Eclipse Review

Explanation:
This comic is the last 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 1879: Eclipse Birds .
The comic is another comparison graph, like 1775: Things You Learn or 1701: Speed and Danger . It contrasts how cool something sounds and how cool it actually is . It has five points on it, planetary conjunction, supermoon, lunar eclipse, partial solar eclipse, and total solar eclipse.
While the four other things than total solar eclipse are relatively close to each other on the "how cool to see" scale, the graph is not even high enough to plot the total solar eclipse point as indicated by the dotted arrow showing that this point should be way higher up. This is as opposed to leaving the point out, as Randall did with the coconut in 388: Fuck Grapefruit , where it is only mentioned in the title text. This could be an indication that if the scale had been high enough to fit the total solar eclipse point, then the rest of the points would be on the x-axis without any indication of which would be cooler.
A total solar eclipse correctly sounds like it is the coolest of the five, but it is vastly cooler to see it in person by a wide margin. It seems like Randall is trying to convince those who missed the eclipse this time to go watch in seven years when another total solar eclipse is visible in the USA.
Planetary Conjunction
In a planetary conjunction two or more planets are visible close together in the night sky. This happens relatively often because all planets lie in roughly the same plane around the sun (the Sagittal ecliptic ). This looks like two big stars close to each other, and isn't particularly exciting.
Supermoon
A supermoon is a full moon or a new moon that approximately coincides with the Moon's closest approach in its elliptic orbit around the Earth. This results in a larger-than-usual apparent size of the lunar disk, but a typical human doesn't recognize the difference. Nevertheless, in recent years the press has often announced supermoons as important astronomical events. The opposite of a supermoon is called a micromoon. A "supermoon" sounds very cool, but like a planetary conjunction it's almost indistinguishable in the average night sky (see 1394: Superm*n , and this list ) of other comics that have referred to the term).
Lunar Eclipse
A lunar eclipse occurs during the full moon and, like at a solar eclipse, happens only when the Moon is in the region where the orbital planes of the Moon and the Earth intersect. The Earth's shadow falls on the Moon, causing it to appear dark red. The moon doesn't generally darken completely due to some light still reaching the Moon through the outer layers of the Earth's atmosphere. As with solar eclipses, lunar eclipses occur on average once every six months, but they can be viewed by anyone who is on the night-time side of Earth during the eclipse, as opposed to only being visible from a small strip of the Earth's surface. A lunar eclipse looks noticeably different from a usual full moon, making it fairly cool.
Partial Solar Eclipse
There are three types of non-total solar eclipses . A partial eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are not exactly in line with an observer on Earth, and thus the Moon doesn't fully obscure the Sun. An annular eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon do line up with an observer on Earth, but the Moon is too far away from earth to block the entire Sun. The Sun appears as a very bright ring, which is also called an annulus. A hybrid eclipse is an eclipse which is total when viewed from some parts of the earth, but is annular when viewed from others. These mixed eclipses are comparatively rare, even when compared with total eclipses. A large percentage of the continental United States experienced a partial eclipse along with the total solar eclipse on August 21st. A partial solar eclipse is quite cool, but nowhere near as dramatic as a sky-darkening total solar eclipse.
Total Solar Eclipse
The total solar eclipse is the topic of this and the four preceding comics. It occurs during the new moon, and happens only when the Sun and Moon are exactly in line with an observer on Earth and when the Moon appears large enough to fully obscure the Sun. Unlike a lunar eclipse, only a small portion of the Earth lies within the Moon's shadow at any given time, roughly a disc with a diameter of approx. 100 km. The disc moves very fast over the Earth's surface, meaning that at any given location eclipses can't last longer than a few minutes. At locations outside of this shadow-disc , in a region over a few thousand kilometers, the eclipse is partial.
In the title text Randall reveals that he had traveled to a location in Missouri (possibly the Shaw Nature Reserve ) because at his home in Massachusetts the eclipse was only partial. And, without a doubt, the total solar eclipse was the coolest thing he ever has seen in his life.
[A scatter plot with five labeled dots is drawn. The x-axis reads "How cool it sounds like it would be" and the y-axis is labeled with "How cool it is to see in person".] [Bottom left] Planetary conjunction [Bottom middle] Supermoon [Low left-center] Lunar eclipse [Low-center middle] Partial solar eclipse [Upper right, with a dotted arrow above it pointing up] Total solar eclipse


Drone Training

Explanation:
In this comic, Black Hat enters a pet store run by White Hat . He wants to buy something to help him train his drone, which keeps flying into the wrong rooms. This is absurd as drones are semi-autonomous flying machines, not living creatures like dogs or cats, which can be trained to do tricks, or stay in the correct areas (inside his property). Alternatively, Black Hat could be developing a way to make drones sentient/autonomous in other to annoy other drone-owners when their drones don't obey them or to allow Black Hat's drones to annoy other people without Black Hat having to control them. He also wants a shock collar for his Roomba , which would train it to stay inside or at least on his lawn.
Cat repellents are devices or substances for training cats or repelling them from furniture or other areas. An example of a cat repellent spray which can be created at home as shown here: Friendly (but Effective) Cat Repellent .
Roomba is an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner and controlling it by electric shocks from a shock collar , normally used for dogs, is more than questionable. Those collars are legal in the US but banned in nine other countries. A Roomba was previously mistaken for a dog in 1558: Vet .
This might be playing with the concept of machine learning.  Knowing Black Hat, he might be poking fun at people's assumptions that modern robots are more advanced than they actually are. It is also possible, however, that he just wants to terrify people with the idea of robot abuse/conditioning, and even more likely that he genuinely believes he can force robots to obey him via inflicting suffering.
The title text may mean one of three things: The endeavor will become a total flop when the Roomba gets rid of the collar and terrorizes the neighborhood; as a result dogcatchers from the animal control service will arrest this "wild animal." Or animal control services will confiscate the Roomba to save it from its abusive owner. Or, possibly, the text refers to White Hat, who also owns a Roomba, and it will be taken into custody because it has not been trained with a shock collar.
[Black Hat stands in front of a store counter facing White Hat who stands behind.] Black Hat: My drone keeps flying into the wrong rooms. Do you have anything to discourage it? White Hat: Sir, this is a pet store.
Black Hat: Yeah, I was thinking one of those spray bottles for cats. White Hat: I don't think you can train a drone.
[White Hat hands a spray bottle over the counter.] Black Hat: Eh, they say that about cats, too. Plus, these days they probably all come with deep learning or whatever. Drones, I mean. Maybe cats too. White Hat: Fine, here's a bottle.
Black Hat: Do you sell a shock collar that can fit around a Roomba? White Hat: I'm going to have to ask you to leave.


Color Models

Explanation:
Randall is describing how his level of understanding of colors has changed by age. The chart starts with two tracks of understanding color.
In grade school he learned about the primary colors, and the very simple model of colors, as shown in the left track. Mixing of color solids, as in painting (or finger painting being probably the earliest exposure to color mixing), is intuitive for a child. The process is subtractive, and the more colors you mix the darker and closer to black you get. Color is seen by the eyes when light bounces off the solid colors and becomes light of different wavelengths that the eye can then see. However at this level, things just "look" like different colors without understanding light's role. The color models mentioned in the second point of the left track are the additive model RGB (red-green-blue) and the subtractive models RYB (red-yellow-blue) and CMYK (cyan-magenta-yellow-key, used in color printing).
The right track is about mixing of colored light, as in prisms and light waves, where mixing colors is additive and the more you mix the lighter and closer to white you get. But this is without a real understanding of light bouncing off surfaces, and is limited to an understanding of different colors of light and how they mix. The first exposure in grade school is usually by shining white light through a prism to separate it into the different visible colors.
Meanwhile, philosophically, color is unknowable because it's impossible to say if everyone has the same qualia for colors. E.g. "Maybe what I see as blue, you see as my idea of purple, but we both call it blue because we've been brought up to know to call that color blue?."
The opponent color model connects these two models, by considering how the signals from rods and cones are processed, after different wavelengths of light are absorbed by different rods and cones in the eyes.
The "complex multidimensional gamut" mentions two more models: CIE 1931 and L*a*b* . These are more detailed models based on the opponent color model, which precisely define how a particular color maps to the different channels that our eyes see.
However, understanding how the eye sees color still isn't enough, because not every device can display all the colors your eye can see. Your laptop might have a different gamut from that of your phone, and when you print the page, you might see yet another color. To handle this issue, web browsers use "color profiles", so that an image can be tagged with the color space it uses and the browser can handle it appropriately. Unfortunately, browsers do this inconsistently and not very well.
Further complicating the matter, ostensibly identical device may show colors differently (depending on how they are adjusted, variations between devices, aging of the device, and the viewing environment).  Devices and software exist to attempt to match systems to reproduce colors consistently, however  most systems are not set up this way, color correction can be complicated, and the corrections have to be frequently readjusted.
The "hyperdimensional four-sided quantum Klein manifold" is a joke, and could also be a pun upon the color Klein Blue . A Klein manifold is described by the Klein bottle , where the bottle was originally a surface (a mix-up of the German words Fläche for surface and Flasche for bottle). It is a two-dimensional manifold, or simply just a surface with some special characteristics. Randall is here projecting an "abstract multidimensional gamut" onto an even more complicated surface, presumably in order to eliminate the errors in color rendering caused by previous attempts to eliminate the errors in color rendering. The Klein bottle has to be projected into 4 dimensional (4-D) space for this to work, as it would otherwise intersect with itself.
The “quantum” may be a reference to the "color" charge in Quantum chromodynamics .
Eventually it appears Randall has given up, realizing color is very difficult and hoping somebody else will deal with the difficulty in describing, understanding and using the concept of colors.
The title text expands on this joke, implying that the reason for the "unknowable" answer in the comic is that everyone's browser shows colors slightly differently. Despite the complexity and thoroughness of color models, this common software can't get it right.
[A simple flowchart is shown. The text above the panel reads:] Evolution of my understanding of color over time:
[On the left side is a vertical dashed line in gray, on top it's labeled:] Grade school [And at the bottom the label reads:] Now
[Header above the chart:] "Color" is...
[The chart starts with three items, one left and an other on the right, a third is below in the middle.] ...three primary colors mixed together ...a rainbow, and each color is a wavelength ...unknowable ("maybe what I see as blue, you see as...")
[Arrows from the left and the middle item point to a new left one, while two other arrows from the middle and the right item lead to one at the right.] ...three-ish primary colors mixed together (RGB/RYB/CMYK) ...a mix of infinite wavelengths filtered through three eye pigments
[The arrows of both items point to one in the middle:] (something about the opponent color model)
[The remaining items are all in the middle and each is connected by one arrow downwards to the next.] ...an abstract multidimensional gamut (CIE 1931, L*a*b*, etc) ...an abstract multidimensional gamut filtered through inconsistently-implemented device color profiles ...a hyperdimensional four-sided quantum Klein manifold? Is that a thing? ...hopefully somebody else's problem.


