Turbine

Explanation:
A wind turbine uses wind to rotate its blades in order to generate electricity. It is visually very similar to an (electric) fan which however does the exact opposite: it uses electricity to rotate its blades in order to generate wind. The complementary nature of these two machines was previously highlighted in 1119: Undoing .
The punchline of this comic is a pun on the other meaning of the word " fan " which qualifies someone as liking or supporting something (here, an idea). Megan suggests to have the turbine blow air at her so she could lift off with a kite, something which would be conceivable with a huge fan, but is impossible here precisely because the turbine is not a fan and therefore can't generate wind. So the ( anthropomorphically -speaking) turbine's response is twofold: 1) it's a turbine and not a huge fan, which makes the idea impossible, and 2) for this very reason it doesn't like the idea - i.e. it is not a fan of the idea.
The title text alternatively suggests building a makeshift trebuchet . The idea is that when the kite's string gets tangled in the turbine's blades, the kite will be spun around and it will fling the attached rock (this setup is more similar to a traction trebuchet than to the more common counterweight trebuchet).
[Megan is talking to a wind turbine.] Megan: I'll hold up a big kite, and you blow air at me until I lift off! Megan: What do you think of that idea? Wind turbine: I'm not a huge fan.


4.5 Degrees

Explanation:
This comic represents the impacts due to climate change by demonstrating the changes in climate that should be expected with a given change in global temperature. This is done by detailing the world's climate in geologic periods where the global average temperature has changed by one or more "Ice Age Units," or IAU. The comic defines an IAU as the difference in global temperature between today and the last ice age, about 4.5 °C. An IAU of 0 represents modern global temperature.  It was later followed with a similar but much more elaborate chart in 1732: Earth Temperature Timeline .
One IAU unit happens to be the expected increase in global temperature the world will see by the end of year 2100. The prediction of 4-5 degrees Celsius of warming may not appear significant, but is easy to see as a substantial difference when comparing today to the last ice age.
An IAU of -4 is associated with Snowball Earth . Snowball earth is a near-total freezing of the entire surface around 650 million years ago, in the Cryogenian . This may have been the greatest ice age known to have occurred on Earth.
An IAU of -1 is associated with the last ice age. During this time Randall's neighborhood was buried under an ice sheet.
An IAU of +1 is the predicted global temperature by the end of year 2100. While it makes sense to assume it's just as drastic a difference as -1 IAU, we still don't know the actual nature of what it would be, which is why it is represented by a question mark in the comic.
An IAU of +2 is associated with the "Hothouse Earth" of the early Cretaceous period . At this time there were " palm trees at the poles" as there were polar forests during Cretaceous summers. (Average temperature of North Pole during the summer is 0 °C or 32 °F. 0+2*4.5 = 9 °C = 48.2 °F, hot enough for trees to grow at the North Pole under hypothetical 2 IAU scenarios)
An increase of 4.5 °C (+1 IAU) seems like a small change in temperature, but the changes it would cause are likely very large as it can also be described as halfway to palm trees at the poles.
The topic of ice coverage over various cities has previously been covered in 1225: Ice Sheets . The image of Boston from that comic is reused at the top of the huge chart in 1732: Earth Temperature Timeline .
This comic shows the extreme extent to which global warming can (and will) change our environment. Randall presented this view earlier in 164: Playing Devil's Advocate to Win . Climate change, especially global warming, is a recurring theme in xkcd. This is because many still believe the conspiracy theory that global warming is a hoax.
The title text expands, demonstrating that  the potential impacts of an increase by the IPCC report's best case scenario of 2 °C, about half an ice age unit, makes controlling climate change seem more urgent. The figure of 2 °C is the most commonly agreed temperature target that assumes the creation of aggressive emissions limits at the time of the publishing of the comic.
The 4.5 degree increase is predicted by the bern2.5cc simulation (a moderate simulation) of the A1FI scenario. In the A1FI scenario the world has a high dependence on fossil  fuels, experiences "very rapid economic growth", a declining world population by 2050, as well as a high rate of increase in energy efficiency after 2050.
Without prompt, aggressive limits on CO 2 emissions, the Earth will likely warm by an average of 4°-5°C by the century's end. HOW BIG A CHANGE IS THAT?
[A ruler chart is drawn inside a frame.] In the coldest part of the last ice age, Earth's average temperature was 4.5°C below the 20th century norm. Let's call a 4.5°C difference one "Ice Age Unit."
[A ruler with five main divisions — each again with 3 smaller quarter division markers. Above it the five main divisions are marked as follows with 0 in the middle:] -2 IAU  -1 IAU  0 +1 IAU  +2 IAU [Next to the 0 marking a black arrow points toward 0.25 on the scale and above it is written:] Where we are today
[The rest of the text is below the ruler.] [To the far left below -2 IAU a curved arrow points to the left. Below it is written:] Snowball earth (-4 IAU) [Below -1 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:] 20,000 years ago [Below this an image of a glacier. At the top of the image is written:] My neighborhood: [At the bottom of the image is an arrow pointing to the glacier:] Half a mile of ice [Below 0 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:] Average during modern times [Below this an image of Cueball standing on a green field with a city skyline in the background. At the top of the image is written:] My neighborhood: Cueball: Hi! [Below +1 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:] Where we'll be in 86 years [Below this a white image. At the top of the image is written:] My neighborhood: [Below this is a very large:] ? [Below +2 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:] Cretaceous hothouse +200m sea level rise No glaciers Palm trees at the poles
The oldest known animal fossils ( sponges ) are from the Snowball Earth, while flowering plants became the dominant plant species during the Cretaceous period. It is believed that the entire Earth was frozen for the first time about 2,400 to 2,100 million years ago, which could have been a result of the Great Oxygenation Event .
The 200m sea level rise given in the last panel for a "Cretaceous Hothouse" (i.e. if all ice on earth melted, including the Antarctic ice cap) could not be explained by this melt-off alone. If all the ice melted the water level would only increase by about 60-80m, according to Antarctica , IPCC Third Assessment Report (section 11.2.3 on Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets) and Sea Level and Climate: USGS Water-Science School . Additional sea level rise can be expected from thermal expansion of seawater, and indeed the main reason for rising sea level at the moment is actually caused by this expansion of the sea due to increasing temperature. But the high-end 500-year projection for a 4x increase in CO 2 , at expansion of the sea , is for an additional 2m due to thermal expansion, with a decreasing rate of growth over time. (Some of the sea level change in the Cretaceous are due to changes in bathymetry.)
The 5th and most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5) presents four alternative trajectories for future concentrations of greenhouse gasses, termed Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs): RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6, and RCP8.5. They are named after possible ranges of radiative forcing values in the year 2100 relative to pre-industrial values (+2.6, +4.5, +6.0, and +8.5 W/m2, respectively). The hottest of these, RCP8.5, is predicted to result in a warming of 2.6 °C to 4.8 °C for the  2081−2100 period, and between 3 and 5.5 by the year 2100 ( Working Group I Summary for Policymakers ).
The lack of internationally binding agreements makes breaching an increase of 2 °C more and more likely.


Manual for Civilization

Explanation:
Brian Eno is a musician and a co-founder of the Long Now Foundation . He is explaining to an audience that one of the missions of the Long Now is a Manual for Civilization - a collection of reference materials that can help rebuild society in case it  collapses. But in Randall's version, the experts have made a list composed of many books from the Animorphs series.
Animorphs is a series of books written by K.A. Applegate . It follows a group of five children (later, an alien joins as the sixth member), that try to stop the parasitic aliens, the Yeerks, by transforming into animals. A Yeerk that enters a human has complete control over their host, and can read their memories. Because the Yeerks can imitate their host almost perfectly, humanity is slowly being taken over without knowing it, and for this reason the children cannot contact the authorities and are on their own in the battle against the Yeerks.
When asked if all the books on the experts' list are from the Animorph series, Eno misses the point of the question by saying No! , only to mention the Megamorphs books and The Andalite Chronicles , both of which are side stories to the Animorph universe.
There are other books like these which aren't mentioned here — but it is clear from the last two panels that it is a quite long list — and it seems to be written in two columns, so maybe all 54 Animorphs books and all ten side stories could be included on the list.
In suggesting that a series of children's novels make up the blueprint for rebuilding civilization, Randall is spoofing the idea of such libraries (since such books would be largely useless in terms of providing the detailed instructions that would be necessary). However, due to the surprisingly deep and introspective nature of Animorphs books, which several generations have grown up on, it may also entirely be possible that Randall is expressing his fondness for the series by suggesting that reading the books would be sufficient for creating the moral foundations of a functional civilization.
The title text makes it completely ludicrous by saying an entire wing of the library will be devoted to the book (#26) where two main characters who have been attracted to each other since the beginning of the series finally kiss. While this is a momentous event for fans of the book series, the information is of no consequence for the rebuilding of civilization [ citation needed ] .
This comic may also be inspired by Isaac Asimov 's Foundation series , where Hari Seldon claimed that the Galactic Empire is going to collapse in three hundred years, there is no way to stop it but his group of scientists are writing Encyclopedia Galactica to help people rebuild civilization.
[Brian Eno is talking to an unseen audience.] Brian Eno: Hi. I'm music's Brian Eno, co-founder of the Long Now Foundation.
[Panel 2 shows he is standing on a stage.] Brian Eno: As part of our mission to promote long-term thinking, we've asked experts to help us assemble a collection of books from which civilization can be rebuilt if it ever collapses.
[Panel 3 shows he is holding a manuscript with a long list of book titles.] Brian Eno: Today we're sharing the results — the first ever Manual for Civilization .
[Panel 4 shows him reading from the manuscript.] Brian Eno: *Ahem* Animorphs #1: The Invasion Animorphs #2: The Visitor Animorphs #3: The Encounter Unseen Audience member: ...are they all Animorphs Books? Brian Eno: No! There's also Megamorphs and The Andalite Chronicles .


