New

Explanation:
This comic strip uses a play on the homophonic relationship between " canon ", the literary term, and " cannon ", a projectile weapon. The word headcannon is a compound of "head" and "cannon".
In this strip, Black Hat tells Cueball that he has a "new headcannon". Cueball , thinking Black Hat means "headcanon" (an unjustified belief or theory about a fictional universe), inquires what Black Hat's new idea is. Instead of the expected idea or theory, Black Hat removes his hat to reveal a tiny cannon on his head which blows away Cueball and his computer desk.
While headcanon may often be ignored or dismissed as a personal theory, a headcannon would be far harder to ignore, as it is a physical object which has a notable (and in this case violent) impact on the real world.
In the title text Randall makes the spellings of these two words indistinguishable by using three consecutive "n"s to spell "headcannnon". Therefore, the title text is deliberately vague. It could be interpreted that it is easy to convince people that you have a cannon on your head, that it is easy to make people believe in a self invented headcanons, or both. Since you are choosing your own interpretation of this title text, the joke is that you are creating your own headcanon.
This comic also shows Cueball being once again distracted from his work in a manner similar to 1388: Subduction License .
In terms of a given literary series, " canon " describes a set of works that are collectively recognized by the community as having authenticity. Generally, works created or endorsed by the original author(s) are considered canonical. Not all original content is considered canon and not all canon is original content.  Sometimes creators will rewrite the canon (called a retcon ) and make things that were previously canonical non-canonical. For example, the origins of a character may be rewritten, thus invalidating the portions of the works that speak to the old origins. Other times creators will incorporate non-original content and therefore incorporate the canon of these borrowed works.
A headcanon as the name implies is a form of canon that only exists in one's mind. More specifically, a headcanon is created when a consumer watching or reading the material develops their own ideas about a fictional universe that are not actually part of the canon, perhaps developing their own backstories or experiences for characters. Some frequent examples of headcanon include relationships between characters, abilities, events following the conclusion of the work, etc. which the author or creator has not explained or included. For example, a consumer may "read between the lines" and assume that there was a previous romantic relationship between two characters where no conclusive evidence actually exists of one. Some fans who come up with particularly interesting or convincing headcanons may decide to share them with others in hopes that their idea spreads.
[Black Hat walks in.] Black Hat: New headcannon:
[Cueball is sitting at his desk, using his computer.] Cueball: Yeah?
[Black Hat lifts his hat, revealing his "headcannon": a tiny cannon on the top of his head. The headcannon fires and blows up Cueball's desk, the explosion throwing Cueball backwards.] Headcannon: BOOM Cueball: Augh!


Harpoons

Explanation:
This comic is a graph of the number of harpoons in space over time. One would not expect that harpoons, which are associated with old technology, would be used in space, which is associated with high technology. Any occurrences are unexpected, and therefore interesting or funny.
The first peak states that a harpoon was in space during the Apollo 12 mission and various possible explanations have been put forward (See discussion section below). One of more widely accepted theories proposes that Harpoon brand of Jamaican rum made it aboard the Apollo 12 rocket. Despite a fair amount of research into the basis of the harpoon incident, there have been no credible or official sources to confirm the presence of any type of harpoon on board Apollo 12. As the presence of a harpoon on board would run counter to any official story, perhaps that's exactly why it would be considered an "incident".
The latter peak on this graph refers to the Rosetta unmanned spacecraft. As part of its mission, it carried a lander called Philae , which has two harpoon tethers to anchor itself to the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko . Rosetta was launched in March 2004 (as shown in the graph) and was scheduled to encounter the comet in August 2014, making this a timely comic. Rosetta maneuvered to enter orbit on September 10, and ultimately the Philae lander touched down on the comet on 12 November 2014, although the harpoon system failed to deploy. Randall produced a live comic of the landing, updating 1446: Landing every 5 minutes with the latest progress. The Rosetta spacecraft also carries a disk micro-etched with 13,000 pages of text in 1200 languages donated by the Long Now foundation, mentioned in previous comics.
The title text compares the Philae lander's method of deploying its tethers to whaling , in which sailors would throw harpoons at a whale with the intent of killing the whale. It was important to throw hard so the harpoon would stick in the whale so it could not get away and would tow the whaling boat until it got tired and could be killed. Thus the title text implies that the spacecraft is sentient and needs a motivation to fire the harpoons hard enough to stay anchored to the comet; to this end it has been programmed to believe that its mission is to kill the comet. Evidently this motivation was not enough, as Philae ultimately failed to deploy its harpoons - it still managed to land, though.
Number of harpoons in space by year [A chart with a red graph is drawn below.] [The y-axis.] 0 1 2 3 [The x-axis.] 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 [The graph is at zero until a sharp peak to 1 in 1970. The peak is labeled.] Apollo 12 rum incident [The graph then stays at 0 until 2004. Then it rises to 2 and stays there until today, continuing as a dotted line after 2014. The rise is labeled.] Rosetta comet mission launched carrying lander with harpoon tethers
In 2018, shortly after the line gets dotted, the number actually increased again., thanks to the RemoveDEBRIS satelite.


Thesis Defense

Explanation:
In the comic, Megan is presenting evidence on her thesis , a theory on the evolution of threat displays in mammals, in front of a panel of some people. To conclude her exposition she charges at the audience, shouting a battle cry , and brandishing a sword. The audience flinches. As the audience is composed of mammals and is responding to a displayed threat, we should assume that this response provides some key evidence about the threat displays in mammals.
This comic is a play on a thesis defense and the adage " The best defense is a good offense ". The adage means that a strong offensive action will preoccupy the opposition and ultimately hinder its ability to mount an opposing counterattack, leading to a strategic advantage. A thesis defense generally involves an oral exam on the topic the candidate has chosen, and should involve no physical violence.
For added humorous effect, in the title text Megan extrapolates how she improved the state of the art, i.e. what she has added to her field of study, while screaming the word art.
[Megan runs towards a desk with two microphones on it, waving a broadsword high in the air. Cueball and one other sitting behind the desk are taken aback, while Ponytail standing off to the side holds an arm in front of her face protectively. A slide is projected on a screen behind Megan, reading "The evolution of threat displays in mammals".] Megan: In conclusion, AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! [Caption below the panel:] The best thesis defense is a good thesis offense.


Quantum Vacuum Virtual Plasma

Explanation:
This comic is a reference to the recent news of a microwave thruster which allegedly produces thrust without expelling any propellant or microwaves, a violation of conservation of momentum . This type of thruster would provide delta velocity without conventional limits. After researchers hooked their device up to a measurement apparatus in an air-filled stainless-steel chamber, applied RF input and measured changes in the apparatus, their interpretation of the results as a tiny thrust explainable under the moniker of "quantum vacuum virtual plasma" was at best controversial.  An official statement by NASA's Johnson Space Center is still missing.
The title of the comic directly refers to this hypothetical new physics mechanism of interacting with the "quantum vacuum virtual plasma," a combination of physics words that don't normally go together.
The first part of the comic has Megan commenting on how the engine was, in layman's terms, "twitching," and states that with that much power she'd expect something more forceful.  "Twitching" is an expected outcome for various complex systems, including biological ones, when arbitrarily large amounts of electric or microwave power is injected. The last panel is a joke about the scientific method, where equivalence between twitching and the hypothetical new physics is pooh-poohed, because Megan was not previously revealed to operate by the principle of "quantum vacuum virtual plasma," to which Megan responds that she is a complex entity and very well might have new physics inside her.
The title text suggests that the authors of the NASA paper subscribe to the principle that unexpected behaviors of complex systems should best be explained by invoking new physics rather than by making a detailed study of the complexities of the system. This runs contrary to generally accepted approach in science.
[Cueball and Megan are walking together in the foreground.] Cueball: Hear about that "impossible" microwave thruster?
[They stop walking and Cueball turns to face Megan.] Megan: Yeah. Let me get this straight — they pumped 20 kilowatts into a box under ambient conditions ...and it only twitched a little ? Cueball: Yeah.
[Zoomed out - they are seen in silhouette walking together again.] Megan: That's surprising. If you pumped 20 kilowatts into me , I'd twitch a lot . Cueball: But you're not pushing on the quantum vacuum. Megan: I might be. I do a lot of things. Cueball: I guess we can't be sure.


Meteor

Explanation:
This is one of Randall 's My Hobby comics. The author makes semantically incorrect statements to frustrate pedantic people who know the correct word, and confuse people who don't know the precise word so they can go on using the wrong word; see also 1429: Data . Since Randall is normally personified by Cueball , it makes most sense to call the one with the hobby Cueball in the explanation below.
Cueball's friend (who also looks like Cueball) walks up to Cueball and tells him that he has found a piece of a " meteor ". Cueball corrects him by telling him that what he found is called magma , and that the phrase "a piece of a meteor" would be correct if the object was in the air, once it hits the ground it is called magma. In doing so he attempts to confuse or annoy his friend. In truth, meteorite is the expression for a piece of a meteoroid that has landed; meteor is the term for the streak of light caused by the meteoroid while it falls through the atmosphere. Thus the first statement by him is a (partly) true correction, but the second one is wrong.
The word " pedantic " means being overly concerned with being precise. It is usually a pejorative term used to refer to someone who is overly fussy and corrects someone's word choice even when the more ambiguous or slightly incorrect term they used was fine for informal communication. One would tend to believe a pedant, as they would usually know what they are pedantic about. So when Cueball is making wrong statements that seem pedantic, he may make people believe him. A volcano that would be the bane of such a pedantic person was depicted in the last panel of 1714: Volcano Types , as a direct reference to this comic.
The title text expands on the joke, as if the conversation had continued with a confused friend responding that he thought magma was underground. Cueball attempts to confuse him further by talking about lava which indeed is the expression for magma that has reached the surface. But it's ridiculous to suggest that all other things are called lava when underground. In the sentence he also continues to imply that magma could also be found above ground. Mixing pedantic terms like this was later used in the title text of 1967: Violin Plots .
The two sentences thus follow the same pattern with one true but pedantic part to begin with, and then a false statement to confuse the victim.
Here is a list of the terminology that is being muddled:
A nice English mnemonic helps: In the void, meteoroid. On the site, meteorite. Neither/Nor: meteor.
[Cueballs friend walks toward Cueball while holding a rock.] Cueball: Check it out - I got a piece of a meteor! Randall: Actually , it's only called that while falling. Once it lands, it's called magma .
[Below the panel:] My Hobby: Mixing pedantic terms