Supervillain Plan

Explanation:
In this comic Black Hat is a supervillain , befitting his character . He plans to use drones and explosives to move the entire State of California into the Pacific, a la Lex Luthor in the 1978 Superman movie.
His henchmen are Cueball and Megan . The latter appears to be a programmer who is concerned that the mission (and hence the drones' coding) may have to account for time/date adjustments, such as time zones and daylight saving time (DST), which would be a factor if the event took place on the wrong date or the landmasses were pushed too far apart. (Though by coding the drones on UTC, the drones would not need to change time zones, except for displaying the local time for some reason, which would likely be unneeded.)
In computer programming, working with dates and times can be complicated. Think about leap years or leap seconds , the non existing year zero which even worse for scientists does exist in astronomical calendars , or the Y2K and year 2038 problem. Nevertheless in this comic there is only a time zone problem mentioned. To handle this the tz database , also known as tzdata , provides all relevant information for every country back to 1970 and, less accurate, before. But it's still up to the programmer to use this data in useful ways.
Supervillains have reason to fear daylight saving time issues. In 1999, two coordinated car bombings ended up killing the terrorists transporting the bombs when they exploded one hour early. Details explained e.g. on the Darwin Awards site.
Time zones and DST can give seemingly nonsensical results when used improperly. For example, a flight going west might leave at 02:00pm and reach its destination at 03:00pm while the reverse flight will leave at 02:00pm and arrive at 05:00pm. In both cases, the travel time is two hours, but the one hour difference between the two time zones makes it seem otherwise. You might even find yourself arriving at your destination at an earlier time than your departure! DST can also makes a given time mean two different things, if after 01:59am you go back to 01:00 am, 01:30am can either be one hour after 00:30am, or one hour before 02:30am. Or in the reverse change, some dates don't actually exist, like 02:30 when going straight from 01:59 to 03:00. Humans often avoid this issue by being in only one place at the same time [ citation needed ] , or by sleeping when the DST changes happen, but computer communications often span over large distances, and drones don't need to sleep at night. Megan wants to make sure she won't have to deal with the difficult problem of communication between drones and other systems with those issues, where a single poorly communicated date can have disastrous effects (although possibly far less disastrous than moving California into the sea [ citation needed ] ).
California is currently located entirely within the UTC-8 time zone (at standard time PST , while in summer PDT is at UTC-7 ). But after Black Hat's actions California is at risk of floating West into the next time zone at UTC-9 .
However, in reality, time zones in the United States are determined by Department of Transportation regulations , and California's time zone is not defined based on its longitude. Consequently, even if California were pushed out to sea, its time zone would remain the same unless the Department of Transportation issued a regulation otherwise, so Megan can rest easy. (On the other hand, Black Hat could alter the time zone of any of the East Coast states except Maine if his drones could push the state east of 67°30' W. longitude, since the Eastern Time Zone's eastern boundary is mostly based on longitude, except for Maine.)
Note: Megan should be happy Black Hat hasn't planned to involve Arizona in his scheme .
A "tick tock article" is a term in journalism for a step by step account of an event or timeline, such as this one recounting the end of the 2011 MLB regular season . Such an article published for an event during the change to or from Daylight Saving Time would need to account for the changeover, making the timeline confusing for those unaware of the switch.
[On the left of this single panel comic Black Hat sits on a high throne, showing a fist, and looking down to Cueball and Magan who stand in front of him on the right.]
Black Hat: ... then, after our drones take control of the cities, we will detonate the devices. California will break off from the mainland and drift out to sea! Megan: How far out to sea? Will it put any of the cities in the UTC-9 time zone? Black Hat: What? I don't know. Megan: One request: Can we make sure this doesn't happen during the daylight saving changeover?
[Caption below the panel:] You can tell when someone's been a programmer for a while because they develop a deep-seated fear of time zone problems.


Ringer Volume/Media Volume

Explanation:
Most smartphones , when this comic was published, have multiple system-level sound volume settings, such as, phone call ringer volume, timed alarm volume, phone communication volume, and media volume (which covers video, music, games and such). For comparison, personal computers tend to expose the user to a master sound volume control by default, which affects all the sounds emitted by system. Applications that emit sound (other than basic interface sounds, such as clicking) tend to implement a separate volume control.
Further, smartphones often have a pair of hardware buttons for raising or lowering sound volume. However, they don't differentiate which of the available volume controls the user wants to adjust. Smartphone operating systems tend to adjust the volume level of the currently emitted sound type, with some defaulting to the phone call ringer in the case no sound is playing. Adjusting arbitrary volume control is usually possible using a system settings app controlled by touch screen, which can take more time than pressing dedicated buttons, and/or stopping the program currently being used, depending on the smartphone in question.
The comic demonstrates, using a time axis, a typical annoyance generated by this kind of setup. A implied user wants to play a video clip but expects its sound volume to be too loud, so the user starts to preemptively press the volume down button. However, since the video clip just started loading while the user preemptively pressed the button, this adjusts the phone ringer volume instead of media volume. The user proceeds to raise the ringer volume and waits until the information box about ringer volume being adjusted disappears from screen, then tries again. Since the video is still loading this still doesn't work. Apparently the application needs to start emitting sound before the possibility of adjusting that sound with volume buttons arises. This is exactly what eventually happens - the video starts uncomfortably loud and the user's delayed reaction while attempting to readjust ringer volume level leads, in fact, to raising the media volume. At this point the graph ends, though the user is implied in the title text to proceed to reduce the video's volume directly afterwards.
Despite most applications implementing separate sound controls, Windows has also offered the option to adjust volume on per-activity basis since at least Windows 95. You can access this feature on Windows 10 by right-clicking the speaker icon on the tray, and selecting the "Open Volume Mixer" option. This setup is roughly equivalent to opening system settings on a smartphone, in that user can see multiple volume controls and select to adjust some. Additionally, some versions of Windows made the system tray volume control only affect the currently focused program, sort of analogously to described smartphone behavior, in that a single interface area can correspond to different volume controls depending on the context. However, this feature has been removed in more recent versions, presumably to reduce user confusion.
The title text presents a method of exploiting the phenomenon presented in the main comic by putting important parts of an advertisement very early in the video clip in loud audio form. Since user may have problems with adjusting video sound volume before it starts playing, this will result in the important part of ad (here, product name) emitted very loudly, to the levels of narrator of title text expecting it to reach people in other rooms than one the smartphone is in.
[A x-y-graph is shown and the header above is:] Trying to turn down the volume before a video starts playing:
[At the line graph the horizontal axis is labeled with the text "Time" and an arrow pointing to the right. The vertical axis represents the volume but has no label. There are two signed lines, "Ringer volume" in black and "Media volume" in gray roughly at the same level. Below are eight smartphone screens showing the running app over time.]
[The first seven screens showing a circle indicating that an app is loading. At the second screen a volume control is depicted with an arrow to the lower button.] TAP TAP TAP TAP [The "Ringer volume" decreases four times.]
[Further in time before the third screen the volume control is depicted again with an arrow to the upper button.] TAP TAP TAP TAP [The "Ringer volume" increases to normal.]
[Nothing happens on the 4th screen but at the 5th the volume control is shown again with an arrow to the lower button.] TAP TAP TAP [The "Ringer volume" decreases three times.]
[Before the 6th screen the volume control is shown, again with an arrow to the upper button.] TAP TAP TAP [The "Ringer volume" increases back to normal.]
[At the 7th screen there is again the volume control with an arrow to the lower button.] TAP TAP TAP TAP [The "Ringer volume" decreases four times.]
[Before the 8th screen the volume control is shown with an arrow to the upper button and the tapping starts:] TAP TAP [The "Ringer volume" increases two times, still below normal, and the video starts at the screen.] TAP TAP [The "Media volume" increases two times above normal.] Person in the video: HELLO, AND WELCOME TO...