Margin

Explanation:
This is a reference to Fermat's Last Theorem , of which Pierre de Fermat claimed he had a proof that was too large to fit in the margin of a copy of Arithmetica . Despite its simple formulation, the problem remained unsolved for three centuries; it was cracked only with advanced techniques developed in the 20th century, leading many to believe that Fermat didn't actually possess a (correct) proof (see trivia ).
In the comic, the person writing in the margin attempts to pull a similar trick, without actually having any proof, by claiming that he has found a proof that information is infinitely compressible, but pretending not to be able to show it due to lack of space in the margin. In this particular case, however, this approach backfires, precisely because if information was actually infinitely compressible, the writer would be able to fit the proof in the margin (due to his own proof). The writer realizes that if he had a proof he should be able to fit it into the margin, and thus he realizes that he cannot pull this trick. Or perhaps the writer really thought he had a proof, but then realized that his statement was a counterexample, and was disappointed that his idea for a proof was wrong.
What it seems he did not realize, is that it would be impossible to read the proof if the writer actually was able to compress his proof to fit in the margin. This is because you would need to know the algorithm described in the proof before you could decompress the proof text so you can read it. So he could actually have used this trick instead, writing that he had compressed it into - say a dot " . " - and then people would have to find his proof to read it. And since they cannot find such a proof - they could not check his dot. Unfortunately this would also have backfired - because there is already a proof that this is not possible !
Another thing that he probably didn't realize, is that finding a proof for something being possible does not necessarily mean inventing an actual algorithm to do that particular thing. If the person claimed having found a non-constructive proof for such an algorithm, his statement at least wouldn't contradict itself.
The title text, yet another protip , makes a reference to the Shannon–Hartley theorem , which limits the maximum rate at which information can be transmitted. Setting the font size of text only changes its representation on the screen, and not the actual characters themselves. Trying to decrease the amount of space needed to store or transmit it like advised would be nonsensical. Another possible interpretation is that if you set the font size to 0, the text cannot be seen, and therefore, nothing is being transmitted period.
In the case of actual printed paper, decreasing the font size is valid technique for information compression (more information on the same page), as used in ie. microform .  However, this comes at the cost of an increased spatial bandwidth (number of black/white transitions per distance). In the end, the resolution of the printer/paper/microscope chain limits the minimal font size that remains useable (above the Nyquist rate ).
[Written on the right margin of a page:] I have discovered a truly marvelous proof that information is infinitely compressible, but this margin is too small to...
...oh
never mind :(


Rocket Packs

Explanation:
In the early 20th century, visions of the future usually stipulated that everyone would travel around with rockets strapped to their backs. However, this has not yet come to pass, at least for the majority of consumers.
In this comic, Randall is pointing out that the problem with personal rocket packs - more commonly called jet packs - is not how to attach a rocket to someone's back, but other practical considerations. One might be how to keep the hot exhaust from burning the user's calves . Many jet pack designs actually do have ways to deal with this, such as moving the rockets farther from the user, but there are many other practical issues which have made this an impractical form of travel given current technology.
The title text starts with the trope " I want my jet pack ", a theme also explored in 864: Flying Cars . It continues with pointing out that if people did start using rocket packs, there would also be more injuries, raising health care costs. That's something that people usually don't consider when imagining a future where these devices are commonplace.
So the year when the comic was published the demand was:
'It's 2014--I want my jetpack [and also my free medical care covering all my jetpack-related injuries]!'
[Text above the frame.] Rocket packs are easy. [In the frame: Cueball is lying face down on the ground with his Rocket Packs on his back and his calves severely burned.] Cueball: Ow. [Text below the frame.] The hard part is inventing the calf shields.


Magic Words

Explanation:
Typically the term " foot fetish " refers to a sexual attraction to people's feet. Here, though, Megan is a linguist, so for her the term "foot" refers not to the body part but to the term's meaning in prosody . In this context, "foot" means, per Wikipedia, "the basic metrical unit that generates a line of verse in most Western traditions of poetry," and thus "foot fetish" means an attraction to words that follow such a format.
Common types of feet (which are all referenced in this comic) include
Megan thus wishes that Cueball first use a trochee during foreplay, then switch to an iamb during her main stimulation phase (intercourse or some other type that still enables Cueball to speak freely), and finally switch to a dactyl as she orgasms. According to the title text, after sex she wishes for him to hold her while he whispers the word "anapest" in her ear. But for a linguist like Megan, this is just four different types of "foot" stimulation - thus she can be called a woman with a foot fetish.
[Cueball and Megan are in a bed.] Megan: Can you repeat "Story Water Paper Doorway" at the start, then switch to "Disarm Adele's Giraffe Grenade" as we get going, and finally "Strawberry Scorpion Poetry" as I finish? [Below the frame.] Linguist with a foot fetish


Krypton

Explanation:
This comic is an inverse version of the origin story of the superhero character Superman .
In the Superman story, Jor-El and his wife Lara notice that their home planet Krypton is about to be destroyed in a giant explosion, so they decide to send their baby Kal-El to Earth to save him - and there he becomes Superman.
In this comic, Cueball and Megan also notice that the planet Krypton is about to explode, but instead of attempting to save a baby from Krypton, they decide to send a baby to Krypton from Earth so that it'll stop annoying them with its crying.
In the fourth panel both spaceships can be seen. The rocket containing the Earth baby arrives at planet Krypton, while the crystal star shaped spaceship containing Kal-El leaves Krypton towards Earth - this is a reference to the version of the spaceship depicted in the 1978 Superman movie , (see trivia section ).
In the fifth and last panel we see Krypton explode into multiple pieces, also emitting a disc-like wave from the assumed equator.
In the Superman movie, Kal-El carries with him a lot of information pre-recorded by his parents. During the very long trip he listens to the recordings, one of which explains that the Sun and gravity of Earth will give him (Kal-El) great powers (this is the way he becomes Superman). The title text is a satirical version of this information, given to the Earth baby during his trip: That Megan & Cueball do not have the faintest idea (or care about) what the sun and gravity of Krypton will do to it - but their best guess at what these mostly will do to it is to "make you out of earshot from Earth", which was their original reason for shipping the baby off in the first place.
[Cueball and Megan are standing near a telescope.] Cueball: The distant planet Krypton is becoming unstable! Baby crying (from outside the panel): Waaaaaa Megan: That crying baby is really annoying.
[Cueball and Megan looking at each other.]
[Spaceship taking off.]
[Spaceship passing another spaceship on route to distant planet.]
[Planet exploding.]


Throwing Rocks

Explanation:
Beret Guy is showing Megan one of his daily activities: Building a leaf boat and throwing rocks at it. He acknowledges that the hobby is useless, but relaxing. In contrast, Megan contemplates one of her own daily activities: reading online comments on news articles. Realizing that it is an equally pointless, but presumably much less relaxing activity, she joins Beret Guy in throwing rocks at his leaf boat.
It is an unfortunate property of news articles that their comments become dominated by those which are deliberately offensive or devolve into flame wars . An additional metaphor may compare the article to the leaf boat while comparing the thrown stones to the flaming comments, essentially taking this most likely carefully constructed, fragile and perhaps beautiful creation (article or leaf boat) and lobbing offenses (comments or thrown stones) at it until it is dragged into the abyss (Internet "graveyard" or pond).
The title text makes it clear that they hit the leaf with a stone. The rest is a pun on the name of the 11th century Viking explorer Leif Erikson , who is believed to have been the first European to discover and settle North America which he named " Vinland ".
[Beret Guy is throwing a rock in the water while talking to Megan who walks down to him.] Beret Guy: Every day I make a little leaf boat, then throw rocks until it sinks or floats away.
[Rock lands in water, near a leaf boat.] Rock: Plunk Beret Guy: It's pointless, but at least it's relaxing.
[Megan and Beret Guy are both holding rocks. Megan looks down at her rock.] Megan: Every day, I read the comments on a news article.
[The two throw their rocks.]


People are Stupid

Explanation:
G. K. Chesterton wrote in an essay : "It is stupid to say that “most people” are stupid. It is like saying “most people are tall,” when it is obvious that “tall” can only mean taller than most people. It is absurd to denounce the majority of mankind as below the average of mankind."
It is a common thing for people on the Internet (on forums and comments sections of various websites) to make vague generalizations about the "stupidity of all people" or "losing faith in humanity," for instance when the topic is actually the stupidity or irrational/extreme behavior of one individual or group of individuals. The comment can come in any type of Internet forum, regardless of the subject.
However, the overall world population ("people") is not more stupid than the average - by definition. There is also no other human population to compare to to draw the conclusion this population is stupid. So it is a stupid comment that White Hat makes. The award being given to him by Cueball is thus a very sarcastic one.
It is possible that for a non-normal distribution of intelligence a median individual could be less intelligent than the mean. However, the statement as it is usually formulated (including here), "People are stupid," refers to humanity as a whole. White Hat's anecdotal and subjective experience has led him to make a statistically impossible statement.
White Hat's self-perceived superiority may be an example of the Lake Wobegon effect , so named because Lake Wobegon (a fictional city) is "where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average".
The last panel may be a reference to the First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence which is a fictional award in the story of The Simpsons episode Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes? where it is presented to Homer Simpson .
In the title text the other phrase about having lost their faith in humanity also gets a comment on the way from Cueball. There are people who use this phrase every time someone disagrees with them or say something they think is stupid. He jokes that he will let humanity (everyone other than the guy who makes the comment) know that he has lost faith in them - and very sarcastically remarks that humanity will probably be crushed (i.e. the rest of the world does not care if that guy has lost faith in them).
[White Hat and Cueball are standing next to each other.] White Hat: Well, you know, people are stupid. Cueball: *Sigh*
[They have moved a little further apart.] Cueball: No, people aren't stupid. On average, people are of average intelligence. When you say "people are stupid," you mean stupid compared to your expectations.
[Close up of Cueball.] Cueball: What you're really saying is "other people aren't as smart as me. " Cueball: And maybe you're right! In which case
[White Hat is presented with a trophy by Cueball.] Cueball: I'd like to bestow upon you the [In the panel there is a close up of the trophy plaque (the text is in a frame):] First Annual Award for Excellence in Being Very Smart Cueball: May you continue to grace our internet with your wisdom


