United Shapes

Explanation:
In this comic, each state of the United States of America has been filled-in with an object of similar shape. Several years later Randall made a new map of the US mainland 1653: United States Map , where he shuffled the positions of the states but filled out the outline. Also in this map Michigan has been split into two separate parts. (Here it is the mitten and the eagle). This comic could also be a reference to Giuseppe Arcimboldo 's portraits, which were comprised of objects such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, books, and fish.
Very few, if any, of the shapes used are stereotypes of the state; they are merely objects that look like the state. Some of the objects are those which the states are widely known to resemble. For example, Michigan is represented by a mitten and an Eagle, and a pot with handle takes the place of Oklahoma (with the panhandle region of the state filled with a literal handle). Others, however, are more creative. Few would have likely pictured Texas as a dog or Alaska as a bear with a jet pack and laser gun. There are several incredibly simple objects filling some states. Kentucky is filled by a cloud, which conceivably could have been used for any state, and Wyoming, one of the nearly rectangular states, is simply an envelope. There are three pairs of states that are related. Georgia and Missouri each contain an image of the other, drawing attention to their similar shapes, North and South Dakota are the top and bottom halves of a guitar amplifier speaker cabinet , and Alabama and Mississippi are moai facing in opposite directions.
Colorado contains what looks like a Wikipedia article. A close-up of the fake article is provided. The following references are made in the Colorado article:
New Mexico according to official transcript is "A liquid container labeled for something of unusual and silly danger". The labeling is upside down and it refers to the nuclear testing facility White Sands Missile Range located in New Mexico for the nuclear bomb.  The joke is that it presents the white sand itself as extremely hazardous.  The phrase "contains chemicals known only to the state of Nevada" may be a reference to the nuclear weapons testing that occurred in Nevada (although in that case, it's not really the state of Nevada that knows those chemicals, but rather the Nevada Test Site , home of Area 51 et al .), and is also a reference to California's Proposition 65 warning label, "WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm."
This end up Property of White Sands Missile Range ??? [Followed by a NFPA 704 Diamond with all divisions at severe risk, and a radiation symbol in the special notice division] Contains White Sand FLAMMABLE Warning: This product contains chemicals known only to the state of Nevada. Contents under pressure from parents If swallowed, induce labor 56 fluid ounces and 14 other ounces
The title text makes fun of Florida which is sometimes called "The penis of America". Obviously, this penis is somewhat flaccid (not erect). The use of the word "state" is a pun, as it means some particular condition (flaccid state) as well as a political entity (The State of Florida).
The United Shapes A map of things states are shaped like [Each state has some item wedged to stay inside its borders]


