,500 miles per hour, which would mean the original message is about a ridiculously low speed limit of 2.5 mph. This was later corrected.


Hipsters

Explanation:
The word "hipster" originally referred to counter-cultural youth and jazz aficionados in the 1940s and 1950s before the Hippie culture developed in the mid '60s. Recently, however, "hipster" has come to refer to, in Wikipedia's terms, "a subculture of young, urban middle class adults and older teenagers that appeared in the 1990s. The subculture is associated with independent music, a varied non-mainstream fashion sensibility, progressive or independent political views, alternative spirituality or atheism/agnosticism, and alternative lifestyles."
Following the hipster resurgence, it became popular in many circles to hold hipsters in contempt, citing their conformity to a subculture by rejecting "mainstream" culture and deliberate (i.e. ironic) indulgence in obnoxious things like moustaches and bad movies. Randall continues the arguably hypocritical meta-complaining by showing more s-curves that represent subsequent, smaller backlashes, self-referentially including his own comic in that meta-complaining.
There is a possible double meaning in the phrase "tedious navel-gazing by insecure people": the word "hipster" also refers to low-rise leg wear that sits at or below the hips, often in conjunction with revealing shirts, thereby exposing one's bellybutton.
The title text reveals Randall 's awareness that he's only perpetuating the meta-complaining he's complaining about, but he bats away this criticism by pointing out the facts of the situation: the reader is not communicating with Randall but rather most likely in an empty room while browsing the Internet. That is, the criticising reader is experiencing a retreat into ironic detachment while still clearly participating in the thing in question, i. e. the graph.
The title text may be a reference to a previous comic, 525: I Know You're Listening .
The layout is a chart with a series of plots reaching a stable equilibrium one after another, with the shape characteristic of a predator-prey model. In order, the labels are. How often I see... Hipsters --> Complaints about hipsters --> Complaints about the constant use and discussion of the word "hipster" --> Complaints that every level of meta-opinion on hipsters represents the same tedious navel-gazing by insecure people --> graphs making it all worse --> Now [The horizontal axis is labeled time. Where the final curve rises is marked 'now'.]
This comic has been featured on Cheezburger.


Nomenclature

Explanation:
Nomenclature can be defined as the devising or choosing of names for things. Here Randall connects three pop culture references that each contain one or more instances of ambiguous nomenclature based on pronouns: the " Who's on First? " skit, the " Doctor Who " television series, and in the title text also the novel " A Wrinkle in Time " by Madeleine L'Engle .
The comic references the famous " Who's on First? " skit by the American comedy duo Abbott and Costello in the 1930s. This video is one of the original performances. Costello is the shorter character, with a round brimmed hat and baseball bat, while Abbott is taller and wearing a baseball cap. This reflects the most common image associated with the skit. In the routine, Costello is confused by the nicknames the ball players go by. The man playing first base goes by the name "Who", the man on second base goes by "What", and the one on third calls himself "I Don't Know". Costello asks "Who's on first?", inquiring the name of the first-baseman, and Abbott replies "that's right", affirming that the first-baseman's name is Who. Both parties become confused within a matter of seconds.
The Doctor from the long-running British television series Doctor Who is often referred to as "Doctor Who" by people who think the series' name and their name are the same (although it should be noted that the name "Doctor Who" is not entirely incorrect; the character was referred to as such in the end credits for several seasons , as well as in the spin-off theatrical films starring Peter Cushing). In-universe, the character often introduces themself as "The Doctor", which elicits the response " Doctor who? ". Their response to this question is: "Just 'The Doctor'". Mrs. Whatsit appears to have interrupted the "Who's on First?" skit to clarify the confusion that the person on first is not called "Who", but just "The Doctor".
The title text references the Madeleine L'Engle novel A Wrinkle in Time , which has characters with similarly ambiguous names. The book's Mrs. Whatsit appears to be on second base. "Aunt Beast" is a minor character in the novel from the planet of Ixchel. And they are playing a real baseball game. "Aunt Beast" is the batter and hits a pop fly high in the air towards second base while "Mrs. Whatsit" (presumably playing second base, in place of "What") is being encouraged to dive to catch the ball before it hits the ground, to get the batter out. So both the players "Who" and "What" have been exchanged with other characters going under similar names.
[Mrs. Whatsit, a woman drawn as Megan, holds her hand out and talks to Abbott (a tall guy with a baseball cap) and Costello (a short guy wearing a round brimmed hat and holding a baseball bat in his right hand.)] Mrs. Whatsit: You're both confused. Mrs. Whatsit: He's just "The Doctor".
The names are from the original transcript .