Ensemble Model

Explanation:
An ensemble model is a combination of multiple, similar models to show a wider range of possible outcomes. The graphs on the left are tracks of predictions from multiple models.  In this comic, Randall starts out describing actual changes that ensemble models show, but sinks into absurdity, describing strange alternate universes and scenarios that likely would not be necessary in an actual model.
The upper graph shows a typical plot of predicted wind speeds over time from various ensemble members. The graph shows that it is predicted that the storm will strengthen, with varying degrees of weakening depending on the ensemble member. The graph at the left bottom is a typical map of isobars (lines of equal pressure ) for various ensemble members with the ensemble members showing slightly different configurations. The bottom right graph is a typical hurricane path-prediction graphic, starting in the Atlantic moving westwards and then turning to north, often with the Caribbean Islands or the US coast in the path. Some hurricanes don't reach mainlands and after turning north they head eastwards and can reach Europe still as strong storm.
The term universe is in mathematics a class that contains all the entities of an ensemble in a given situation. Don't be confused with the more common usage of the words universe , the entire space where we live, and multiverse , a hypothetical set of possible universes.
The first three outcomes are real while the others are less serious. They are explained below:
…rain is 0.5% more likely in some areas …wind speeds are slightly lower …pressure levels are randomly tweaked
These realistic outcomes are only possible under calm weather conditions. Predicting these values with an accuracy better than 1% indicates that the model is stable even when the initial conditions are slightly changed. Modern weather forecasts at normal circumstances are often not good as this and for a hurricane or tornado the variances are much higher.
…dogs run slightly faster
This is where the comic diverges from reality; there is no reason to have the locomotion speed of dogs as a parameter in a usual weather model [ citation needed ] .
The speed of dogs might be a parameter in a wildlife model, where the speed of a predator might affect the predator/prey ratios.  In terms of weather models, dogs traditionally chase cats, so running faster might affect the number of cats.  Cats prey on birds, which in turn eat insects.  So faster dogs might increase the number of birds, reducing the number of butterflies.  Butterflies in turn affect the weather through the butterfly effect (that is that the movement of a butterflies wings may change the development of tornados, or other weather, in difficult to predict ways, as for instance with the quantum weather butterfly ).
…there is one extra cloud in the Bahamas
This situation is most likely too specific and subtle a difference to be useful to the model.
…Germany won WWII
"What if Germany won World War II" is a very popular subject for alternate history stories.
…snakes are wide instead of long
Snakes being wider than they are long (think "eyes and mouth in the middle of their body and a tail on both sides") in present reality would have enormous consequences for zoology and other fields of biology, including evolutionary biology. It would also have an impact on art history, especially where it involves paintings depicting certain scenes from  the book of Genesis. Compared to these effects, the expected upshot for meteorology seems to be limited.
…Will Smith took the lead in The Matrix instead of Wild Wild West
Actor Will Smith famously [ citation needed ] turned down the lead role of Neo in The Matrix , instead taking the role of Captain James T. West in the widely-panned action-comedy Wild Wild West . The role of Neo ultimately went to Keanu Reeves .
Besides the significance of the role and what many surmise might have happened if Smith had pulled off the role in the iconic and groundbreaking film trilogy, another possible reason behind calling out Will Smith in particular is that he has turned down other offered roles that would place him in an ensemble cast, rather than the lead.
…swimming pools are carbonated
A simple calculation reveals this as a serious greenhouse problem. In the United States alone there are no less than 5,000,000 private owned pools. Conservatively assumed, a volume of 25,000 liters per pool gives 125 billion liters of carbonated soda. According to Wikipedia the U.S. sales reached around 30 billion bottles of water in 2008 (including non-carbonated water) which is much less than all of the pool water. While all those bottles are not considered to have an impact on the greenhouse effect, this scenario gets even worse. Open a bottle of carbonated water and pour the content into a glass. Sooner or later the bubbles fade, meaning you have to open the next bottle and pour it in and so on. In a pool at the bottom the pressure is high enough to hold the carbon dioxide, but on the surface it behaves like the glass. So, while a glass needs new carbonated water every two hours, or ten times per day, it would be about three times per day for the pool, which leads to 1095 times per year. The total number in this scenario would be 125 trillion liters of carbonated soda, ejecting carbon dioxide, per year. Even taking into account the pressure at the bottom of the pool: Randall has shown in Soda Sequestration this effect would be minimal.
…sliced bread, after being banned in January 1943, was never re-legalized.
Sliced bread was in fact banned in the US for about two months in early 1943, as a supposed wartime conservation measure. The issue was not the bread itself, but that the pre-sliced loaves required a heavier wax paper wrapping to prevent them from drying out too quickly.
The title text suggests that Randall has been pitching an absurd "alternate-universe crime drama" to Netflix , apparently based on the premise that a permanent sliced-bread ban would spawn a criminal underground (similar to those created by alcohol and drug prohibitions in actual history). The first half of the sentence is set up to imply that production had started on the series but a breakdown in communication has occurred between them, playing on the reader's expectations. The conclusion of the sentence nonetheless makes it clear that Netflix has zero interest in the pitch, and so Randall has become overzealous in pushing his idea, to the point that Netflix employees are changing their numbers (presumably they can't block his number because he has resorted to calling from many different phones). He has even taken to infiltrating Netflix's corporate headquarters using ill-gotten security codes, which is definitely illegal [ citation needed ] , much like Elaine 's "meetings" with Steve Jobs in 1337: Part 3 .
However, it is clear that Netflix is uninterested and is attempting to prevent Randall from contacting them (or trespassing into the building).
[Inside this single panel comic the header on top reads:] In an ensemble model , forecasters run many different versions of a weather model with slightly different initial conditions. This helps account for uncertainty and shows forecasters a spread of possible outcomes.
[To the left side a picture shows several gray overlapping swirling lines emitted from a point, then gradually diverging rightwards. Below are two smaller pictures; the first shows the lines connected to several loops and in the second it's still a similar figure to the above but moving into the opposite direction with the point emerged to a spiral.]
[The text right to the pictures reads:] Members in a typical ensemble: A universe where… …rain is 0.5% more likely in some areas …wind speeds are slightly lower …pressure levels are randomly tweaked …dogs run slightly faster …there's one extra cloud in the Bahamas …Germany won WWII …snakes are wide instead of long …Will Smith took the lead in The Matrix instead of Wild Wild West …swimming pools are carbonated …sliced bread, after being banned in January 1943, was never re-legalized.
2149: Alternate Histories also deals with the alternative history setting of Germany winning WW2 and subsequently more weird alternate history settings.


Typing Notifications

Explanation:
Randall has sent an instant message to someone and is now watching the screen expecting a reply. The message contains simple questions about a show Randall had undertaken and he insists on an honest answer. The phone indicates that the respondent is typing a response, but then pauses, resumes typing, and pauses a second time, before sending a simple "It was great!"
Typing notifications, often called "typing awareness indicator", is a feature of some instant messaging systems. It lets you know when the other person in a conversation is typing and preparing a reply. It may appear in different forms, like the literal text "[Contact] is typing." or often has a empty answer (possibly a different color) containing three animated dots. It gives the sender confidence that their message has been received and the other one is working on a reply.
When the final response is received it is anodyne "It was great", suggesting that the first two deleted drafts could be far more critical. The fact that you know that a message has been deleted or edited twice provokes you to imagine what the deleted drafts may have contained. The issue with typing notifications that Randall is talking about might also just be the difficulty to interpret them. The distant contact might just have been doing something else at the same time, had a bad, unsteady internet connection, started typing in the wrong conversation, or corrected a typo, but because Randall has interpreted the long pauses the same way one would read face-to-face interactions, the typing notifications make it seem like they weren't honest.
If one partner of a conversation takes their sweet time to reply, possibly deleting their text and starting from scratch as shown in this comic, the typing notification feature can lead to anxiety, as the person waiting for a response starts to overthink the issue. Thoughts come to mind like the other person might not be honest, try to carefully word a sensitive subject or not care enough about you to quickly reply. If finally the answer arrives and consists of just a laconic "ok" or similar, these feelings become even stronger, leading to thoughts like the other person is trying to hide something. This phenomenon has become so widespread that many people have written about it in newspapers and blogs, calling it texting anxiety .
The caption below the screens summarizes that what Randall dislikes the most about these systems of notification that the other party on the conversation is actively working on a reply is the lengthly alternation between indications that the other party is composing a reply, amidst pauses wherein one presumes the other party is thinking carefully about what they are wanting to say, then more typing as in response to their deep thinking, etc. until at the end of this extended period when one expects the other side to have written a book's worth of notes given the time and work they appear to have dedicated to the reply -- and all they get is a simple 3-word reply.  It leaves him wondering what all the other party really typed, and really thought, that they ended up not sending. This type of notification was mentioned as rule no. 1 in the much later 2235: Group Chat Rules .
One way around giving your text receiver texting anxiety would be to open a blank note and work out what you want to say there. Since you're not typing in the messaging app, there's no typing notification.
In the title text, Randall expresses that he likes to watch when the recipient reacts and is trying to write an answer but he's also happy to not receive notifications that the texter is composing a response in a blank note file. Typically, one composes responses in blank notes when they need to be careful or thoughtful about how they respond (as well as avoid alerting the recipient, via the notifications, that they've received their text and are preparing a response). If Randall were to be notified about such actions, it would confirm his above fears that the writer was being tactful and guarded in their response, which would just lead to more anxiety about what they were trying to hide. Also, it would expose him if he wanted to compose his own message privately.
[A sequence of eight panels representing the same conversation in an electronic chat. The header always reads:] What did you think of my show? Did you like it? Be honest!
[The reply area on the first seven panels is empty, but on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 7th the input is activated and showing three dots.]
[On the last panel the reply area reads:] It was great!
[Caption below the panels:] My least favorite aspect of typing notifications


