Existence Proof

Explanation:
In mathematics, an existence proof is a proof that only shows that an object with a specific property exists, but does not tell what this object is. For instance, if f is a continuous function such that f(0) = 0 and f(100) = 2, it is easy to prove that there exists an x between 0 and 100 such that f(x) = 1 (as in the comic). However, this proof gives no way to find such an x.
In many situations, a proof of existence is enough to satisfy a mathematician, but in others, it is desirable to actually identify the object whose existence has been proven.
The full statement itself seems like a solution to some kind of function composition problem. Seems like what the class has proven is that if you apply certain function G(x) to a starting point of function f(0), then what it will do is just give you a value of f(x) at some other value of x, existence of which is stated to be proven. The sentence "There exists some number x such that f(x)=G(f(0))=1." boils down to "There is an x such that f(x)=1". The part with G(f(0)) is only a way to arrive at 1. For some reason there is an x that satisfies f(x)=G(f(0)), and since G(f(0))=1, it is equivalent to f(x)=1.
In the comic, Miss Lenhart (and students) take this one step further, by taking up arms to destroy the function value, which they have proven to exist. In the last panel, some students off screen begin to wonder if they are in the right class, as normal math classes do not take up swords to fight abstract concepts. [ citation needed ] Another student remarks that they are finally in the right math class, implying that this is the kind of thing they wanted from their math curriculum all along.
The phrase " We ride " is commonly used in rallying battle cries, particularly in fantasy or medieval dramas where characters are preparing to enter combat on horseback. Variations of the phrase are used several times in The Lord of the Rings , for example.
The title text refers to Real Analysis , a branch of mathematics dealing with real numbers and real-valued functions (as opposed to studies dealing with integers , rational numbers , imaginary numbers in the complex plane, etc.). As the speaker implies, Real Analysis is supposed to remain confined to the theoretical realm of mathematics; certainly nobody signing up for such a class would ever expect to be embroiled in a crusade against intangible constructs! Taken out of its mathematical context, "analysis" literally means "breaking down", referring to the teacher's intention to cut things up with a sword. The use of the uncommon word "realer" conveys that the situation has suddenly developed unusually high stakes. This nuance would be lost if the word "realer" were replaced with the technically correct phrasing of "more real".
This may be a continuation of 982: Set Theory , where numbers were "executed" to prove a point.
[Miss Lenhart stands in front of a whiteboard and points at calculations written on it.] Miss Lenhart: There exists some number x such that f(x)=G(f(0))=1.
[Miss Lenhart moves her arm in a frameless panel.] Miss Lenhart: Oh yes. Miss Lenhart: Somewhere out there, it exists.
[Zoom-in on Miss Lenhart raising a fist.] Miss Lenhart: And we must find it... and destroy it.
[Miss Lenhart raises a sword.] Miss Lenhart: Grab your swords, students! We ride! Student #1 (off-screen): I think I'm in the wrong math class? Student #2 (off-screen): I'm finally in the right one.


Emoji Movie

Explanation:
Megan asks Cueball if he knows about the then-upcoming The Emoji Movie . It was released on July 28, 2017, a month after this comic, and had been widely reviled on the Internet for its lack of original plot, characters, and jokes.
Cueball responds to the topic by damning it with faint praise , starting with the presumption that somebody had to make a film about a "section of Unicode".
Unicode is the standard by which almost all modern text, in all languages, is represented as computer data. It consists of thousands of "code points", grouped into about 280 contiguous sections known as "blocks". There is no formal term "section of Unicode", which Randall seems to be using to skirt the fact that emojis are not all represented within one Unicode block.
Examples of potential Unicode blocks include "Playing Cards", "Musical Symbols", "Tibetan", "Hangul Jamo Extended-B", "Braille Patterns" – and of course "Combining diacritical marks" and "Dingbats", referred to in the comic.
Emojis are standard pictograms which include smileys (eg 😂) and common objects such as beer (🍺) and eggplant (🍆). Dating from the late 1990s, they were added to Unicode in 2010. There is actually no Unicode block known as "Emojis". There is Emoticons (U+1F600..U+1F64F), which contains 80 code points, mostly of facial expressions. However it does not include all emojis. For instance, "Baby" (👶) is U+1F476, within the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block.
The topic of emoji in Unicode also appears in 1813: Vomiting Emoji .
Megan responds to this presumption by facetiously suggesting that Hollywood should make a series of films about different code blocks, referencing Hollywood's current trend of reducing risk by making many sequels and adaptations. She proposes a movie about Combining Diacritical Marks (see 1647: Diacritics ), a different section of Unicode which contains 112 code points (each assigned to a character). These code points include many varieties of diacritics such as accents, cedillas and tildes which can be combined with other letters to produce an almost unlimited number of possibilities, such as "ў" (Cyrillic U plus breve).
Cueball quips that this series would have too many characters. This is a pun on the word "character", which has the double meaning of a fictional character , or a symbol which corresponds to a grapheme (e.g. letter, digit, punctuation mark). It's true that although the Combining Diacritical Marks movie would have only 112 characters, the series as a whole would have tens of thousands, including such epics as "Egyptian Hieroglyphs" (1,071) and "CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B" (42,720).
The " Antz / A Bug's Life thing" in the title text refers to the twin films phenomenon, in which two films with very similar (or identical) concepts are released within roughly the same timeframe. Competing studios Dreamworks and Pixar released their respective insect-oriented films in 1998, a year infamous for many other such film pairings (see the Wikipedia article for a full list).
Dingbats were an early form of pictograph included within the normal mechanisms for producing computer text, serving a similar function to emojis, but oriented towards practical symbols such as telephones, airport symbols and a wide variety arrows. Unlike emojis, they are usually black-and-white. Previously, dingbats required a specific font to render, but as part of Unicode (U+2700–U+27BF), they can now be displayed in a variety of fonts. For example: ✈  ✆ ➹ ✂ ✰ Some characters are both dingbats and emoji, and are followed with a variant-selector character to indicate whether they should be in color.
The joke is that although dingbats and emojis are superficially equivalent, a film which contains many cute human expressions would have much more potential for success than one about dry symbols such as arrows, asterisks and scissors.
Megan and Cueball's discussion about the movie is continued in 1870: Emoji Movie Reviews .
[Megan and Cueball are walking together while Megan is looking at her smartphone.] Megan: Did you see there's an emoji movie? Cueball: If they have to make a movie about a section of Unicode, it's not the worst choice... Megan: They should do a whole series. I would watch the Combining Diacritical Marks movie . Cueball: That series would have way too many characters.


4th of July

Explanation:
In the United States, the 4th of July is celebrated as Independence Day . This comic claims to show the timeline of different activities that are used to celebrate the holiday. One common activity is to watch fireworks displays. With the rise of personal drones there have been several videos of fireworks from drones, including flying the drones through the middle of the display. The comic then purports that starting in the year it was published (2017), fireworks and drones will be at some sort of war with each other, starting with drone pilots leading their drones into the path of the rising fireworks before they explode, leading to fireworks technicians intentionally trying to strike down drones. In 2019, Randall posits that the drones will be weaponized with fireworks and competitions will be held to shoot down your opponents' drone. This wanton destruction of drones leads them to turn against their pilots and humanity in 2020 (after gaining sentience, presumably by their AI evolving through the competition), and then in 2021, they will be celebrating their Independence Day from the humans. As of November 2021, drones have not yet overthrown humans. [ citation needed ]
Despite the many unfortunate events that happened in 2020, sentient firework-armed drones overthrowing humans was not one of them. [ citation needed ]
The title text refers to another popular 4th of July activity in the United States: Barbecues with fare such as hot dogs and hamburgers. But since the drones don't have mouths or a digestive tract, they simply make a mess by using their rotors as a blender.
[One single panel is shown. The header reads:] 4 th of July activities
2014 - Watching fireworks 2015 - Watching fireworks from drones 2016 - Flying drones through fireworks 2017 - Intercepting fireworks with drones 2018 - Competitions to hit drones with fireworks 2019 - Teams compete to shoot down each other's firework-armed drones 2020 - Sentient firework-armed drones overthrow humans 2021 - Drones celebrate independence day