Universal Converter Box

Explanation:
Converter boxes are used to connect two or more devices together which otherwise couldn't be, due to differently shaped plugs, different voltages, or different protocols of communication.
Converter boxes or converter cables are commonly found for several of the plugs at the top of the list - such as from USB to micro-USB. As this is supposed to be a Universal Converter Box, there are many connections.
The humour from this comic comes from the sheer number of different standards that all claim to be the universal way to connect two devices, in their target market, as well as the progressively ridiculous conversions that this box is capable of doing, for example, converting audio from a 1/8 inch / 3.5 mm headphone jack, into a variety of fuel suitable for running your car.
A connector is capable of making a connection to another connector only if the connectors are of the same style and the opposite gender ("male" connector is plug, "female" connector is socket), except for rare "genderless" connectors, such as the token ring mentioned above. Gender changers are devices with two connectors of the same gender. The "circular center pin DC adapter tips" in the title text are barrel jack power plugs. There are a large number of these style connectors, and many of these devices look the same, leading to frustration.
The plugs are numbered from top to bottom and incremented for every wire that comes directly out of the converter box.
For some interfaces, such as USB, the female side is standard to the device while the male side is standard to the cable. For other interfaces, such as the RS-232 serial port, the conventions vary or there is no convention.
The "universal" connector here doesn't support the proper RS-232, with the closest surrogate available being RJ-11. The other nearest analog would be the parallel port, available in Centronix and D-25-pin connectors.
The SCSI connectors have been available as the "internal" connectors (see the "break-away" above) of 2 different widths, Centronix, 2 widths of the mini-D connectors with the easily bendable pins, 3 widths of the more reliable pin-less mini-connectors, and high-speed serial.
Not only is there gender and connector type, but there are also different standards on what data/power is connected on each pin of the connector. Building a working connection often involved getting 3 or 4 adapters connected in a sequence to produce the right connector, gender and pin-out.
Barrel jack power plugs were developed in the 1980s. The "barrel" has an inner diameter an outer diameter, and different style pins.
A D-shell is a trapezoidal metal skirt that protects the pins, prevents the connector from being plugged in the wrong way, and makes the physical connection more secure.
A VGA was developed in 1987, and with new versions being developed since then.
DVI can be configured to support multiple modes such as DVI-D (digital only), DVI-A (analog only), or DVI-I (digital and analog).
HDMI has slowly been replacing DVI and VGA ports on newer devices due to the simplicity and the smaller footprint and overall dimensions.
Thunderbolt is far faster than almost any  connector on the market for transferring data. However, the limited adoption by manufacturers, the higher costs of the hardware, and the security concerns inherent to the interface have limited the adoption by consumers.
Because Firewire is designed to allow backplane access and direct memory access (DMA) to devices, there are additional conversion and security issues with it.
The phone connector diameter of 1/8" is only an approximation using Imperial units . The standard actually specifies a size in the Metric system of 3.5 mm. The video plug has 3 contacts (Tip, Ring and Sleeve) and the audio has 4 contacts (Tip, Ring, Ring and Sleeve).
While no longer common in homes or offices, parallel connections are still used in some embedded systems .
Airline pneumatic tube audio was used by in-flight entertainment systems manufactured from 1963 until 1979.
Note that while AC adapters are necessary—and widely available—to suit sockets in other countries, this "universal" converter does not feature any other AC power plugs, but this could be accommodated using adapters.
Cheater plugs exist to connect a NEMA grounding-type plug (three prongs) to a NEMA non-grounding receptacle (two slots), but the use of such an adapter can be hazardous if the grounding tab is not connected to electrical ground. A safer alternative is to replace the outlet with a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI) breaker outlet.
The computer media drive connectors are unlike the motherboard-powering connectors from the Power Supply Unit of a PC, which may involve multiple additional 4, 6 and 8-pin 'breakout' supply cables that have this feature and specially 'keyed' pin-sheaths as well to allow forward/backward compatibility between various versions of PSU and motherboard that could be used (and power-hungry GPUs of various kinds, as well).
Note that some embedded systems such as cash registers actually do use larger USB connectors to include 12V and/or 24V power connections. These are not, however, called "macro-USB", and are not as large.
Other countries often use RJ11-ended cables with locally-specific adapter-ends, e.g. the BS 6312 in Britain. Broadband microfilters may make use of this difference by splitting a relevant telephone plug standard into the local non-RJ11 style of telephone plug for an "audio-only" pass-through socket and an RJ11 for the router/modem to be cabled up to for the abstracted "data-only" signal — making an adapter for this will be nearly impossible.
There are two common systems for showing octane numbers on fuel pumps; the numbers shown (87, 91, 93) most closely map to Anti-Knock Index values which is used for the North American market and a number of other countries, the other system used in the rest of the world is Research Octane Number. In the AKI system; 87 octane (91 RON) is regular US, 91 octane (95 RON) is regular European, 93 octane (98 RON) is premium European, and in US both 91 and 93 are considered premium/super depending on the regulations of a particular state. Some states, such as California, forbid the sale of the gasoline above 91 octane. Only very rarely could both 91 and 93 be found at the same gas station. The typical line-up is "regular" (87), "plus" (89), and "premium"/"super" (depending on the state and on the fuel brand, 91, 92 or 93 octane). A standard diesel nozzle (24mm) is slightly larger diameter than a standard petrol nozzle (21mm) so you cannot tank diesel into a petrol car but if this nozzle has the petrol nozzle diameter you are still able to tank with it into some diesel cars. Some manufacturers such as Volkswagen fit a misfueling guard and fuel filler neck cap or have redesigned the fuel filler to prevent a petrol nozzle being used in a diesel car.
Since the release of this comic, Apple has created a magnetic charging cable for its Apple Watch, which functions in the same manner as the current MagSafe 1 & 2 by using a magnet to connect to the device. This new charger looks identical to the fictional MagSafe 3 in the comic.
[Universal converter box with wires to connectors:] VGA DVI HDMI Thunderbolt Firewire Component [sharing connectors with Component:] RCA 1/8" Audio 1/8" Video Parallel Port S-Video Airline Pneumatic Tube Audio PS/2/3/4 120V AC [pointing to ground pin:] Removable Floppy/IDE/2.5"/SCSI [pointing to sections in IDC connector:] Break here USB USB (weird other end) Mini-USB Micro USB Macro USB F Connector Fiber RJ11 Ethernet Token Ring MagSafe MagSafe 2 MagSafe 3 MagSafe 4 Bluetooth Dongle SCART String (fits most cans) [Fuel nozzle with selector for:] 87/91/93/Diesel


Worst Hurricane

Explanation:
The map divides America's Atlantic coastline into regions according to the worst hurricane that has hit each area in the last century, based on data from the North Atlantic hurricane database ( HURDAT ) to determine the severity and the National Centers for Enrvironmental Prediction 's (NCEP) rainfall to determine where the hurricane was present. Most of the hurricanes are listed by their US reporting names, with hurricanes before 1953 (the year when the current naming system was established) being listed by their year and sometimes a sequence number or city name.
The title text is a joke in light of this bleak humor, saying that finding residents in each of the regions who are old enough to have been alive through all of these is quite a daunting task. In principle, this would be the only way to confirm the "worst hurricane in living memory," and may be taken as a riposte to anyone who wishes to argue this map: "If you think there was a worse one, find a 105 year old resident who agrees!" 105 was likely chosen because most people can only remember back to an age when they were 5, so someone would have needed to be 5 years old to remember a hurricane in any detail 100 years later.
Hurricanes and especially their names have been featured before in comics 453: Upcoming Hurricanes , 944: Hurricane Names and 1126: Epsilon and Zeta .
A full list of North Atlantic hurricanes after Tropical cyclone naming was introduced can be found here .
What's The Worst Hurricane Anyone In Your Town Remembers? Estimated from Hurdat Database and NCEP rainfall totals 1914-2014 [A map of the east coast of the United States as far southwest as the Texas/Mexico border, as far northeast as the Maine/Canada border, and as far inland as Kentucky. The map has coastal regions blocked out with the name and year of the worst hurricane in the last 100 years.]