Two Down, One to Go

Explanation:
In this comic, Randall lists three of the most spectacular astronomical sights: a total solar eclipse , an aurora (Aurora Borealis in the northern hemisphere and Aurora Australis in the south), and a meteor storm . In 2017, the first two of these phenomena happened within weeks of each other for observers in much of the US - a coincidence that Randall celebrates.
In the title text, Randall suggests the next meteor storm could be 2034, probably because this is predicted to be a good year for Leonids .
Randall then continues by saying that if he manages to see a supernova during the daytime, he will drop the goal for the meteor storm and call it 3 of 3. This is because such an event is so unlikely that he hasn't even included it in his bucket list, and he would be happy to switch between the two types of events if he had the chance. A few stars, when they turn supernova, could be so bright that they can be seen during the day time here  on Earth. The brightest supernova recorded in human history was SN 1006 which was sixteen times brighter than Venus but still not bright as the full moon. SN 1054 is an other example. When such an extremely rare event might happen is impossible to predict. There is a (very small) chance that the giant star Betelgeuse will go supernova within Randall's lifetime, allowing him to tick this off the list too. Randall even mentioned that this could not happen soon enough in 1644: Stargazing . Note that if you could see it during the day time, it would be one of the brightest objects in the night sky after the Moon.  Also keep in mind that if Betelgeuse were to go supernova in Randall's lifetime, he wouldn't see it since it's over 600 light years away.  For Randall to see it during his lifetime, it must have already gone supernova some 600 odd years ago, and we won't know that until we actually see it 613-881 years after it happened.
Astronomical backgrounds
[There are three rows equally filled with squares and above are year dates beginning from 2002 until 2017. The first year (2002) is cut on the left and the color is light gray. It fades in to black, which it becomes in in 2005. To the left of the three rows the text reads:] Total eclipse Aurora Meteor storm [Below the year 2017 the squares in the first two rows are checked.]


Still in Use

Explanation:
Cueball is trying to remove the trash bag from his garbage can. However, the can refuses to let him do so, citing that a paper towel in the trash is being used by some object in his home.
This comic draws parallels between the act of emptying a physical rubbish bin and emptying the recycle bin integrated into a desktop computing environment like Windows, macOS, most Linux derivatives, and others. It originated with the Xerox Alto , but was first commercially introduced on Apple Lisa in 1982 called Wastebasket and, while it was adopted by most other desktop environment operating system, using slightly different names, the main purpose still remains: A user can restore a file after they have deleted it -- hence the most common name recycle bin , you still can get your paper towel and use it again. In many (earlier) command line based systems like DOS or UNIX/Linux (besides the desktop interfaces) a removed file was gone. Some undelete commands exist, but there are hard restrictions because the then free space on the hard drive must not have been used again and often file names aren't fully recoverable.
But sometimes when attempting to delete files, a running program may still have the file marked as in use. The operating system will therefore prevent the file's deletion, but some do not tell the user which program is using the file.
Preventing the file from being deleted from the file system in this case may be a correct behavior, because the document is still being worked on. But sometimes it may happen erroneously, perhaps because of a program not closing the file properly, a glitch in the operating system, or user error. The user then is required to find the cause of the problem and rectify it before the file can be deleted. This may be difficult because error messages may not reveal the affected file or the program blocking its removal. Similar problems may occur when unmounting (or "safely removing") a removable storage device.
The title text may refer to a simple solution to these sorts of problems: Wait a while, perhaps overnight, and see if the (unknown) application(s) have closed the open file(s). Alternatively, the user can shut down the system to make absolutely sure that nothing is using anything. This is usually effective and harmless -- programs that falsely flagged something in the recycle bin as "in use" usually won't recreate the problem when the computer finishes booting up -- but this is really not a convenient solution for the user because all applications are closed.
Advanced users may be inconvenienced by unhelpful error messages but at least are likely to know the tools available to solve the problem. However, a less experienced user just trying to free some space is not only annoyed, their only solution is to reboot or shut down the computer.
Some tools:
[Cueball is trying to take out a trash bag from his garbage can.] Trash: Sorry, you can't empty the garbage yet. A paper towel in here is currently in use by some object in your house.