Clumsy Foreshadowing

Explanation:
Many action/thriller movies, during the first few minutes, have a background news report that foreshadows the onset of some kind of danger, such as shark attacks, nuclear warfare etc.
Randall suggests taking the same approach to random news stories from real life, in order to make them more ominous.
In this case we see three random headings from news stories, which could all be made even more interesting if the setting is correct.
The first of the three stories mentioned above the frame North Korea threatens U.S. over upcoming movie comes from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency who a few days before this comic was released threatened the US with war over the Seth Rogen movie The Interview , promising "stern" and "merciless" retaliation if the film is released. The threat generated some hype for the at-the-time unreleased movie. No one, however, really took North Korea's threat seriously, but if you put this into such a news report at the beginning of a film, this could be a film about a film leading to a new war with North Korea. (Note: In late 2014 North Korea was accused of carrying out a devastating cyber attack on Sony Pictures, the studio responsible for the film.  These accusations were widely believed initially, though independent analysists have since cast doubt.  This news report would likely have been seen in a film about the real life attack or film that features a similar fictional attack for its plot. This is an example of an xkcd comic coming true.)
The second one is about Shark populations booming off east coast . The news in the link is from a week before this comic was released, and is about the preservation of the Great white sharks . Not that terrifying, especially since sharks are way less dangerous than people tend to fear, in part due to movies like Jaws . However, if you put this headline into a news report running in the background, as when Cueball leaves the house with a bathing towel in the main frame of the comic, as if he was going to the beach, then it suddenly becomes a very ominous story , that will not bode well for Cueball and his friends.
The last of the three stories is about SpaceX to attempt new rocket launch today . SpaceX is a space transport services company and on March 13, 2014 they reported a launch date for their first OG2 mission containing 6 satellites on a dedicated Falcon 9 rocket. This date was April 30, 2014 as can be read at the bottom of the news link, which is the news list for this OG2 mission. The launch continued to be postponed several times, and the last date given before this comic was released was June the 24th, three days before this comic was released. This launch was canceled on the 23rd and the day before this comic was released it was yet again postponed, this time until July 14 (almost three weeks, after the previous four proposed launch dates had been 20, 21, 22 and 24 June). So at this point in time, any news regarding SpaceX attempting to launch a rocket, will not generate much fuss, as they are most likely postponing again, but if you put the news bite into the start of a movie, then the launch would probably stay on schedule - but would then go horribly wrong, setting the action packed story in progress.
Just over a year later on June 28, 2015 SpaceX mission CRS-7 exploded just after launch. The preliminary findings of the investigation however point to a failure of a steel strut, which would be hard to turn into a good story.
The title text news hosts were unexpectedly fired from ABC's 'The View' today references ABC's The View where two of the co-hosts, Sherri Shepherd and Jenny McCarthy , were simultaneously reporting leaving the program (fired or resigned? - sources vary), the day before this comic appeared. Sherri after seven years, Jenny after less than one year as co-host. According to the news link above there were "no word on who will be replacing the hosts, but the network says they will have a team together when the show launches its new season this fall." Again a not very interesting news story. The title text though continues the news by saying: ABC will likely announce new... The humorous suggestion is that the news about The View will go on to foreshadow some looming disaster, a comically unlikely premise for an action/thriller movie. Alternatively, it could be used as a plot device if the character will be hired as a replacement—or the character is listed as a potential replacement and tries to dig up dirt on the competition or otherwise compete for the position.
[Heading and text above the panel:] Today's News North Korea threatens U.S. over upcoming movie Shark populations booming off east coast SpaceX to attempt new rocket launch today [Arrow pointing down towards the comics only panel.]
[Cueball, holding a towel, walks past a TV with a news report shown on-screen.] Cueball: Bye! See you tonight! Offscreen person: Have a good day! TV: Researchers are reporting record numbers of sharks...
[Caption below the panel:] To make news stories seem way more ominous, imagine you're hearing them from a background TV in a movie as the main character leaves.


Subduction License

Explanation:
In structural geology , subduction is the mechanism by which one tectonic plate disappears under another. This process usually creates a mountain range on the second tectonic plate as water entrained in the subducting plate rises into the second plate and provokes volcanism , often resulting in a volcanic arc .
In this comic, Beret Guy is very happy because he has just received his subduction license , which may be a play with business term production license . His roommate Cueball very reasonably asks him: Your what? But instead of answering him, Beret Guy begins to move towards him in their small room. It turns out that the license has literally enabled him to initiate subduction. As he moves towards Cueball, he slowly sinks under the floorboards of the room, and in this process he creates a small mountain range on the floor. In the end, much to Cueball's consternation, these mountains turn his desk and chair over. Cueball actually falls out of the frame in the final panel, where Beret Guy is already halfway down beneath the floor. This would not be possible in real life. [ citation needed ]
The title text plays on the double meaning of the word "normal", which Cueball means in the sense of "like most people, not strange," but which Beret Guy interprets in the geological sense. While subduction occurs when two plates crash into each other, a normal fault occurs when two plates are moving away from each other. Here, "normal" is used in the sense of "perpendicular," as the result of a normal fault is often that part of the crust moves vertically downward, forming a graben .
A similarly atypical license was mentioned previously in 410: Math Paper . Puns on geological terms (including types of faults) were previously made in 1082: Geology .
This comic was featured in a page of Thing Explainer as part of the explanation of the Big flat rocks we live on . Only the last three panels were used, probably because the words in the first panel were way too uncommon for the book - see more details here .
Subduction was again mentioned in 1829: Geochronology .
[Beret Guy is looking at some mail he has received while Cueball is at his computer desk at the other side of the room.] Beret Guy: Sweet! I finally got my subduction license! Cueball: Your what?
[Beret Guy starts sinking into the ground, causing it to ripple.] Cueball: ...What are you doing?
[Beret Guy sinks further, forming a miniature mountain range in front of him. Cueball is frantically trying to keep his computer steady as his desk tilts.] Cueball: Stop it! Stop it!
[Beret Guy is waist-deep, and snow caps have formed on the mountains. Cueball is falling backwards from his desk and out of his chair, and the monitor unplugs itself from his computer.] Cueball: Augh!