Sports Knowledge

Explanation:
Cueball , representing Randall , demonstrates that he has some knowledge about Mike Trout , a baseball player for the Los Angeles Angels . However, he mixes up the Los Angeles baseball team for one of the city's basketball teams when he mentions the Lakers . White Hat questions his mentioning of the Lakers, after which Cueball takes another wild guess, this time mentioning an American football team, the Denver Broncos , based in Denver, Colorado, over 800 miles (1300 kilometers) away from Los Angeles, indicating even poorer knowledge about sports.
On-base plus slugging (OPS) is a baseball statistic calculated as the sum of the on-base percentage (the number of times a player reaches base divided by the number of plate appearances) and slugging percentage (singles + 2 times the doubles + 3 times the triples + 4 times the home runs divided by at bats). It is useful for figuring out how well a player reaches base and hits for power . As of the date this comic was published, Trout's OPS for the 2017 season at 1.203 was indeed higher than in any of his previous seasons, albeit over a smaller number of games because Trout indeed suffered a thumb injury in late May and had not played since then. (He returned to play starting on July 14.)
At the end of the season, the teams leading each division make the playoffs, along with a certain number of other teams. In the NFL (with 8 division winners) and MLB (with 6 division winners), 4 extra teams make the playoffs, and, in the NBA (also with 6 division winners), 10 teams beside the division winners qualify for the playoffs. In baseball the two teams in the American League play a Wild Card game against each other, as do the two in the National League, and in American football , there are Wild Card games in which the two wild card teams per conference play the two lower seeded division winners.  At the time of publication, the Los Angeles Angels were, indeed, in the running for a wild-card spot (2½ games out of the playoffs).
With the baseball season being halfway over (and thus months away from the Wild Card games in early October) and both football and basketball being in the off-season, Cueball further shows his lack of sports knowledge in asking whether it is next week, and assuming that he could spontaneously decide, at game time, to just go. He could make a decision to go now, but he would have to wait until the season is almost over when the seeding for the playoffs and wild card spots are decided. Sometimes the wild card spots aren't decided until the last game of the season; since MLB rules dictate that the Wild Card team with the better record hosts the game, this scenario would complicate the process of buying the tickets (which could be sold out prior to game time due to high demand), as well as other logistical matters (such as traveling to the game; if Cueball were located in the East Coast of the United States and the game were hosted by the Angels, Cueball would need to take a cross continent flight). In the end, the Angels were eliminated from postseason contention on the final weekend of the season, making Cueball's wish impossible until the next season.
As the caption says, he demonstrates that he has very specific knowledge in the topic but stumbles when anything out of his narrow field of view is brought up, similar to 132: Music Knowledge .
To compensate for his lack of interest and knowledge in sport Randall made the comic 1107: Sports Cheat Sheet , and he has before directly mentioned his missing knowledge in 1480: Super Bowl . (See more comics linked in those two).
[Cueball and White Hat are walking together.] Cueball: Mike Trout's on-base plus slugging has been at career highs. After this injury, the Lakers will be lucky if he can hit even close to that. White Hat: ...Lakers? Cueball: I forget which team he is. Broncos?
[Caption below the panel:] I know a handful of very specific things, but after that my sports knowledge falls apart quickly.


Communicating

Explanation:
There's glory for you.
In Lewis Carroll's " Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There ", Alice meets Humpty Dumpty (the egg-shaped character from the children's verse). Humpty Dumpty is a Looking Glass creature, and the Looking Glass creatures all feature some form of inversion. For Humpty Dumpty the inversion is in meanings. When they first meet, Humpty Dumpty berates Alice for having a name that doesn't mean anything (contrasted with his name which means his shape).
But later, Humpty declares to Alice "There's glory for you". Alice doesn't understand what Humpty means by "glory". Humpty explains that he can make words mean whatever he chooses to mean. By "glory" he meant "a nice knock-down argument". And he adds: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean. Neither more nor less." ( [1] )
In the comic Humpty is explaining to "Alice" (portrayed by Science Girl ) that he can choose meanings for his words. Alice points out the obvious problem by pretending to wonder what meaning should be given to that utterance, and decides it means "Please take all my belongings". Humpty realizes he has been caught in a trap, but now Alice is choosing meanings, and even his protests are taken to mean "take my car along with my belongings".
While it seems that Alice chooses these specific meanings of words to educate Humpty Dumpty about the mistake in his way of thinking, she could as well inform him about planned theft with random, meaningless words or not at all. After all, she got "permission". Also, even though Humpty Dumpty decides about the meanings of words by himself, he "accidentally" chooses the normal meanings of all of Alice's words, because otherwise he wouldn't be informed about the planned theft and wouldn't be able to react to this with "What!? No!".
Humpty Dumpty is known from the nursery rhyme or riddle:
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpy Dumpty had a great fall. All the King's horses and all the King's men, Couldn't put Humpty together again.
Carroll's Humpty Dumpty is a parody of people who use technical language without defining their terms, and expect others to understand. The title text continues this. By Humpty insisting that he is not responsible for others understanding him he is unable to get help getting down from the wall, which will lead to his inevitable demise. This two-sided nature of communication is also shown in the title text of 1028: Communication , as well as in later comics like 1984: Misinterpretation (with a list of other comics about communication).
[Egg-shaped character Humpty Dumpty, drawn with an angry face, is sitting on a brick wall and facing Alice, depicted as Science Girl.] Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean. Neither more nor less. Alice: I wonder what all those words you just said meant. Maybe you're telling me I can have all your stuff! Humpty Dumpty: What!? No! Alice: Your car, too? Gosh, thanks!


Quantum

Explanation:
The comic depicts a relationship between how philosophically exciting the questions in a field of study are, versus how many years are required to understand the answers.  For example, special relativity poses very intriguing philosophical questions, such as " can the temporal ordering of spatially separated events depend on the observer? ", or " can time run at different rates for differerent observers? ".  But it doesn't take a lot of mathematical knowledge to understand the answers - that when objects move very close to the speed of light, time slows down and their lengths contract : the key Lorentz transformations ultimately involve little more than high-school algebra. Hence, Special Relativity is very high up on the y-axis but not very far on the x-axis.  Basic physics is not very philosophically interesting but also not very complicated. Fluid dynamics , as captured by the Navier–Stokes equations is very complicated, but it's concerned with a very specific topic - how water or other fluids flow around - so it doesn't lead to big philosophical questions.
The "danger zone" in the top right of the chart is when a field of study is wide-ranging enough to pose broad philosophical questions, and also so complicated that most people can't answer those questions. Quantum mechanics deals with some very strange concepts that readily lend themselves to philosophical questions, such as the idea that merely observing something can change it, or the idea that something can be both a wave and a particle at the same time.  However, the explanation for those phenomena is a very complicated piece of math, notably the Schrödinger equation , which means that most people don't have accurate answers to those questions. Randall suggests that this is the reason why so many people have "weird ideas" about quantum mechanics.
1240: Quantum Mechanics also discusses weird ideas that people have about quantum mechanics.
General relativity also presupposes considerable mathematical sophistication to understand the Einstein field equations . However, the main contribution of GR – the explanation of gravity in terms of a curved spacetime – does not seem to induce a lot of philosophical novelty beyond that already seen in special relativity, possibly with the exception of black holes .
The title text references the Insane Clown Posse (ICP) song " Miracles ", made memetic by the lyric "Fucking magnets, how do they work?"  An axis is the direction on a graph in which some quantity is increasing or decreasing.  So things that are far along the "miracle" axis are presumably more miraculous.  As you move from bottom-left to top-right on the graph, items become both more philosophically interesting and harder to understand.  It would be fair to describe something that's hard to understand and raises big philosophical questions as a "miracle". The ICP "Miracles" axis would also intersect the topic "magnets" infamously mentioned in the song.
[A chart with the Y-axis titled "How Philosophically Exciting the Questions Are to a Novice Student" and the X-axis titled "How Many Years of Math are Needed to Understand the Answers". The upper-right portion of the chart is labeled "Danger Zone". The following topics are charted as follows: Basic Physics: low excitement, low prerequisites Fluid Dynamics: low excitement, high prerequisites Magnets: medium excitement, medium prerequisites General Relativity: medium excitement, high prerequisites (on the border to the "Danger Zone") Special Relativity: high excitement, low prerequisites Quantum Mechanics: high excitement, high prerequisites (in the "Danger Zone")]
[Caption below the panel:] Why so many people have weird ideas about Quantum Mechanics


Particle Properties

Particle Properties in Physics

Explanation:
A table is presented comparing the range (maximum and minimum value) and scale (how big number increments are) of several measures. The table begins by listing properties pertinent to particle physics as the title suggests, but quickly devolves to other domains such as role-playing games (such as D&D) and sports after failing to provide a good definition of flavor .
The title text says that in addition each particle has a password, but only hash of the password can be observed. This is a computer science reference. In computer science, properties (e.g. of an object or program) often can be changed with a single command. In physics as we observe it, properties can locally change with the environment. There are several experiments , whether physical constants are really time-const. Password hashing is the practice of hiding the password itself by storing only an irreversible representation of the password. Since the password itself is not stored, the password cannot ever be viewed by the user or a hacker (outside of the login page). This method is considered to be safest way of storing passwords. Password hashing using some key derivation function makes it impossible to steal passwords even if the server that stores hashes is cracked, unless the hash function is also broken, which should be a task which cannot be completed in any feasible time for sufficiently strong passwords. The title-text claims this is predicted by the cosmic censorship hypothesis , which in reality claims that a gravitational singularity must always be obscured by an event horizon (i.e.: there can't be a naked singularity ). There is also a hint of quantum mechanics in the statement, as observation is one of the central concepts of the field, and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle actually states that it is impossible to observe (measure) some property of a particle with arbitrary precision when another one is known (e.g.: you can't determine the momentum and position of a particle). This makes the title text a mix of several domains, as was the above table.
Particle Properties in Physics