Pastime

Explanation:
When asked by Megan what he's been up to, Cueball responds with the suspiciously specific denial , "Definitely not spending every day consumed with worry over stupid things I never talk to anyone about.", which suggests that that is exactly what he's been spending every day doing, but he is hiding it from her and everyone else. Megan's response "Oh, yeah, me neither" suggests she too is worrying over stupid things but isn't admitting it.
Instead of discussing their mutual worry and possibly making each other feel better, they instead continue to "not talk to anyone about it" and stand in awkward silence .
The title text continues the irony suggesting it's good that they're too smart to spend all day being uselessly frustrated with themselves, but that's apparently exactly what they are doing.
This could also be a reference to the common response to the question Megan asks in the first panel, "nothing", a response that is almost certainly false, and usually means the same thing that Cueball said, but is usually accepted, if not expected.
[Megan and Cueball are chatting. She has hair.] Megan: What've you been up to?
Cueball: Definitely not spending every day consumed with worry over stupid things I never talk to anyone about.
Megan: Oh, yeah, me neither. Cueball: That's good. Megan: Yeah.
[The final panel is silent.]


Dwarf Fortress

Explanation:
This comic is a reaction to the recent reveal of a U.S. electronic telecom surveillance program called PRISM , run by the NSA . There is a Guardian article about it. PRISM, leaked by a former NSA official, incited some controversy since it provides government access to private data (e-mails, videos, chats, file transfers, etc.).
Dwarf Fortress is a freeware strategy game in which the player builds a civilization by giving orders to — as opposed to directly controlling — a group of dwarves. It is famous for having a very detailed simulation of its world and for allowing deep micro-management (as well as an incredibly steep learning curve).
"Big Brother" means "a tyrannical government body that constantly monitors all its citizens." The term comes from the classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, wherein propaganda videos are narrated by an actor with the stage name of Big Brother and the dystopia's surveillance system is said to be monitored by Big Brother himself.
Cueball has a discussion with Big Brother ("corporate surveillance state"), in which he mocks Big Brother's interest in the inconsequential activity of playing a video game ( Dwarf Fortress in particular) by drawing a parallel between Big Brother's omniscient surveillance of Cueball and Cueball's omniscient surveillance of the dwarves. Big Brother appears to be mortified when it realizes the accuracy of Cueball's comparison.
Informally, a system exhibits Turing-completeness when it is theoretically capable of executing any algorithm. One of the simplest Turing-complete systems is the Turing machine , a device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules — it can be proven to have the same capabilities as any ordinary programming language. Other very simple systems include Rule 110 , lambda calculus , Conway's game of life , and Brainfuck . The reason we don't work with these is because they're a real pain in the ass. Would you rather build a network of spaceships that collide with each other to simulate the successor function, or just write i := i + 1 ?
A common CS nerd challenge is to prove the Turing-completeness of a system that wasn't intended to be that way — games in particular. The usual way to do this is to construct a Turing machine simulator within the system. It has been done for Dwarf Fortress , (infinite) Minesweeper (pdf), Magic the Gathering , Little Big Planet , Minecraft ( another Minecraft example ) 1 , Pokémon Yellow (through the elaborate use of many in-game glitches) and 3D chess . These kinds of proofs often involve formulating ridiculously complex creations just to simulate a little machine writing symbols on a tape! 2
Finally, Randall makes a crack that users will try to nest their Turing-complete computers; after finishing his Turing-complete Dwarf Fortress computer, someone else will try to make the Dwarf Fortress computer run Minecraft (a highly inefficient process that would be a nightmare to coordinate, and would run incredibly slowly).
1 The youtuber legomasta99 even built a whole programmable PC in Minecraft as can be seen here .
2 Technically, a computer is not really Turing-complete. A Turing-complete system has to have unlimited space, and that's not possible for a memory-limited computer or any software running inside it. But even if we don't have access to Turing-completeness, we can build a theoretical machine and show how it can be extended indefinitely. In a few of the games, we prove Turing-completeness in infinite variants.
[Cueball sits at a desk with a computer, hands on the keyboard, talking to an unseen observer.] Cueball: If the corporate surveillance state monitors and controls every aspect of my life... Big Brother: We do. Cueball: And I play Dwarf Fortress all day... Big Brother: You do. Cueball: Then you're effectively Dwarf Fortress players watching your dwarves play Dwarf Fortress. Big Brother: ... Oh God. [Caption below the panel:] Big Brother realizes he's trapped in the most tedious possible Hell.