Surface Area

Explanation:
This map shows the total surface areas of all terrestrial planets , dwarf planets , moons , asteroids and minor planets that are larger than 100 m in the Solar System . They have all been represented as regions of a single massive landmass - a supercontinent like Pangaea - which is clearly surrounded by some kind of ocean.
On the area that signifies Earth the continents are drawn using a map projection that keeps the scale of the continents correct. (This is something that Randall cares about as can be seen in 977: Map Projections ). The parts of the surface of the Earth that are covered by oceans are also included in the surface area of the Earth (i.e. the map shows the Earth's crust ). An extra layer of 3–4 km of water seems rather insignificant when comparing to the Earth's radius of 6,370 km.
The Moon has been inlaid in this map next to Antarctica which thus makes a great comparison of how small the Moon is compared to the Earth (there is room for more than 13 lunar surfaces on the Earth). Similarly, it is clear that the planet Venus is almost as big as the Earth.
This is also the general idea of the map - to give an idea about how big the Earth is and how small many of the other known planets etc. are; both compared to Earth and to each other. The map drawn on the Earth is probably there mainly as a guide to size, because none of the features that are known on some of the other objects, especially The Moon (i.e. craters and " seas ") and on Mars (i.e. Olympus Mons ), are included.
The objects mentioned by name on the map are all but one amongst those that have reached hydrostatic equilibrium and these are all included on this List of gravitationally rounded objects of the Solar System .
The one named object that is not on the above list is the asteroid Vesta , which is included because it is the second largest object in the Asteroid belt . It is placed right next to the largest object in this belt, the dwarf planet Ceres , which is no longer considered an asteroid. And next to these two are the rest of the asteroids in two areas (see below), which thus groups all asteroids together.
The only object from the above list, (that qualifies for having a solid surface in hydrostatic equilibrium), which is not included is the Saturn moon Mimas , which is also clearly the smallest object on the list.
This moon should have been located amongst the other five smaller moons of Saturn between the Earth and Titan (the largest of Saturn's moons). Mimas has a surface area of 490,000 km 2 which is somewhat smaller than the smallest included Saturn moon Enceladus with a surface area of 799,000 km 2 .
Generally the moons that belong to a given planet (for those with more than one moon large enough to be included), have been clustered together. Apart from the six (not seven...) moons of Saturn to the right of Earth, the four Galilean moons moons of Jupiter are located above the Earth, the five included moons from Uranus is located at the top to the far right.
The last planet to have many moons is Neptune , but only Triton is included. This is a fairly large moon, and the only of the 14 known moons of Neptune to be on the above list. However, there is one other moon, Proteus which is notable for being as large as a body of its density can be without being pulled into a spherical shape by its own gravity. It has a length of 424 km in the longest direction, and a mean radius of 210 km. A rough calculation of its surface area from this mean radius gives an area of 550,000 km 2 , making the surface area slightly larger than Mimas. As there is an unlabeled area located right next to the other Neptune moon Triton, it is most likely that this small area should represent Proteus , and that it is an error that it was not labeled.
As this is the smallest area, the cut-off of objects could have been at 500,000 km 2 , as Vesta is also larger than this, which would make room for Proteus, but explain the missing Mimas.
Two of the included objects also have moons that are large enough to be included: Earth, of course, and the dwarf planet Pluto with its moon Charon . In both cases these moons have been inlaid in the area of their mother planet.
Whereas the moons of the gas giants and the asteroids have been located above and to the right of the Earth, the planets and dwarf planets have been included below earth (along with the two moons mentioned above). Mercury , Mars and Venus all touching Earth, and then below them the four Trans-Neptunian dwarf planets - the Plutoids .
On the list from above there are, however, also these 10 objects which have not been included with name on the map. These object are, however, only likely candidates for being dwarf planets (depending on whether they have reached hydrostatic equilibrium or not), and on the map they have thus been relegated to the sections without individual names. These object are thus probably grouped together (along with other relatively small objects like comets and smaller moons) in the area labeled Various small moons, comets, etc , which is located at the bottom of the map between Mercury and Mars. The surface area for all of these object, when the surface area have been estimated, are larger than 1 million square kilometer, and thus larger than several of the named objects. So it is not the size that is the reason why such objects as Sedna and Quaoar are not included with name, but probably the fact they are not investigated enough yet.
The remaining objects in the Solar System with a solid surface are the minor planets, which on the map has been labeled as asteroids even though these objects are grouped together in several other "belts" than the Asteroid belt. Here they have been assigned to two regions at the top of the map. Above the right part of the Earth area is the area Asteroids (1 km+) which include any object not already included larger than 1 km. (As these objects are no longer round it is the largest dimension, the length, that should be at least 1 km long). And finally the area Asteroids (100 m+) thus include any object not already included larger than 100 m.
Most of the rest of the objects that have been included in these three sections can likely be found on this List of Solar System objects by size .
Tiny objects smaller than 100 m down to space dust are excluded altogether as explained in the note below the headings. This is probably because their total surface area is impossible to estimate accurately, and also because any estimate would likely be too large to fit easily into the map.
Between Earth and Titan is a tiny speck noted all human skin , which is an interesting sort of solid surface. A rough estimate of the average body surface area and thus of the average area of all humans skin can be made from these average values and from population pyramids as this pyramid for 2015 . Average adults have a skin area of around 1.7-1.8 m 2 , but as a large part of the human population are children (with skin area down to about 0.25 m 2 for infants) the total average will be smaller. By extrapolating the given values an average area of about 1.6 m 2 can be found. This would make the area 7.2 billion × 1.6 m 2 ≈ 11,500 km 2 . This is 60 times smaller than the smallest of the labeled moons Miranda (of Uranus) with a surface area of 700,000 km 2 .
The title text jokingly claims that this comic is not actually for information, but rather is something Randall thinks we should really do – that is, to stitch all the solar system's solid surfaces together, as the sub-sub heading says. To do this, we would need a giant spool of thread and then something he has to go get in Seattle… which presumably must be the Space Needle , a needle-like tower in Seattle, which should then be used in this grand project.
This could also have been a reference to the Seattle seamstresses if it weren't for the fact that it's not.
Since the land areas are on the surfaces of spheres, this would seem impossible as it would involve lots of deformation and be particularly challenging. It will also be very gruesome when he comes to the part of collecting (and stitching) all human skin together. The inclusion of this speck on the map is, however, also there to make it clear what the real intention is with the planets. Their surface is to be "skinned" of them, as you would have to do with the humans! Then it is all these "planet skins" that should be stitched together using the space needle. This also explains the ragged edges, and why the continents keep their correct size. It would make Randall into a planetary version of The Silence of the Lambs movies character Buffalo Bill , a serial killer who tried to make a suit out of the skin from the women he killed.
Randall would also need quite a lot of space for the very large ocean. However, the whole supercontinent is just somewhere between 3-4 times larger than the area of the Earth. And the area of the entire image is less than 9 times the area of the earth. As the formula for calculation surface areas for spheres (4*π*r 2 ) goes with the radius (r) squared, the diameter of the planet needed for the experiment do not need to be larger than 3 times that of the earth. Although there are no objects in the Solar System with this particular size, it is still smaller than the gas giants , the smallest of these have a radius of almost 4 times that of the earth. Exoplanets with this range of diameters have certainly been found, however, already at 1.7 times the earth radius most planets size to be of the Super-Earth type and turns in to the gas dwarf type of planets. So an ocean of the size needed are not easy to come by.
As has been explained above the earth's surface is included disregarding surface water (oceans) and the same is valid for other objects with surface water, as the Saturn moon Titan which has great lakes (or even oceans) of liquid methane on the surface or the Jupiter moon Europa which is covered in a deep ocean with a thick cap of ice. (Interestingly this moon is placed on the map very near to the continent of Europe - maybe for easy comparison of these two areas).
The gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have, however, not been included because they do not have any "solid surfaces"; even if they had a solid core (which is itself not clear), this would not comprise any "surface". The gas giants are believed to lack any well-defined surface at all, with the gases that make them up simply becoming thinner and thinner with increasing distance from the planets' centers, eventually becoming indistinguishable from the interplanetary medium. But if they were included via some sort of surface definition, the map of this comic would become a tiny speck amongst the map of the gas giants. Similarly, the surface of the Sun is also not considered a solid surface but hot plasma ; if it were included it would reduce even a map of the gas giants to a tiny speck.
The map is drawn in a similar style to the two maps of the Internet that Randall has created in the past:
Below is a table listing the object roughly in the order they would be read of the map (the same order as in the transcript.) But they can be sorted by each of the columns.
The data is taken when possible from the following table: List of gravitationally rounded objects of the Solar System , and surface area is given with three significant digits.
For Vesta and Proteus (the most likely candidate for the unlabeled area next to Triton) the area is calculated from their mean radius (i.e. they are not spherical). See also above in the explanation, also for calculating the area of all human skin.
The surface for a given object is also given as a Fraction of Earth's surface , and from this the number of times the object could be placed on the Earth's surface is given as one divided by this fraction. For instance it can be seen that The Moon's surface can be placed more than 13 times on top of that of the Earth.
[At the top of a map is a heading, with two sub headings and a note in brackets:] Space Without the space The Solar System's solid surfaces stitched together (Excluding dust and small rocks) [Below the headings there is a map with several distinct areas. Each area is labelled with a name or a description. This label is noted inside the area, except for areas that are too small; here the label is written outside and a line indicates which area the label belongs to. Only exception is the largest area, on which the contours of the Earth's continents are drawn. Surrounding the map is wavy lines to indicate that this is either an island or one big super-continent placed in an even larger ocean.] [Here below are the labels given as they appear in "normal" reading order in as read from left to right in the three main rows as will be indicated:] [Row one, above the line defined by the general top of the Earth area:] Io Callisto Europa Ganymede Ceres Vesta Asteroids (1 km+) [Here – above the Asteroids area before the Triton area - is a small unlabelled area (the only other except Earth)] Triton Asteroids (100 m+) Oberon Miranda Ariel Umbriel Titania [Row two, the unlabelled Earth area's row, but here only given those that are directly written to the right of this area:] Tethys Enceladus Dione Iapetus All human skin Rhea Titan [Row three, all the remaining items that are mainly below the Earth area:] Mercury The Moon Various small moons, comets, etc Mars Makemake Haumea Eris Pluto Charon Venus


Research Ethics

Explanation:
This comic references the recent revelation that Facebook engaged in a " psychological experiment " by selectively showing users more "positive" or "negative" posts on their news feed and recording the users' comments to see if the change affected the positivity or negativity of their posts. Further experiments have since been revealed such as one that tested security measures by locking users out of their accounts .
Here, Megan is commenting on the fact that, while the media is calling this control over what content the user sees " unethical ," Facebook, and other companies like Google , must, one way or another, control what content the user sees, whether to present users with a limited selection of all postings, or to tailor ads to particular users; even if the regular algorithms are not set up for psychological experiments, they are still "manipulating" what posts users see or don't see. As Megan points out, no one really knows what the "normal" constraints are of the algorithm which chooses which posts are shown on news feeds. This comic is parodying the strong reaction to what is basically already a common practice.
Accumulation, control and analysis of user-generated information can be a part of the terms of service / end-user license agreement of a Website or software. In such a scenario, the user has effectively signed his/her consent to being part of such research. Unfortunately, most users don't read the terms before clicking the "I agree" option, so it can come as a shock when the service uses the data in a way the user hadn't anticipated.
The title text ironically/sarcastically accepts that Facebook has access to all of its users thoughts through posts and photos, and they can read them for research or other purposes, but contrasts this with a suggestion which likely mirrors how Facebook would respond to such a request that Facebook's code is private and can not be revealed to us. The title text basically appears to be musing that this is backwards, and our personal data should be considered MORE private than Facebook's programming code, which may be proprietary, but is not personal private data.
It is as if your neighbor was spying on you while you left all your shades open, but you felt it to be inappropriate to find out what he knew about you because that's his business. Asking for the source code might similarly be equivalent to asking for the specifications of the binoculars your neighbor used for spying.
[Megan is facing Cueball and Ponytail.] Megan: Facebook shouldn't choose what stuff they show us to conduct unethical psychological research. Megan: They should only make those decisions based on, uh... Megan: However they were doing it before. Megan: Which was probably ethical, right?