March of the Penguins

Explanation:
Several of the xkcd comics outline ways to make people feel older by referencing various pieces of popular culture which feel ingrained and "recent", and revealing the time that has elapsed since their release to be longer than expected (for instance, 1393: Timeghost and 891: Movie Ages ).
This appears to be what Black Hat is doing as he walks in on Megan to announce that all the penguins from a 2005 documentary March of the Penguins about emperor penguins are dead. Megan is familiar with these sorts of antics and assumes Black Hat is indicating that the film is so old that the lifespan of emperor penguins is less than the time since the documentary was released. Frustrated, Megan simply acknowledges Black Hat's statement by agreeing that everyone is aging. Black Hat, however, reveals that he is not trying to make her feel old, because the penguins were all alive "last night" and all died in one instance since then and thus not from old age.
His announcement that he is "trying to apologize" creates the obvious inference that he caused the penguins to be killed (either intentionally or by mistake). This gives the situation a much darker tone; especially since Black Hat likely is not truly apologizing, as he is very unapologetic in his "classhole" tendencies, and just wish to mess even further with Megan.
Emperor penguins actually live about 20 years on average, so presumably, barring any intervention by Black Hat, most of the younger penguins and many of the older penguins in the movie are still alive as of the time of release of this comic in 2014 nine years after the documentary was released.
The title text emphasizes that whatever the penguins' fate, we do get and are getting older. [ citation needed ] This is presented as a last jab by Black Hat as he departs just to make Megan feel a bit worse. So in the end this comic did try to make the reader feel older.
This also presents an alternative take on the entire comic: Black Hat came in to make Megan feel old because all the penguins of the movie is actually naturally dead of old age, predators, disease etc. And if she likes the movie, she would not have realized that it was almost nine years ago she saw it, and the feel old by realizing how time passed. But she ruins Black Hat's moment by realizing what he is trying to do. (As opposed to what he manages in a comic like 493: Actuarial , that might also make you feel old). So instead of saying yeah you got me , he quickly invents a story that they actually all lived last night, and then takes the blame for killing them just to shock Megan.
This fits with the title text, as he then manages to make a jab at how old Megan should feel anyway. This is supported also by the fact, that although the movie was released in January 2005, the team behind it had filmed the penguins for 13 month prior, so some of the penguins in the movie must have been adult back in 2003. So it is not only nine but rather eleven years ago and several of the penguins in the movie must have died of natural causes prior to this comic, although not all! But Black Hat's fake statement indicates that all of them were still alive yesterday.
The worst part of this is that it seems like Megan believes him, but she of course also knows him to be a classhole (see for instance 596: Latitude ) and might believe him capable of locating and exterminating all the penguins from the movie over night...
[Black Hat walks towards Megan who is sitting in an office chair at a desk working on her laptop.] Black Hat: All the birds from March of the Penguins are now dead.
[In a frame-less panel only Megan is shown. She sits back from the laptop taking her hands down on her legs. Black Hat replies from off-panel.] Megan: OK, I get it. We're all aging. Black Hat (off-panel): What? No.
[Black Hat is in the frame again holding one hand slightly out towards Megan who has turned around in her office chair and is now facing Black Hat.] Black Hat: I'm not trying to make you feel old. They were alive last night. Black Hat:I'm trying to apologize. Megan: Oh God


Query

Explanation:
Megan picks up a strange device that mysteriously asks her to enter a query after stating "Loaded table: People/ Enter query." In computer databases, " tables " are groups of similar information consisting of records each having certain attributes. Databases are generally made up of many tables, each containing different types of records. A database for a traditional library might have a "Books" table and a "Cardholders" table with records of all of the books in the library, and all of the people who have library cards. Each table will have different columns for certain attributes for every record. For example, the "Books" table might have columns for "title", "author", "date", etc.
A request from a database by a user is called a "query". SQL (Structured Query Language) is a programming language designed for databases, and has a certain syntax for its queries. A common query is "select" which requests certain information from the database. In the library example, one might select (in plain English) all books written by a certain author or published after a certain date, etc.
Megan uses the device by entering an SQL query into it: "Select * from people where age > 30" (show all the people older than 30). It appears that the actual people around her who are over 30 are wrapped in a yellow light, which does not apply to Megan in this query. Megan then tries other experimental queries, presumably to determine whether the results are correct. First, she queries for people with a high annual income (a group that does not include her), then for those who are afraid of flying (which does include her). Because the results for herself are valid both times, she then indulges her curiosity by asking who has watched porn in the preceding twelve hours. This suggests that whatever "database" she is accessing is extremely thorough as it contains updated records of people's day-to-day activities.
The percentage of people lit appears to approximately correspond to real demographic data: note, 5 of the 10 characters are female; the median world/US age are fairly close to 30; top decile income in the USA is approximately $100,000 (and top earners are usually men); up to 40% of people are afraid of flying.
Finally, she types "Drop table People". Drop is an SQL command to delete a table. When she enters the command the entire table disappears and because she is also in this table she disappears, too. The implications are unclear. It may be a suggestion that all of reality is a computer program, all of the people are merely "data" in the program, and Megan was somehow granted access to the database for the program. It could also be an allusion to the fact that human life is so rich, diverse, & interesting, but also extremely fragile. Someone who controls much power can, simply with the press of a few buttons, erase everything that thousands or millions of people had worked so hard on.
The drop table command was also used in 327: Exploits of a Mom , although with less fatal results.
The title text may suggest that when the people disappeared or "died", their records were moved to a table called "Ghosts". The query would then, presumably, see all the people that were deleted. In some implementations of databases deleted records are still hidden and remain until a "Ghost Cleanup Process" removes the data permanently; the title text may also allude to this process. Alternatively, the title text may refer to movies such as The Sixth Sense , in which certain people are ghosts, unbeknownst to those around them, another quality that may be elucidated by Megan's device.
[The first and then every second part of the comic is drawn without any frames around the panels. They depict Megan with the device she finds. In the first and last of these there are more than one "panel" where Megan is drawn more than once without frames between. In between these frameless panels, in all even numbered rows, are a framed picture with an overview of the surroundings.]
[The first two panels are drawn in the first row.] [Megan walks up to device lying on the ground.]
[Megan picks up a device and looks a the screen. The screen is shown in black with white text and a white bar for her to enter text in.] Loaded table: People Enter query
[Megan looks around and sees nine people nearby: A black haired girl with ponytail talking on the phone; a Cueball-like guy talking to a hairy guy; a group of three people, with Ponytail and another Cueball-like guy sitting, and a Megan-like girl lying on the ground; another hairy guy sitting with an ice cream cone on a big box; Another Ponytail girl leaning up against the box with her phone together with a third Cueball-like guy also with a phone in his hand. The device still shows the last part of the text in white on black, and with room to enter a query] Enter query Megan: ??
[Megan types into the device.  The query is shown as coming from the devices screen:] Select * from people where age > 30
[Five people are highlighted in a yellow cloud around their bodies: Black haired ponytail, both guys talking, and the two last of the group of three.]
[Megan types again:] Select * from people where annual_income > 100000
[One person is highlighted in yellow - the one talking to the first Cueball.]
[Megan types:] Select * from people where afraid_of_flying = True
[Four people, including herself, are highlighted in yellow. Also the Megan-like girl on the ground and the last two behind the box.]
[Megan types:] Select * from people where hours_since_watching_porn < 12
[Three people are highlighted. The two girls around the second Cueball and the third Cueball.]
[The next three panels are drawn on the same row.] [Megan looks at the device, while holding it in two hands.] Megan: Neat.
[Megan holds the device in one hand, still looking at it.] Megan: ...
[Megan types:] Drop table People
[Everyone disappears; the items they were holding drop to the ground, including the device Megan has been using. the other devices are three phones and one ice cream cone.]


California

Explanation:
This graph shows the levels of drought over time in the state of California using years on the horizontal axis and distance along a 45 degrees rotated north-south-axis of California on the vertical axis. The image illustrates the use of the distance measure on the vertical axis by visually rotating and stacking multiple maps of California next to each other.
The geography of California lends itself well to this kind of graphical interpretation because the state is much taller than it is wide, hence, large-scale phenomena like weather patterns are likely to cover much of the "width" of the state but only part of the "height". Because the variation in the west-east direction will be small, a side-on view of the state can be used as the vertical axis in a graph, so that the indicated values are either the average or extreme value across the width of California.
Randall compiled the data in this graph from data from the US Drought Monitor , which is authored by Richard Tinker from NOAA . The colors Randall uses correspond to drought intensity levels D0-D4 defined on the Drought Monitor site.
The darkest, most severe level of drought is labelled "ludicrous" (causing laughter because of absurdity), but a parenthetical remark indicates that the official term is "exceptional.". Of course, with half or more of the state in this condition, it can hardly be called "exceptional" any longer.
The graph shows that in 2000, 2005, and 2010, there were very little or no drought conditions in California, but that the intervening periods have seen increasingly severe droughts. According to the most recent data, the state is entirely in a condition of "severe" or worse drought, with "ludicrous" conditions across approximately half its area. The graph also reveals that 2014 is the first year (since 2000) where the "ludicrous" level has been seen. Indeed, a comic about drought is rather topical: California is in the middle of one of its worst droughts in recorded history.
The title text is a reference from the movie Spaceballs , a parody of various Sci-Fi movies. Lone Starr and Barf in their Winnebago space ship traveling at lightspeed are passed by Spaceball One, which is traveling at "ludicrous" speed. The path of Spaceball One is shown as a plaid pattern and Barf remarks "They've gone to plaid!" ( YouTube clip ).
[Caption above frame:] I like how long and skinny California is because it means you can use it as a graph axis:
[Title at top of frame:] California Droughts Based on map data from US Drought Monitor/NOAA/Richard Tinker
[A legend explains the colors which won't show in this transcript anyway:] Dry [Yellow] Drought [Beige] Moderate [Orange] Severe [Red] Extreme [Brown] Ludicrous ("exceptional")
[A colored contour plot with Time on the X axis and California on the Y axis, and depth of drought as the dependent variable indicated by color. At the left edge, an outline of the state of California, rotated clockwise so as to be mostly vertical, with a label on the "X axis" of Jan 4, 2000, and a yellow patch indicating Dry conditions through the center of the state. To the right of that, four progressively-skinnier versions of the same image, showing more or less the same area of dryness, with the state outline shrunk along the Y axis until the fourth one is basically just a vertical line. This then merges into the main body of the graph, the true contour plot, in which the Y axis is just south-to-north distance along the state, as the X or Time axis runs from 2000 to 2014. Extreme droughts can be seen in Northern California in 2001, Southern California in 2002, and Southern California again in 2007. Moderate-to-severe drought is prevalent across most of the state in 2008-09, and then again starting in 2012, progressing to extreme and "ludicrous" in the northern 2/3 of the state by 2014. At the right-hand edge of the graph are five progressively-wider outlines of the state, reversing the pattern at the left edge, starting with a "line" and widening to a proper 2-D image of the state again, with an X-axis label of Aug 14, 2014, showing the true extent of the drought, with all areas of the state experiencing severe, extreme, or "ludicrous" levels.]