Council of 300

Explanation:
YouTube (a video sharing site) used to have an odd quirk in its view counter. When a video hit 301 views, the view counter briefly stopped updating. This meant that YouTube was checking the views to make sure that no foul play was going on. The choice of the number 301 is due to a harmless off-by-one error; Numberphile produced a video that explains all this very well (and has comically its view counter frozen at 301). At times the number 301 would catch some YouTubers off guard — for very popular videos, it might appear that the video has more likes than views. However, this bug is no longer present (although very new videos having more likes and comments than views IS still present).
Randall plays with the near coincidence of this number, and a conspiracy theory entity known as the Committee of 300 . In this case, the video's first 300 views come from each of the Committee's council members who determine if the video will go viral . The video is then released to the public by sending it to a regular person ( Cueball in this comic) making the total number of views 301.
The title text elaborates on this by explaining that the council also hypnotizes somebody to make him think they uploaded and shared that particular video.
According to the title text, the council does not seem to tolerate contradiction, because the member that suggests changing 301 to a random number to avoid suspicion is shot, silenced permanently, and removed from the council.
[A secret society meets in a darkened chamber; a kitschy video involving two people and an RC helicopter is projected onto the background.] Master: ...then it is settled. We the 300 members of the Secret Council, decree that this video meets our standards, and shall "go viral". Master: send it to one of our agents to be leaked to the common folk. Steward: Some of them are noticing the number. Master: ...add a plus sign to throw them off. Steward: very well. Soon... [A communication sent to Cueball, one of the many unsuspecting plebeians of the world.] Email: Ooh! check out this great video I found! [Zoom in on the viewer count of a YouTube video.] 301+


Ice Sheets

Explanation:
The comic shows the ice levels at major North American cities at the peak of the last ice age , 21,000 years ago. During this period, a vast amount of frozen water covered North America as well as other areas around the world. So much ice that it affected the global sea level (see Sea level rise ) to lower it by more than a hundred meters.
Toronto and Montreal are both Canadian cities, while Boston and Chicago are in the United States . The skylines of each city are shown at the bottom of the ice sheet to scale. The tallest structure shown is the CN Tower in Toronto, the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere , at a height of 553 m. The tallest ice sheet is 3.3 km tall, almost six times as tall as that tower. Although, over Toronto, the ice was "only" 2.1 km tall.
The tallest ice sheet takes up 265 pixels. From that, each pixel is about 12.4 meters and the height of the panels is 3.7 km with less than 200 m of the ground shown in black below the cities making the white "air" above ground reaching up to 3.5 km, leaving only 200 m of air above the highest ice sheet.
The title text references the " The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum (PDF) ," an actual series of scientific papers about the ice sheet (see figure 4). But it also refers to the animated Ice Age film series, specifically to Ice Age: the Meltdown , and Ice Age: Continental Drift which are the second and fourth Ice Age films.
Ice sheets over Boston during the last ice age was also referenced in 1379: 4.5 Degrees . The image of Boston in this comic is reused at the top of the huge chart in 1732: Earth Temperature Timeline , and had already been reused earlier in the what if? post Google's Datacenters on Punch Cards . Randall lives in that area.
Although this comic doesn't mention (modern) climate change, it does show the difference climate can have on our surroundings. And in the two later comics mentioned above, Randall makes it clear that we are now heading as far in the opposite hotter direction compared to the "normal" temperature during the rise of human civilization, as the ice age temperature was colder.
[Caption above the four panels:] Thickness of the ice sheets at various locations 21,000 years ago compared with modern skylines. [In four panels the skylines of four major metropolises are superimposed against a blue ice sheet of the proper thickness for the aforementioned time period. The panels are much taller than the skyline reaching about 3500 meter up above ground level. Below the gray skylines there is a black slab indicating this ground level, above the ice the air is white. Also above the ice sheet the hight of the ice is noted in light gray text. Inside the ice sheet the name of the city is written in black. Some clear landmarks can be seen in each skyline.]
[The first skyline shows among other a tall TV tower. The ice reaches more than halfway to the top of the panel.] 2100m Toronto
[The second skyline shows several skyscrapers with specially one towering over the other. The ice reaches about a quarter of the way to the top. This is the lowest of the ice sheets only reaching about twice as high as the tallest building in the city.] 900m Chicago
[The third skyline shows only a few skyscrapers with two of them clearly taller than the rest of the skyline. The ice reaches a bit more than a third towards the top.] 1250m Boston
[The fourth skyline do not have many real skyscrapers but there are three buildings that are taller than the rest of the skyline. The ice reaches almost to the top, making it the tallest ice sheet. The name of the city clearly is written higher up in the ice than the other three. Even above the lowest ice sheet of the second panel.] 3300m Montreal