Darkness

Explanation:
Ponytail as a news anchor describes the sunset as though it were an unprecedented, newsworthy event, rather than something mundane that happens every day. They even have a reporter ( Cueball ) on the spot reporting from where the darkness has spread so far.
The sunset is a common event. Isaac Asimov based his short story Nightfall on a fictional civilization that doesn't know darkness because the planet is always illuminated by the six stars surrounding it. The story describes how people would react (mass insanity, fall of civilization) when the orbital motion of the planet eventually leads to five of the suns setting, plus one in eclipse.
Describing mundane occurrences in unusual detail, to show off how odd they really are, is something Randall has done before (for instance about dreaming in 203: Hallucinations ). But the caption below the main panel adds another twist to the joke by showing that the news report wasn't a mere imagine spot, but something actually happening due to the interference of Randall's final wish to his genie , which caused all news reporters to forget the day-night cycle.
Another possible meaning is that this comic is a reference to the way the media often talk about global warming as if each weather occurrence had meaning outside of its context like in 1321: Cold . That take on the weather and the day-night cycle being denied because of a skewed point of view was also used on the Daily Show . The segment " Unusually Large Snowstorm " from February 10, 2010, used the same trope. Several Daily Show correspondents have different views on the weather based on where they are, ending with a correspondent who equates nighttime with everlasting darkness.
The caption references the fact that there is a limit to the number of wishes. It is a common rule, often used in fiction, that you get three wishes from a genie in a bottle . There usually is an added stipulation that no wish may be used to acquire more wishes.
In the title text, however, it is stated that Randall has managed to bypass the three wish limit rule. This was accomplished by using his second wish to simply make the genie unable to remember granting the speaker any wishes. He has thus used the same trick on the genie as he used here on the media. The media wish turns out not to have been his last (i.e. third), but rather wish number 406. This shows just how far, "make someone forget something", can go by applying it to the genie.
There is possibly an inconsistency in the comic, when seen from the title text's perspective. Since his second wish, all his wishes would have been seen as the first by the genien and thus, if the title text is true, he could have said: "Genie, for my first wish, make everyone in the media forget about the day-night cycle." However, in the light of the title text (to be seen as an add on, and thus not always related directly to the comics image) he appears to voluntarily end the whole scenario by explicitly declaring it over. Whether this would finally trigger the genie to end the wishing-cycle is unknown, and depends upon the exact priority of the genie's induced amnesia over its end-of-wishes habits.
It is interesting that it was his second wish that gave him unlimited wishes. What did he wish for on wish #1? Maybe he wasted the first wish because he did not believe the genie was able to grant wishes – a common error. On the other hand, he may have used the first wish to learn how to make his second wish circumvent the three rule limit. His first wish could have been to read the genie's mind to determine what he could wish for to give him unlimited wishes.
[Ponytail is a news anchor at a media desk and she reports:] Ponytail: ...getting reports that the darkness has spread as far west as Texas. Let's go live to our reporter in Houston.
[From a breaking news window in the bottom right corner of the panel, Cueball as a newscaster stands in darkness with two people walking behind him:] Cueball: It's been thirty minutes since the sun vanished...
[Caption below the panel]: Caption: "Genie, for my last wish, make everyone in the media forget about the day-night cycle."