Visual Field

Explanation:
This comic shows a number of vision related facts, arranged in a way that they all fit inside your field of vision (the conic area in which you can see at any given time). You're supposed to look at the center of the image while standing about a foot away from the screen (although obviously you can't read the text on the image while staring at the center).
Firstly, there's detail. The eye always sees objects closer to the center with more detail, which Randall illustrates with progressively smaller images, which are seen with the same level of detail (remember that you're supposed to be looking at the center of the image). This is because the retina is denser near the fovea , in the center.
Next, there's the topic of night vision . The colour-seeing cone cells don't work so well in the dark, whereas the black-and-white-seeing rod cells do. The rod cells can see shapes well, whereas the cone cells see detail (such as change in colour), which Randall uses to explain why we can't read at night.
Polarization direction can be visible when quickly changing your viewing angle. Polarization is essentially the vertical direction of waves. Light, being a wave, has a direction, and is thus polarized. Polarized lenses, for example, would have "slits" to allow only light that is polarized in a certain direction to come through (blocking the light in other directions). LCD screens operate on the principle of blocking and rotating polarized light.
Floaters are deposits within the eye's vitreous humour . While normally transparent, they can occasionally cause refraction of light, making them visible, particularly on bright, blue surfaces. Randall points out that while some floaters are caused by breakdown over time, the others have a more mysterious origin.
Blue sky sprites, properly known as the blue field entoptic phenomenon , are bright sprites seen over bright blue surfaces, particularly the sky. They are white blood cells moving in front of the retina .
Randall also points out that colours are mostly seen near the center of our vision, with our brain keeping track of the colours of things near the outside of our visual field. The cones of blue, red and green in the third quadrant also show how red and green's sensitivity is mostly limited to the center of our vision, whereas we can see blue in a larger field of vision. Our ability to perceive saturation (the intensity of colours) is also stronger near the center of our vision.
The left and right blind spot are the locations of the optic disc , where there are no sensitive rod or cone cells, making a literal "blind" spot. The mention of the "T-Boz blind spot" and "Chilli blind spot" are a reference to the R&B band TLC , whose members go by the aliases "Left eye", "T-Boz", and "Chilli".
An image of the moon and a supermoon also appear in the image. A supermoon is when the moon is at its closest approach to Earth and coincides with a full moon or new moon , causing it to appear larger than normal. At the sizes Randall has drawn the two moons, the difference in size (approximately ten percent) is nigh-imperceptible to the naked eye; Randall seems to be making a comment about how supermoons aren't impressive to him. That he feels like this was already indicated in panel 25 of 1052: Every Major's Terrible and then later confirmed when he published 1394: Superm*n . Here is a list of all comics referring to the term.
The "stopped clock illusion" referenced by the image text is an example of chronostasis , which is an illusion where viewing movement after changing your vision is perceived as taking a longer period of time. So when we look at a clock (which we weren't previously looking at), our field of vision has rapidly changed. The second hand on the clock thus seems to take a longer period of time to move.
Your Central Visual Field [This comic contains numerous visual elements arranged around a central point, and are intended to represent locations in a sphere with the eyeball as the center. Underlaid below all of the elements are concentric circles representing degrees from straight ahead, using the eyeball's point of view, denoting where these elements would appear in someone's field of vision given proper setup. For this description, elements will be described using this grid plus location in degrees within the specified circle, placing 0 degrees to the right and going counterclockwise, separated with the word "mark".] [At the top are the instructions to view this page] Look at the center with your eyes this far from the screen. [A rolled-up sheet of paper that equals about 55 total horizontal degrees in width in the measurement of the chart.] (You can roll up a sheet of paper and cut it - or zoom the page - so it matches this image) 17 mark 0: right eye blind spot. from 0 to 30 mark 15: [The same image, increasing in absolute size from a very tiny object in the center to one about 20x original size at 30 degrees.] Detail - We only see at high resolution over a small area in the center of our vision where retinal cells are densest (the fovea). If you stare at the center of this chart, your eyes are seeing all these panels at roughly the same level of detail. 9 mark 105: Moon. 7 mark 112: Supermoon. from 0 to 20 mark 170: [Sets 3 partially overlapping circles in multiple locations along this path. Each set has a primary color in each circle and additive colors in the overlap areas, with color saturation decreasing sharply as the sets leave the center.] Color Vision: We don't see much color outside the center of our vision - our brains keep track of what color things are and fill it in for us. 17 mark 180: Left Eye Blind Spot. (not pictured: T-Boz blind spot, Chilli blind spot) From 0 to infinity mark from 180 to 205: [A swath of blue, with heavier saturation up to 5 degrees from center to fading, but never gone out to the edges of the image.] From 0 to 7 from 205 to 235: [A swath of red, with full saturation in the center and fading out completely at 7 degrees from center.] From 0 to 7 from 235 to 270: [A swath of green, with full saturation in the center and fading out completely at 7 degrees from center.] Red and green-sensitive cones are mainly limited to the center of our vision. We have few blue-sensitive cone cells, but they're found out to the edge of our vision. 25 mark 205: [A small whisp of white in a swath of blue.] Blue-sky sprites: These tiny, darting spots, visible against smooth blue backgrounds, are white cells moving in the blood vessels over the retina 5 mark 195: [A long blob, slightly distorting the blue swath.] Floaters: Some types of floaters are caused by breakdown of your eyeball goop as you age, but this type is some other kind of debris near the retina. I don't know what. 10 mark 270: [An askew crosshair and circle, with faint blue and yellow wedges inside] Humans can see polarization - Stare at a white area on an LCD display while rotating it or your head fast (use straight ahead as the axis of rotation). Polarization direction is shown by a faint central yellow blue shape (Also visible in deep blue skies) from 0 to 30 mark 340: [The same image, increasing in absolute size from a very tiny object in the center to one about 20x original size at 30 degrees. The brightness of the image varies from black at 2 mark 340, to gray at 5 mark 340, to nearly white at 10 mark 340, to slightly grayer at 20 mark 340, to medium gray at 30 mark 340.] Night Vision: Cone cells (sharp, central color vision) don't work in low light, but rod cells (monochrome, low-res, non-central) do. This is why you can walk around in dim light, but not read. It's also why you can spot fainter stars by looking next to them.