Balloon Internet

Explanation:
The comic references Google's Project Loon , a balloon powered Internet service which was officially announced June 14, 2013 (3 days before this comic was published) and was in proof-of-concept testing stages by that time. A test above New Zealand, involving about 30 balloons and about 50 users, was successfully conducted on June 16. The project, taglined "Internet for Everyone", was intended to eventually provide Internet access to people in rural areas and in disaster areas that have limited or no access to land-based Internet services.
As of 2019 Loon LLC was an individual Google subsidiary instead of a mere project and was present in multiple places across the world for either Internet in rural areas, full coverage of a country or disaster relief.
In March of 2021, Alphabet , Google's parent company, announced the closure of Loon, LLC.
Randall is poking fun at the tagline "Internet for Everyone" — meant to mean anyone could have Internet access regardless of location — by instead literally bringing the Internet to Cueball , who retired in a deserted area, away from all technology, to read a standard paper book. In the comic, one of the balloons sneaks up on Cueball before speaking and startling Cueball, effectively becoming a nuisance, interrupting Cueball's reading of a book and leaving Cueball wondering what has happened. In Randall's world, the tagline could be restated as "Internet for Everyone — whether they want it or not".
The title text describes Randall's own plan to provide rural internet. He will operate in a region where Verizon Wi-Fi infrastructure already exists, and take advantage of their 14-day return policy to effectively obtain internet access for free, which he will then sell under his own brand.
[Cueball sits on a hill reading a book.] [Cueball remains engrossed in the book. A balloon with a box at the end of the string begins to descend behind him.] [Cueball continues reading. The balloon is getting lower.] [The balloon's box is now right behind Cueball's ear.] Balloon box: Internet . Cueball: Augh! [Cueball throws the book in surprise.] [The balloon ascends rapidly, while the startled Cueball looks up.]