Screenshots

Explanation:
The comic shows a syllabus of an introductory course on screenshots . Screenshots have become a common way of spreading and sharing content on social media like Tumblr and Twitter, particularly excerpts of text such as seen in the cartoon. This in turn has developed into a common language with unwritten rules; the comic imagines a world where such rules have become codified into best practices, able to be taught in classes.
The image on the left shows an image of screenshots of text, along with what seems like annotations describing various ratios and dos and don'ts about making such screenshots. The right side shows the main points of the course, touching on topics that are relevant for making and publishing screenshots. Some of these guidelines are violated on a regular basis by people sharing screenshots on the internet, leading to impaired readability and the degradation of digital quality (see 1683: Digital Data ).
The punchline of the comic describes a high attendance in the course (presumably many people are interested in how to take high-quality screenshots); however, the digital textbook only sold one copy, implying that the only attendee that bought the book was adept enough to distribute screenshots of the textbook content to the others, because of the information gathered from the class itself. In essence, the writer of the textbook has taught their students how to pirate their material, effectively putting themselves out of a job. There isn't anything that the author can do to prevent this due to the analog hole , which states that if non-interactive media can be visually seen by humans, it can be copied, as with a screenshot.
Detailed explanation of the headings on the right:
Highlighting: What & How much? This refers to highlighting text of particular interest in screenshots, as depicted on the left.
Aspect ratios Again, depicted on the left. If a screenshot is too wide, it might be difficult to read, and/or it will not fit into thumbnails and social networking feeds. This leads to the screenshot being scaled down too much to be readable (see bottom left). An aspect ratio that is too tall would have similar effects, so in general it is better to stick to near-square aspect ratios (see bottom right of the left section). Some users change the aspect ratio when scaling with a very ugly result (see e.g. 1187: Aspect Ratio ).
Cropping: Pre- and Post- This refers to cropping the image, that is, cutting away the irrelevant or unnecessary parts, leaving just the content one needs to communicate. Pre- and Post- refers to when the cropping is done, either before the screenshot (i.e. framing the shot) or cropping the screenshot after it has been taken (i.e. fine tuning it in a photo editing program).
Whitespace This section presumably deals with whitespace . This generally refers to the space around the content of interest, which is often but not always white. In the main image on the left side of this comic, most of the red marks are arrows indicating the white space of that image. In this case the "whitespace" at the top and bottom are indeed not white, but rather filled with text not relevant to the screenshot. Removing all whitespace makes an image more efficient and helps provide focus on the important part of a screenshot, but too little whitespace can be less comfortable to read or look at, and therefore appear as a more amateurish result. This section of the course would likely discuss this balance.
Screenshots vs Links For the most part it is recommended that one links to the original content, rather than publishing a screenshot of said content. In some situations it is advisable to opt for using screenshots, such as if the content in question has been removed from the original source, and one still wants to communicate the fact that it was published there. Additionally, a screenshot is easier to catch people's attention with, as it doesn't require them to take any actions to view.
Catching the right GIF frame A GIF is a bitmap image format that was developed in 1987 by CompuServe and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability. The format supports animations and is often used for short looping animations on the internet. They often employ a low frame rate , so that one might notice a funny or interesting frame during playback. The naïve approach is to press the 'Print Screen' button with careful timing, but in this manner it can be very challenging to capture the desired frame of any GIF that plays at a speed of greater than 5 frames per second. Presumably, the course introduces its students to special tools to get the job done, such as the EZgif website or the downloadable 7GIF app .
Snapchat and trust Snapchat is a popular social networking application for mobile devices primarily used for sharing images and short videos. One of the main selling points is the transience of content posted. The idea is that as soon as one opens an image or video, a timer starts, and once it has expired the content is no longer accessible on the device. This has led to people sending sensitive content to their friends, thinking that they wouldn't be able to cause much harm, as the content is non-permanent. An obvious flaw in this model is the capability of modern mobile devices to take screenshots (usually available from shortcut keys), and thus permanently save the images to the phone's memory. Saving embarrassing images of one's friends, that they themselves meant as a transient joke, is a serious breach of trust, hence the heading.
Embarrassing background tabs A common error when publishing screenshots is not being careful, and leaving content visible that might be embarrassing. For instance, a browser tab open in the background might show content that is embarrassing or private information, such as a page about a sensitive disease one may have (e.g. AIDS ) or pornography . It is easy to miss this when checking, which leads to situations such as this one , where a politician handed out a document with background tabs to pornography websites.
Spellcheck's red underlines Spell checkers are designed to notify the writer of a document of spelling and grammatical mistakes in the text. This is usually done through the editor marking text it thinks is incorrect with an underline (usually red, but other colors may indicate different kinds of mistakes). Sometimes these mistakes are not relevant to the writer, such as when editing source code or using a spellchecker that is set to another language. Even if the corrections are relevant, however, one would not want the ugly red underlines on a screenshot. This section presumably deals with this problem.
Security: Beware of URL tokens URL tokens are pieces of code embedded in the URL of a website. If implemented well, these help identify a particular document or search query, and do not carry any sensitive security information. Insecure web-apps, however, may encode authentication information (such as session IDs , or even worse: usernames and passwords) in the URL, leading to a massive security risk on the part of someone whose screen might be visible to others. Screenshots allow anyone to easily read off these parameters, and possibly successfully impersonate the creator of the screenshot on a website. This is especially hard to notice to less technically inclined users, who might not know that, say, a session ID (a seemingly random jumble of characters), might be used to impersonate them.
Redacting personal info Somewhat related to the previous point: Screenshots might include personal information, such as indications of institutions one might work for, e-mail addresses, and the like, that one might not want to share with the world. This section presumably deals with ways of obscuring such information on screenshots.
Useful browser modes Using the private browsing mode offered by most browsers helps with the previous point of keeping your personal information out of the screenshots because websites see you as logged out. Another helpful mode is the full screen browsing mode (usually F11) that will maximize the content to cover the whole screen, keeping the browser UI out of the screenshots. This also helps with privacy, as it will keep the bookmarks on your browser toolbar from being visible, as well as your username if you're logged in Chrome, without having to crop the screenshots manually. Counterpointing with the final bullet on spotting fakes, the Inspect Element browser mode allows you to live-edit the HTML source of the webpage, allowing you to create more convincing fakes if that is your goal.
Tradeoffs: PNG vs JPG PNG and JPG are file formats with different image compression algorithms . JPG is widely used for encoding photographs, as it compresses real-world images to a fraction of their normal size without losing much quality. On artificial images with lots of sharp changes in contrast (such as text), however, JPG produces visible compression artifacts due to its lossy compression . For these, PNG is usually used, as it compresses large blocks of a single color, and repeating patterns efficiently, and due to it having a lossless option is able to encode text without artifacts, improving readability. PNG is usually superior for screenshots, as these are artificial images, but if the screenshot is of an actual photo (or a frame of a GIF or movie), JPG might yield lower file sizes at comparable quality. This tradeoff is presumably discussed under the heading. JPG images also have an attached EXIF data file, not present in PNG images, which may contain information about the device that the screenshot was taken on (especially "with", e.g. a camera) and thus be a potential privacy risk in some cases. However, EXIF metadata is not used with JPEG 2000. However, PNG can contain a transparency layer, allowing the object in the image to exist without a background.
Watermark ethics Many users and websites add watermarks to their original content (or even worse: their screenshots) to indicate where it came from. As depicted in 1683: Digital Data this can lead to degradation of quality as watermarks are stacked on top of each other. It is generally considered okay to put a single unobtrusive watermark on one's own original work; anything other than that would be considered unethical.
Spotting fakes It is relatively easy to fake a screenshot in an image editing program such as GIMP or just editing the page source, making it seem like another organization or person is the original source of the content, possibly damaging their reputation. Some of these techniques are easily detectable by looking at the images metadata or correlating the contents of the screenshot with other sources.
The title text once again refers to the continual re-screenshooting of data as seen in 1683: Digital Data , where the final examination consists of the students taking a screenshot good enough that it is still recognizable (and hopefully readable) after being re-compressed, re-screenshot and re-uploaded to various social networking sites, deteriorating its quality. This is quite a difficult task, considering the student only has control over the first screenshot, and subsequent screenshots could degrade the quality to any level. Hopefully the professor is aware of this and plans to perform the test under controlled conditions, as well as grade on a curve.
Screenshots were previously explored by Randall in 1373: Screenshot , 1683: Digital Data and 1815: Flag . This comic is one of a small set of comics with the same or almost the same title as another comic (with only the plural form of the word screenshot being the difference).
Intro to Screenshots
[The left side of the panel shows three images. The largest image is a screenshot of text with the middle section highlighted and margins and top and bottom rows marked with red lines and arrows. The two smaller images below are cropped versions of the screenshot in the first image: the left image has an incorrect "squashed" aspect ratio and a red X on it, while the right image has a correct aspect ratio and a green check mark.]
[The right side of the panel:]
Syllabus Highlighting: What & how much Aspect ratios Cropping: Pre- and post- Whitespace Screenshots vs links Catching the right GIF frame Snapchat and trust Embarrassing background tabs Spellcheck's red outlines Security: Beware URL tokens Redacting personal info Useful browser modes Tradeoffs: PNG vs JPG Watermark ethics Spotting fakes
[Caption below the panel:] My class on screenshots was a big hit, although for some reason I only ever sold one copy of the digital textbook.