Loop

Explanation:
Cueball is seen at his desk in front of four devices. He has clearly run out of things to do, or is looking for an excuse to procrastinate. A flowchart describes the process by which he scans the whole environment for something to do, which everyone can relate to.
The comic uses electronics likely because they are the common time killer these days, and are most likely to contain fresh, tantalizing entertainment. News sites can be viewed as a good source of yet-to-be-seen content. Yet the search yields no interesting content, or the results don't garner enough attention, thus the blank stares and moving on to next device in line. Cueball has four devices, so he can begin with the desktop and move through the loop three times - first to laptop, then tablet and finally to smartphone.
The title text notes that this also happened before there were electronic devices like today, assuming most entertainment came from books. The point made is that, while the Internet and modern electronic devices are often blamed for jeopardizing the minds of adolescents, the attention span of "the kids" is not worse than it ever was, neither in the context of low-tech nor high-tech media. Kids focus on some things for a long time, but they do change this focus often very abruptly. But nevertheless there are still many kids reading books today until the end.
The title text could also be considered to imply another type of loop in which various generations experience the same situations under different circumstances (i.e., history repeating itself). In this case, the new generation experiences the attention lapse loop with electronics, whereas the previous generation experienced this same loop with books. There may also be a commentary present on the shorter attention span of the current generation as opposed to the previous one in that there is an obvious terminus to the electronics loop while the book loop could extend nearly indefinitely.
[Cueball sits at a desk, accompanied by a desktop computer and a laptop open in front of it. He is holding a tablet in his left hand and a smartphone in his right.]
[A cyclical flowchart is shown above Cueball:] Stare blankly at screen -> Open news site -> Start reading -> Get bored -> Absentmindedly check smaller device -> Stare blankly at screen -> ...


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Explanation:
This comic is a reference to the recently released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie . It is a list of Wikipedia article titles that are in the same syllable-stress pattern as the first line of the theme song of the 1987 cartoon series .
The list is compiled in alphabetical order from top to bottom, without respect to the left or right column. Some of the items on this list (e.g. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective ) are drawn as headlines in the same style as the logo from that series. These articles are not in alphabetical order with the surrounding small face text, but these headlines are in alphabetical order with the other headlines from top to bottom, without respect to the left or right column. Some of these phrases are not actually the titles of Wikipedia articles, but are redirects. For instance, the article on Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie redirects to Woody Guthrie , and Former Arctic Monkeys members at one time redirected to Andy Nicholson .
The syllable-stress pattern of this line is long-short-long-short-long-short-long-short, known in poetry as trochaic tetrameter . Randall has previously authored comics dealing with trochees , namely 856: Trochee Fixation and 1383: Magic Words .
A similar idea was performed by Jimmy Fallon in 2001 at a concert for New York city where he demonstrated singing "any 80's song" over the tune of MC Hammer 's song " U Can't Touch This ".
The title text suggests an album of songs ( The Purple People Eater , the aforementioned Ninja Turtles theme, Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers theme), the title or primary refrain of which have a large number of verses in trochaic meter . Randall suggests that these refrains are so interchangeable that the lyrics of each could be sung to the melody of the song following it in the tracklist. Randall would title the album Linked List as each song would melodically reference the next song. The refrains of the songs, respectively are:
In 2019 a Twitter feed was created which identifies Wikipedia articles with this stress pattern and creates a matching graphic.
There are 6 headlines and 9 other article links in each block next to a headline for a total of 60 wiki links:
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Biggest Loser: Second Chances Cayman Island blue iguana Central Texas pocket gopher Church of Jesus Christ Creator Climate change and meat production Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Daylight saving time in China Denver Airport People Mover Easter Island spiny lobster
Asian Human Rights Commission
Edgar Allan Poe Museum Engine failure after take-off English as a second language Former Arctic Monkeys members Fowler's Modern English Usage Georgia Game and Fish Department Golden-mantled howler monkey Greater Cleveland Film Commission Hairy flower chafer beetle
San Diego City Council
Harland David "Colonel" Sanders Human Tissue Resource Network Klondike class destroyer tender Legal code of North Dakota Lesser knapweed flower weevil Lockheed Martin Atlas rocket Maple syrup urine syndrome Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Nablus mask-like facial syndrome
Single payer health insurance
Neo Geo Pocket Color New Year's Eve with Carson Daly Newton's second law of motion North Korean Workers Party Orange County Business Council Over/under cable coiling Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater Places named for Adolf Hitler Proton-proton chain reaction
Spotted giant flying squirrel
Puerto Rican lizard-cuckoo Quantuum vacuum plasma thruster [1] Rocky Mountain spotted fever Royal Flying Doctor Service Russian Women's Fascist Movement Semi-active laser guidance Seven Brides for Seven Brothers Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
Women science fiction authors
Trailing suction hopper dredger Vector graphics markup language Viti Levu giant pigeon Voting rights in Puerto Rico William Henry, Duke of Gloucester [2] Windows Vista startup process Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie Yaba monkey tumor virus Zack and Miri Make a Porno
[Caption above comic] WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE TITLES With the right syllable stress pattern to be sung to the tune of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song
[Six groups of Wikipedia article titles are written out. Each group contains ten titles. The first title of each group is drawn in the style of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles logo, where the final word of each title is drawn in bulbous green text in the shape of an arch, with the remaining words in white text on a red banner above the green text. The remainder of the titles in each group are arranged as a list in standard font next to the larger titles, alternating from right to left hand side going down the comic.]
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Biggest Loser: Second Chances Cayman Island blue iguana Central Texas pocket gopher Church of Jesus Christ Creator Climate change and meat production Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Daylight saving time in China Denver Airport People Mover Easter Island spiny lobster
Asian Human Rights Commission Edgar Allan Poe Museum Engine failure after take-off English as a second language Former Arctic Monkeys members Fowler's Modern English Usage Georgia Game and Fish Department Golden-mantled howler monkey Greater Cleveland Film Commission Hairy flower chafer beetle
San Diego City Council Harland David "Colonel" Sanders Human Tissue Resource Network Klondike -class destroyer tender Legal code of North Dakota Lesser knapweed flower weevil Lockheed Martin Atlas rocket Maple syrup urine syndrome Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Nablus mask-like facial syndrome
Single payer health insurance Neo Geo Pocket Color New Year's Eve with Carson Daly Newton's second law of motion North Korean Workers Party Orange County Business Council Over/under cable coiling Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater Places named for Adolf Hitler Proton-proton chain reaction
Spotted giant flying squirrel Puerto Rican lizard-cuckoo Quantuum [sic] vacuum plasma thruster Rocky Mountain spotted fever Royal Flying Doctor Service Russian Women's Fascist Movement Semi-active laser guidance Seven Brides for Seven Brothers Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
Women science fiction authors Trailing suction hopper dredger Vector graphics markup language Viti Levu giant pigeon Voting rights in Puerto Rico William Henry, Duke of Gloucester Windows Vista startup process Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie Yaba monkey tumor virus Zack and Miri Make a Porno


Suddenly Popular

Explanation:
Many phrases that used to be of mainly academic interest become popular when an important event or global trend is described with such phrases in the media. Randall presents a timeline of past examples, and predicts phrases that may be popularised in the near future. The past events are a mix of buzz words and words that became popularized as a result of technology trends, natural disasters, or terrorism. The future events seem to be all related to natural disasters or other kinds of serious issues, except Amplexus — which is the joke of the title text — showing that no matter how many disasters there are, people are generally more concerned about their teenagers' sex lives.
The title text is also an example of a clickbait headline. Many organizations will post a link on social media to their content with a sensationalized headline in order to draw readers in. In this case, the headline is geared towards parents who are worried about their children being sexually active in this new Amplexus way. Such headlines are the internet's analog to television news' promos ("A new trend among teens is sweeping the nation, but is it dangerous? Details at 11:00.").
Global catastrophic risk is a theme throughout this comic. Randall predicts a large asteroid impact/near miss and a volcanic eruption, followed by an impact winter or volcanic winter . An insect borne, global pandemic without a cure also strikes, and then the technological singularity occurs.
This comic has similar features to 887: Future Timeline .
Below the phrases are listed with the closest year from the time-line noted behind the phrase. Note that this year does not necessarily match with the in-real-life relevant year. This may be found in the explanation of the phrase below. Google Books Ngram Viewer can show the relative frequency of those words in function of the year.
World Wide Web – 1994 Though first proposed in 1989, and the first test being completed in 1990, it took until around 1994 for the world wide web to start becoming well known.
DNA Evidence – 1995 Prominent coverage of the O. J. Simpson murder trial in 1994 brought widespread discussion of DNA Evidence , making it famous and showing its limitations.
Militia Movement – 1996 After the standoffs at Ruby Ridge , Idaho in 1992 and the Branch Davidians compound in Waco, Texas between U.S. Government Agencies and militias in 1993, people started becoming more aware of their presence, culminating with the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing on the second anniversary of the fire at the Branch Davidians compound.
Supermax – 1997 Super-Maximum security prisons. Possibly referring to the 1997 film Con Air , starring Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, and John Malkovich, in which prisoners being transferred to a new Supermax prison seize control of their transport plane. Also possibly referring to Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols , perpetrators of the aforementioned Oklahoma City bombing, who were incarcerated at ADX Florence , the former from the time of his arrest to 1999, and the latter from the time of his conviction to the present day.
Butterfly Ballot – 2000 In the United States presidential election in 2000, Florida had a major recount dispute that took center stage in the election. Thus, the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election was not known for more than a month after balloting, because of the extended process of counting and then recounting of Florida presidential ballots. The butterfly ballot was the type of ballot design used in Palm Beach County, Florida , and was a central issue in the election controversy. Evidence suggests that many voters who intended to vote for Gore or Bush actually marked their ballots for Pat Buchanan or spoiled their ballots, because of a confusing layout of the ballot.
Al-Qaeda – 2002 The September 11th terrorist attacks brought the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation into the spotlight almost overnight.
Wi-Fi – 2003 Wi-Fi, though developed in the 1990s, first became popular in the early 2000s.
Tsunami – 2006 There were a number of tsunamis around this time period, in particular the Boxing Day Tsunami which caused 230,000 deaths, and the 2006 Pangandaran earthquake and tsunami . These were some of the first tsunamis to be widely captured on camera, bringing these previously obscure seismic events into the public eye.
Viral – 2009 In this context, the word viral is used to describe anything which spreads rapidly and widely on the internet. In particular an online video clip is said to have 'Gone Viral' or become a Viral video if it racks up a high number of views over a short time. This phenomenon has become especially prevalent due to users sharing content on Social media .
Radicalize – 2011 Due to the ongoing Syrian Civil War , and the relative ease with which one can travel from Europe to Syria by way of Turkey, there is growing concern about the risk of young Muslims in Europe (and, to a lesser extent, the United States) becoming radicalized by indoctrination from fundamentalists either in their communities or on the Internet.
Metadata – 2013 Following the highly publicised 2013 leaks by Edward Snowden of information regarding the NSA 's indiscriminate surveillance of global communication metadata, awareness of the privacy value of such data became widespread, where once it was mostly familiar to IT professionals.
From this point on, phrases were in the future at the time of publication.