The Pace of Modern Life

Explanation:
The debate as to whether or not the pace of modern life is detrimental to society, culture, and the human experience in general has been going on for longer than we may realize. Presently, the debate has focused on technology such as smartphones, tablets, and other portable electronics; however, many of the same arguments were made against newspapers , magazines, telegraphs, telephones, and even written correspondence 100 years ago.
People often tend to think of older times as better. The people complaining compare their present time to the time they lived in before, that is, a couple of decades ago, and this has been happening for over a century (at least). This comic makes a point that the older times people refer to, were also criticized in exactly the same fashion. Since the same criticism is applied to each generation by the generation before that one, every generation thinks that the one they were born in is the good one. This is presentism as explained by Randall in 24: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey .
The comic begins and ends with very similar arguments, perhaps emphasizing how these debates cycle and repeat over time. The comic does not directly state whether these opinions and criticisms were justified or simple fallacies. There is a desire to consider our present existence as good and reasonable and that society has been improving over time. The difficulty lies in considering the possibility that each generation was perhaps correct in their criticism.
On reading all of these quotes, one may find these quotes redundant and tiresome to read.  Readers may find themselves skimming the text and skipping several quotes once they get the overall idea.  This could be a self-referential point demonstrating that the writing style of older times was less convenient than the oft-criticized brief modern style.
Some parts of all that long texts are in bold, others not. Here is the summary for only this bold text, picturing just our Modern World :
The art of letter-writing is fast dying out. We fire off a multitude of rapid and short notes, instead of sitting down to have a good talk over a real sheet of paper. In olden times it was different. Men now live think and work at express speed. Sulkily read as they travel leaving them no time to talk with the friend who may share the compartment with them. The age of leisure is dead, and the art of conversation is dying. A craving for literary nips. There never was an age in which so many people were able to write badly. The art of pure line engraving is dying out. We live at too fast a rate nothing is left to the imagination and human faculty dwindle away amid the million inventions that have been introduced to render its exercise unnecessary. Thirty pages is now too much. Fifteen pages further condensed a summary of the summary. Those who are dipping into so many subjects and gathering information in a summary and superficial form lose the habit of settling down to great works. Hurried reading can never be good reading. Mental and nervous degeneration among a growing class of people, a brain incapable of normal working in a large measure due to the hurry and excitement of modern life, almost instantaneous communication between remote points of the globe. Teach the children how to play instead of shutting them in badly ventilated schoolrooms, increased demand made by the conditions of modern life upon the brain. We talk across a continent, telegraph across an ocean, we take even our pleasures sadly and make a task of our play. The managers of sensational newspapers create perverted tastes and develop vicious tendencies. To take sufficient time for our meals seems frequently impossible, may I be permitted to say a word in favour of a very worthy and valuable old friend of mine, Mr. Long walk? I am afraid that this good gentleman is in danger of getting neglected, if not forgotten. People talk as they ride bicycles–at a rush–without pausing to consider their surroundings the profession of letters is so little understood, tendency among the children of today to rebel against restraint. Our modern family gathering, silent, each individual with his head buried in his favourite magazine, deal openly with situations which no person would have dared to mention in general society forty years ago. A hundred years ago it took so long and cost so much to send a letter that it seemed worth while to put some time and thought into writing it. A brief letter to-day may be followed by another next week–a "line" now by another to-morrow.
The style of the comic is very similar to that of 1311: 2014 , which was released half a year later.
The title text shows that the meaning of the institute of marriage debate has likewise been going on for quite some time.
The art of letter-writing is fast dying out. When a letter cost nine pence, it seemed but fair to try to make it worth nine pence ... Now, however, we think we are too busy for such old-fashioned correspondence. We fire off a multitude of rapid and short notes, instead of sitting down to have a good talk over a real sheet of paper. The Sunday Magazine 1871
It is, unfortunately, one of the chief characteristics of modern business to be always in a hurry. In olden times it was different. The Medical Record 1884
With the advent of cheap newspapers and superior means of locomotion... The dreamy quiet old days are over... For men now live think and work at express speed. They have their Mercury or Post laid on their breakfast table in the early morning, and if they are too hurried to snatch from it the news during that meal, they carry it off, to be sulkily read as they travel ... leaving them no time to talk with the friend who may share the compartment with them ... The hurry and bustle of modern life ... lacks the quiet and repose of the period when our forefathers, the day's work done, took their ease... William Smith, Morley: Ancient and Modern 1886
Conversation is said to be a lost art ... Good talk presupposes leisure, both for preparation and enjoyment. The age of leisure is dead, and the art of conversation is dying. Frank Leslie's popular Monthly , Volume 29 1890
Intellectual laziness and the hurry of the age have produced a craving for literary nips. The torpid brain ... has grown too weak for sustained thought. There never was an age in which so many people were able to write badly. Israel Zangwill, The Bachelors' Club 1891