Argument Victory

Explanation:
Cueball is arguing with a conspiracy theorist who believes in some conspiracy , who is sitting in front of his computer talking back. They are probably using Skype , FaceTime , or another video calling service, as Cueball later asks him to watch closely, holding his phone up to show the other guy what he is doing.
Cueball's opponent seems to ignore all reliable sources, like Snopes and Wikipedia on top of several journals , instead preferring sources that are seemingly not credible (but that do agree with him). These conspiracy ".net" pages typically just have a black background and use several different sizes of fonts, the larger (and probably also in bright colors), the more convincing, seems to be the belief, and Cueball cannot take these kinds of sources seriously. ".net" websites can be made by anyone and have little limitations. The maker of a ".net" does not need to show sources of information or even their name. As such, ".net" websites are notoriously unreliable and often have viruses or other malware. The Truth about Black Helicopters is a (satirical) example of one such website, supposedly explaining the truth behind government "Black Helicopters".
The conspiracy theorist insists that by trusting reliable sources, Cueball is simply buying into the cover-up, suggesting that all those journalists are somehow brainwashed. Cueball says he can win the argument, and will show him how, but then ceases to argue further in favor of going down a waterslide while holding up the phone to show the other guy how to have a good time. Since conspiracy theorists tend to be intransigent , Cueball sees himself as the victor after ceasing to argue with a guy who cannot be argued with, and instead decides to have some fun. This is made even more satisfying for Cueball by the fact that it makes his opponent angry. It's likely that this is also a reference to the "Your Argument is Invalid" meme.
The joke here is also in the title of the comic which is Argument Victory something that is very hard to achieve by on the web... Cueball won this victory not by arguing but by stopping this argument he was having with someone that could/would not be argued with, such as going down a waterslide.
The title text points out that belief in a conspiracy presupposes that those with the power to carry out the conspiracy actually have a plan, a situation which might be found more "comforting" than the alternative that those in power are just muddling through with no plan at all. This concept is revisited in 1274: Open Letter .
[Cueball, looking right, is talking at his smartphone while holding it up in front of his head using both hands.] Cueball: I can't believe you're so wrong. I'm backed by Snopes, Wikipedia, and a half-dozen journals. You're citing .net pages with black backgrounds and like 20 fonts each.
[A conspiracy theorist is sitting in front of this lap top at his desk looking left. He has his hair combed down. He is talking to Cueball via his laptop, probably Skyping.] Conspiracy theorist: It's sad how you buy into the official story so unquestioningly. Conspiracy theorist: Guess some people prefer to stay asleep.
[Back to Cueball who has lowered his phone a bit. The reply from the conspiracy theorist is shown to come out of the phone with a jagged arrow and likewise speech bubble.] Cueball: Watch closely— I'm about to win this argument. Conspiracy theorist (reply from phone): How?
[Cueball is sitting at the very top of a waterslide preparing to descend.] Cueball: By going down a waterslide .
[A split panel, with a close-up of the conspiracy theorist above and below Cueball is sliding down the waterslide with both hands above his head, water splashing up behind him as he holds his smartphone above the water in one hand.] Conspiracy theorist: So? What does that prove? Cueball: Wheee..
[Another split panel, this time a smaller part is used for the close-up of the conspiracy theorist above and below Cueball has more of this panels space for sliding down to the bottom of the waterslide with both hands above his head, water still splashing up behind him as he continues to keep his smartphone above the water in one hand.] Conspiracy theorist: You didn't win the argument! Cueball: ...eeee! Cueball: Sploosh!