Lahar – 2016 A lahar is a mudslide caused by the eruption of a volcano that was covered with snow or ice. Randall is speculating on a future natural disaster being caused by such an incident. Bárðarbunga volcano covered with the Vatnajökull glacier on Iceland increased activity just a few days before publishing of this comic, but its eventual eruption caused little harm.
Insect-Borne – 2019 Some diseases are insect-borne , meaning specific species of insects are the main vector in spreading to humans. Malaria is an example of an insect-borne disease . Randall predicts some severe (possibly deadly) insect-borne disease will emerge around this time. As of 2016, the Zika virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, has reached epidemic status in South America, and has spread to southern North America, Africa and Australia. 2019 marks the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic, so Randall's prediction of a major disease could be accurate, however COVID-19 is not an insect-borne disease.
Earth-Crossing – 2021 Earth-crossers are asteroids that cross the orbit of Earth. Most of them remain harmless because their orbit doesn't actually intersect the earth's orbit in 3 dimensions, or for the foreseeable future, they will cross when Earth is not there. For this phrase to become popular, an Earth-crosser might have to reach the heretofore-unreached "threatening" level, rating a 5 or more on the Torino Scale , due to a significant chance of a large impact. As of 2014, there are no threats of that level known in the early 2020s. If the next two phrases are connected to this one, Randall is predicting a significant asteroid impact.
Thermohaline – 2022 Thermohaline circulation is the largest group of interconnected ocean currents, which stabilize global climate by equalizing the temperature and salinity of oceans around the world. If this phrase becomes popular, it implies the thermohaline circulation would have slowed or changed significantly. This might be caused by asteroid impact or by polar ice melting. The latter scenario was apocalyptically dramatized in the movie The Day After Tomorrow .
Snow-Blindness – 2024 Snow blindness is an eye condition caused by excessive UV light reflected from snow and ice. This can lead to corneal damage and blindness (temporary, if treated properly). This phrase becoming popular might suggest a long impact winter (from the asteroid) or severe ozone depletion in cold regions of the world.
Amplexus – 2025 A form of non-penetrative reproduction carried out by some animals, for example frogs, involving grasping the partner with front legs. This may be connected to the other posts (some change in human society) or it may simply be a joke at how new sexual language/fads appear and hit mainstream media from time to time (for example a number of acts gained fame from Sex and the City). This also ties in with the title text, which imagines a sensationalist headline suggesting teenagers may be doing this.
Controlled Hydroplaning – 2028 Hydroplaning occurs when a vehicle tire comes in contact with a puddle in such a way that the water builds up between the tire and the road surface. The film of water, having a much lower coefficient of friction than the road surface, causes the tire to lose traction. Typically, in this scenario, the driver isn't planning to hydroplane and loses control of the vehicle. In theory, controlled hydroplaning would be achieved when the driver plans for it ahead of time. This could be necessary if, in this hypothetical future, most of the roads are flooded since the impact winter (after only four years) ends and thus a great thaw causes all roads to become wet all the time.
Paradoxical Reaction – 2031 "paradoxical reaction" is a medical term for when the outcome of a medical treatment, typically the taking of a drug, is the opposite of that expected. For example if taking a pain relieving medication made the pain worse. For this term to suddenly become well known, a large scale or particularly notable case must have taken place (such as the insect-borne disease of 2019). Or, this and the following (and maybe the last as well) phrases may refer to the events from The Evitable Conflict by Isaac Asimov (and its very loose but much more popular film adaptation I, Robot ) where robots, instructed with the Three Laws of Robotics , take over the world to prevent humans hurting each other. The paradoxical reaction is that these laws were specifically designed to, among other things, prevent robots from taking over the world in the first place.
Drone Desertion – 2033 Desertion is the abandonment of a post or duty, usually military in nature. With the increasing use of autonomous drones by the military this hints at an event where drones 'decide' to desert, possibly due to unspecified advances in Artificial Intelligence and Robot Rights . Or maybe they just start following the Three Laws of Robotics . See also 2499: Abandonment Function .
Rapid Hair Growth – 2034 Maybe some humans have developed a very rapid hair growth (presumably on the entire body) through evolution and natural selection caused by the cold years of the impact winter.
I Swear Allegiance To The God-Empress In Life And In Death – 2038 This is a divine oath . A possible explanation is that after the impact and the desertion of the drones predicted for 2033, a strong fraction has made their leader divine, and everyone now has to swear allegiance to this new God-Empress using this phrase - which would certainly make it a very "popular" phrase. The phrase God-Emperor was popularized in the science-fiction work Dune in 1965 and has been repeatedly referenced since, notably in the tabletop game Warhammer 40,000 (and related media).
Obscure words and phrases everyone suddenly becomes very familiar with. [A time line to the left is marked of by several phrases to the right around the time they became familiar to the public:] ← World Wide Web ← DNA Evidence 1995 ← Militia Movement ← Supermax 2000 ← Butterfly Ballot ← Al-Qaeda ← Wi-Fi 2005 ← Tsunami ← Viral 2010 ← Radicalize ← Metadata 2015 ← Lahar ← Insect-Borne 2020 ← Earth-Crossing ← Thermohaline ← Snow-Blindness 2025 ← Amplexus ← Controlled Hydroplaning 2030 ← Paradoxical Reaction ← Drone Desertion ← Rapid Hair Growth 2035 ← I Swear Allegiance To The God-Empress In Life And In Death 2040


Writing Skills

Explanation:
Cueball and White Hat are discussing the positive and negative effects of young people writing on mobile phones in the vernacular of the day, Short Message Service (SMS).
SMS messages are one of the primary means of text communication on mobile devices, and are typically limited to 160 characters. Due to the limited space available on this and other messaging platforms, and also to decrease the time taken to write a message, SMS language (aka textese) developed as a form of short-hand writing. This involves the abbreviation and deliberate misspelling of words, and the use of acronyms.
Naturally, the use of this style of language has expanded into other areas, including those where brevity is not an issue, and this expansion and evolution of language is a subject of intense debate. The main viewpoints on the subject are:
Cueball's point is that "practice makes perfect". The ability to form good grammar comes from practice through a lot of writing, even when that writing is informal; hence, the SMS generation gets a lot of practice compared to previous generations, who communicated mostly with speech, over the phone, and in person, and may have written only a few letters a year.  To foster talent for a major literary work, we should encourage practice, even when that practice is through informal writing such as SMS.
This idea has some real scientific background. Such as the investigation in 2009 Exploring the relationship between children's knowledge of text message abbreviations and school literacy outcomes . In this study children 10-12 were asked to compose text messages. The number of textisms was recorded, and a positive correlation was found between use of sms abbreviations and success at literacy tests. This is then related to David Crystal's concept of "ludic" language: the playful use of language as a contribution to language development. That notion is developed here: By playing with textual language, one develops writing skills, just as by playing with balls one can develop sports skills. David Crystal explains : "Children could not be good at texting if they had not already developed great literary awareness [...] If you are aware that your texting behaviour is different, you must have intuited that there is a standard."
James Joyce was a celebrated Irish novelist and poet, and his novel Ulysses is considered to be one of the most important works of modernist literature. It was criticized in some quarters for the frequent lack of punctuation and ungrammatical stream of consciousness narrative mode. In addition to his better-known works, he wrote a number of love letters with extremely explicit content.
In the title text, Randall wishes to prove Cueball's point by analyzing and comparing bulk volumes of texts (= a corpus ) written by children today and 20 years ago. Randall favors the literary ability of today's children for their everyday use of written word over the situation of the past, when children wrote only if forced to do so. The title text's second sentence is particularly long and complex (compared to almost any other title text), which will generally score much higher "on various objective measures of writing quality". Randall may be hinting that writing a lot of short title texts, like writing a lot of SMSs, improves your general writing quality - further strengthening Cueball's point. The title text is also 99 words long, probably referencing a 100 word limit.
[White Hat and Cueball are walking together, White Hat is holding a newspaper or report.] White Hat: Weird- Another study found that kids who use SMS abbreviations actually score higher on grammar and spelling tests. Cueball: Why on earth is that a surprise?
[Cueball turns to White hat (who is now out side the frame. Inserted in the frame is a panel showing several kids throwing balls.] Cueball: Imagine kids suddenly start playing catch literally all the time . Everywhere they go, they throw balls back and forth, toss them in the air, and hurl them at trees and signs- Nearly every waking hour of their lives.
[Cueball talks on while White Hat begins to walk.] Cueball: Do you think their generation will suck at baseball because they learned sloppy skills? White Hat: ...So you think someone will become a great writer while sexting?
[They walk together.] Cueball: Have you read James Joyce's love letters? The phrases "My little fuckbird" and "Arse full of farts" appear. If we want to write Ulysses , our generation may not be sexting enough . White Hat: Eww.