The art of pure line engraving is dying out. We live at too fast a rate to allow for the preparation of such plates as our fathers appreciated. If a picture catches the public fancy, the public must have an etched or a photogravured copy of it within a month or two of its appearance, the days when engravers were wont to spend two or three years over a single plate are for ever gone. Journal of the Institute of Jamaica , Volume 1 1892
So much is exhibited to the eye that nothing is left to the imagination . It sometimes seems almost possible that the modern world might be choked by its own riches, and human faculty dwindle away amid the million inventions that have been introduced to render its exercise unnecessary. The articles in the Quarterlies extend to thirty or more pages, but thirty pages is now too much so we witness a further condensing process and, we have the Fortnightly and the Contemporary which reduce thirty pages to fifteen pages so that you may read a larger number of articles in a shorter time and in a shorter form. As if this last condensing process were not enough the condensed articles of these periodicals are further condensed by the daily papers, which will give you a summary of the summary of all that has been written about everything. Those who are dipping into so many subjects and gathering information in a summary and superficial form lose the habit of settling down to great works. Ephemeral literature is driving out the great classics of the present and the past ... hurried reading can never be good reading. G. J. Goschen, First Annual Address to the Students , Toynbee Hall. London 1894
The existence of mental and nervous degeneration among a growing class of people , especially in large cities, is an obvious phenomenon ... the mania for stimulants ... diseases of the mind are almost as numerous as the diseases of the body... This intellectual condition is characterized by a brain incapable of normal working ... in a large measure due to the hurry and excitement of modern life , with its facilities for rapid locomotion and almost instantaneous communication between remote points of the globe ... The Churchman , Volume 71 1895
If we teach the children how to play and encourage them in their sports ... instead of shutting them in badly ventilated schoolrooms , the next generation will be more joyous and will be healthier than the present one. Public Opinion: A Comprehensive Summary of the Press Throughout the World , Volume 18 1895
The cause of the ... increase in nervous disease is increased demand made by the conditions of modern life upon the brain . Everything is done in a hurry. We talk across a continent, telegraph across an ocean , take a trip to Chicago for an hour's talk... We take even our pleasures sadly and make a task of our play ... what wonder if the pressure is almost more than our nerves can bear. G. Shrady (from P.C. Knapp) "Are nervous diseases increasing?" Medical Record 1896
The managers of sensational newspapers ... do not try to educate their readers and make them better, but tend to create perverted tastes and develop vicious tendencies. The owners of these papers seem to have but one purpose, and that is to increase their circulation. Medical Brief , Volume 26 1898
To take sufficient time for our meals seems frequently impossible on account of the demands on our time made by our business... We act on the apparent belief that all of our business is so pressing that we must jump on the quickest car home, eat our dinner in the most hurried way, make the closest connection for a car returning ... Louis John Rettger. Studies in Advanced Physiology 1898
In these days of increasing rapid artificial locomotion, may I be permitted to say a word in favour of a very worthy and valuable old friend of mine, Mr. Long Walk? I am afraid that this good gentleman is in danger of getting neglected, if not forgotten. We live in days of water trips and land trips, excursions by sea, road and rail-bicycles and tricycles, tram cars and motor cars .... but in my humble opinion, good honest walking exercise for health beats all other kinds of locomotion into a cocked hat. T. Thatcher, "A plea for a long walk", The Publishers Circular 1902
The art of conversation is almost a lost one. People talk as they ride bicycles–at a rush–without pausing to consider their surroundings ... what has been generally understood as cultured society is rapidly deteriorating into baseness and voluntary ignorance. The profession of letters is so little understood , and so far from being seriously appreciated, that ... Newspapers are full, not of thoughtful honestly expressed public opinion on the affairs of the nation, but of vapid personalities interesting to none save gossips and busy bodies. Marie Corelli, Free opinions, freely expressed 1905
There is a great tendency among the children of today to rebel against restraint , not only that placed upon them by the will of the parent. But against any restraint or limitation of what they consider their rights ... this fact has filled well minded people with great apprehensions for the future. Rev. Henry Hussmann, The authority of parents 1906
Our modern family gathering, silent around the fire, each individual with his head buried in his favourite magazine , is the somewhat natural outcome of the banishment of colloquy from the school ... The Journal of Education , Volume 29 1907
Plays in theatres at the present time present spectacles and deal openly with situations which no person would have dared to mention in general society forty years ago ... The current representations of nude men and women in the daily journals and the illustrated magazines would have excluded such periodicals from all respectable families two decades ago... Those who have been divorced ... forty and fifty years ago lost at once and irrevocably their standing in society, while to-day they continue in all their social relationships, hardly changed... Editorial, The Watchman , Boston 1908
We write millions more letters than did our grandfathers, but the increase in volume has brought with it an automatic artificial machine-like ring ... an examination of a file of old letters reveals not only a remarkable grasp of details. But a fitness and courtliness too often totally lacking in the mechanical curt cut and dried letters of to-day. Forrest Crissey, Handbook of Modern Business Correspondence 1908
A hundred years ago it took so long and cost so much to send a letter that it seemed worth while to put some time and thought into writing it. Now the quickness and the cheapness of the post seem to justify the feeling that a brief letter to-day may be followed by another next week–a "line" now by another to-morrow. Percy Holmes Boynton, Principles of Composition 1915