xkcd Phone 6

Explanation:
This is the sixth entry in the ongoing xkcd Phone series , and once again, the comic plays with many standard tech buzzwords, and horribly misuses all of them, to create a phone that sounds impressive but self-evidently isn't to even the most ignorant customer. The previous comic in the series 1809: xkcd Phone 5 was released 7 months before this one and the next 2000: xkcd Phone 2000 was released 8 and a half months later.
This comic was released the day after Apple announced their new iPhone 8 and the higher-end iPhone X (pronounced iPhone 10) with facial recognition features.
Front camera (centered for eye contact during video chat) A front camera has become a common feature of smartphones. The camera lens is located on the same side of the phone's case as the main screen, making it possible to capture the image of the user's face looking at the screen and display the interlocutor's face on the screen simultaneously, enabling video chat. However, as the camera is usually located above the screen, when the user looks at the displayed image of the other person they direct their eyes at the center of the screen and not at the camera's lens. This makes it appear on the other end of the chat as if the person talking was looking down and not making eye-contact, which can be an uncomfortable situation for many people. For this reason, professionals involved in movie or TV-making, like actors or reporters, are trained to look straight into the camera's lens while talking, which creates impression of looking straight at the viewer's face. During a video chat, however, looking into the lens of an above-screen camera does not allow one to see the interlocutor's face clearly because it is then in the peripheral field of vision.
To solve this conundrum, Randall proposes locating the camera lens right in the middle of the screen. The user looking at the the other person's face on the screen would then also be looking at the lens, creating an impression on the other end of the chat that they are looking straight at the other person. This is absurd, since the lens would then take place of some of the center pixels of the screen, which would probably mean that it could not display the center part of the captured image of the other person's face. This could include features such as eyes and/or lips, which play an important part in non-verbal communication. Locating the camera lens in this way would probably also interfere with the touch-screen function. It would probably make other applications on the phone difficult to use, since virtually no user interface is designed to accommodate a blind spot in the center.
The idea of having the camera in the middle of the screen is only currently absurd, however, as advances in technology may eventually enable such a feature to work without disturbing the appearance or function of the phone's display, unlike the visual disturbance clearly indicated in the comic. For instance, previous technological advancements have improved the functionality of the display, starting with adding touch sensing. The touch sensitive hardware of the phone is located in a thin layer above the hardware, that generates the image for the display, and capacitive touch sensing technology is less obtrusive than previous resistive sensing. While it has yet to be released to market, certain manufacturers are aiming to place a phone's fingerprint reader underneath the screen, for seamless functionality. Although it may be difficult at this point, figuring out a way to have a camera capture images through the array of pixels on the screen is not completely beyond imagination.
Full-width rear camera Historically, there has been an 'arms race' among phone manufacturers to increase the 'size' of the rear camera, in terms of the number of pixels they can capture. This is not typically accompanied by equivalent increases in physical size, though. Phone cameras tend to have lenses which are quite small, and round or square -- measuring the same in width as in height. On this phone, the 'full-width' lens appears to be a long, thin strip, like an oval or rectangle shape. This could allow the camera to gather a lot more light, potentially working in low light situations. However the lens would be more vulnerable to damage and dirt. Unless a very large sensor was used, focusing the image could be a problem, since cell phones are typically not very deep.
CDC partnership - phone automatically administers seasonal flu vaccine to cheek every year U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a government agency tasked with addressing public health concerns, such as infectious diseases, including seasonal flu. A common way of limiting the spread of an infectious disease is vaccination , which most often involves administering a specially prepared vaccine via an intramuscular injection , though researchers have investigated other delivery systems, including aerosol, or microneedle injection. Uptake of vaccination is often poor, and many governments routinely use various different campaigns and techniques to try to encourage more people to get themselves vaccinated.
This feature implies that the phone would automatically perform some form of injection once a year, administering a vaccine via a small aperture while the user is holding the phone to their cheek during a call. However, the placement of this component is dubious, as it would line up with the user's ear, rather than their cheek, during a phone call. It may be designed to detect the fraction of a second during which your cheek would be in the appropriate position (perhaps after a phone call, as you may be dropping the phone from your ear), and administer it at that moment; this would conveniently prevent disturbances to a majority of conversations.
A further absurdity to this feature is that the vaccine is different every year, in order to account for various mutations causing different, and typically new, strains of the virus, which is the reason it has to be administered yearly. The CDC bases the combination of strains on a best-guess of what will be the most significant strains in circulation over the upcoming year, so in order to have the current year's vaccine, the user would have to physically load the new version into the phone for later administration, or there would have to be a mechanism to synthesize the concoction on-board the phone, and an associated logistics framework and digital standards for OTA delivery of specifications for the year's vaccine.
12-function Most smartphones can be used for more than twelve different things [ citation needed ] . However, this may refer to the twelve basic functions of algebra (identity, squaring, cubing, square root, logarithm, exponential, reciprocal, sine, cosine, greatest integer, absolute value, and logistic), or the twelve function keys on a modern keyboard (more than the ten on the original IBM PC keyboard). Alternatively, it may be a reference to calculators: basic models are sometimes referred to as four function calculators (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), and complex scientific calculators may advertise 250 or more functions.
Dishwasher safe Waterproofing has become a much-pushed feature of many recent smartphones, with manufacturers competing on the claimed resilience of their models. A phone that was truly dishwasher safe would be ahead in this race, as it would have to be able to withstand high-pressure jets of water, high temperatures, and caustic effects of detergent over significant periods. This is often listed as a selling point of items used for preparing, serving, or storing food, such as plastic containers or crockery, which a normal person might want to clean using a dishwasher, but it seems excessive for phones, which are rarely cleaned with anything more than a quick wipe, and most people would not intentionally attempt to clean in a dishwasher.
GPS transmitter Many smartphones have a receiver for the Global Positioning System , which allows a phone to compute its position based on signals from the constellation(s) of GPS satellites. However, a device with a "GPS transmitter" would broadcast signals that would interfere with the GPS receivers of all devices nearby. This might be used in some form of differential GPS, broadcasting signals from a known location to allow more precise determination of other locations, or such a system might be used to confuse or control devices, such as drones, which navigate using GPS.
3-G acceleration This is a mixture of three unrelated concepts with similar names. In computer graphics, " 3-D acceleration " refers to GPU hardware that speeds up handling of three-dimensional data, such as shapes rotating in space. In physics, "3 Gs of acceleration" refers to speed increasing at a rate of 3 times the acceleration of Earth's gravity, or approximately 30 m/s². In cellular networks, 3G refers to a standard for data communication. GPUs, accelerometers, and compatibility with 3G networks are all normal features of modern smartphones. "3-G acceleration", however, is not a real term, and doesn't describe any meaningful feature of a phone. It appears to suggest that either the phone is capable of self-propelling with 3 Gs of acceleration, which doesn't seem particularly useful, or, perhaps more feasibly, that it has some way of increasing the data transfer rate over a 3G connection.
Portable, solar-heated Portability is pretty much the entire point of using a mobile phone, so advertising portability is rather redundant. Solar power charging could be a very useful feature on a phone, but solar heating usually applies to plumbing, where a water tank is heated by the sun and used to supply hot water to taps. Technically, as the sun heats up everything it shines on, the phone is in fact solar heated. However, since avoiding overheating is a particular challenge in smartphone design, deliberately capturing solar energy simply in order to heat the device would seem rather counter-productive.
Pore-cleaning strip Pore-cleaning strips are sticky strips designed to be applied to the skin and then pulled away to remove dirt and oils from the pores, with the intention of reducing spots and improving the complexion. The location shown for this feature would be inconvenient and irritating, as it would come into contact with the face every time the phone was held to the ear to make a call; something sticky on that location would be very annoying for clean-shaven people and extremely painful for anyone with facial hair. It would probably also result in that strip of the screen becoming obscured by an accumulation of facial gunk. Pore strips have been mentioned before in 777: Pore Strips .
This may act as a sensor for the Shroud of Turin-style facial transfer unlock , whereby the phone would collect the dirt, oils, and microflora from the user's face when it is pressed against the phone, and use it to verify their identity.
Maximum strength Medicines are often sold as "Maximum strength", usually indicating that they contain the highest dose of active ingredients allowed by law, or allowed without a prescription. For phones, there are sometimes "hardened" or "ruggedized" versions, which are designed to survive harsher environmental conditions, such as surviving drops and collisions, excessive water, dust, etc. Maximum strength here could indicate such a "ruggedized" phone, though this would be hard to achieve with a screen that extended past the edges.
Never needs sharpening Phones do not need to be sharpened in the first place [ citation needed ] . This is a feature more likely to be found in a knife advertisement -- the slogan is infamous for hawking knives that cannot easily be sharpened, like a serrated blade -- or a mechanical pencil. Since the screen goes past the edge, it might be sharp enough to cut through things, much like a knife, though the phone would be unsafe to carry and handle if that were the case [ citation needed ] .
Might also refer to sharpening the camera, which usually means adjusting the lens till an object is in focus. Most phones have autofocus and rarely need to be manually sharpened.
Can survive up to 30 minutes out of water This is a play on the common IP-rating of water resistance, which is typically rated for submersion to a rated depth for 30 minutes. A phone which could only be used or carried for 30 minutes before it needed to be immersed in water would be rather inconvenient, although the phone short circuiting would likely not be an issue, as the phone is "dishwasher safe."
Alternatively, either this phone's target market could be whales, dolphins, or other marine life, such as octopodes, or the feature could be optional. While such a feature would prove to be extremely useful for aquatic customers, the "solar-heated" feature would undoubtedly be inhibited significantly as water depths increased.
Exclusive Audubon Society app identifies birds and lets you control their flight The National Audubon Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of nature, and mainly of birds, which also organizes open birdwatching events. There are apps that attempt to identify bird species, for example, from a photo or audio recording of a bird made by the smartphone itself, though the Audubon Society's own app does not offer anything this interactive. An app allowing you to control the bird's flight would be way cooler and might work using the built-in GPS transmitter, confusing their navigation systems. However birds do not use GPS to navigate [ citation needed ] , and it would fly in the face of the Audubon Society's core activity. This is a reference to drones (which could be thought of as artificial "birds") which are often controlled by a smartphone app. This may also be a reference to 1425: Tasks , in which an app that can recognize if a bird is on camera is proposed.
Extra screen Some phones advertise an additional display or display mode, often giving access to basic information, such as battery level and notifications without needing to activate the main screen function. Typically, this would be a low-power mode of operation of the normal screen, or else a form of display on another surface of the phone, such as the side or rear. Here, it seems to be an oddly shaped rectangular extension on the bottom of the main screen. This may have been added to make up for the loss of screen estate due to the center camera.
Wireless charging port A port for wireless charging is an oxymoron, since wireless charging has no wires and thus has no need for a port, unless it is required for fuel for a fuel cell (see clean coal, below). This may be a jab at Apple's removal of the headphone port from their previous phones.
Safe for ages 6-8 months, 10 months, 18 months-3 years, and 12 years and older Usually an item is deemed safe for a particular age or older, or (in the case of toys) is recommended for a particular age range. This is unusual in that it's a hodge-podge of age ranges with no apparent reason why some ages are safe and others are not. It may be a parody of drug commercials that list several age ranges for which the drug had to be separately approved.
Screen goes past the edge A parody of the trend of "edge to edge" displays in recent generations of smartphones, or phones whose screens curve partway around the edge of the phone. In this case the screen is wide enough that it could curve partway around the edge, except the spillover does not actually form to the curves, resulting in a screen that is wider than the body of the phone. If the spillover is rigid, this would make the phone rather uncomfortable to hold, and the spillover is at risk of chipping off.
High thread count CPU A CPU thread is a task the CPU performs. Several threads may share memory, making them a process. Threads are meant to run in parallel and the operating system distributes the workload on the available hardware execution units. These execution units are sometimes called hardware threads, especially when there is more than one per processing unit (or core). For example, the Intel Core i7 7700 is considered a 4-core, 8-thread CPU. The vague "high thread count" statement could make sense in this context, however, it is most likely a joke about bedding, where it is an actual selling point; the thread count of a textile signifies the density of fibres in the material, and a high thread count is an indicator of a high quality fabric.
Shroud of Turin-style facial transfer unlock The Shroud of Turin contains an image of the body and face of a man, originally believed to be Jesus Christ , before the Shroud was found to be 1200 years too young. Some theories suggest the image was created by interaction with or transfer from the body that was wrapped in the shroud. Presumably, to unlock this phone, the user would have to physically press their face against the phone, the way the Shroud-Man's image was allegedly transferred to the shroud. This is probably a reference to the iPhone X's FaceID unlock, which uses a photograph of your face, augmented with spatial information, to unlock itself, and which had attracted significant criticism immediately before this comic came out.
Fonts developed by NASA This may be a reference to many advertisements that claim that their product uses technology developed by NASA in an attempt to make it seem more impressive. NASA technology does often tend to be quite strong and advanced, as they claim at their spin off website. Between 1975 and 1992 NASA used the "worm" logotype in its insignia; it was a special font that omitted the horizontal bar in the capitalized letter A. However, it would not be particularly impressive to use this, since fonts have very little to do with NASA's core operations [ citation needed ] , and it potentially implies that it would not support many other common, and perhaps more readable, fonts.
This may also be riffing on the urban legend that NASA invested vast amounts of research in developing a pen that could write in space, rather than just using a pencil.
Includes applicator This is found on the packaging for many products, such as tampons, cosmetics, and paints. An applicator for a phone would be absurd, since the phone cannot be applied, spread, inserted, or attached to something else. However, this may be referring back to the aforementioned yearly vaccine.
Burns clean coal Clean coal is coal that is burned so that it does not give off as much soot, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury, or other pollutants as "normal" coal, or methods of burning coal that give off relatively less pollutants. This may be advertised by energy companies trying to appear to be using clean energy, due to pollution concerns. Coal burning power plants are usually quite large, so a traditional coal fired thermal-electric plant in a cell phone would be absurd. fuel cells , which produce electricity by oxidizing some fuel, can be small enough to fit in a cell phone, but they do not typically burn coal. The cordless charging port might be a receptacle for refueling the phone, using liquid or a fuel cartridge.
Pre-seasoned Pre-seasoned typically refers to cast iron cookware which is ready to use out of the box, as opposed to needing to season it with oil and heat. It can also refer to packaged meats which are ready to cook without needing to be seasoned with herbs and spices, or timber that has been dried and is ready for use. A more technical definition of 'seasoning' means operating devices, usually calibrated standards or battery cells, for a while in the factory, to make sure the device meets constant performance requirements without deviating or diminshing too much. In this sense it could apply to the battery of the phone.
Broad-spectrum SPF 30 The xkcd phone somehow gives a sun protection factor (SPF) 30 level of protection from sunlight, meaning that it blocks all but 1/30 of skin-burning UVB radiation from sunlight, though it is not clear whether it is the user or the phone itself which is protected. Phones do not typically require protection from sunlight [ citation needed ] . On the other hand, if, when placed between the user and the sun, the phone allows >3% of the radiation through, this would be remarkably more translucent, and therefore less effective, than most phones (which allow much less than 1% of UVB, or any other visible or near-visible wavelength, through). It would also be an inefficient method of protection, since it would only be able to protect a relatively small patch of skin.
College-ruled College-ruled is a style of notebook paper having narrower than normal lines, in order to fit more text per page. That the phone is college-ruled suggests that there are lines permanently displayed on the screen, which could obscure any images on the screen, and make any text that doesn't line up with the lines hard to read. Defective screens can show similar patterns; for example, the iPhone 6 "touch disease" causes regularly spaced vertical lines to appear on top of the screen. Here, it is possible that the manufacturer is trying to pass off screen defects as features.
Sterile packaging Useful for medical supplies, less so in a phone. There are numerous studies and resulting 'news' articles looking at the number of bacteria, fecal samples, and so forth, that can be found on the typical phone, typically with a sensationalist take on how you will be 'shocked' to discover this. However, sterile packaging would do little to counter this, since most of this contamination is accumulated after the user removes the phone from the packaging and begins using it.
Radium backlight The discovery of the radioactive element radium sparked a brief fad in which manufacturers of consumer products began coating them with a paint containing radium and a radioluminescent substance, such as zinc sulfide, which converted the radiation from the radium into visible light. In particular, some clock and watch makers painted the faces or hands of their timepieces, allowing the time to be read at night without an external power source for the light. However, it was eventually realized that regular exposure to radium could result in radiation poisoning, particularly for the workers assembling and painting the products. A radium-based backlight would therefore be both potentially dangerous (especially for an object carried on one's person much of the time) but also largely useless, as the radioluminescent light is rather dim compared to conventional phone back lights.
4K pixels (50×80) "4K" typically denotes a screen with a width of ~4000 pixels, such as 4K TVs, which have 3840×2160 pixels, or about 8.3 million pixels total. That would be an outstanding resolution for a cell phone. Here, however, the "fine print" in parentheses clarifies that 4000 is actually the total number of pixels, not the width, which would be remarkably low resolution for a smart phone. As a comparison, the old Commodore VIC-20, with a resolution of 176 × 184, would have over 8 times the pixels of this phone. It is more comparable to the screen resolution of the sturdy Nokia 3310, which boasted a total of 4032 pixels, positioned 84 × 48.
In the caption below the phone Randall presents many different version numbers:
The "nonconsecutive version number war" referenced below the version names refers to several recent phones, and possibly operating systems, released consecutively with nonconsecutive version numbers, including:
Randall's ludicrous naming scheme aims to 'defeat' all of these by eclipsing them. By counting parallel version numbers xkcd defeated Apple 6:2.
The symbols at the end are ™ for trademark, ® for registered trademark, and © for copyright. The degree symbol ° after the letter C could be a play with degree Celsius. The use of all four symbols after the phrase is ridiculous, as ™ and ® indicate trademarks with opposite registration statuses, slogans can't be copyrighted, and the degree symbol usually has no meaning when applied to text.
In the title text Randall recognises privacy concerns about the facial recognition feature. A picture of a face will only be used for facial recognition, but never stored on the device nor transmitted to the internet. A small side effect may be that the famous selfie pictures aren't possible anymore, as well as video calls. Ironic, considering that the reason the camera is in the middle is to allow easier video calls.
[A smartphone is shown, the screen is slightly wider than the case, in the middle is a photo lens, and at the right bottom a small extra part is added to the screen.] [On top a bracket ranges nearly over the entire width of the case. The text reads:] Full-width rear camera [The label at the photo lens is:] Front camera (centered for eye contact during video chat) [The label on the extra part says:] Extra screen [At the bottom below the case a label reads:] Wireless charging port
[The labels left to the phone are:] 4k pixels (50x80) Radium backlight Sterile packaging College-ruled Broad spectrum SPF 30 Pre-seasoned Burns clean coal Includes applicator Fonts developed by NASA Shroud of turn-style facial transfer unlock High thread count CPU Screen goes past the edge Safe for ages 6-8 months, 10 months, 18 months-3 years, and 12 years and older
[The labels right to the phone are:] CDC partnership: Phone automatically administers seasonal flu vaccine to cheek every year 12-function Dishwasher safe GPS transmitter 3-G acceleration Portable, solar-heated Pore-cleaning strip Maximum strength Never needs sharpening Can survive up to 30 minutes out of water Exclusive Audubon Society app identifies birds and lets you control their flight
[Text below the phone:] Introducing The xkcd Phone 6, VIII, 10, X, 26, and 1876 We didn't start this nonconsecutive version number war, but we will not lose it. ™®©°