Geology

Explanation:
Here we have Cueball and Megan discussing geology and the words they use are ripe with puns and double entendres which also have sexual meanings. In the end, they just decide to get it on.
Specifically, the suggestive terms are " bedding ," " spreading ," " friction ," " cleavage ," "deeper in the rift ," " orogeny ," (perhaps a portmanteau of orgy and erogenous ), "huge," and " thrust ."
The technical terms are:
Bedding The division of usually sedimentary rocks into distinct layers. Spreading A process in which two geological regions are moving apart, and potentially allowing for magma to rise between them. Spreading occurs in mid-ocean ridges and in rift valleys . Friction breccia Breccia is a rock made of broken fragments of other rocks. When these fragments can be formed from the rubbing between rocks in a fault, it is a friction breccia. Flow cleavage The crystals in a rock can be aligned by the plastic flow of a rock when it is hot. This causes the rock to split (cleave) along particular planes. Rift A result of spreading is that rocks break, forming vertical faults, and allowing regions to sink and form valleys. Orogeny The process of mountain forming, or a period in which mountains are formed. Thrust fault A sloping crack in the rocks at which one region of rocks is pushing another up.
So it seems that Megan tells Cueball to ignore the layers in the rock, as there is evidence that the valley they are in is a recent rift valley. It was formed in cracking following the lifting up of the surrounding rocks.
The title text is a wordplay, as it could sound like "nice butt". Gneiss is a type of rock made up of different bands, and a butte is an isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top, but smaller than a plateau . However, "butte" is not pronounced like "butt", but as "beaut".
[Two people are doing a geological survey.] Megan: Forget the bedding - we were wrong about the whole valley. Cueball: The spreading is recent.
Megan: See the friction breccia? Cueball: Oh - flow cleavage! Cueball: Deeper in the rift. Megan: Deeper. [An idea pops into Megan's head.]
[The same idea pops into Cueball's head.] Megan: This orogeny Cueball: is driven by a Megan: huge Cueball: thrust fault
[They both drop to the ground in a fit of passion.] Geology: Surprisingly erotic.


Writing Styles

Explanation:
Sms-speak is a style of communication which involves substituting numbers for letters and shortening phrases to get a longer idea across in fewer characters at the cost of readability. The practice began first with text messages, also known as SMS , or Short Message Service, which limited messages to 160 characters. Twitter has adopted a 140 character limit since its inception, which allowed any given tweet to be received as an SMS message with enough room for the user's Twitter handle (15 characters max).
Randall is poking fun at both the stereotypical Senator and at teenagers supporting Ron Paul.
The dig at the senator refers to poor use of sms-style abbreviations by older, less tech-savvy politicians who are hoping to appear more in tune with the modern world. Many politicians use sms-speak in cases when their message isn't in danger of the character limit, but where they are appealing to a younger demographic, thinking it makes them appear to be "modern" to their target audience. In reality, it may do the opposite, showing that they do not understand why sms-speak is used at all.
Conversely modern teenagers, often stereotyped as lacking proper writing skills due to character limits on services such as SMS and twitter, instead here produce coherent sentences expressing a political view (this is later discussed in 1414: Writing Skills ). There is a subtle dig that being drawn to Ron Paul is a stereotypical political position for a teenager, as Paul is ideologically libertarian, and the implication is that libertarianism is a position held while younger and politically or economically naive. Randall has also poked fun at libertarianism on several other occasions, such as 610: Sheeple , 1026: Compare and Contrast , 1049: Bookshelf and 1277: Ayn Random . The teenager's tweet is almost identical to the stereotypical Paul-ite comment made fun of in the title text to 1026 : "Only Ron Paul offers a TRUE alternative!"
A few years ago, the sentence attributed to the teenager is the sort of thing that would stereotypically be assigned to a senator, while the sentence attributed to the senator would be stereotypically assigned to a teenager - however, now the situation has changed and so Randall comments that the internet has ended up in "kind of a weird place".
The title text discusses an idea that Randall approves of, originally suggested by a user on bash.org called h00k, where a twitter bot be created to message politicians when they use sms-speak unnecessarily. This would presumably embarrass said politicians, which might in turn lead to a decrease in their use of sms-speak. Randall evidently considers this a good thing, suggesting he finds the unnecessary use of sms-speak annoying.
[This is a chart with the above two labeled columns. The rows will be represented below in the same format.] If you post: you sound like "Ron Paul is the only candidate who offers us a real choice!": A teenager "its gettin l8 so ill b here 4 prob 2 more hrs tops": A senator The internet has wound up in kind of a weird place.
When this comic came out in 2012, the twitter limit was actually 140 characters. It has since doubled to 280, to allow longer messages, and due to the declining popularity of SMS.