Prometheus

Explanation:
This comic is most likely about copyright and patent, which are temporary government-granted monopolies for authors and inventors. It refers to the cultural hero Prometheus in Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity. In this case, Prometheus claims that it is more like sharing than stealing because the gods still have the original fire. By analogy, uploading music, movies, and software is more like sharing than stealing because the authors and inventors still have the original files. Fire-sharing is a pun for file-sharing . "Fire wants to be free" is a pun for the slogan " Information wants to be free ."
This could also be a reference to the strict punishments of copyright laws as one could be fined a lot for failing to comply with the copy and Prometheus was also heavily punished by having an eagle rip out his liver every day and the liver regrowing every night.
The title text refers both to Michael Bay , the director of the movies Transformers and Armageddon , who is known for using over the top special effects, and to the novel "Salvation War" by Stuart Slade, in which Humanity goes to war just as described. "Returning fire to the gods with interest" is also the plot of the Terry Pratchett novel The Last Hero ; Randall has previously made references to Terry Pratchett.
[Cueball addresses his Cueball-like friend, who just walked in-panel. Cueball points at Prometheus (who is also Cueball-like). Prometheus is holding his hand to his chin and holding a colorful flaming torch in the other hand.] Cueball: Prometheus has stolen fire from the Gods! Prometheus: Well, sort of. I mean, when you use a fire to make another fire, the first fire doesn't go away. So really, it's more like "sharing".
[Caption below the frame:] Fire wants to be free.


Screensaver

Explanation:
This comic features the "Starfield" screensaver , a popular Windows screensaver of the 1990s, which presents a moving starfield, like what would be seen by an observer moving past stars at superluminal speeds (see a video example ). This illusion is generally created by drawing white dots on the computer screen, and then moving these dots outwards towards the edge of the screen before disappearing. Some of the "stars" appear to pass closer to the viewing point than others, resulting in movements of visually greater speeds, and more excitement; one can also fixate the center of the screen, hoping to see the appearance of a star as close as possible to it, which would later on pass very close to the viewpoint. This comic extends it to the situation where the observer actually collides with one of these stars, something that never happens with screensavers of this type. The "signal lost" error message appears because the source of the signal is no longer transmitting, since it was destroyed when colliding with said star.
The "Duck Hunt gun" is a reference to the NES Zapper used with the Nintendo Entertainment System game Duck Hunt , originally published in 1984. The user would point the Zapper at the connected television screen while playing Duck Hunt, and the NES would recognize whether or not the zapper was pointed at an appropriate target or not. " Flying Toasters " is another old screensaver (in the After Dark package, made for computers but not for the NES). In the title text, Randall states that he is trying to use the NES Zapper to shoot down flying toasters. However, the Flying Toaster screensaver and the NES Zapper are two separate things that were never meant to be used together, so the flying toasters will never react to being "shot" at by the NES Zapper.
I've been staring at the screen every night for twenty years, and it finally happened. [A star field.] [The same star field, but there's a larger white dot glowing in the middle.] [The same star field, but that larger white dot's looking bigger now. Oh. It's clearly a star.] [The screen is filled with white. It's coming straight for us.] [The screen is filled with static.] signal lost


Polar/Cartesian

Explanation:
This comic plays upon the difference between reading a polar coordinate plot and the more common cartesian coordinate plot .
The graph purports to show the certainty in the viewers mind that it is a clockwise polar plot, as a function of time.
If seen as a Cartesian plot, the y (vertical) axis represents 'certainty' while the x (horizontal) axis represents 'time'. Each point on the plot is represented by two coordinates, the x-value and the y-value. As time increases, we move to the right and see the initial certainty of 50% decreases gradually to zero. That is, after a certain amount of time, we are certain that it is NOT a Polar plot.
In a Polar plot, each point on the plot is also located by two values, but in this case they are the radius (the distance from the origin) and the angle between the radius and an arbitrary starting line.  Here, the radius represents 'certainty' and the angle to the vertical represents 'time'. In this view, we see that as time increases (as we move clockwise around the plot) the initial certainty (the same 50%) now increases to a final value of 100%. That is, after a certain amount of time, we are certain that it IS a Polar plot.
The intended joke seems to be that the graph is an exercise in confirmation bias. Whichever type you initially hypothesize is correct, that view will be confirmed by investigation. This is because the two different views are both correct - the graph can equally be considered a Cartesian or Polar plot. This is somewhat counter-intuitive.
Throughout the graph, the sum of the two probabilities is 100%, i.e. (polar-observer's certainty that the graph is polar) + (cartesian-observer's certainty that the graph is polar) = 100%. The shape of the graph appears to be (in clockwise polar form) r(t)=100/(1+cos(t)).
If the reader is open-minded, they would never reach certainty (0% / 100% depending on how you read the graph) because there isn't enough information to clearly decide either way.
The title text is a joke that if you are unsure how to label any two-axis (two-dimensional) graph, you can just say it represents the 'coordinates of the ants crawling across my screen as a function of time', and nobody could then argue with your data. "Hey, that's the path they walked!"
[Caption above the panel:] Certainty that this is a clockwise polar plot, not a Cartesian one, as a function of time: [There is a graph. The Y axis is marked out from 0% to 100%. The X axis is unmarked. A red line starts at 50% and traces out a roughly parabolic trend downwards along the X axis.]