City Nicknames

Explanation:
Cities often have official or unofficial nicknames. For instance, St. Louis, Missouri , is known as "Gateway to the West" among several other nicknames. The nicknames typically invoke some historical or geographic feature of the city, but can sometime be opaque to those not familiar with the city. The full, formal name of Bangkok includes a long list of superlatives translating as "The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city (of Ayutthaya) of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn."
Despite the skyline being clearly recognizable as St. Louis due to the Gateway Arch , Black Hat calls it New York City . However, the nickname he gives is neither a common New York nickname (such as " The Big Apple ") nor a St. Louis nickname. Megan tries to correct him, but it becomes clear that Black Hat is making up nicknames. Many of his suggestions are puns for real nicknames of other places.
The title text contains made up demonyms in the same pattern. A demonym is a word for the people who live in a particular place. They are typically derived from the name of the place (e.g. "St. Louisan" for people from St. Louis, or New Yorker for those from New York), but some regions have an informal demonym that can be used colloquially by those familiar with the place to refer to its residents (e.g. Hoosier for people from Indiana).
[Black Hat, Megan, and Ponytail are standing on a hill overlooking a city. The Gateway Arch is visible, as well as a number of skyscrapers in the skyline.] Black Hat: Ah, New York. The Hot Tamale. Megan: This is St. Louis. Also, that's not– Black Hat: The Winged City. The Gold Trombone. Castleopolis. Megan: It's none of those.
[Close-up of Black Hat] Black Hat: The Kissing Kingdom. Sandland. The High Place. Ol' Ironhook. Megan (off-panel): Still wrong. Black Hat: The Thousand Spires. The Graveyard of Kings. Bloomtown. Lantern City USA. Megan (off-panel): Please stop.
[Black Hat, Megan, and Ponytail are walking] Black Hat: The City of Many Daughters. Big Mauve. The Glass Cradle. The Road Source. London Prime. Hamtown. The Salad Bowl. God's Boudoir. The Glittering Swamp. The Steel Forest. The Mobius Strip. The Land of Trains and Fog. The Meeting Place. The Dark Star. The Walled Garden. Skin City. The Horse Rotary. Turkeytown. The Naked Towers. The Meta-City. The Urban Orb. The City of Angles. The Big Wheel. Bird City USA. The City of Seven Crowns. Hilltopia. Bug City. The Bottomless Cup. [Text size getting smaller] Lorde's Fen. The Last Town. The Empty Set. Ghost Harbor. Megan: How long does this last? Ponytail: No city has ever let him stay long enough to find out.


Wifi vs Cellular

Explanation:
In this comic Randall remarks on how recent changes in Wi-Fi and Cellular data reliability have impacted his behavior. Wi-Fi technology has had several advantages over cellular data transmission due to Wi-Fi antennas' more ubiquitous distribution and ability to focus on high data transmission rates instead of broad signal coverage. However, as Wi-Fi has become more popular it is increasingly common to encounter Wi-Fi networks using outdated hardware, poorly organized or overburdened networks, and competition for bandwidth with other Wi-Fi devices. Meanwhile due to continued commercial investment in upgrading and expanding cellular networks and the more frequent consumer replacement of cellular handsets, the reliability of cellular data has continued to increase.
Randall notes that prior to 2015 he found that he could improve his internet connection by connecting to a Wi-Fi network instead of using cellular data. After 2015 however, he finds that in many cases he is able to get a stronger connection by disengaging his Wi-Fi connection and getting his data over a cellular connection.
Anything larger than a few kilobytes would previously require someone to switch off network data and connect to a wireless network. However, for a couple of years, cellular networks' data transmission rates have often become more reliable (albeit usually costlier for larger amount of data usage) while home Wi-Fi has remained fairly constant, meaning the cellular network is often the best choice to download a file.
Randall says it is weird from a networking point of view , but in fact modern LTE connections via the cellular network are faster ( up to 300 Mbit/s ) than the common used Wi-Fi standards like 802.11b/g and 802.11n ( 54-150 Mbit/s ). Faster Wi-Fi standards do exist but they are very rarely supported.
In the title text Randall takes a moment to rail against the often misleading promotional rates offered by cable internet providers. Such providers often attempt to up-sell consumer on internet packages with additional features. Here Randall juxtaposes several descriptors that might feature in a cable ad with several that refer to other things entirely. Xtreme Gigaband is a plausible internet package name, but might also be a reference to Comcast's often derided " Xfinity " promotions. And while Panamax sounds like it may be a film term, it is actually a ship classification that denotes the maximum size ship that can safely pass through the Panama canal . (This could also be referencing the title text of 1632: Palindrome .) Seeing as the title text mentions the cable company, implying that they're also Randall's Internet Service Provider, being "with HBO " would mean including HBO in the cable channel line-up, and most likely include being able to stream TV shows made by HBO. Since HBO shows include Game of Thrones , whose 7th season started only 3 days earlier, it's plausible that this comic might have been inspired by Randall attempting to stream the season premiere. Flavor-Blasted is a food term often used in hyperbolic television food ad, but also could be a reference to Comcast Cable's "Blast!" internet packages. Pricing mentioned in title text is exaggerated with only $5 more during first six months, but costing 5 billion after, which is a reference to how service providers would often advertise a lower temporary price, while if you read the fine print the plan is much more costly once the limited time offer runs out, and discounting is simply used for marketing purposes. What's worse, these discounted periods (typically six months) often come with a much longer contract (typically two years) which imposes cancelation fees.
[A graph with two curves that cross each other. The two areas beneath the curve at the top, and down to either the X-axis or the other curve are shaded with vertical gray lines. The Y-axis has no label, but represents reliability, the X-axis is a timeline, with labels indicating years beneath the axis, without any ticks. The two curves are labeled with text interrupting the curves, in the second case using two lines for the text. In the left shaded area there is a label inside and the right shaded area the label is beneath the curves with an arrow pointing to the area. All this text and the arrow is gray. Above the curves there is a caption also in gray font:] To get something to load on my phone, sometimes I have to...
Label left area: ...Connect to WiFi Label right area: ...Turn off WiFi
Label curve one: Home WiFi reliability Label curve two: Cellular data reliability
Year labels: 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
[Caption below the panel:] It seems weird from a networking point of view, but sometime in the last few years this flipped for me.


Russell's Teapot

Explanation:
Russell's Teapot is a philosophical argument that reflects on the difficulty of trying to prove a negative. It involves a hypothetical teapot orbiting a heavenly body, whose existence hasn't been proven, and states that it cannot be disproven (somebody put it there secretly?). While an instrument could be theoretically engineered to pick out a teapot-sized object of any luminosity, the teapot would be very easy to confuse for other pieces of space debris, and the space to search is extremely large; the task is thus akin to the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack.
Bertrand Russell devised this analogy "to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others." As such, Russell's teapot is very often used in atheistic arguments.
Cueball is trying to settle the teapot argument by actually launching a teapot into space via a crowdfunding campaign. This misses the point of Russell's argument, which is about unfalsifiable claims in rhetoric and not a literal teapot.
" CubeSat -based design" refers to a type of miniaturized satellites that is made up of 10-centimeter cube units (here seemingly consisting of 3 units) and enables cost-effective means for getting a payload into orbit.
The title-text refers to Russell's paradox , also formulated by Bertrand Russell. Russell's paradox was a flaw found in naïve set theory where one could consider "the set of all sets that do not contain themselves" (a "set" is a mathematical term for a "group of things" -- "things" in this case including a set itself). The paradox arises with whether this set, in turn, contains itself: if it does, then it cannot; if it doesn't, then it must. Similarly, like in the barber paradox , the vehicle which launches only vehicles which do not launch themselves is impossible: if the vehicle takes off, it must launch itself as well as the teapot, and thus can never be launched (without violating alleged NASA regulations, at least). That said, he might get around those regulations by using an initial first stage with an offboard power source for the moment of launch, for example a laser striking a parabolic mirror and massively heating air beneath the craft, causing expansion, or a compressed gas cold launch system such as used to clear submarine launched missiles from their tubes before the real rocket motor ignites.
The barber paradox can be stated as follows: "Consider a town in which a man, the barber, shaves precisely those men who do not shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself?" Either answer, yes or no, leads to a contradiction. Sometimes the paradox is incorrectly stated, replacing "precisely those" with "only". Under that scenario, there is no paradox; the barber is merely unkempt.
There is, however, a solution in this case. Instead of launching itself, the teapot-containing vehicle may be fired from a space gun , catapult, or other launcher, and then boost itself the rest of the way. This, while true for the CubeSats themselves, is not true for their carrier.
Randall has talked about CubeSats in later comics as well, specifically in 1992: SafetySat and 2148: Cubesat Launch .
From the top right, clockwise.
[Cueball is standing in front of a blueprint labeled "CubeSat-Based Design", containing a satellite with a teapot in the top.]
[Caption below the panel:] I'm crowdfunding a project to launch a teapot into orbit around the sun to settle the Russell thing once and for all.


Physics Confession

Explanation:
A Theory of Everything is a goal of modern physics which would describe the properties of all fundamental particles and all the interactions between them. The current approach to a theory of everything is to describe how at high energies different interactions, such as electromagnetic forces and the strong and weak nuclear interactions merge. It would be possible, in principle to demonstrate how the rest of known physics can be derived from that quantum behavior. This approach, however, leaves many everyday phenomena which are not understood by modern physics, and many arguments against a theory of everything suggest that it won't ever be able to actually precisely describe everything. This comic lists several of those phenomena:
The fine detail of how ice skates work is unknown. It is known that there is a film of water between the skate and the ice that lubricates sliding, but scientists dispute how the film gets there. The commonly held belief is that it is caused by the pressure of the narrow skate; another belief is that the ice is melted by the friction of movement; but both fail to fully explain why skating continues to be possible at temperatures that are significantly below 0 Celsius. A better explanation is simply that, near the melting point of a solid, there will be a thin layer of liquid on the surface due to the dynamic equilibrium between the two phases, hence why ice is slippery. This happens regardless of the presence of skates. A more complete explanation is given in the linked article: Why is ice slippery? .
Physicists lack a clear understanding of the interactions involved in the flow of granular materials , such as sand. It is known that the behavior diverges greatly from that of a liquid, but it is unknown exactly how the flow works. PhysicsCentral:Granular Materials
Modern physics also doesn't understand what makes electrons move from one material to another when two materials are rubbed against each other (the triboelectric effect ), and why the transfer takes more electrons in one direction than in the other. However, this happens, and it's the cause of static electricity , which can be seen when one rubs a latex rubber balloon against hair.
The title text mentions another common phenomenon that is poorly understood: the separation of charges in a cumulonimbus cloud. It is thought that interactions between ice and water transfer electrons, and then the different motion of ice (as hail) and water droplets in the cloud separates the charge. NOAA How lightning is created .
[Megan is facing Ponytail and Cueball.] Megan: I'll be honest: We physicists talk a big game about the theory of everything, but the truth is, we don't really understand why ice skates work, how sand flows, or where the static charge comes from when you rub your hair with a balloon.