Ballooning

Explanation:
Spider-Man is a fictional superhero in comic books published by Marvel Comics, and has been the star of a number of television shows and film. The Spider-Man theme song , first used for the 1967 cartoon show, includes the words, "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can". However, at other points, the theme song explains some things Spider-Man can do that a real spider obviously couldn't, such as crime-fighting. [ citation needed ] Randall is pointing out that while the abilities attributed to Spider-Man make a good superhero story, they are not real abilities of a spider.
This comic depicts Cueball as a far more realistic Spider-Man, behaving and thinking much more closely to a real spider than the Spider-Man from the comics. Cueball is shown ballooning ( example ), a trait used by spiders to move between locations, rather than swinging on web cords as in the comics and films. As he is floating, he sees a good spot to land, eat some bugs and make an egg sac. Again this contrasts the real life of a spider with Spider-Man, who would doubtless be rushing to fight crime or save a pretty girl.
Only female spiders create an egg sac. Male spiders spin a sperm web in order to transfer their sperm from their epigastric furrow into their pedipalps (reproductive organ located on the front two appendages, in the position where a scorpion would have pincers), which will then be used to transfer the sperm into the female during copulation. Cueball/Spider-Man, being nominally male, should in fact be looking for a place to create a sperm web, not an egg sac. However, thanks to being featured in children's books, the actions of female spiders are much more widely known.
The title text refers to the mating ritual of some spiders, in which the male performs a dance to court the female. Mary-Jane is the third love interest and Peter's eventual wife in the Spider-Man stories, and so Cueball is planning to court her by dancing in front of her. In doing so he hopes that he is lucky, and she doesn't eat him before copulating with him, as sexual cannibalism is a trait associated with spiders.
[Cueball is shown floating on the wind, attached to a large balloon. The balloon is made of spider silk.] Cueball: Ooh, that looks like a good spot to land, eat some bugs, and make an egg sac! ♫ Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can ♪


Pixels

Explanation:
This interactive comic begins with a panel where Cueball is stacking turtles. This is a reference to the idiom " turtles all the way down ", which refers to the problem of infinite recursion: if everything in the universe is "on top of" something else, so to speak, there must be a "bottom." A joking solution to the paradoxical nature of such a bottom is the proposition that the world rests on a semi-infinite stack of turtles.
The origins of the turtle story are uncertain. It has been recorded since the mid 19th century, and may possibly date to the 18th. One recent version appears in Stephen Hawking 's 1988 book A Brief History of Time , which starts:
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell ) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
—Hawking, 1988
Several ancient myths , dating back thousands of years, involve a turtle which supports the whole world, or a part of it, although it is usually just one turtle, not an infinite regression.  This is also repeated in Terry Pratchett 's Discworld novels, in which the world is supported by four elephants standing on the back of a single turtle called Great A'Tuin .
As can be read you should "scroll to zoom" . This can be done by placing the cursor inside the panel of the comic. When scrolling up (using the mouse wheel) the picture zooms in on the pixel beneath the cursor. Moving the cursor will also move the point to which the picture zooms. You can then zoom in until the pixels are visible. When you continue to zoom in on a pixel it then resolves into another comic picture, with black-on-white comic panels making up the white pixels and white-on-black panels making up the black pixels. Scrolling on until you can see the pixels of the comic picture you are now zooming into the process is repeated again and will be so for all subsequent sets of comic panels. Not all white and all black panels are the same; some sets involve more than two different panels, but all involve repetitive tiling.
Once you have zoomed in, you are able to click and drag the picture, thus enabling you to move from black to white picture pixel. This is reminiscent of the earlier interactive comic 1110: Click and Drag .

Apart from the first image there are two more with a single turtle in them. In one of these the turtle thinks "I am a turtle". This is a reference to 889: Turtles . It may say so to the Cueball that is seen standing all alone in another picture.

There is a panel featuring just Cueball, followed by is a picture of the What If? book, large enough that all of the text is visible on the front cover. But there is also another version where the author's name is crossed out and replaced with Stephen King , the word "Spooky" has been added above the title, and the word "xkcd" below has been struck and replaced with "being afraid" to form the phrase "creator of being afraid".  Stephen King is one of the most prolific and well-known horror authors of all time.

This comic was released on September 3, 2014, the day after Randall's book What If was launched. The book is shown and referred to in a number of frames; for example, it is literally launched as a part of an rocket up goer built by Cueball. There is also a picture with Cueball holding his book, while being excited about the launch.
The model up goer is made of Rocket Parts from KSP . KSP is the Kerbal Space Program , a spaceflight simulator which was also part of the latest interactive comic 1350: Lorenz . Perhaps xkcd's "parts" refers to KSP's large community of mod developers who contribute 'parts' to the game, although it was likely intended as nothing more than the humorous supposition that one could purchase physical rocket parts from a simulator. The frames showing the book launch use URLs that include the text "upgoer" in reference to the Up Goer Five comic.
In the end the up goer leaves the Earth after one orbit and then flies through space.

Struts are structural members in engineering, and are one of the components used in Kerbal Space Program to construct rockets. "Needs More Struts" is a meme amongst players of Kerbal Space Program along the lines of "when in doubt, overengineer"; it stems from a time when the ragdoll physics in the Unity engine underlying KSP was unstable enough to necessitate their overuse. Megan deems Cueball's rocket to be insufficiently structurally sound, and declares that it " Needs More Struts ".
The first three images depict Cueball building a Kerbal Space Program rocket out of parts from a box, labelled "KSP Rocket Parts". The top part of the rocket, usually where the crew module would be located, is made from the What If..? book. In the fourth panel Megan declares that it needs more struts, and in the next three panels, Cueball takes her advice and adds more struts.
Panel 8 shows the Earth from a distance, with somebody (presumably Megan) saying again "More Struts". Panel 9 shows the Earth alone, and panel 10 shows the Earth with the rocket nearby, having just launched.

This series of panels parallels the "Needs More Struts" series. The first four panels shows the rocket lifting off, and the subsequent gasses dissipating.
Cueball and Megan look up at the ascending rocket, and then turn to each other having just launched the What-If book rocket into space (construction and launch are seen in other panels). Perhaps Megan realizes they may have misunderstood the term "book launch", and that they may have just lost the only copy of the book.
Panel 7 shows the Earth from space; panel 8 also shows the Earth, with the words "Book Launch".  The next three panels show the rocket circling around the Earth once before heading into deep space, and the last shows the rocket by itself on its journey.

Here are five objects in space.  It is possible that the What-If book rocket passes them by, or that these images are seen from the point of view of the rocket.
First is the Sun, shown with visible solar prominences . Next is the Moon, shown in a crescent view with stars behind it. This is followed by Saturn, also in a crescent view with stars behind it.
There follow two images with just stars.
This is a reference to 428: Starwatching :
In four pictures Cueball and Megan are sitting below the stars. In the second the following conversation takes place:
Cueball: Someone once told me the great kings of the past look down on us... Megan: From the stars? Cueball: Just in general.
The second panel is a reference to Disney's The Lion King . Early in the film, Mufasa tells Simba that the great kings of the past look down on them from the stars. Later on, Simba recalls this to his companions, Timon and Pumba (who don't take him seriously). In the film, the kings of the past literally look down on — and watch over — the characters, which is how Megan interprets Cueball's initial statement. Cueball's reply that they just look down on us in general shows that he means the kings of the past figuratively look down on us (they view us as inferior or beneath them).
In the next image a shooting star is seen above them. The final picture is almost identical to the first (only four stars and a few pixels of ground are different).

A series of 8 images are called Mario . The first is called entry , and has a picture of a TV on a low stand. The next four has Megan in front of said TV, holding a video game controller. The cable is connected to something inside the stand. She first kneels, then sits. In the third picture she is lying down. What follows is a picture which is an inverse of the sitting picture.
The last three images seem to depict a level from one of the Super Mario Bros. games. In the upper right one can see the iconic bricks which Mario can smash, two clouds appear stationary in the background, and a crude depiction of Mario is standing in the lower left. Over the course of the three images, a galaxy rises into the sky. It does not look like the Milky Way would from anywhere on Earth.
The view is reminiscent of a quote from Carl Sagan: "...from a planet orbiting a star in a distant globular cluster, a still more glorious dawn awaits. Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise. A morning filled with 400 billion suns. The rising of the milky way." The quote was also referenced in 681: Gravity Wells
Randall often allows images of transcendent awe to take over mundane scenes. In this case, the galaxy-rise is a surprising twist revealing the true setting of the Super Mario Brothers games. At the same time it conveys how long Megan has been playing the game - day has turned into night in her room, and also within the game itself. Instead of playing it, she is simply watching the galaxy-rise, as the character on the screen has not moved. The view may contain a hidden pun, by calling to mind Super Mario Galaxy .

Cueball tells an offscreen character that he is going to shut down the server , while carrying a bucket of water.
Usually shutting down a server is done via the operating system or software. Directly turning it off or pulling the power plug also would technically work though not recommended for obvious reasons. But in this case it appears that Cueball is going to attempt to shut off the server by dousing it with water. This will likely result in serious water damage to the hardware, thus forcing it off as it no longer is able to function.