Dominant Players

Explanation:
The comic shows the rise and fall of players' strengths in two games, basketball and chess .  For chess, there is an overall chart, and a women's chart.
For basketball, it uses the player efficiency rating (PER), the most commonly used player statistic . Note that that player efficiency ratings and similar "aggregate scores" are the subject of much discussion in basketball due to known deficiencies .
For chess, it uses the Elo rating . Elo was adopted by the World Chess Federation, FIDE , in 1970, so the rating is extrapolated backwards in time (among other methods, such as using Kenneth Regan's computer analysis - as written in the Chess panel) and are thus shown as dashed lines prior to 1970.
The charts show the players career paths as a function of time with the rating on the y-axis. There is no scale on the y-axis .
Included are mainly players that could be said to have been among the dominating players at some time in their career. If a player has been the best player over a longer time period (a seriously dominating player) then their career path will be drawn in red, the rest are in gray. There can be more than one red path at a time, but only because the dominating player has played before or after they became dominating. It seems like it has to be at least five years, as there are at least two players that have been no. 1 for four years, without being upgraded to a red curve. The only ones that have managed this with three years or less (on the chart) are those that begin the chart, and thus could have been no. 1 a few years before. This can all be seen in the data tables below.
The title text mentions Vera Menchik who is also the first female chess player listed at the left of the bottom panel. In January 1926 she won the first Girls' Open Championship at the Imperial Club in London, but as can be seen in the last panel she was killed near the end of World War II, 38-year-old, while still holding the title of women's world champion. She, her sister, and mother were killed in a V-1 flying bomb attack which destroyed their home in 1944.
The title text mentions her specifically because of the club named after her: The "Vera Menchik Club" . When in 1929, Menchik entered the Carlsbad , Viennese master, usually a tournament only for male chess players, one of the other chess players, Albert Becker , ridiculed her entry by proposing that any player whom Menchik defeated in tournament play should be granted membership into the Vera Menchik Club. In the same tournament, Becker himself became the first member of the "club", much to his ridicule. It should be noted that she did end in last place vs. his fifth place, but that must just have made the defeat even tougher to take for Albert.
Albert was the first, but far from the last male chess player to enter the Vera Menchik Club. No less than 19 other male chess players are listed on Wikipedia belonging to this club, amongst them Max Euwe who went on to become World Chess Champion (1935–37). So it can for sure be said that the club accumulated a "large and illustrious roster".
One and a half year later a comic, named after Magnus Carlsen , was released ( 1628: Magnus ). This comics also compares chess players (Magnus) to other (sporting) events. Magnus was ranked no. 1 on the chess world rank when both comics were released.
Why is chess divided in an overall (with only one woman included) and basketball not? First of all, there is very little focus on women's basketball (as for most women's sport). This may be the same for chess, but at least here the physical strength advantage for men is no direct advantage. Thus a great woman chess player may play just as interesting chess as a man. Whereas women would typically have no chance if playing on a basketball team with men. But why are women then not represented better on the overall chess ranking? This is explained and may be another reason it is included. In the Chess (women) panel it says: "For a long time, sexism, a lack of role models, and institutional hostility largely kept women from pursuing serious chess careers. With the expansion of women's tournaments and prizes starting in the 1970s, this has begun to change". So now at least one woman has shown that her skills is enough to compete with the best men. With the long careers chess players usually have, then maternity leave can destroy a woman's chance at reaching the ultimate top. This could be the case for the number one woman who now has two children.
The x-axis is divided in decades from 1950 until 2010. In the Basketball section the curves begins to appear right after 1950. For both chess panels there are curves further back than 1950 (with even a reference to a player from before 1940). For all three panels the paths continue up till present day (2014).
In all cases there is no scale on the y-axis with the rating, thus it is difficult to find the absolute scale. It is also difficult to compare between the two chess panels. The scale on the two chess panels are, however, the same, as can be seen by comparing the curve of Judit Polgar on each chart. This curve is exactly the same, with the same elevation between the point where her curve enters the Chess panel up to the top point. This also means that any women player whose curve rises above this entry point (around 1989) should also be visible in the Chess chart. See below for inclusion criteria.
In general not all possible players are included in these charts. For instance it is mentioned that Judit Polgar was the first woman ranked in the over all top 10. But only six players are shown on the over all chart around 2005, where she was ranked 8th. So some male players, better than her at that time, have not been included. This is a general trend for all three charts.
From the Woman's panel below it is also clear that some of the other women would be ranked high enough to be visible on the upper chart as mentioned in the Scales section above. But still only Judit is shown there. 9 out of 12 of the women that are on the chart after 1989 would be visible if included in the overall chart. However, none of them could be called dominant when comparing to the best men in the same time period. And thus they are not included. Maybe the same could be said about Judth, but then she is included for scale, and because she is so good that she can compete with, and sometimes beat, the best.
Some NBA players (like Tim Duncan , Charles Barkley , Oscar Robertson , Kobe Bryant , and Chris Paul ) have been left out of the chart in favor of players with lower career and yearly efficiency ratings.
Similarly can be mentioned for instance the no. 1 ranked chess player Veselin Topalov from Bulgaria, who was ranked first both in 20062007 and in 2008-2010 for a total of less than two years. And there are likely several others ( see below ).
An example of the above for Basketball would be the 2008–2009 season which was unique in that it was the only season in which more than one player posted an efficiency ratings of over 30.0 on the Player efficiency rating (see at the bottom of this section on Wikipedia). In that season three players broke this barrier: LeBron James (31.76), Dwyane Wade (30.46), and Chris Paul (30.04). LeBron is shown to top that season, But Dwayne is far below (thus the scale does not fit?) and Chris is not on the list at all (i.e. he was not deemed to be a dominant player).
So is this Randall's subjective list of players that he has deemed to be "Dominant Players" and not a full list of the best ranked players during the time period? Of course it is his choice which players he put into the list, but missing players (when worse has been included earlier) can be explained if the missing players never were among the most dominant player over a length of time. It is not a list of the best players of all time, or of a single season, but a chart of the dominant players over a longer time period.
If a player only has had a very short time where their careers peaked - they should not be included. Also if there most of the time where at least two others that were more dominant than they ever where - they should not be included. To tell if this explains all the excluded players mentioned/referenced above, that would take some investigation. An investigation we can assume Randall has taken upon himself before posting this comic. This of course will still make it his subjective list.
For basketball any given player will at least have been the 2nd best (of those included) at some (longer) period of their career. And to become selected for a red curve, they need to be the best for at least five years - the first players curve is no. 1 less than five year, but he could have been no. 1 also before 1951.
The same is valid for the Chess players (again the first players curve is red, but stops just as it enters the panel). Only exception is Judit Polgar. She is never better than 3rd of those selected. And she was never better than 8th in the world. So her inclusion is a mentioned probably only to compare her with the men.
For the woman chess players there are the same criteria for red, except that Sonja Graf is not red although she is the only chess player on the list for more than a decade. Maybe you need to be better than someone else to become red? There are also included several women who never reaches 2nd place on the chart. Three of these reaches 3rd place and two only 4th. One of these, Anna Muzychuk, is still on the rise, so she might be on the chart, because she could possibly become first or second if she can continue to improve. The other, Sofia Polgar, is included to show that all three Polgar sisters are chess masters.
None of the above can explain why former World Champion Chess Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand has not been included in the Chess Chart. Anand is one of only thirteen players in history to break the 2800 mark on the FIDE rating list and and still(as of 2020) has the eighth highest FIDE ranking at peak ever. He occupied the number one position in several rating lists between 2007 and 2011. The reason could possible be because Randall may be a huge fan of Magnus Carlsen, and thus biased against Anand - there is some evidence for this in 1287: Puzzle . In the title text of that comic it seems that Randall makes fun of Anand in a match against Magnus. The interpretation of the comic and its comment, however, appear to be a double-edged matter of debate. However, since the release of 1628: Magnus , named after Magnus, there can be no doubt that Randall is a fan of Magnus.
Anand can for instance be found in the Chessmetrics devised by statistician Jeff Sonas . In the graph from 1995-2005 of Sonas famous research from 2005, Anand becomes the best during 2004. It can, however, also be seen that Randall does not agree with Sonas - this is very clear in this graph from 1940-1960 . Here Mikhail Botvinnik clearly plays way better than Alexander Alekhine in 1946, where Alexander dies. This is not shown like this in the comic. Maybe the death of Alexander becomes the more interesting in the comic, if you believed he was the best at the time. Note that all nine (male) names listed in the comics chart between the lines at 1950 and 2000 are included in this graph from 1950-2000 . In this chart it is clear that Bobby Fischer was by far the best in the years before he disappeared. However, he was caught by Anatoly Karpov just before which is not shown in the comic. On the other hand, he seems to have reached a significant higher rating than Kasparov ever did, which is also not the case in the comic.
Chess players Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian , who have faced each other on multiple occasions in the 2010s, are shown as having their career paths entwined. It is a general trend observed every time two players paths cross each other more than once. The one on top the first time, will be below the second time and so forth. It is just more clear with these two than anywhere else. In two cases these crossing path occurs with so long time between the first appearance, that the names is written twice on the path. In the Chess panel it is Mikhail Tal and Boris Spassky and for the Chess (women) panel it is Pia Cramling and Xie Jun . This can make it difficult to get an overview of how few chess players there are compared to basketball players.
Dominant players over time [Below this heading there are three panels with charts showing different players career paths - that is their rating a function of the year. Most of the paths are grey, but some are red (there will be a note for these). Some parts of several paths are dashed. Somewhere on each path the players name will be written curving along so it follows the path. Several places an event or some information is noted and points to a given time on the path. If it is not clear where it belongs an arrow will point to the correct place. Each chart has a heading and for the two last charts there is an explanation. There is no scale on the y-axis (rating) but the x-axis (time) has the years given in ten years interval. A thin line indicates these decades. The years are all written at the top, except the first for the first chart, which is written below, and this year is missing in the bottom chart.] [Below the transcript for each chart will follow this order: Heading/sub heading, explanation, time scale, player names with any information for this player, in the order their name appear on the time scale.] [Basketball chart:] Basketball (NBA/ABA) Player Efficiency Rating 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990  2000 2010 [Red] George Mikan [Red] Bob Pettit Neal Johnston [Neil misspelled.] Elgin Baylor [Red]  Wilt Chamberlain Becomes the first and so far only player to score 100 points in a game Jerry West The Guy in the NBA logo [Red] Kareem Abdul Jabbar [Missing hyphen between the two last names.] Airplane Bob Mcadoo Julius Irving [Erving misspelled.] Moses Malone Magic Johnson HIV announcement [A part of the path is dashed after this.] [Red] Michael Jordan Baseball career [A part of the path is dashed after this.] Space Jam Second retirement [A part of the path is dashed after this.] Larry Bird Karl Malone David Robinson [Red] Shaquille O'Neal Kevin Gariett [Red] LeBron James The Decision Dwyane Wade Kevin Durant
[Chess chart.] Chess Elo Rating The modern Elo rating system dates back to about 1970. Computer analysis (like Kenneth Regan's) lets us rate historical players, but this has only been done rigorously for a few tournaments. Dashed lines are rough estimates only. [All paths are dashed up until the late nineteen sixties:] 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990  2000 2010 [The first player has no path, as his time was before 1940. An arrow points toward the left to these earlier times:] José Capablanca Terrifying chess God [Red] Alexander Alekhine [His path ends in a starburst.] [Red] Mikhail Botvinnik Tigran Petrosian David Bronstein Mikhail Tal Mikhail Tal [his name is written twice on the path, the second time above Boris Spassky when their paths intertwine.] [Red] Bobby Fischer Vanished… [Text under a starburst.] Reappeared then vanished again. He had problems. [Text under two starbursts connected with a path. This appears much later than the first starburst.] Boris Spassky Boris Spassky [his name is written twice on the path, the second time below Mikhail Tal when their paths intertwine.] Victor Korchnoi [Red] Anatoly Karpov [Red] Garry Kasparov Loses to Deep Blue Judit Polgar (See below) [The text is written beneath her name.] Vladimir Kramnik Levon Aronian [Red] Magnus Carlsen
[Chess (women) chart:] Chess (women) Elo Rating For a long time, sexism, a lack of role models, and institutional hostility largely kept women from pursuing serious chess careers. With the expansion of women's tournaments and prizes starting in the 1970s, this has begun to change. [All paths are dashed up until the late nineteen sixties.] 1960 1970 1980 1990  2000 2010 [Red] Vera Menchik Died in a missile attack on London [next to a starburst.] Sonja Graf Rating particularly uncertain Olga Rubtsova Elisaveta Bykova Kira Zvorykina Kira Zvorykina (born 1919) continued playing in tournaments into the 21st century [Text above Elisvetas path, no arrows.] Zvorykina [Written on top of the path when her path reappears much later.] Alexandra Nicolau [Red] Nona Gaprindashvili Alla Kushnir [Red] Maia Chiburdanidze Pia Cramling Pia Cramling [her name is written twice on the path, the second time below the path of Xie Jun after  their paths have intertwined.] Xie Jun Xie Jun [her name is written twice on the path, the second time above the path of Pia Cramling after their paths have intertwined.] Susan Polgar Sofia Polgar [Red] Judit Polgar Sisters [The three Polgars are linked by a thin dashed line, snaking between their names.] Wins a game against Kasparov, making her the first woman to beat the world #1 Becomes first woman to rank in the overall top 10 Antoaneta Stefanova Anna Muzychuk Koneru Humpy [In western style the name should be Humpy Koneru, but the comics version is the native form.] Hou Yifan


Timeghost

Explanation:
Megan has been haunted by a Timeghost for some time. It is obviously not the first time the ghost arrives to let Megan know that "...ooOOOOOOOOooo... Tiiiime is passiiiing!" The ghost is dedicated to making people feel old by having them think about the passage of time. It is shown to reference time periods related to well-known people and events, such as famous actors and the release of movies and TV shows. Megan is just annoyed that it is back and wishes it to go away.
But then when Cueball ask "How long has it been doing this?" the ghost suddenly predicts that Megan and Cueball will die in a shorter amount of time than the time that has passed since the ghost began its hauntings. This disturbs Megan who stops her complaining and asks " What!? " This is not the first time she has been haunted by the ghost but it has probably not been that long, so this is a very scary thought to her (and Cueball).
We do, however, not know how long the ghost has been haunting Megan. Also the "staaaaart of my haunting" may refer to the first time the ghost haunted anyone, not just Megan. This could be a long time ago and thus be true for anyone it meets today. Or it could mean since the start of this particular manifestation, meaning their deaths are imminent! It is also possible Timeghost is being deliberately ambiguous in an effort to frighten them even more. This is of course only scary if you believe the ghost can predict the future, which is not what it has been doing so far. There is no example in the comic where it makes a prediction that we know is accurate - only comparing time spans we can look up - see below.
But one thing about the prediction is true - they will eventually die . And this is the scary part about realizing how old you are and that you are quickly getting older: You will die, and "soon" (for some value thereof).
The comic seems to be using "factoid" to mean a small fact. " Factoid " can also mean a "questionable or spurious statement presented as a fact", but this does not seem to be intended usage here. In this instance, some of the factoids are easily verifiable, while others are reasonable assumptions based on the number of years passed since the individual events. Several sources advocate the use of the word "factlet" to express a brief interesting fact, while using the word "factoid" for unverifiable or untrue statements passed as fact.
While factoids tend only to have mostly only entertainment value, the last fact from the ghost is a prediction of the future (Megan and Cueball's death) which is actually of some practical value if it can be trusted.
"Timeghost" might be a literal interpretation of Zeitgeist , which is a German term for "spirit of time" and refers to the school of thought that influences or dominates the art and culture of a time period. All the events and people mentioned in this comic may be considered influences on present day art and culture.
In the title text Megan calls Ghostbusters (from the 1984 movie) to help get rid of the Timeghost. This of course makes the ghost state that "people born years after that movie came out are having a second chiiiild right now" making her feel old once more.
Randall has covered making people feel old several times in 647: Scary , 891: Movie Ages , 973: MTV Generation (in which White Hat utters Cueball's "That can't be right" line), and 1477: Star Wars . Also see the blag post Odd Temporal Milestones . This is, however, so far the only one that makes a prediction of anyone's death. A similar ghost with a much different agenda was seen in 1108: Cautionary Ghost . Similarly annoying fact(oids) were given in 1272: Shadowfacts .
Timeline
[Cueball and Megan are approached by a floating ghost] Timeghost: ...ooOOOOOOOOooo... Tiiiime is passiiiing! Megan: Ugh. Timeghost. Cueball: Huh? Megan: Here come the factoids.
[Timeghost floats around.] Timeghost: Forrest Gump came out closer to the Vietnam War than to the present daaay. Megan: Go away! Timeghost: The average new grand-parents are younger than Keanu Reeeeves! Cueball: That can't be right...
[Megan clutches her head, possibly attempting to cover her ears.] Timeghost: Today's new parents were ten when Eminem got big. Daaaaaad muuuuusic. They remember Simpsons season 5 or 6 at the earliest . Megan: Argh! Cueball: How long has it been doing this?
[Megan and Cueball looks up at the Timeghost as it delivers its most scary message.] Timeghost: The staaaaart of my haunting is now further away than your deaaaths! Megan: Will you sto- - WHAT!? Timeghost: ooOOOOOOOoo