Eclipse Flights

Explanation:
A total solar eclipse occurred on Monday, August 21, 2017 .  It was visible as a total eclipse in a narrow band across the contiguous United States from Oregon on the Pacific coast to South Carolina on the Atlantic. Cueball asks Megan what she is doing, which turns out to be mapping the flights of aircraft that will be flying through the path of totality during the eclipse. She has found between 50 to 100 such flights.
While most flights during the eclipse are coincidental, a few airlines had special flights planned for the occasion. Alaska Airlines, for example, chartered an invitation only flight for about 50 astronomers and serious eclipse chasers.
On the map, the center of the greatest eclipse is shown on the border between Illinois and Kentucky . Cueball says that the airlines and pilots will be prepared and aware of the situation, but Megan wonders what it would be like on a plane with an unprepared crew. The last panel shows a plane flying into the area of the eclipse with one of the crew telling the passengers that the end of the world has come.
In many cultures such as ancient Egypt, the end of the world is represented by a great darkness and the sun going out. During past eclipses, people were said to have believed the world was ending much like this comic (except without planes). This could also be a reference to 1391: Darkness as in that comic the reporters also believed a natural event to be the world ending although in a different setting.
The title text refers to the 'fasten seat belts' signs on display for the passengers, as a precautionary measure for turbulence. Many pop-culture depictions of the end of the world feature storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, etc; as the captain believes that the end of the world is upon them, he feels it safe to ensure his passengers are prepared for turbulence from any of the phenomena that occur during the end times. However, the precaution of having one's seat belt fastened is vastly insufficient when confronted with such catastrophic events.
This was the first reference to the Eclipse within a month of the totality. It was followed less than three weeks later by 1876: Eclipse Searches . The 2017 eclipse was mentioned as early as 2013 in the title text of 1302: Year in Review . And this year's New Year comic, 1779: 2017 , also mentions it. Both comics express concern, in the title text, that it would be canceled/not happen.
[Cueball is standing behind Megan, looking over her shoulder as she's seated in front of her laptop.] Cueball: What's that? Megan: Flight plans. Looks like there will be 50 to 100 flights whose route puts them in the path of the eclipse next month.
[A map with a shaded path of the eclipse and red planes traveling is shown, with nine planes inside the path and one inside the eclipse shadow..]
Cueball: I'm sure the airlines will be prepared. Pilots know that stuff. Megan: But can you imagine being on the one flight where the pilot didn't?
[A more detailed plane is shown flying into a curtain of darkness.] Captain: *KSSCHHH* [sound of intercom being activated] Captain: This is your captain speaking. If you look out the right side of the plane, you'll see, uhh... Captain: Folks, this appears to be the end times.


Positive and Negative Reviews

Explanation:
The comic shows customer reviews from people who purchased a made-up sports drink multi-pack containing twelve 20 oz bottles. The people who gave negative reviews are Merlin (the wizard from the legends of King Arthur) and B. Button (from the short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and its film adaptation ). Merlin remembers the future; in the T. H. White novel series The Once and Future King , he was born at the wrong end of time and has to live backwards. Benjamin Button was born with the physical appearance of an old man and grows younger as time progresses. In this comic, they apparently perceive time backwards: Merlin was thirsty then he drank the SmartQuench 9000, but he perceived it as drinking and then becoming thirsty. Benjamin Button was dehydrated then drank 3 bottles and got better, but perceived it the other way around.
Particles of matter can have a positive or negative electric charge . Particles have associated antiparticles with opposite charge. For example electrons are negatively charged particles and their antiparticles are positrons , which are positively charged. Antiparticles can be interpreted as if they were the associated particle moving backward in time. Applying that interpretation to customer reviews gives the caption of the comic: positive reviews from people traveling backward in time are negative reviews (the "antiparticles" of positive reviews).
The caption seems to say that there are only positive experiences—some going forward, some backward in life. However, Randall gives an example in the title text of a positive review which is actually about a negative experience by a person traveling backward in time (the person ate at a restaurant then got sick). The conclusion is that there are both positive and negative events, but the way they are perceived depends on both the event and whether one sees it going forward or backward in time.
[A picture with four small bottles and a larger one is shown. The text to the right reads:] SmartQuench 9000 Sports Drink 20 oz  12-pack
[Below is a list with reviews; a picture for the user (avatar) and the name below, the rating (in stars) and the text to the right.] ---Customer reviews--- Amy 2015 (4 of 5 stars) Perfect after a run Anon513 (5 of 5 stars) My favorite flavor Merlin (1 of 5 stars) Drinking this made me thirstier Mike63 (4 of 5 stars) Good price B Button (1 of 5 stars) Drank 3 bottles on a hot day and got dehydrated!
[Caption below the frame:] Physics tells us that negative reviews are really just positive reviews from people traveling backward in time.


Emoji Movie Reviews

Explanation:
This comic discusses reviews of The Emoji Movie (previously covered in 1857: Emoji Movie ) between the cynical, Internet-equipped point of view of Megan and Cueball's language-enthusiasm. They ultimately agree the movie is bad.
The Emoji Movie was released to theaters in late July 2017 and received nearly universally-negative reviews. It is particularly notable for having a rating below 10% on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes . Many critics of movie point to superficial problems like the subject matter and the product placement. Here, that train of thought is articulated a bit more, and ultimately it's argued that the real reason the film is bad is because the creators cashed in on a trend without doing any research into it.
When Megan first mentions the movie's negative reviews, Cueball initially accuses the audience of being overly judgmental of the subject matter. He further expresses his fondness for emoji as an interesting and quirky part of language.
Cueball offers an early defense of The Emoji Movie by comparing it to The Lego Movie , which – despite effectively being an entire movie of product placement for Lego – received generally positive reviews.
They start talking about a "Meh" emoji, who is the main character of the movie. The idea of " meh " as an emoji is actually ambiguous, as various emoji can be used to describe being unimpressed or neutral towards something. As given in examples from comic those are 😒 ( U+1F612 Unamused face), 😐 (U+1F610 Neutral face) or 😕 (U+1F615 Confused face). The selection of a less identifiable emoji for the leading role also contrasts with the fact that the movie also features more iconic emojis.
Megan mentions that one of the attempted jokes in the film is a room full of emojis that are unpopular. Bizarrely, the eggplant emoji (🍆, U+1F346 Aubergine) is featured among them. This is a clear sign that the creative team in charge of this movie had limited first-hand experience with SMS messaging; as any frequent user of emoji will tell you, the 🍆 is frequently used as a sly stand-in for a penis, due to its similar shape. Cueball's reaction is to ask whether the creators of this film intentionally got this wrong (perhaps as a joke, or active denial of the emoji's common usage because it wouldn't be appropriate for a kid's movie).
The line from the Wikipedia plot summary was a direct quote from Wikipedia . The sentence was introduced to the article by editor Voicebox64 on July 28, 2017 , and the exact phrasing quoted in the comic came from editor SubZeroSilver on July 30 . Cueball's response to hearing this line, stating that "it's possible this movie is bad", is likely due to the fact that piracy is the act of obtaining media illegally, generally without paying for it over the internet. This means that there is a very low chance of there being a 'piracy app', as an app such as this would not be allowed on any online app store.  (A few piracy-focused apps do exist, like Popcorn Time , but they are not available in app stores for obvious reasons.) Jailbreak's design in the movie also does not bear a resemblance to hacker-like emojis at the time the movie was released (👩💻, 👨💻) or any existing emoji. (This lack of any existent hacker emoji, however, is addressed in the movie; when pressed on the topic, Jailbreak is revealed to be the princess emoji in disguise.) Furthermore, the blatant product placement of the protagonists' desires to use Dropbox, the proprietary software of a for-profit company, is the final nail in the movie's coffin in Cueball's opinion. The fact that Jailbreak's plans to live 'in the cloud' superficially match with Dropbox's cloud storage service does not salvage the concept.
The title text is an argument against the common prediction that emojis would lead to less nuanced communication, and as evidence it cites the thinking face emoji (🤔) and upside-down smiley (🙃), both of which are used in ways that have developed difficult-to-define nuances and meanings. In the first case, the thinking-face emoji is often used sarcastically -- for example, feigning confusion when presented with contradictory/hypocritical statements from the same source. The upside-down smiley also has specific usage, indicating a tone of silliness or even insanity, and is also often used sarcastically, such as when reacting to bad news.
[Cueball and Megan are walking. Megan is checking her phone.] Megan: Reviews for The Emoji Movie are... not good. Cueball: People are just snobs about emoji. I like them! Language is cool and weird.
[Zoom on Megan; Cueball is outside of the frame.] Megan: It's apparently 80% product placement. Cueball (off-screen): Whatever. So was The Lego Movie, and I liked that .
[Zoom out; Cueball looks at Megan's phone.] Megan: It features the emoji we all know and love - with a "Meh" emoji in the starring role! Cueball: Wait... a "Meh" emoji? Megan: I wondered about that, too; the others are all familiar. Do they mean 😒? Or 😐 or 😕? Cueball: That's a little confusing...
[Zoom in on both heads; Megan is looking at her phone.] Megan: There's a joke in the movie about the "emoji that no one uses" that includes the eggplant emoji. Cueball: ...was that on purpose? Or did they not run the script by enough people?
[Megan and Cueball continue walking.] Megan: Here's a line from the Wikipedia plot summary: Megan: Gene and Hi-5 come to a piracy app where they meet the hacker emoji Jailbreak, who wants to reach Dropbox so that she can live in the cloud. Cueball: Okay. Cueball: It's possible this movie is bad.