In five pictures Megan is floating in the clouds. The first shows Megan flying to the right, the second and third show just clouds, the fourth shows Megan flying to the left, and the fifth shows birds flying.

In two images Cueball and Megan are seen walking. The first is a normal black-on-white close up, and the second an inverted image seen from afar. They are talking while walking; after the first walking image they discuss Stockholm syndrome and then Time Turners , and after the second walking image Black Hat discusses a fire hydrant with a firefighter.
Stockholm syndrome is the name for a psychological phenomenon, in which hostages develop sympathy, empathy and/or positive feelings towards their captors. These feelings are usually seen as irrational, seeing as the hostage is held against their wishes, usually with the threat of physical harm or death.
This panel asks "How do we know anyone really wants to live in Stockholm?", questioning whether everyone who lives in the city of Stockholm is in fact held hostage there and only stays because they have developed to like life there (due to Stockholm Syndrome).
The time turner is a device from the Harry Potter series of novels by JK Rowling . It allows the user to re-live a period of time over again. In the third novel Hermione is given the time-turner to allow her to take extra classes, however it is eventually used to spare Buckbeak the hippogriff from execution. This prompted many questions regarding why time-turners weren't used on other occasions to save people's lives (among other things).
While J.K Rowling has " solved the problem to her own satisfaction " she admits that she entered into the subject of time-travel too lightly.
This panel jokes that if the real life JK Rowling had a fictional time-turner which worked, she would have gone back and removed the time-turner plotline from the book, saving her all the hassle of dealing with the resulting time-travel questions. This act would result in a time-travel paradox.
Black Hat is talking to a fireman, with a fire engine on fire in the background, he asks "To be fair, what else would you expect to come out of a " fire hydrant "?"
Black Hat appears to have managed to replace the usual water supply to the fire hydrant with actual fire. Thus when the hydrant is used, the result is, quite literally, fire (or oil with possibly flint and steel contraptions to cause fire). In Black Hat's logic, a hydrant which delivers water should be called a water hydrant.
This completely ignores the meaning of the word "hydrant", a pipe which supplies water (derived from the English root hydro- meaning relating to water , which is in turn from the Greek hudōr meaning water ).
An alternative explanation is that Black Hat has replaced the water that would normally come out of the fire hydrant with a strong alcoholic beverage, colloquially called firewater ,  with a high enough ethanol content to burn. If this were the case, the ability to douse a fire would be severely decreased, both due to the flammable component and because ethanol can absorb less heat per volume than water.

Megan hears a very long stretched EEEEEEEEEEEEE sound which goes over 6 images. It turns out it is a large letter E that shouts EEEEEEE!!! . In total there are 64 small E emanating from the big one. There is also a picture with two big white E on black background. Those E are larger than the E that shouts.

The March of Progress image is a famous and instantly recognisable image showing the stages of human evolution by way of a series of primate figures as if marching in a line. The panel parodies the March of Progress image, with 5 ducklings following an adult duck . In this case, rather than portraying selected individuals millions of years apart, the March shows evolution in action on a human timescale, the mother taking care of her ducklings. The comic has some resemblance to 537: Ducklings .

Four ropes cross diagonally across this black picture. They might be strings.

There are two chess boards on black and white background with smaller chessboards drawn upon them in a Fractal pattern.
One panel contains a number of lines and dots, which are in fact a depiction of the first 5 steps of a Cantor Ternary Set , mirrored about the horizontal centreline (see reference image ). The Cantor ternary set is constructed by repeatedly deleting the open middle thirds of a set of line segments.  In the comic, the two upper-left most segments and the two lower-right most segments are misaligned slightly.
The Cantor Set is one of the canonical examples of a fractal, a shape whose individual parts resemble the whole. The use of the Cantor Set in this comic is self-referential, in that the comic, itself, is composed of parts of the same shape as the whole.

There is a picture of tiny particles, quite spaced out. These probably represent atoms, and given how distant they are, they may well be a gas.
There follows a picture of a Bohr Model atom with point electrons surrounding a nucleus of protons and neutrons. The atom is a Carbon atom which is essential for all living matter and therefore for evolution. There is also a picture of what is probably a vibrating cosmic string fragment (a concept in string theory ). Despite Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle , zooming down to the string does not mean that the cartoon viewer has reached the "bottom" of the comic - zooming in on the loop will show a picture of string.

These three words refer to "A MU offering", an essay by Douglas Hofstatder in his book Godel, Escher, Bach (which was referenced by Randall in 24: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey ). It includes a similar multiple level drawing: the word MU is composed of copies of the words HOLISM and REDUCTIONISM , each of which are in turn made of smaller copies of the other, which are in turn made of tiny copies of the word MU .
Mu is an important word in Buddhism . Literally, it means "no" or "not", but in Buddhism it also refers to a state of being or thinking - or rather, of not being and not thinking. It could be said that the pairs of panels in this series are each other's Mu, being negative (white-on-black and black-on-white).
Holism is a philosophical principle that systems should be considered as a complete whole, not as a set of individual parts. For example, a human viewed holistically is a whole interconnected being which can only be fully understood in its own context.
Reductionism is essentially Holism's opposite, a philosophical principle that any complex object can be reduced to a collection of simpler objects. A human can be considered as a set of organs (e.g. the heart), which in turn is composed of tissue (in this case muscle), composed of many cells.  Cells can then be reduced to organelles, such as the nucleus; this contains chromosomes, made of DNA, a molecule made of atoms; atoms are made of components including protons; and protons are composed of quarks (which may be considered as one-dimensional strings). Reductionism holds that a full understanding of the simplest components of a system, and how they interact, can lead to a full understanding of the system as a whole. The word was later reduced in 1734: Reductionism .
Holism and reductionism are complementary, rather than competing, philosophies, as both have their strengths and weaknesses. Holism can be very effective in understanding the larger-scale effects of a system by observing macroscopic events and how they are linked, but it ignores the more in-depth understanding gained by considering the smaller-scale components.  Reductionism can in theory give us a complete understanding of the entire system by building it up from the smallest and simplest parts, but for a complex system, this is effectively impossible (a typical human contains roughly 10 29 quarks, whose interactions cannot possibly be computed and understood in human terms or timescales).
"Pixels" is an example of a system best understood with a combination of holism and reductionism.  Each panel can be fully explained in its own terms, but is more completely understood as part of a small series of panels. The interconnectedness of all the panels shows a more holistic understanding, yet even this cannot explain comic fully, which must be experienced, with its interactivity and sense of exploration.
These panels can be found inside panels with Megan.

" du " is a POSIX (think Linux / Mac OS X ) command to indicate the "disk usage" of a file or directory.
This is a command that shows how large all the files are in this user's "video" directory - presumably where they store their personal videos. The units of the result is probably kilobytes (depending on settings, could also be the number of 512-byte blocks).
This number is clearly large and difficult to parse, and the units are not clear (to a bystander). More appropriate units would be gigabytes rather than bytes. The du command offers an option to display units in "human readable format", which will adapt to use kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, etc. as appropriate. The next command purports to request the same result in more human-readable form.
It seems that the computer, rather than giving a specific answer, simply says that the size of the video directory is "A lot."
The final line indicates the computer is now ready to accept a new command.
[Cueball is stacking turtles, and is about to put the fourth turtle on his pile. At the bottom right there is a small panel. Inside this is written:] Scroll to zoom
[When zooming in there will be several panels with text. The transcript of these may not be possible to complete - but add the transcript of these panels here: interactive transcript ]
The following code can be found by inspecting the comic's source code: [[A large picture of a person kneeling on the ground, stacking turtles.]] ((In this strip, when you zoom into the panel, each pixel becomes its own panel. Each of those panels can be scrolled into, for the same effect. The story progresses as you scroll deeper.)) [[The Earth as seen from space with the words BOOK LAUNCH.]] [[A stick-Randall holding a copy of 'What If?' saying, "So excited about my book launch!"]] [[A copy of the cover of 'What If?' labeled "book."]] [[Stick-Randall is assembling parts from a box labeled 'rocket parts' and preparing to 'launch' his book.]] [[Various stages of assembly.]] [[A second person comes in, looks at SR's rocket set-up and says, "Needs more struts."]] [[SR adds more struts.]] [[The rocket launches.]] [[A big cloud of smoke, which then dissipates.]] [[SR and the other person look skywards at the launched book.]] [[The book is shown leaving Earth's orbit.]] [[The other person turns to SR and says, "I think that was the only one."]] [[The two walk away.]] ((The panels after this are a random assortment of these mostly stand-alone panels.)) [[A momma duck with several ducklings in a row behind her, labeled 'Evolution.']] [[The other person floating around in the sky.]] [[A stick figure with a sploshing bucket of water saying, "I'm gonna shut down the server!"]] [[Two people walking along, one saying, "But if the Time-Turners worked after Book 3, Rowling would have used one to go back and remove the Time Turner from Book 3."]] [[The code: ~$ du -s video
4170882256 ~$ du -hs video
A lot. ~$]] [[A cloud.]] [[A flock of birds.]] [[MU]] [[A pixel.]] [[A person using a computer on the floor.]] [[HOLISM]] [[Saturn]] [[An atom.]] [[Two people star-gazing on a hill.]] [[Person one says, "Someone once told me the great kings of the past look down on us..." Person two says, "From the stars?" The first person replies, "Just in general."]] [[The start of Mario World 1-1.]]