What to Bring

Explanation:
This comic derives its humor from combining two common but unrelated pieces of advice: "never bring a knife to a gun fight", and "never put water on an oil fire". The corollary to these phrases is that a knife is only useful for a knife fight, and water is only useful for a wood fire (or similar solid and porous fuel). Randall creates a confusion matrix applying each of the solutions (knives, guns, lids, and water) to each of the situations (knife fight, gun fight, wood fire, oil fire) to predict the likely outcomes.
The squares in the table are highlighted in green to answer "Yes" to the question, where the specified object is appropriate or advantageous for the situation, or red to answer "No", usually because the object would not be helpful in resolving the situation. The grid concludes that, not only are both pieces of advice correct (bringing knives to gun fights, and using water on oil fires would both end in likely disaster), but only the prescribed solutions are appropriate for each situation (e.g. any solution other than a lid would be ineffective for an oil fire, and potentially very dangerous). The sole exception to this trend is bringing a gun to a knife fight, which would give you a major tactical advantage over your opponent.
The ultimate point of this comic may be in the title text. There is a phrase in American English, "to bring a knife to a gun fight," which means "to be so naive as to be unprepared." While Randall may be commenting specifically on managing conflict escalation by being adequately prepared for the situation, it is also possible that he is subtly expressing his opinion about the virtues of restraint.
[Text in the top-left corner of the comic:]
"Should you bring _____ to ______?"
[The comic is laid out like a grid, with implements down the left-hand side (A knife / A gun / Water / A lid) and the type of "fight" across the top (A knife fight / A gun fight / A wood fire / An oil fire). The grid illustrates the "match-ups", with a green square denoting a "correct" match-up and a red square denoting a Very Bad Idea.]
[From the top left corner, going from left to right, top to bottom, with each first item being on its own line in the grid, the squares are as follows:]
[Green square, two combatants face off against each other with knives, equally matched.] A knife to A knife fight
[Red square, a person with a knife faces off against someone with a gun, and is clearly outmatched.] A knife to A gun fight
[Red square, a person holds a knife in a wood fire while saying "OW OW OW".] A knife to A wood fire
[Red square, the person with the knife scrapes at the oil inside the pan that's on fire while saying "OW OW OW". The scraping accompanied by the text "SCRAPE SCRAPE".] A knife to An oil fire
[Green square, the person with the gun points it at the opponent with the knife, who exclaims, "Dude!"] A gun to A knife fight
[Green square, two combatants point guns at one another, equally matched.] A gun to A gun fight
[Red square, the person with the gun shoots pointlessly three times at the wood fire, which carries on blazing. The shooting is accompanied by the text "BLAM BLAM BLAM".] A gun to A wood fire
[Red square, the person with the gun shoots at the flaming pan, which does nothing to put it out. The shooting is accompanied by the text "BLAM".] A gun to An oil fire
[Red square, the person with the water throws it uselessly in the face of the person holding the knife.] Water to A knife fight
[Red square, the person with the water throws it uselessly in the face of the person holding the gun.] Water to A gun fight
[Green square, the person throws the water on the fire and successfully extinguishes it, which makes a "SPLOOSH" sound.] Water to A wood fire
[Red square, the person is shown reeling back from the oil fire, the water glass going flying, as the oil fire explodes with a "FOOM".] Water to An oil fire
[Red square, the person with the lid comically places it on the head of the person with the knife, who stands there in confusion.] A lid to A knife fight
Red square, the person with the lid ineffectually places it on top of the gun the other person is pointing at them. A lid to A gun fight
Red square, the person with the lid holds it near the wood fire, which does nothing to put out the fire. A lid to A wood fire
[Green square, the person places the lid on top of the oil fire, which suffocates and extinguishes it.] A lid to An oil fire