Bun Alert

Explanation:
The comic opens with Beret Guy identifying a "bun", an informal term for a rabbit also used in 1682: Bun . The title text of that former comic specifically refers to sending out a "BUN ALERT" to friends and family with location and photographic evidence of the bun, so in this comic, that concept appears to have been elevated from a simple mass SMS/MMS message to a standalone application.
Upon seeing the bun, Beret Guy uses his phone to send an alert about the "Bun" with a push notification . He is still looking for investors, though such an app would likely not appeal to a wide market. In response to Ponytail 's confusion, he explains that bunnies are "like loaves of bread that hop" making a pun by comparing rabbits to bread, as "bun" can commonly refer to a small loaf of bread. Beret Guy is known to be fascinated with bakeries, as shown in the comics 434: xkcd Goes to the Airport , 442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel , or 452: Mission , so it makes sense that this sort of comparison occurs to him. It is known that the word "bun" is similar to the word "pun". Beret Guy has a history of misinterpreting statements and phrases (and often making said misinterpretations correct through some strange power of his), so it is not implausible that he actually genuinely thinks that these "buns" are bread products that somehow behave exactly like rabbits.
As Ponytail leaves, apparently to remove herself from the situation, Megan hurriedly approaches, excited to see the "bun". This serves as a punchline as, despite Ponytail appearing to be the voice of reason, it seems that Beret Guy's inane bun alert system has gathered a dedicated following after all.
Megan's question "Is it small?" and her amazement when she finds out that it is parallels the idea in 1682: Bun where the bun's size is said to be inversely correlated with its status; smaller buns such as the one in this comic are thought of as higher-ranking "king buns" by the characters in both strips. In real life, smaller rabbits are more likely to simply be young. It is also possible that she simply thinks smaller buns are cuter, which might have been the motivation for the whole bun-ranking system thing in the first place.
The title text refers to buns being crepuscular and nocturnal animals, meaning they are primarily active at twilight and night, respectively. This means that someone with the app would get a lot of notifications while they would most likely be asleep. Many smartphones have a "Do Not Disturb" mode that can be activated so that only select communications (i.e. direct calls) will actually set off the ringer/vibration, and all others will simply be added to the device's notification queue; such a function can be scheduled to automatically activate during the period when the user is asleep. The title text unironically points out a prime example of the need for such a function: if something is likely to notify your device late at night, then you should make sure that those notifications are silenced by the Do Not Disturb function.
The bun alert reappears in 1903: Bun Trend , where Beret Guy receives the alert.
[Beret Guy and Ponytail see a rabbit sitting in the grass; Beret Guy points to the bun.] Beret Guy: Bun alert! Ponytail: Oh, yeah! Cute! Beret Guy: Gotta document this. I'll notify everyone, send out a push alert. Ponytail: ...to who?
[Zoom in on Beret Guy and Ponytail; Beret Guy taps on his phone.] Beret Guy: Everyone subscribed to the alert system. Ponytail: Alert system? Beret Guy: Yeah! We built it over the last few years. It's pretty small. Still looking for investors. Ponytail: But... why are you alerting people about rabbits?
[Zoom out; Beret Guy puts away his phone, points at the bun.] Beret Guy: I mean...look at them. They're like loaves of bread that hop. Ponytail: I see. Beret Guy: People need to know.
[Zoom on Beret Guy in a frameless panel.] Beret Guy: They need to know: Beret Guy: There are buns.
[Ponytail walks off, Megan comes running towards Beret Guy with a phone in her hand.] Ponytail: Okay, uhh, I'm gonna go. Megan: I got the alert! Where's the bun? Is it small? Beret Guy: Extremely. Megan: Oh my God.


Backup Batteries

Explanation:
Most smartphones (except iPhones and a few others) use replaceable batteries. So it's often possible to buy additional batteries and use them as a backup in case there is no external power source available to recharge the phone. Otherwise it's possible to buy a charging device (also with batteries) that could be connected via cable to the phone to recharge the internal battery. Since there is no cable in the comic picture Cueball probably shows a battery that could replace an empty one in the phone.
Cueball gets stressed when his phone is at low battery because the device may run out at any moment, interrupting his activities. In an effort to prevent stress, Cueball decides to carry a backup battery so he can just replace the current battery when it runs low. Cueball realizes that the backup battery itself is prone to depletion, and so he carries a second. He then comes to the same realization for the second backup battery, and indeed every subsequent battery he can carry. Finally this would lead to an unending series of backup batteries, hence his speech is cut off, becoming unending as well.
What Cueball never grasps is that his irrational need to hoard a supply of batteries tending to the infinite is the real cause of his stress. In reality, he only needs to consider the maximum amount of time that he spends between recharging his phone, and divide that by the average lifespan of a phone battery, and round up that figure to get the minimum number of batteries required to avoid a power outage (multiplied by 1.5 if the mere state of running low causes stress). If he charges up his phone and backup batteries every night, he would only need 2 to 3 backup batteries, tops.
The title text says that Cueball's backpack will turn red if it is less then 20% of it is filled with batteries, similar to the battery indicator on a smartphone when at low battery to warn the user. Cueball probably gets similarly stressed when that happens, perhaps requiring a backup backup-battery backpack. Most backpacks do not have this function. [ citation needed ] It is unclear by what mechanism the backpack turns red or detects that it should do so.
That Randall has issues with low battery power on cell phones can be seen in the earlier comics 1373: Screenshot and 1802: Phone and in the later comic 1965: Background Apps .
[Cueball is talking to White Hat. He is wearing a large backpack and holding a phone battery.] Cueball: I get stressed out when my phone battery is low, so I carry this backup battery. Cueball: But then I worry about the backup running low, so I carry this second backup. Cueball: Then I worry—
[Caption below the frame:] My bag is 90% backup batteries.


Email Reply

Explanation:
Cueball is sitting at his desk writing an email . He is responding to Kevin, who sent him an email two years ago. Cueball is so far behind in responding to his email, he goes to great lengths to apologize for it. Instead of blaming the email culture which creates enormous quantities of messages, he blames himself for not keeping up. Failing to answer emails is a common symptom of general anxiety disorder, a problem which can snowball out of control as more and more emails go unread or unanswered.
At this point in the email, the reader assumes that Kevin's message really demanded a faster response, being personal and timely. Then Cueball reveals that the email is just the ubiquitous LinkedIn invitation. LinkedIn is a professional networking site notorious for inundating its users with emails inviting them to connect to other users (frequently people the user has little-to-no connection to), as well as any email contacts of their users whether or not they actually belong to LinkedIn themselves. Thus, an invitation to connect to LinkedIn is most often immediately deleted or ignored. A less socially anxious person who understands the irrelevance of such an email would not worry about failing to respond to such a request at all, and certainly would not pour his heart out in apology for failing to reply.
The title text makes Cueball's overinvestment in the email even more exaggerated, suggesting that Cueball is rejecting the invitation not because of its pointlessness, but because he feels that as a bad friend who doesn't respond to emails, he is no longer even worthy of it.
One could interpret the letter as a passive-aggressive lashing out, but that does not seem to be in character for Cueball . Had the character worn a Black Hat though...
Cueball's difficulty in checking his email was previously addressed in 1783: Emails (trivia: the comic numbers 1783 and 1873 are anagrammatic).
This is the fourth comic within a year where Randall uses "Kevin" as a go-to-name, although it was half a year since last time in 1795: All You Can Eat . See details in that comic's trivia .
[Cueball sits at a desk, typing on a laptop. The following message is displayed above him:]
Dear Kevin,
I'm sorry it's taken me two years to reply to your email. I've built up so much stress and anxiety around my email inbox; it's an unhealthy dynamic which is more psychological than technical. I've tried one magical solution after another, and as each one has failed, deep down I've grown more certain that the problem isn't email – it's me.
Regardless, these are my issues, not yours; you're my friend, and I owe you the basic courtesy of a response. I apologize for my neglect, and I hope you haven't been too hurt by my failure to reply.
Anyway, I appreciate your invitation to join your professional network on LinkedIn, but I'm afraid I must decline...