{{Title text: It's turtles all the way down.}}
This gallery contains the 79 images used in this comic . The images are related in a directed graph .
This google sheet describes all possible images, their associated codes, and what possible images can be used as sub-images for each zoom level: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nldKAkeVcK606CY12KI9bah9rDmK9E7CZOyinsEj2Lo/edit?usp=sharing
This gist recursively downloads all possible images: https://gist.github.com/Aaron1011/d3b56325881cd639506a


Seven

Explanation:
In this comic, Cueball (or perhaps Randall ) says he can't distinguish between sets that have exactly seven objects. This leads him to exchange the items in the sets without noticing, to the point where, when attempting to list a single set, each item mentioned actually belongs to a different set.
This is shown in the comic when Megan asks Cueball to name the seven dwarfs from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , a task some people might find difficult, although they would not just choose words from other sets of seven to fill in the gaps.
The title text reveals that even a trivial set of seven items, like the days of the week, also goes completely wrong.
The comic may be related to the oldest set-theoretic definition of the natural numbers , in which for each natural number, an equivalence class is defined over all sets which contain the same number of items. As Cueball is known for mathematical thinking , he could be presumed to have taken the underlying equivalence relation to heart, and (over)applying it to real life, genuinely judging sets to be identical if they all contain N objects.
The number seven being the number for when sets become indistinguishable is possibly a reference to Miller's law .  Especially considering that this is a law dealing with human memory, which Cueball is having issues with.  However, this law refers to elements within the same set becoming indistinguishable, rather than the indistinguishability of different sets of the same size - indeed, its original tests involved either distinguishing between the items, or repeating them back in the correct order .  But then again, that might be part of the humor.
The number seven has culturally been regarded as a special, magical or holy number , which contributes to the large number of familiar sets of seven that make this comic possible. This proliferation of well-known sets of 7 items could be another reason why Randall chose to use the number seven in the comic.
In 1554: Spice Girls the game continues with Cueball saying that it is now Megan's turn and then he asks her a similar question regarding the names of the Spice Girls. Her problem is then that she simply finds different sets of five and then just adds Spice behind each of the words of that set.
For each of the seven lists below, the relevant item's traditional position within its own list of seven, according to Wikipedia, is not necessarily equal to its position on the list in the comic. For some lists the position is equal, but not for all. For instance Sneezy is traditionally never mentioned first amongst the dwarfs since the leader Doc normally comes first. But "phylum" is the second major taxonomic rank as is "phylum" the second item on the list in the comic.
The seven "dwarfs" mentioned and their relevant sets of seven are (items in the set are written in bold):
The title text extends this saying he also does the same with the set of the seven days of the week. There are several sets of 7 featuring the name Electra , which are all listed in the table below.
The sets Cueball's "days of the week" come from are:
[Megan and Cueball are talking.] Megan: Can you name all the dwarfs from Snow White? Cueball: Sure, there's, um... Cueball's thoughts: Sneezy, phylum, Europe, sloth, guacamole, data link, Colossus of Rhodes I have this problem where all sets of seven things are indistinguishable to me.


Horse

Explanation:
Cueball has set his browser to auto-replace the word "force" with the word "horse." Some of the humorous resulting news headlines are shown.
This is probably a parody of the Cloud to Butt Chrome Extension (since it says new favorite browser text replacement).
There has been several comics using substitutions before and also at least one after this one.
[Headlines above the main frame of the comic:] New favorite browser text replacement: Force → Horse
[In the comic frame Cueball is sitting in front of his PC reading the following headlines that are written above him in separate frames:] Ukranian towns threatened by pro-Russian horses Governor appoints task horse Iraqi air horse growing Quarks, which are bound together by the strong nuclear horse...


On the Phone

Explanation:
Fidgeting while talking on the telephone is a very common habit and may manifest as doodling or pacing. In the case of the person speaking off-panel (presumably Cueball ), he paces while absent-mindedly moving random objects around the house.
Megan has found several items in incorrect places around her house, including a teapot in the bathroom, a hammer in the fridge, and several stacks of household items. Cueball explains that he fidgets and move things around while on the phone. Taking this behavior to the extreme, in the fourth panel, Megan finds that he has also erected an obelisk in the backyard and carved prayers to "Ba'al, the Soul Eater" on it. This may be a reference to the saying "Idle hands are the devil's playthings."
The title text suggests that the "fidgeting" is just a cover story - the off-panel speaker is actually worshipping (or possessed by) Ba'al, and is casually trying to encourage Megan to do the same.
Ba'al , or Baal , refers to one of many deities and demons which go by this name. Given its title "The Soul Eater", it probably refers to Beelzebub (one of the seven princes of hell ). Ba'al, the Soul Eater has been mentioned in 1246: Pale Blue Dot and 1638: Backslashes .
[Megan is pointing off-panel to the left and looking off-panel to the right.]
Megan: Why is there a teapot in the bathroom? Off-panel voice (right): Sorry. When I'm on the phone I always zone out and pick stuff up and carry it around.
[Megan is in front of an open fridge, holding a hammer.]
Megan: There's a hammer in the fridge. Off-panel voice: Another phone call. I was just fidgeting.
[Megan is walking next to four stacks of household objects: the first has a lightbulb on top of a book, the second has a blender on top of three books, the third has five books (two balanced vertically) with a smaller rectangular object on top, and the fourth has two tennis balls on top of three books.]
Megan: Did you put all our stuff in weird stacks? Off-panel voice: Long call. Sorry.
[Megan, outside, looks up at a towering straight-sided object.]
Megan: ...Why is there a giant obelisk in the backyard? Off-panel voice: Phone again. My bad. Megan: It's carved with prayers to "Ba'al, the Soul-Eater." Off-panel voice: Haha! I'm so absentminded.


Watches

Explanation:
This comic coincides with the announcement of a new smart watch by Apple earlier in the week as of the comic's release date (9th Sept 2014), the Apple Watch , along with a large emphasis on smartwatches at IFA 2014 (Sept 5-10), particularly 'Android Wear'.
The timeline shows a period approximately from 2005 to 2015 where our wrists were liberated from the tethers of wearing a watch, likely attributed to the fact that many instead used a mobile smartphone to tell the time.
Whilst other smartwatches have been released in the past, Randall predicts that the typical widespread interest following Apple product releases (combined with many other new releases by other companies) will result in our wrists again being shackled in the grip of watches from 2015. The wording of the label suggests that Randall is pre-emptively mourning the imminent loss of freedom of his and others' wrists, though this may be humorous hyperbole/sarcasm, as his position has generally been of apathy, such as in 1215: Insight .
The title text refers to how "old people" tend to express derision towards change (generally most widely accepted by 'young people') as not being like it was "in the good old days", even if this means they contradict themselves. Initially, the wearing of watches was viewed negatively by the older generation, but now not wearing a watch is instead negative. The second part of the title text starts as if Randall is going to express an opinion on wearing a watch but then veers off to mock the word " thinkpiece ," due to its (particularly recent ) connotation for lacking factual content and expressing biased opinions. For more details on thinkpiece see this article . By equating thinkpiece with brain , Randall is making a reference to the fact that this compound word does not follow the convention of the compound word timepiece , which is a synonym for watch .
[A timeline shows the following years but extends further in both directions:] 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 [A grey box extends from the left border to approximately 2005 and another grey box begins approximately at 2015 and continues to the right border. They are labeled:] Regular watches Smart watches [An arrow points up to the empty period between 2005 and 2015. Below the arrow is written:] Brief, glorious period in which our wrists were free


Future Self

Explanation:
This comic is a joke about how the person you were in the past can be viewed as a distinct entity from who you are now, as well as the predictability of future events relating to your future actions.
The comic shows comments, informational notes left in the code that do not change the algorithm, from a project completed by Cueball some time ago that is still being used and maintained.  It is implied that Cueball is looking at these comments because the algorithm, a parsing function, is no longer working. These comments were written by Cueball's "younger self" in anticipation of being read by his "older self" at a date close to the present. The function has held up to the younger Cueball's expectations as it has lasted until the publication date of this comic, September 2014. The comments indicate a firm belief that the parsing function could not be easily "re-kludged" to handle the new situation but instead would need to be re-written.
These comments are surprisingly accurate, leading Cueball to rhetorically reply to his younger self that these comments were creepy. Cueball's "younger self" must have anticipated a snarky reply and reminded his older self that his older self has likely not fulfilled his dream of going to Iceland. Cueball again replies that his younger self should stop judging him.
In the title text, current-day Cueball lashes out at his younger self, further emphasizing the way he is viewing his past self as a different person, blaming the ineffectiveness of his past self's coding for never going to Iceland.
A comment is a line, or a portion of a line, of code which should not be executed. A number of computer languages, including Python , use "#" to indicate "the remainder of this line is a comment". The comment symbol tells the compiler to skip to the next line, ignoring everything after the symbol. Programmers make use of comments to leave notes about what a particular line or section of code is meant to do, places that require debugging, ideas for future revisions, etc.
The language in the comments is similar to how people address themselves in personal time capsules , in which they put letters away to read years later to see how much they've changed.
A " parse function " is code that interprets some form of input and makes sense of it in a way that enables functionality in some other part of the code. Parsers are commonly used to extract useful information from a source external to the algorithm.
Often parsing functions are written using regular expressions or in some other write-only language style. Parsing can be a difficult problem to solve, and programmers will often take shortcuts (perform kludges ) based on assumptions on the kinds of input that the parsing function will have to handle, or possibly code through means of trial-and-error.
As the programmer may not have control over the input, such as reading a page from someone else's web-site or using the output of an unpredictable program, an input that does not match the assumed input syntax in can cause the parser to break, even if the parsing function has not changed.
[Cueball is sitting at a laptop, reading code. The two separate parts of code as well as the two comments by Cueball is connected with "speak" lines, with the line from the code going down to the computer screen.]
# Dear Future Self, # # You're looking at this file because # the parse function finally broke. # # It's not fixable. You have to rewrite it. # Sincerely, Past Self
Cueball: Dear Past Self, it's kinda creepy how you do that.
# Also, it's probably at least # 2013. Did you ever take # that trip to Iceland?
Cueball: Stop judging me!