Superm*n

Explanation:
By depicting how unimpressive the superhero Superman would be if his increase in powers, when compared to humans, were the same as the moon's increase in apparent size during a supermoon , Randall points that the use of the term supermoon is an exaggeration. This comic was released two days after such a supermoon and there was a hype in 2014 because there were three supermoons in a row as NASA said.
A supermoon is an informal astronomical event where a full moon occurs when it is closest to earth, causing the moon to appear 10% brighter and about 7% larger than the average full moon appears. This is due to the apsidal precession of moon's elliptic orbit which has an orbital eccentricity of about 0.0549. The conditions for a supermoon happen once every 411 days, and the loose definition of the term means that the supermoon lasts for about two or three full moons.
Returning to the not-so-Superman, the average American adult man is 69 inches tall, with a standard deviation of 2.9 inches. Not-so-Superman, at an assumed 74 inches (188 cm) tall, is within the 94th percentile - certainly a tall man, but by no means phenomenal. Basketball players, by way of example, are often more than 80 inches tall. "7% stronger" (most likely a reference to how the supermoon is 7% larger) is a bit harder to quantify, but it communicates "not actually impressive" to the reader all the same. For example, if an average man can lift 50 kg, the not-so-Superman would lift 53.5 kg.
The comic's title makes use of an asterisk that is being used as a wildcard. When using search queries an asterisk represents one or more characters. Therefore, Superm*n can represent the strings "Superman" and "Supermoon".
The title text refers  makes this same comparison with Spider-Man . Spider-Man is capable of firing large amounts of webbing, can cling to surfaces with superhuman gripping abilities, and has a sixth sense, "spider sense", that warns him about impending danger. The title text describes trivially minimal versions of these powers, analogous to the trivial size and brightness difference between a "supermoon" and a normal full moon. This also shows a much more accurate depiction of an actual spider's abilities, where they can produce several inches of a thin web, not the unrealistic amounts depicted in use by Spider-Man.
Supermoon is also referenced in panel 25 of 1052: Every Major's Terrible and shortly thereafter in 1080: Visual Field . In both cases displaying the same distaste for the formulation. Although not as clearly as here. Since then other comics have referred to the term, see this list .
[Cueball is reaching for an item on a high shelf. Superman is rushing towards him.] Superman: I'll get it! I'm 5 inches taller and 7% stronger than the average man!
[Caption below the panel:] The new supermoon-inspired Superman reboot


Power Cord

Explanation:
In this comic, we see Beret Guy walking in from the left, as Cueball is sitting on a couch, typing on a laptop on his lap , with its power cord unplugged. Instead of connecting it to the wall socket , Beret Guy picks it up and blows air into the loose end of the cord, as if inflating a balloon — and the laptop inflates. It then floats away, making Cueball grab for it as Beret Guy casually walks away. (See an instance where Cueball inflates something in a similar unexpected way in 1798: Box Plot ).
It is not possible to inflate a laptop like this [ citation needed ] , and (with rare exceptions ) it is not possible to inflate anything by blowing down a power cord. Beret Guy has previously demonstrated several supernatural abilities , for instance with power cords, such as in 1293: Job Interview .
In general, human breath should not be buoyant enough to lift much in an atmosphere of ordinary air.  The only chemical difference between dry air and dry exhaled breath is the conversion of oxygen (molecular weight = 32) to carbon dioxide (MW=44), not counting substances in such low concentrations that their effect on the average molecular weight of the air (MW=29) is negligible.  A change of concentration of the CO 2 from 0.04% to about 4% is typical.  This increases the average molecular weight.  However, exhaled breath is also usually much more humid than air, increasing the concentration of water (MW=18) from a typical value of 1% to approximately 5%, which decreases the average molecular weight.  The two changes approximately cancel each other.
Because humans are warm-blooded, human breath is slightly warmer than the surrounding air, and therefore has slightly fewer molecules per unit volume. This is also true of hot air balloons, but they operate at much higher temperatures than human breath and are therefore able to obtain a greater amount of net buoyancy. There is a standard cartoon convention that inflating something with breath nonetheless makes it lighter than air. Also, given Beret Guy's many manifestations of inexplicable phenomena, it is not too far fetched to believe his body is, in fact, expelling some form of lighter-than-air gas, similar to the character Rigel on Farscape who could "fart helium".
The title text involves some jokes on Unix systems. On Unix, everything is a file ; even most of the hardware can be referenced by a (virtual) file. These virtual files usually are in /dev or another virtual filesystem like /sys or /proc. While /dev/input really exists and points to the input system (mice, keyboards, gamepads, etc.), /dev/inside doesn't. gzip is a common tool to compress files. The first joke is to compress the air inside the laptop (with the command gzip /dev/inside ) in order to deflate the laptop back to normal size. It is a pun with the literal meaning of "deflate", which is also the DEFLATE algorithm used by gzip (compressing files is also called "deflating"). Another joke is " piping ", the act of using the output of one operation as the input to another. As the output of the gzip command would be compressed air, a physical pipe could be used to direct the air somewhere useful. The output of a command can also be redirected to a file. Since the hardware is a file, the suggestion is to direct the air to /dev/input (which, in this case, means the keyboard, but would actually be a directory on real system, which can't normally be piped into) to clean it, similar to "compressed air" dusting cans. The complete command would be gzip /dev/inside | /dev/input . As this might cause a spray of unpleasant detritus (compare 237: Keyboards are Disgusting ), the reader is advised to avert their eyes.
[Beret Guy enters to find Cueball on a chair typing on a laptop. Cueball's power cord is unplugged from the wall.] Cueball typing: Type type
[Beret Guy picks up the power cord. Cueball continues typing.] Cueball typing: Type type
[Beret Guy blows into the plug end of the cord. The laptop abruptly inflates and Cueball jerks back.] Beret Guy: PBBBBT Laptop: FOOMP
[Beret Guy walks away, leaving Cueball climbing up his chair to retrieve his inflated laptop which is now floating away.]


Actors

Explanation:
This comic plays on different meanings of the word "hottest". In the opening question, "Who are today's 10 hottest actors?" the word "hottest" would typically refer to an actor's popularity, success, demand, or attractiveness. Cueball and Megan interpret the word "hottest" as asking them to list the 10 actors who have the highest surface temperature, and we see them measuring "Justin's" (possibly referring to Long , Theroux , Bieber or Timberlake or any of the several other Justin s in show business [1] ) surface temperature using an infrared thermometer (the thermometer typically has a laser pointer to know the approximate location where the radiometric temperature comes from). The measured temperature of 81.5 is presumably reported in degrees Fahrenheit , corresponding to 27.5 °C . This temperature is below the average human internal body temperature of 98.6 °F /37 °C as skin is cooler; Megan also believes that another object (Justin's shirt) was also measured within the infrared thermometer field of view, lowering the reported measurement. With such a measurement of hotness , the hottest actor on any given day would probably be whoever is exercising, sick with a fever, or whoever has been outside in the sun the longest and/or has been sunburned, since this typically causes skin to be hot. Or, an animal actor, of a species with a higher body temperature than humans. ( Category:Films about birds )
Randall here excludes the fact that accurately deriving surface temperature from bright (radiance) temperature requires knowing the emissivity of the object. Since not all objects radiate with the same efficiency, two objects with the same surface temperature will emit different thermal radiance, but if emissivity is not taken into account they will report different surface temperatures.
The title-text references the temperatures of Hollywood's rising stars, this time interpreting stars as actual stars, not famous people. In this case, the star ξ Persei in the Perseus constellation (which is located in, and responsible for the fluorescence of, an object called the California Nebula ), one of the hottest stars (35,000 kelvins , Sun : 5,800 K) visible to the naked eye. The star also has similar declination (+35° 47′) as the latitude of Hollywood (34° N) so it is literally rising there every night.
Comic 1111: Premiere is another comic based on "star" puns.
[Caption above the Panel:] Who are today's 10 hottest actors? [Cueball is holding a clipboard, taking notes, while Megan aims an infrared thermometer off screen.] Megan: 81.5, but I think it got part of his shirt. HEY JUSTIN — HOLD STILL! [Caption below the Panel:] We grab an infrared thermometer and find out!