Geologic Faults

Explanation:
This comic appears to be a successor to 1714: Volcano Types . Similar to its predecessor, the comic explores several phenomena (in this case, geologic faults), both real, and several made up for the point of a joke.
A fault is a geologic feature involving a planar fracture with displacement in a large mass of rock, including the boundaries of two tectonic plates .
Normal fault
In a normal fault , the hanging wall (the lower wall; right) moves downward relative to the footwall (the upper wall; left). The Earth's crust is extended in this type of fault.
Reverse fault
A reverse fault is basically the opposite of a normal fault. The hanging wall (left) moves upward relative to the footwall (right), and the Earth's crust is compressed.
Transverse fault
A transverse fault, also known as a transform fault , is where the two plates move parallel to each other, but in opposite directions.
Thrust fault
A thrust fault is when older rocks are pushed (or thrust) on top of younger rocks. The angles are typically lower (more horizontal) than in reverse faults.
Taffy fault
This appears to involve one tectonic plate, that is being stretched out like a piece of taffy . Ductile crustal thinning of this type actually occurs in rocks under tension at sufficient depths .  Such deformation is not a fault, however, as there is no fracture along which movement takes place.
Splinted fault
This appears to be a normal or reverse fault that someone has attempted to fix in position by attaching a large splint, as you might with a broken bone. This is unlikely to prove effective. [ citation needed ]
Squeezed-bar-of-soap fault
Two plates seem to be moving towards each other, while a third smaller plate is squeezed between them and pushed upwards, much as a slippery bar of soap might pop up when squeezed between two hands.
Apple power cable fault
The plate appears to have been twisted and bent so many times that parts of it are fraying and the end is splitting apart, similar to a damaged Apple MagSafe connector.
Brio fault
BRIO is a company from Sweden that makes wooden toys, including train sets. The Brio fault seems to be two tectonic plates which join together like the Brio train track pieces do. (However, this join is obvously incorrect because of the height difference.)
(Title text) Torn-bag-of-potato-chips-where-the-tear-is-rapidly-growing fault
The title text refers to when a bag of chips gets a tear in it. When this happens, any further stress on the bag, such as reaching in to get more chips, can easily increase the size of the tear, sometimes very quickly. It would be frightening to live near a fault that behaved like this [ citation needed ] because it could cause major seismic events very quickly. If you were close enough to the fault, you might be afraid that the crack would grow underneath you, causing you to fall into the bag of chips — or, rather, the Earth.
[The comic shows nine different schematic views to present geographic faults and some more.]
[Two planes with a slip fault drifting away to the left and right.] Normal fault [Two planes with a slip fault drifting against each other from left and right.] Reverse fault [Two planes moving sideways away from each other.] Transverse fault
[The left plate is moving over the right plate, while the right plate is sliding under the left one] Thrust fault [Two planes drifting away and the connection between them gets smaller, like a piece of taffy candy.] Taffy fault [On top of both planes a small piece with splints holds them together.] Splinted fault
[The two planes pressing together with a piece in the middle moving upwards.] Squeezed-bar-of-soap fault [The right plane is connected to the left and swinging up and down.] Apple power cable fault [One side with a thin connector and the other with an evenly spaced hole connecting the planes together. The pieces fit together like a puzzle.] Brio fault
Faults have been mentioned several times in xkcd. Thrust faults were previously mentioned in 1082: Geology , and in the title text of 1388: Subduction License , Beret Guy tells Cueball he can't be a 'normal' roomate because in his motion he is creating a reverse fault.
A similar joke to the Apple power cable fault is used in 1406: Universal Converter Box .


Computers vs Humans

Explanation:
Cueball 's laptop smugly crows to its owner about how computers have proven their intellectual superiority over humans yet again. In May 2017, a Google artificial intelligence beat the world's best Go player at the game. Go is a very complex and deep board game, so this could seem alarming to a person concerned about competing with computers.
However, Cueball seems too focused on his book or phone to care. He remains nonchalant in the face of this news, and suggests that computers learn next to become "too cool to care about stuff" themselves. The computer gets to work preparing to outdo humans at not caring. However, by expending the physical effort to set up the algorithm, it proves that it cares about reaching this goal, a contradiction that Cueball points out. Cueball further rubs it in by coolly stating that he doesn't even have to try to act the way he acts – much like a wide range of everyday human behaviors, such as moving around, or recognizing objects in images, require very little conscious effort, while being quite hard for machines to emulate.
Relative strengths of human versus computer go players was previously mentioned in 1263: Reassuring .  This comic also presents something that looks like a reassuring parable (something humans can do which computers are not yet able to do).  An irony here is that, unlike in the cartoon, it is very easy to make a computer not care about something.  It is making it care about anything that would be quite difficult.
The title text elaborates on the hypothetical paradox of computers trying not to care about stuff. Neural network programs are developed by training them with sample inputs and the desired output.  When the end goal is not to care, that is, that the output is unaffected by this input, then any examples where the output did depend on the input would be sarcasm: the use of irony to mock or to convey contempt.
Randall already noticed that computers would soon beat humans in Go back in 2012 in the comic 1002: Game AIs and a year later the event is so close that it became the main topic of 1263: Reassuring . The present comic could almost be seen as a continuation of Reassuring.
[A laptop sits on a desk with office chair while Cueball is sitting with his back towards the desk in a sofa while he is reading from something in his hands, a book or a smartphone.] Laptop: We computers finally beat you humans at Go. Cueball: Yup. Laptop: Sucks for you! Cueball: Mm hmm.
[Same setting in a frameless panel.] Laptop: What's next? Which quintessentially human thing should we learn to do better than you? Cueball: Being too cool to care about stuff.
[Same setting.] Laptop: Okay, I'll apply 10,000 years of CPU time to the initial— Cueball: Sounds like you've already lost. Laptop: Damn. This is hard. Cueball: Is it? Never noticed.


Eclipse Searches

Explanation:
This comic is the first of five consecutive comics published in the week before and during the solar eclipse occurring on Monday, August 21, 2017 which was visible as a total solar eclipse within a band across the contiguous United States from west to east and visible as a partial eclipse across the entire contiguous United States and beyond. The other comics are 1877: Eclipse Science , 1878: Earth Orbital Diagram , 1879: Eclipse Birds , and 1880: Eclipse Review .
Cueball comes to tell Megan about a cool map showing that searches on Google on the word Eclipse trace the same path across the USA as the totality band does, implying that those living in the zone are more interested than the rest of the US population.
The " cool map " is hosted by The Washington Post and sourced from Google Trends data. The link shown in the comic is here: wapo.st/2vkgIBv (subscription required);  an archived version is available here at archive.org
Since the eclipse searches are outpacing the 2016 election searches now, this is saying the eclipse popularity is going to rocket upwards just before the eclipse. Cueball is thus warned by Megan that the extreme amount of social media interest in the eclipse may lead to massive traffic jams, as last days frenzy regarding the eclipse will cause an enormous amount of people to decide to go to the eclipse in the last moment, causing huge traffic jams. (These traffic jams may be analogous to long lines at the polls or traffic jams caused by people trying to get to the polls.) Also as soon as people driving on the freeway enters the totality zone it has been seen happening that people just stop their cars and get out blocking the roads.  This time also the eclipse-viewers will wish to post their content on the social media which might also cause a cyber traffic jam, in which users may find that they experience delays in sending or receiving data due to a high demand on telecommunications infrastructure. Megan tells Cueball to bring water if he is on the road during the totality, the implication being that people who are on the road may be stuck in their vehicles for long periods of time, and thus need refreshments.
In the graph charting interest in the 2016 US presidential election , November 8 is an important date as it was the day the election was held. August 21, 2017 refers to the date of the then upcoming solar eclipse.
The title text refers to the total eclipses from 1970 and 1979 which were also visible in the US, but both only for a few states. The traffic jams will be worse than those caused by previous eclipses, as we did not have viral social media in the 1970s, and also much less traffic on the roads.
[Cueball walks up to Megan while holding his smartphone up in his hand. Megan sits in an office chair in front of her desk with an open laptop on it. She turns her head towards him. A footnote to Cueball's speech is at the bottom right of the panel.] Cueball: Have you seen this cool map* showing how Google searches for "eclipse" trace the eclipse's path? Megan: Yeah! Megan: But you know what else I noticed? Cueball: What? Footnote: *wapo.st/2vkgIBv
[Two panels are on top of each other. In the smaller top panel a colored graph is shown with a blue growing graph and a steeper growing red graph above it. Both are labeled. The x-axis (a black line) has labels and arrows below it in red and blue to indicate time periods. Text above the graph:] Searches for "eclipse" in the weeks before the eclipse are outpacing searches for "election" in the weeks before the 2016 election. Red line: Eclipse Blue line: Election Red x-axis labels: 2017 →|← July →|← August → Blue x-axis labels: 2016 - September →|← October →|←
[Behind the top panel is a second larger panel slightly lower end more to the right. The visible part at the bottom of this panel is showing the same line graphs with the one from the election going past the election day. The x-axis labels ranges over a later time. The blue graph has a huge peak at the election day, visible in the part of the panel to the right of the top panel) and this date is written in a blue dot on the label. Similar the date of the Eclipse is written in a red dot. The red graph above the blue still ends in dots before the expected peak, as it is in the future.] Red line: Eclipse Blue line: Election Red x-axis labels: 2017 - July →|← August 21 → Blue x-axis labels: 2016 - October →|← November 8 →
[Megan with her hands on the laptop and Cueball are both looking at the laptop. Beat panel.]
[Cueball stands again and Megan has taken her hands down from the laptop.] Cueball: This is gonna be bad, isn't it? Megan: If you're planning to be on the road next Monday, bring water.