Habitable Zone

Explanation:
While searching for extrasolar planets this gullible astronomer is very excited because he believes he has found a planet in a star's habitable zone , with oceans and visible weather. From these observations, he has determined that it is quite likely to have life on it, which would be a major groundbreaking discovery.
The caption explains, however, that someone has used a mirror as a prank to fool the astronomer, so he is in fact looking at a reflection of the Earth.
The title text goes on says that the astronomer would also be able to see the reflection of his telescope, which would convince him that there definitely is intelligent life on the other planet, looking straight back at him no less!
There are quite a number of issues (listed below) with the practical implementation of this prank, though of course they don't matter much in terms of the joke itself
[Cueball stands in front of a huge telescope, looking through the eyepiece.] Cueball: I've discovered an Earth-sized planet in a star's habitable zone! It even has oceans! And visible weather! [Caption below the panel:] To mess with an astronomer, put a mirror in the path of their telescope.


Realistic Criteria

Explanation:
Many people are opposed to space exploration.  While the overall budget of NASA is not very large compared to the big spenders such as health, education, social services and the military, individual space missions seem very expensive to the general public (typically hundreds of millions of dollars) and the actual benefits derived from them can seem intangible. To put it simply, many people think that the money can be better spent on Earth, where there are real, serious problems that need to be addressed.
The decision on how to best allocate our money is not a simple one. White Hat believes we should not explore space until "we have solved all our problems here on Earth". This is unreasonable. It is vague, broad and near-impossible to achieve, at least within the span of a human life. The basic problems that face us all - war, disease, hunger, climate change, natural disasters, general malaise - have been with us since the dawn of humanity at least, and will certainly be around for much longer than ten or fifteen years; in fact, it is unclear if some of these problems will ever be solved. As of 2021, eight years after this comic, it seems humanity has rather created more problems than it solved, so it is very unlikely indeed that the goal of ten years could be reasonably achieved.
Cueball, however, is playing the naive engineer, thinking that everything is as easy and simple as the math problems he uses everyday. Alternatively, he could be replying sarcastically, knowing that there is no timeline for solving all of Earth's problems. This serves two purposes: First, it highlights the untenability of White Hat's statement by emphasizing their size, and second, it serves as a punchline, as anyone with a modicum of common sense knows nothing is that simple when humans are involved.
In the title text, Randall leans towards fifteen years, as ten doesn't seem sufficient, given all the problems. This also may be said by Cueball, or White Hat replying to Cueball.
[Cueball and White Hat stand talking. White Hat is making a forward gesture with his hand.] White Hat: We shouldn't be exploring other planets until we've solved all our problems here on Earth. Cueball: Sounds reasonable. So, what's the timeline on "Solving all problems"? Ten years? Fifteen?


Relativity

Explanation:
Gedankedank is a humorous portmanteau of Gedankenexperiment (German for " thought experiment ") and badonkadonk (slang term for an attractive, round butt ).
Albert Einstein often used thought experiments to explore scientific hypotheses too impractical or impossible to actually perform, in order to examine their consequences. Moving close to the speed of light, c , is nigh-impossible with existing technology; and according to Einstein's theory of special relativity accelerating a mass exactly to c is impossible. Einstein is well known not to have cared about his appearance (e.g. his uncombed hair , the tongue photo, etc.) so it is unlikely that he pondered how relativistic velocity would affect the appearance of his butt.
Lorentz contraction is a consequence of special relativity, whereby objects contract in the direction of travel.
The appearance of rotation while moving close to the speed of light is known as Terrell rotation . The title text then connects this rotation to the Shakira song " Hips Don't Lie ".
[We see a head and shoulders view of Einstein. He looks pensive.] [Einstein's "line" is in a thought bubble.] Einstein: If I were traveling at the speed of light, my butt would look awesome . Einstein was famed for his Gedankedank .