Obsolete Technology

Explanation:
This comic mocks people who criticize an industry for using obsolete technology, even when said technology is sufficient for the task at hand. The claim often comes with the implication that those in charge of the industry are behind the times and cannot adapt to the cutting edge. What these critics often fail to realize is that there are cost benefits to sticking with "obsolete" infrastructure, and that upgrading to the newest tech can introduce unwanted side effects and other risks.
Here, Ponytail acts as one such critic, complaining that the business is taking "forever" to get with the times. Megan uses sarcasm to deliver her counterargument: despite the advent of nuclear weapons, fireworks use the ancient technology of gunpowder (invented in the 9th century), because fireworks are used by civilians for celebratory purposes and should have as few lethal side effects as possible.
As they use gunpowder, fireworks do claim a handful of lives and cause thousands of injuries each year due to improper handling procedures; between June 18th and July 18th of 2016 (thus including the Independence Day celebrations on July 4th), fireworks caused an estimated 11,000 injuries, of which 7,000 had to be treated in hospitals. In the whole year of 2016, four people died ( U.S. stats ). Nuclear explosions, meanwhile, have "detrimental effects" [ citation needed ] on human health in the same way sledgehammers have "detrimental effects" [ citation needed ] to chicken eggs. For example, should a nuclear explosion at a firework display be too powerful, the spectators, and possibly the neighborhood around the display, would be vaporized instantly. Fallout from a nuclear reaction could spread radiation across a wide area, leading to increased risks of cancers and other detrimental [ citation needed ] genetic mutations.
In other words, sometimes using newer technology is "overkill" for the purpose, and it might be costlier to switch to a newer technology. For example, many industrial machines were designed and sold in the 1990s when floppy disks were the prevalent means of storing the instructions, but those machines still have one or two or even more decades of usable lifetime left, and the instruction files still fit on those floppy disks. So, in 2017, there are several companies that thrive on buying, refurbishing and selling floppy disks. This report portrays one of these companies.
MS-DOS is a computer operating system made by Microsoft that was dominant during much of the 1980s. When Microsoft released the Windows line of operating systems, they encouraged people to switch to the new platform, which many did. MS-DOS became essentially obsolete when Microsoft released Windows 95 in 1995. However, there remain rare circumstances in which MS-DOS (or another command-line operating system) is still preferred, such as when no mouse, touchscreen, or other pointing hardware is available, or when the hardware does not support a newer operating system. To make matters simpler, there is DOSBox , a free and open-source MS-DOS emulator which is actively maintained and extended. Likewise, FreeDOS is a free and open-source operating system designed to run on both older and newer computers which is compatible with programs written for MS-DOS.
The title text uses a different twist, criticizing the current use of fax machines. In many respects, faxing is obsolete compared to e-mail; it supports only black-and-white images, it complicates the process of modifying sent text by rendering it as images, it consumes the recipient's paper and toner and, in some countries, requires the recipient to pay a fee. Fax machines are a peculiar topic among "obsolete" technology; in some fields, like lawyer offices, pharmacies and medical practices, they staunchly hold their ground, as they offer a way to quickly transfer handwritten and hand-signed documents. Confidentiality is also an issue; fax, which uses a landline, is more difficult to intercept than internet-based traffic. In some countries, a telecopy is a valid document, having the same legal value as the original. A patient can thus call their doctor to fill a prescription, which is faxed to the pharmacy where the patient can fetch their drugs, saving precious time. In the same manner, a legal request can be sent to the receiver, without having to use a courier or express mail.
But rather than argue on any of the above points, the title text instead claims that faxing is obsolete due to being electron-based, while neutrino -based communication would be faster. In 2017, neutrino detectors are heavy and expensive, used for nuclear research only. Electronic communications travel at a fair share of the speed of light and the advantage of path would be at most a factor of π/2, so neutrino-based communication would normally be far too expensive compared to the speed gain. Even in the most extreme case (communicating between antipodes ), the time saved would be a few hundredths of a second – insignificant for almost all purposes, but potentially enough to gain an edge in high-frequency trading , as suggested in a 2012 Forbes article. Real-world fax detractors would rather replace it with other electronic communication systems, not neutrinic ones.
[Ponytail sits in front of an old computer. Megan stands behind her.] Ponytail: Whoa, this is running MS-DOS! It's weird how new technology takes forever to reach some industries. Megan: Yeah. Like how we still use gunpowder for fireworks, even though we've had nuclear weapons for over 70 years.


USB Cables

Explanation:
In this comic, Randall states the 'Law of USB cables': You will never have more than one which has no problems now matter how many you get. Now that most devices charge off USB, having a cable (specifically, USB-A (the big end) to Micro-B or USB-C (the small end)) is essential. However, most USB cables are cheaply made, and carrying them around quickly damages them. This comic lists some common (and not so common) problems with USB cables.
The title text refers to the popular meme " Tag yourself, I'm... " which is used with pictures containing lots of strange objects, phrases or other elements. The phrase prompts people to identify individual elements from the image that they personally feels matches their own identity, usually self-deprecatingly. (The meme stems from Facebook, where people can place tags identifying themselves in photos, but has spread to other websites without an actual tagging system.) Here, Randall suggests that, like a USB cable, he's frayed. "I'm frayed" is also a pun on the sentence "I'm afraid" that is commonly added to the end of a comment which the speaker believes may leave a negative impression on the listener.
[15 USB cables are shown lying in a column. They are mostly very similar, with small differences. To the right of the cables there are 12 labels, as three of the labels belongs to three sets of two cables.] [2 cables] Carry power but not data Carries data but not power Too short Charges phone slowly Won't auto-activate portable charger [2 cables] Has annoying ferrite lumps Heavy and not very flexible [2 cables] Frayed Plug doesn't fit through case Needs to be twisted to keep working Weird shape The good one
[Caption below the panel:] The law of USB cables: No matter how many you get, you only ever have one good one.


Thread

Explanation:
F'nor is a character from the popular [ citation needed ] sci-fi/fantasy series Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey . He is posting a Twitter comment (a " thread " that's only one comment long, hence "1/1") about " Thread ", a massively destructive alien organism from the same series. Pern is a fictional human-colonized planet and the main setting of the series.
Typically, when starting a series of tweets (used to post content longer than 140 characters), one will start the first tweet with "Thread: " and end it with 1/X. The second tweet will read 2/X, and so on. If X, the total number of tweets, is unknown at the start, it will be listed or 1/many or omitted: 1/
Here, there is a play on the Twitter thread and the actual threat to Pern.
The use of threads on Twitter became significantly more common in 2016 and through 2017. The title text dubs this "Threadfall." In the Pern novels, Threadfall is also the name for the beginning of 50-year cyclic periods when Thread attacks the world of Pern and its inhabitants, which occur between relatively safe "Intervals" of around 200 years. Since according to the title text Threadfall occurred in 2016, it should be expected to continue for ~50 more years until the mid-2060s, when the next Interval will begin.
[A mock-up of a “tweet” from the site twitter.com is shown. It contains a mock-up of a user photo of the fictional character F’nor that resembles Hairy , including a tiny line sketch of F’nor’s brown dragon Canth flying overhead. Below the tweet are several action buttons typical of a Twitter post for comments, replying, likes, etc.]
F’nor @fnor Thread: The greatest threat to our life on Pern 1/1
On Friday, the header was replaced with a message from Randall about how he would be visiting the U.K. on the following week. It read as follows:


Real Estate

Explanation:
In this comic, Cueball is speaking with Ponytail , his real estate agent, about an ongoing negotiation over the price of a house he is looking to buy. This is probably his first time buying a house and he is very overwhelmed by the process, a very common feeling among first-time home buyers. The housing market is so complicated and ever-changing, that it is almost impossible for the layman to have any concept of what a piece of property is worth. One must rely on the opinions of their real estate agent, building inspector, friends and family, along with research regarding the housing market in the area (average property values, what houses recently sold for, etc). Despite the comic mocking it as an obvious stalling tactic, telling the agent that you need time to think about it is a good strategy to research further while seeming to know what you're doing.
In the caption Randall makes it seem that he is in Cueball's situation in any financial negotiation, not only for such large ones as when buying real estate.
In the title text Randall mentions that he tried to convert the prices into the equivalent numbers of pizzas that amount could buy (most pizza parlors charge roughly 15 dollars for a 16-inch/40 cm pizza, so this price cut could net him over 650 pizzas even before the driveway repairs). Thinking of the price of an object (or a reduction in the price) in terms of the number of pizzas (or similar objects) that amount could buy is a good strategy for weighing the pros and cons of a smaller purchase, but doesn't help in this situation, as the number of pizzas is so large that it becomes meaningless in itself. For example, a $300k house would represent 20k pizzas, or enough to have a pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for about 18 years! A better strategy would be to compare the large price to his average monthly cost of living (rent, utility bills, car payments, et al), or to compare to the comparatively stable average cost to build on-site, or the price of factory built homes.
This comic is in line with the much older 616: Lease and the more recent 1674: Adult regarding buying real estate and not feeling grown up (see also 905: Homeownership ).
This comic (and the title text) also alludes to the fact that humans are generally very bad at comprehending/visualizing very large numbers; mathematician Spencer Greenberg has similarly suggested trying to convert very large numbers into different units (such as US national debt into US national debt per person) in an effort to bring the magnitudes down into something more comprehensible, something that Randall humorously attempts to do with the aforementioned conversion to quantities of pizza.
[Ponytail and Cueball sit in office chairs on either side of a desk. Ponytail looks at a piece of paper she is holding in her hand, more papers lie on the table. Cueball sits with his hands in his lap, thinking in a thought bubble before he replies to her remark.] Ponytail: The sellers offer to drop their price by $10,000 and cover the driveway repairs. Cueball [thinking]: These are all staggeringly large amounts of money that I have no idea how to even think about, let alone compare. Cueball [speaking]: Tempting. We'll need a few hours to consider it.
[Caption below the panels:] Me in any financial negotiation.