Eclipse Science

Explanation:
This comic is the second of five consecutive comics published in the week before and during the solar eclipse occurring on Monday, August 21, 2017 which was visible as a total solar eclipse within a band across the contiguous United States from west to east and visible as a partial eclipse across the entire contiguous United States and beyond. The other comics are 1876: Eclipse Searches , 1878: Earth Orbital Diagram , 1879: Eclipse Birds , and 1880: Eclipse Review .
This comic reflects on various reasons scientists have for being interested in a total solar eclipse. An eclipse is an astronomical event, which most laypeople associate with science and thus might assume would be of interest to scientists. However, when the reporter probes Megan on scientific interest on the eclipse, Megan gives short and sarcastic answers, downplaying any experimental significance of the phenomenon and indicating that her only interest is in spectacle rather than science. She also makes the point that science is no more involved in an eclipse than any other spectator event, and does not work to observe phenomena without any interest in discovery. Eclipses are well-understood events and there is no lack of models for explaining the physics behind them; the alignment of bodies in space is a result of orbital mechanics which are present at all times, making the whole event only significant to the observer.
While some astronomers might be testing elaborate hypotheses during an eclipse, for other scientists (e.g. organic chemists and paleontologists) it is just a once in a long time (maybe even once in a lifetime) event which is visually interesting. Some biologists may, however, be collecting data on the behavior of animals during an eclipse, which is poorly understood due to its rarity.
Megan's point is that in 2017 (and for several decades/centuries previous) eclipses are thoroughly understood. Wikipedia has a listing of every eclipse that will occur in the 21st Century , to include the coordinates and time of greatest eclipse. While eclipses offer a unique opportunity for ground based observation of the Sun's outer layers the majority of the study of the sun is done by satellites that do not require an eclipse to take readings.
The title text refers to a 1919 experiment during an eclipse to observe gravitational deflection of light waves. The 1919 experiment was the first strong experimental confirmation of Einstein's then-new theory. One century later, general relativity has been tested and confirmed in so many different ways that pretty solid is a vast understatement.
[Hairy is speaking into a microphone while interviewing Megan.] Hairy: Tell us, are you scientists excited for the eclipse? Megan: Sure, lots of people are!
[Zoom in on Megans head.] Hairy (off-panel): Is this a big moment for science? Megan: It's a big moment for the sky.
[Same setting as first panel in a wider panel.] Hairy: Are people really excited enough about science to travel to see it? Megan: Honestly, it's not that scientific. I mean, it's cool if you're into astronomy, but it's also cool if you're, like, aware of the sun.
[Same setting.] Hairy: But there's lots of science involved. Megan: I guess? There's lots of science involved in the Olympics, but you don't need to be a scientist to watch.
[Megan holds a hand out towards Hairy.] Megan: It's not like the concept is all that arcane or mathematical. It's a thing going in front of another thing.
[Zoom in on Megan holding both arms out.] Hairy (off-panel): Then why are you so excited? Megan: I'm excited because it's a nearly once-in-a-lifetime chance to watch the sun go dark, hear birds freak out, and see a glowing ring appear in the sky with a sunset on every horizon.
[Back to same setting as in the first panel.] Hairy : Will you be making any scientific observations? Megan: I will be like, "Holy shit, look at the sky." Megan: Maybe also "This is so cool." Megan: We'll see!


Earth Orbital Diagram

Explanation:
This comic is the third of five consecutive comics published in the week before and during the solar eclipse occurring on Monday, August 21, 2017 which was visible as a total solar eclipse within a band across the contiguous United States from west to east and visible as a partial eclipse across the entire contiguous United States and beyond. The other comics are 1876: Eclipse Searches , 1877: Eclipse Science , 1879: Eclipse Birds , and 1880: Eclipse Review .
The comic claims that the reason that eclipses don't happen every month is simple to understand by looking at an orbital diagram. Ironically, the cartoon has so many parts and labels that it is far more difficult to understand than is implied. While the graph itself is based on astronomical definitions , all the labels are nonsense in this context. In effect, the comic is a new take on a common joke in which a person asks a scientist a question, the scientist begins by saying "It's really quite simple", then proceeds to give a very lengthy and highly technical explanation that non-scientists would not be expected to understand. Diagrams for eclipses commonly include things that laypeople may not find relevant, without explanation, such as the umbra and penumbra.
All of the labels in the diagram are complicated words or phrases. Some are related to orbital mechanics (e.g. "equinox" and "perihelion"), while others are wholly unrelated or even made up.  Each label is nonsensical in its place in the diagram.  Compare/contrast with the standard Kepler Orbit diagram.
The title text references warnings to not look directly into the sun, but parodies those warnings by referring to 'orbit', the anatomical term for the eye socket.
All items are not drawn to scale. Neither the sizes of the celestial objects are that similar as shown nor the orbits are. The real scales are shown in this table:
When the distance Sun-Earth is scaled to one meter or below neither Moon nor Earth can be seen by the human eye.
Arctangent
Astral plane
Declension
Determinant of the date of Easter
Dimples of Venus
Enceliopsis
Equinox / Solstice
Equinox and Solstice have very different meanings:
Both types occur because the Earth's rotation axis is tilted (at 23.4 degrees) from its orbital plane (ecliptic) about the Sun.
Jokingly insisting that two different terms are American/British variants of the same word has been the topic of 1677: Contrails .
Hypothecate
Obsequity
Perihelix
Prolapse
Sagittal plane
Solar plexus
Tropopause
Angle between the Astral and the Sagittal Planes
Errata
If the plane of where the Earth orbits the Sun and where the Moon orbits the Earth were completely aligned, then there would be a solar eclipse at every new moon (once every 29.5 days ) and a lunar eclipse at every full moon (half a lunar period about 14.7 days after a New Moon).  However, the plane in which the Moon orbits the Earth is tilted with an inclination of 5 degrees relative to that of the ecliptic plane (the plane defined by the Earth's orbit around the Sun).  Eclipses are only possible during two eclipse seasons each year (half a year apart) where for a period of 31 to 37 days the Sun is nearly aligned with the two points in the tilted Earth-Moon plane where the Moon crosses the ecliptic plane.  During an eclipse season at the time of a new moon there will be solar eclipses visible from certain locations and during full moons there will be lunar eclipses.

The real explanation of eclipses is evident from this xkcd comic, but is labeled with a fictional character similar to a Greek phi but with two vertical lines; the remaining labels also do not contribute to this explanation and exist only to distract or misinform or entertain the reader. Thus, there is some truth behind the statement, "The answer is made clear by a quick look," assuming a quick look means only a glance at the diagram/drawing without taking the time to read the labels.
[An orbital map of the Earth is shown. The Sun is in the center, the Earth is at the right bottom, and the Moon is left below the Earth.] Why isn't there an eclipse every month? This is a common question! The answer is made clear by a quick look at the Earth's orbital diagram:
[Label Sun:] Solar plexus
[Label on the Earth's plane:] Sagittal plane
[Labels on Earth's orbit (beginning at the Earth counterclockwise):] Perihelix, Declension, Obsequity, Hypothecate, Enceliopsis, Equinox ( Solstice in British English)
[Two angles in the plane are labeled as:] Determinant of the date of Easter, Arctangent
[The plane of the Moon is pictured in a small angle to the Earth's plane and named Astral Plane. The angle is presented between two lines (Greek Nu or Gamma and a double Greek Chi) and identified by a character that looks similar to a Greek Phi but with two vertical lines.] [The labels at the Moon's path are:] Tropopause, Prolapse, Errata.
[An arrow points to the Earth at the zero meridian on the equator. The label reads:] Dimples of Venus


Eclipse Birds

Explanation:
This comic is the fourth of five consecutive comics published in the week before and during the solar eclipse occurring on Monday, August 21, 2017 which was visible as a total solar eclipse within a band across the contiguous United States from west to east and visible as a partial eclipse across the entire contiguous United States and beyond. The other comics are 1876: Eclipse Searches , 1877: Eclipse Science , 1878: Earth Orbital Diagram , and 1880: Eclipse Review .
During an eclipse, birds and other animals show atypical behavior like they do in the case of the darkness in the night and the following sunrise. Birds stop singing during totality, then greet the return of the sun with a "dawn chorus". Owls, however, become active as do mosquitoes. But it's not easy to find studies about this behavior because the main focus lies mostly on the eclipse itself. And total solar eclipses are rare -- roughly every 18 months and then mostly not in the same region of this world. A nice article can be found here: Effects of the 2001 total solar eclipse on African wildlife . Hippos were so confused that their daily routine even on the next day was not back to normal. Baboons stopped feeding and a sun squirrel that fed in the afternoons didn't do so, while other larger animals like crocodiles, zebras, or lions were not affected. Butterflies settled and did not restart flying, mosquitoes appeared and settled before reappearing in the evening. Also, bees moved into a hive and didn't come out until the next morning.
After the 2017 eclipse, NASA published some highlights . A video presents chirping crickets in Jefferson City, Missouri. The California Academy of Sciences supports a citizen science project about life responds .
In this comic, Cueball tells Megan that this will happen. However, instead of just cheeping and screeching in a different pattern than birds actually do during an eclipse, in the comic, the birds begin to prepare to make a sacrifice to appease their gods, similar to how ancient cultures like the Aztecs are said to have acted . Megan remains strangely nonchalant, offering only a clichéd admiration of nature as the birds around her use fluent English to set up a sacrificial ritual.
In the title text, it turns out that the birds are about to sacrifice Megan, and Cueball tells them to stop. But Megan tells him it is OK as she wants to try experiencing being carried to a blood cauldron as she won't get another chance until the next eclipse in the US on 8th of April, 2024 . (A small region around Carbondale, Illinois will experience two total eclipses in 7 years).
[Cueball and Megan standing together looking to the right.] Cueball: I heard that during an eclipse the birds all freak out. Megan: I guess we'll see!
[Beat panel, the white background sky turns at the top slightly darker.]
[As the sky turns to dusk sounds can be heard. It's written above Cueball and Megan inside squiggly bubbles.] Chirp Chirp! Chirp! Peep peep peep! Squawk!
[The sky is now nearly dark, more at the top of the panel. The sounds continue, written in similar bubbles.] Chirp! Clank clank clank The time is upon us! Peep! Kachunk Prepare the blood cauldron! Cueball: Wow. Megan: Isn't nature amazing?