Luke

Explanation:
This comic takes place in a scene from the third theatrically-released Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi , wherein Darth Vader confronts his son, Luke Skywalker , who had recently surrendered to Imperial soldiers. In the movie Vader notes that Luke Skywalker has constructed a new lightsaber following the loss of his original during their duel on Cloud City , Luke Skywalker's original lightsaber actually having been Anakin Skywalker's second lightsaber, Anakin who later turned into Darth Vader.
In this comic, however, Darth Vader has accidentally discovered his son's fleshlight (a male sex toy designed to imitate one of various orifices, most commonly a vagina), which he apparently brought with him on the attack on the Forest Moon of Endor . From a certain point of view , a fleshlight could be mistaken for the handle of a lightsaber, without the blade extended. Like many teenagers, Luke Skywalker is attempting to hide evidence of his sexual activity from a parent. References to fleshlights are a recurring theme in xkcd.
The title text refers to the fact that if Darth Vader turned the fleshlight on, instead of creating a blade of pure plasma or energy suspended in a force containment field the device would simply vibrate, revealing it for what it really is. Randall is also punning on "being turned on" as slang for being sexually aroused.
In a later comic another version of this scene is displayed in 1433: Lightsaber . This time not so embarrassing for Luke, but much more dangerous. In that comic Luke should really have said "Don't turn it on".
In 1637: Salt Mine , Ponytail makes a very similar remark to the one that Luke makes here.
[Darth Vader is holding up what appears to be the handle of a powered-down lightsaber looking down at it while talking to Luke Skywalker, drawn with thin hair hanging down his forehead.] Darth Vader: I see you have constructed a new lightsaber. Luke Skywalker: ...Yes. Luke Skywalker: That is definitely what I did.
[Caption below the panel:] Vader finds Luke's Fleshlight.


Snake Facts

Explanation:
This is the first comic using Facts in the title, but only the second to use a fact that is not a Fun fact .
The comic lists a few factoids about snakes, ranging from the mildly informative to the strictly tongue-in-cheek .
The first factoid references the hypothesis that snake venom was an evolutionary development of saliva that, over time, gradually became more toxic as snakes with saliva that was able to assist in subduing their prey possessed an evolutionary advantage. It then posits that the evolutionary branch that developed into venomous snakes began with a snake whose mutation gave him a mouth that was 'slightly more gross than usual', probably in reference to bad breath .
Additionally, the comic illustration accompanying the second factoid colors in a ' habitat range' on a map of South America that is snake-shaped, implying that when it states 'The longest snake is found in Brazil , Peru , and Chile ' that this snake is so long that it literally stretches from Brazil, across part of Peru, into Chile, and that the 'habitat' shaded on the map is, in fact, this mammoth snake's silhouette . The age, length and location of the snake are so exaggerated that they are obviously untrue, but may be a reference to the green anaconda , one of the world's largest snakes, which inhabits this region.
The final factoid is entirely tongue-in-cheek. Many factoids come in the form "If you laid all the X end to end, Y would occur" (e.g. "If you laid all the veins and arteries in the human body end-to-end, they would stretch 60,000 miles"). The Y portion of the factoid is supposed to be surprising; therefore, it is ironic that the factoid in the comic, "If you laid all the bones in a snake end to end, you would have a snake.", is obvious and not at all exciting. Clearly, you would not have an entire snake, literally, but you would have a skeleton that was recognizably that of a snake and could reasonably be referred to as 'a snake'.  A common example that pokes fun at this format is, "If you laid every elephant from end to end between the Earth and the Moon, then you'd have a lot of dead elephants."
The title text presents the amusing idea that 'snakes' as we know them are not, in fact, a suborder of reptiles but are instead human digestive tracts that, rather than being a system of organs, are creatures capable of escaping from their 'host' human and living independently. The idea seems to follow from the superficial resemblance between snakes and the human digestive tract as long, roughly tubular collections of animal matter, which can process the food entering the top end, and get rid of the waste through the other end.
Randall had previously posted an incorrect map , that included the snake's habitat in Bolivia instead of Peru.
Snake Facts: Snake venom evolved from saliva, which means that it all started with a snake whose mouth was sliiiightly more gross than usual. [Picture of a snake below the text above.] Snake: Hi guys! Off-panel voice: Eww, it's Frank. [Map of South America with gray shade in the form of a snake. Text to the left of it.] The world's longest snake is found in Brazil, Peru, and Chile. It is believed to be over 60 years old. [Picture of a snake skeleton between the first and the second of the lines below.] If you laid all the bones in a snake end-to-end, you would have a snake
Given the habitat listed for the second factoid, it is likely the comic is referring to the Green Anaconda ( Eunectes murinus ) .


Chaos

Explanation:
This comic pokes fun at the 1993 film Jurassic Park , which features a theme park filled with cloned dinosaurs. In the film, chaos ensues when all the dinosaurs escape and begin terrorizing their creators. The list of chaos topics, phase space , nonlinear equations , and strange attractors , comes directly from the movie, in which Dr. Ian Malcolm (portrayed by Jeff Goldblum), a mathematician and chaos theorist brought in to inspect the park prior to its grand opening, suggests that the dinosaurs' escaping could have been predicted based on mathematical chaos models.
Cueball explains that although he has also studied chaos theory, he has never seen where chaos models predict that dinosaurs would escape. Cueball's confusion highlights the contrast between the mathematical definition of chaos – shown in the graphs on the whiteboard – and its common meaning – a state of utter confusion or disorder (as illustrated in the film).
The whiteboard shows a bifurcation diagram of the logistic map (one of the simplest examples of the mathematical concept of chaos, also featured in what-if 105 ) and a dragon curve , which appeared on the section title pages of the novel Jurassic Park , upon which the film was based.
The title text references the scene in Jurassic Park in which Goldblum, as Malcolm, while making small talk with Drs. Alan Grant (portrayed by Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (portrayed by Laura Dern) during the helicopter ride to the park, responds to a remark with an odd-sounding laugh . The laugh has gained minor Internet notoriety after being used as the central sample in at least one remix .
The comic may be timely, as a remastered 3-D version of the film was released in April 2013, and the fourth installment (and the first of a new planned trilogy) of the Jurassic Park film series, Jurassic World , was released in June 2015.
[Cueball is staring at a whiteboard covered with equations and graphs.] Cueball: For two decades, I've studied phase space, nonlinear equations, and strange attractors. [Cueball keeps staring at a whiteboard covered with equations and graphs for two more panels before in the third panel he exclaims:] Cueball: And there is nothing in here about dinosaurs escaping.


D.B. Cooper

Explanation:
In 1971, a man referred to by the media as D. B. Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 and escaped with $200,000 in ransom money (equivalent to $900,000 in 2003 or $1,250,000 in 2020). While the FBI maintains that Cooper was most likely killed when he parachuted from the plane, they have never determined his identity, and the investigation was called off in 2016, making it the United States' only unsolved plane hijacking. (This mystery was later referenced in 1501: Mysteries , and then again in 2452: Aviation Firsts .)
In 2003, Tommy Wiseau released The Room , which is considered by many to be the worst film ever made, but has also earned a sizable number of fans who uphold it as a prime example of a film that is " so bad, it's good ". In the decade since, Wiseau has become something of an icon alongside his infamous movie, of which he was the producer, writer, director, and main star. Surprisingly little, however, is known about him. The comic refers to "The Room" as "...the ' Citizen Kane ' of bad movies." This is a comparison between what is widely considered the best film of all time, which was, coincidentally the first film produced by, written by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles and what is widely considered the worst film of all time, the first film produced by, written by, directed by, and starring Tommy Wiseau.
This comic points to similarities between several details of Cooper and Wiseau's stories:
The comic then compares an FBI sketch of Cooper with a photograph of Wiseau, apparently to claim that they have similar appearances.  The only real similarity is that they're both wearing sunglasses.
However, these are only a few cherry-picked aspects of their lives, and do not seriously suggest that they are the same person. For example, even if we assume that Wiseau was born in 1950, and that Cooper was only 35 (probably the youngest age which can be mistaken for mid-40s) in 1971, that leaves a 14-year gap between their ages. Likewise, Cooper was said to have either an American or Canadian accent, while Wiseau's bizarre accent is certainly not North American. While Cueball 's theory in this comic is clearly a joke on Randall 's part, given Randall's known distaste for conspiracy theories, this may also be making fun of people who base theories off of minor details while ignoring contradictory ones and bigger-picture questions. The question in the title text, for instance, notes that Cooper would have gone through a huge amount of effort just to produce a movie; a similar rhetorical device is often used against convoluted conspiracy theories, where one points out a vastly simpler way for the supposed conspirators to have accomplished their goals.
The title text goes on to attribute such a weird motive for hijacking to the impression that "people are very strange these days," which is another quote from The Room .
[Cueball is using a baton to point towards a projector.] D.B. Cooper ("Dan Cooper")
Hijacked a plane in the 1970s. On landing, demanded money and parachutes. Jumped from plane mid-flight and was ne ver found.
Vanished mysteriously with large amount of money Real age/name unknown Ambiguous, possibly affected speaking style ("negotiable American currency") Fate unknown
[Cueball has his palm out.] Tommy Wiseau ("Johnny")
Wrote, directed, and starred in The Room , a film widely hailed as "The Citizen Kane of b ad movies."
Appeared mysteriously with large amount of money Colleague says he's much older than he claims. Ambiguous, possibly affected speaking style ("You are tearing me apart, Lisa!") Background unknown
[Two images captioned "Cooper (FBI sketch)" and "Wiseau (Flickr photo by Al Pavangkanan)".]
Offscreen voice: This is the dumbest theory I've ever heard. Cueball: But it explains everything!!