Worrying Scientist Interviews

Explanation:
When a new development occurs, news channels will often interview an expert in the field to educate laymen in what, exactly, is happening. Thus, when you turn on the local news and see a scientist being interviewed, it is likely that something new has come up regarding their field of study that could affect you. How much it affects you could range from an interesting bit of information about your local area, to the complete annihilation of the human race. So, to help identify how serious the issue likely is, Randall has made this chart showing how worried you should be depending on the field of the scientist. A table has been arranged to explain the amount of worry needed for each field below.
To the far left, the least worrying are archaeologist and economist . An archaeologist studies ancient human civilizations, which would be unlikely to harm any modern person. Economists study and explain the trends of finances and resources, which are also unlikely to pose an immediate threat. [ citation needed ]
Following this, it shows nutritionists and eventually criminologists . A nutritionist studies nutrition in the human body, and is likely discussing which food options are healthy or unhealthy. While this may be important, it is not a cause for immediate concern. A criminologist, however, studies criminal behaviour. If a criminologist is being interviewed on the news, there is likely a change in criminal actions within the neighbourhood, be it more or less. It is also possible there may be a serial criminal working in the area. However, because crime is a relatively rare occurrence, and one for which precautions can be taken, it is still unlikely to be an immediate threat to the viewer.
It then moves past researchers studying different types of organisms, before reaching astronomers. Still only very few events would be local regarding astronomy, but it could of course be regarding a pending meteor strike.
A virologist studies viral infections and their spread, and a vulcanologist studies volcanoes . Viruses spread quickly, and can be fatal, meaning a breaking news development in one's locale regarding viruses is likely to mean imminent danger. Volcanoes, depending on their size, can potentially demolish entire countries, thus having one making headlines nearby is also very concerning.
The last point to the right (most worried) "Astronomer who studies the Sun", also called a " solar physicist " (mentioned in the title text), could be really troublesome, but not especially locally. If there are serious problems with the Sun it will be a world-wide problem. But you should still be worried.
The title text mentions that the reason they are not called solar physicists, is that before they can tell the reporter this, they are interrupted by the anxious reporter who wishes to know what's wrong with the Sun. This is not really something that happens so often [ citation needed ] that the title texts "They always try" has any real meaning. And this is also why no one knows or uses the term solar physicists...
[A chart consisting of a line with double arrows that has 12 dots progressing from left to right. Each dot has a line going to a label above or below the line. Above the labels is another label belonging to an arrow to its right that points right. Above this is a larger caption:] How worried you should be if you see local reporters interviewing scientists about a breaking news story, by field: More worried --->
[The chart shows the following titles left to right (least to most worrisome), some above and some below the line however that doesn't affect their relative positions.  They are listed here in ascending worrisomeness for ease of viewing.] Archeologist Economist Nutritionist Criminologist Ornithologist Botanist Marine biologist Entomologist Astronomer Virologist Vulcanologist Astronomer who studies the sun


Active Ingredients Only

Explanation:
Commercial medicine typically has one (or a few) "Active" ingredient and many "Inactive" ingredients. Active ingredients are the actual medicine, while inactive ingredients -- such as preservatives, dyes, or binders -- are added to dilute the active ingredient to a healthy level and help the body absorb the dose of active ingredient.
Randall thus presents a pack of cold medicine that has "Active Ingredients Only", which is the name of the brand as can be seen since it has "™" after the name (the unregistered trademark symbol). It has six active ingredients and no inactive ingredients. This is a spoof of the current trend of advertising food as containing "no additives and no preservatives".
Cold medicines are commonly packaged in blister packs, with each dose contained separately, and vegans commonly open up gelatin capsules and discard the capsule, ingesting only the contents of the pill (note that this may not be safe . Please consult your pharmacist or doctor before doing this).  By removing the inactive ingredients of the gelatin and the requirement to open it up, the slogan We're not here to waste your time , is justified.  This slogan is also trademarked.
The slogan is a registered trademark (®) while the product name is a common law trademark. This means that the slogan likely stays the same, while the product name changes from time to time.
In the title text, the medicine company promises their product "Contains the active ingredients from all competing cold medicines, plus the medicines for headaches, arthritis, insomnia, indigestion, and more, because who wants THOSE things?" This may be  be a follow-up (or a wish from Randall) after 1618: Cold Medicine , where Cueball wishes to try all possible types of cold medicine at once. The provided justification for combining all these medications is simple: These medicines cure unpleasant symptoms, so taking them all must be a good thing. What this ignores is that taking medicine intended to solve symptoms one doesn't have can be potentially harmful, and would likely be unavoidable for this product's consumers unless they are suffering from all these conditions simultaneously. Furthermore, mixing medications can often lead to unintended reactions and side effects, and is typically advised against.
Another joke is that popular cold medicines contain no antiviral ingredients at all, and treat symptoms only -- while it might make your runny nose less runny, it will do just as much to clear the rhinovirus causing your runny nose as a sugar pill. This part of the comic may be a follow-up to 1526: Placebo Blocker , where a sugar pill is offered to treat a headache.
A secondary joke is by claiming the active ingredients from all "competing" cold medicines, the company producing this "Active Ingredients Only" may choose whom they say they are competing against.  Some cold medications treat only pain and fever, for example, and do nothing for cough, congestion, runny nose and sneezing.  Doctors recommend medicines which aid for the particular symptoms of the cold one is experiencing.
[A picture of a pack of cold medicine. At the top there is a large advert in three lines. In a black line, to the right of the advert, white text states what kind of medicine is in the pack. Below to the left is a square frame listing ingredients. Most of the text inside this frame is unreadable scribbles. To the right of the frame is another advert inside a black frame. On the side of the box are also unreadable scribbles, both at the top and down next to the ingredients list. At the bottom of the box it can be seen how the pack can open up.] Active Ingredients Only TM We're not here to waste your time®
Cold Medicine
Active ingredients [Six lines of scribbles, with first a name, then a statement in brackets and finally a column right of this with a short line of scribbles.]
Inactive ingredients None
No binders!


Self Driving

Explanation:
This comic references the approach of using CAPTCHA inputs to solve problems, particularly those involving image classification, which are not solvable by computers, specifically reCAPTCHA v2's fallback puzzle, and hCaptcha's puzzle, both of which are based on identifying road features and vehicles. A reCAPTCHA version of this puzzle would ask "check all squares containing a STOP SIGN" using one or more images derived from Google Street View .
Such an approach can serve to create the learning set as the basis for training an artificial intelligence (AI) to better recognize or respond to similar stimuli. This approach was used by Google, the owners of reCAPTCHA, to identify house numbers in Street View to improve their mapping, and nowadays Google also uses CAPTCHAs to identify vehicles, street signs and other objects in Street View pictures. This might be a reasonable way to help improve the performance of the AI in a self-driving car that responds to video input, by reviewing images it might encounter and flagging road signs, etc. that it should respond to. Later a similar approach to learning important things, for the robots, was used in 2228: Machine Learning Captcha .
However, the temptation might be to simply sidestep the hard problem of AI by having all instances 'solved' by "offloading [the] work onto random strangers" through CAPTCHAs.  For example, this has been used to defeat CAPTCHAs themselves; people were asked to solve CAPTCHAs to unlock pornographic images in a computer game, while the solution for the CAPTCHA was relayed to a server belonging to cybercriminals. (See PC stripper helps spam to spread and Humans + porn = solved CAPTCHA ).
Alarmingly, the developers of this ' self driving ' car seem to have gone for the lazy approach.  Instead of teaching an AI, the CAPTCHA answer is used in real time to check whether the "self-driving" car is about to arrive at an intersection with a stop sign. This information is pretty critical, as failing to mark the stop could cause an accident. The user is unlikely to respond to the CAPTCHA in time to avert disaster, not to mention that any interruption to the car's internet connection could prove fatal. Self driving cars have become a recurrent theme on xkcd.
The system depicted is a Wizard of Oz experiment (as is the "Mechanical Turk" which a popular crowdworking system is named after) whereas actual self-driving cars, to the extent that they can use reCAPTCHA-style human detection systems, would involve an asynchronous decision system. Other synchronous decision systems which actually exist are political voting and money as a token of the exchange value of trade.
The title text explains that this method could be called "crowdsourced steering", crowdsourcing meaning sending the data on the internet to let several users provide their ideas and input on a problem. People would naturally suspect that this is considerably less safe than a car which is actually capable of self-driving; if the internet can barely collectively steer a videogame character , what chance do they have steering an actual, physical vehicle?
This also suggests that Randall is a bit skeptical of the current stage of AI, as this doubts whether the AI technology really is working in the way that we expect. It also comments on how what we call 'progress' actually is putting our work onto other people.
[Inside a frame there is the following text above an image:] To complete your registration, please tell us whether or not this image contains a stop sign:
[The square image is a drawing of a road leading up to a sign post with a hard to read word at the top part of the eight-sided sign. The sign also has two smaller signs left and right with unreadable text. The image is of poor quality, but trees and other obstacles next to the road can be seen. Darkness around the edges of the image could indicate that it is night and the landscape is only lit up by a cars head lights.] Sign: Stop
[Beneath the image there are two large gray buttons with a word in each:] No Yes
[Beneath the buttons are the following text:] Answer quickly – our self-driving car is almost at the intersection.
[Caption beneath the frame:] So much of "AI" is just figuring out way to offload work onto random strangers.