Server Problem

Explanation:
Cueball has messed up his Linux server , apparently not for the first time . Megan offers to take a look at the PC, and she casually types in "ls" — a very basic command that lists the files in the current directory. The computer returns a bizarre error message — it trips over one of the simplest commands, indicating that Cueball's system is messed up. Really messed up.
The /usr/share path should indicate "architecture-independent shared data". Adobe is the software company that produces Acrobat and Photoshop. Android VM would be a virtual machine for Android. The .jar extension suggests a Java-language program. None of Adobe software, Android, or Java are needed to run "ls". All of the above have nothing to do with each other, with the exception that Android applications (but not core command line utilities, like ls) are written in Java. Also, basic system executables like "ls" would never be placed within /usr/share or within some "example" or "doc" directory. On Linux, executables don't have filename extensions like ".exe" or ".jar". Core executables such as "ls" are often shipped with the operating system as binaries, so the presence of "ls.jar" suggests Cueball was attempting to unorthodoxly replace the existing executable with his own Java implementation. Additionally, it would require the folder to be within $PATH . In other words, the error message implies that the server is in a very bad state.
In the last frame Megan is bewildered by this result and asks "what did you do?" . Cueball suggest a course of action which mimics a common error message: "______ is busy, please try again later." Obviously he has seen this type of message frequently enough to try it as a general cure in all similar cases (even scarier, there is a good possibility that his tech issues are so bizarre that it often works for him).
Megan then tells Cueball to "shut down the system and wait for the singularity ," referring to a hypothetical future event when superintelligence can be artificially created. Since future superintelligent humans/computers transcend our comprehension, we can't predict or even understand what will happen after the singularity. One interpretation is that Megan is telling Cueball that his system is such a mess that it will take a post-singularity superintelligence to fix it (or run it in its current state, as only an intelligence beyond present comprehension would be capable of doing). It also indicates that either 1782: Team Chat or 1668: Singularity could be the sequel to this comic.
The title text is yet another protip from Randall . Ray Kurzweil is an author and futurist who has talked and written much about a technological singularity . Presumably, mangling the jargon (by confusing the concept of the "singularity" with the science fiction term " cyberspace ") is something Kurzweil (as an expert) would find annoying. Also, as Randall later pointed out in 1573: Cyberintelligence , the word has not really been used for a decade...
[Cueball at his computer calls out for Megan who comes walking in to the frame.] Cueball: I, um, messed up my server again. Megan: I'll take a look. You have the weirdest tech problems.
[Zoom in on only Megan who uses the root prompt on the computer.] ~# ls
[Megan stands next to the computer, Cueball sits behind her on his chair. The computer returns the following:] /usr/share/Adobe/doc/example/android_vm/root/sbin/ls.jar: Error: Device is not responding.
[Megan turns towards Cueball who lifts his hands with palm up.] Megan: What did you do!? Cueball: Maybe the device is busy. Should I try it later? Megan: You should shut down this system and wait for the Singularity.


ContextBot

Explanation:
This comic is a commentary on the practice of "vaguebooking" or "vaguetweeting" , which is posting a short message of sadness or frustration without context. This is frustrating and emotionally trying to readers because it implies something serious has happened that requires friends to provide emotional support, but may also be something trivial, and with no context it is impossible to determine whether one should worry or not.
Google has been criticized more than a few times for keeping rather extensive data records on its users, who by this point constitute most of the internet, enough to cause serious damage if Google wasn't historically altruistic (as altruistic as a for-profit company can be). In the comic, ContextBot is a fictitious Google invention which puts context for these statuses, presumably based on all that personal data which Google has collected:
As noted by the subtitle, ContextBot is considered a great good by everyone who was sick of vaguebooking. This also redeems Google's practice of all those data records in the public's eye.
In the ContextBot's avatar image, three people can be seen together hanging out. But the image is about to be cropped, leaving out the third person and therefore giving the impression that the two people in the cropped image are there without that person. This demonstrates how context is important to understanding a situation.
The title text refers to the cryptic ways in which someone with sensitive information must communicate. While most vaguebooking/vaguetweeting is about things of little importance, the title text implies that the things not mentioned impact national/global security. This implies that many tweets may actually be related to high-clearance military and or national security information, but must be vague in order to keep it secret, and if you take that as the context, then the internet suddenly becomes much more exciting.
[A social network feed with four status updates from four different people with profile picture. Each status has an arrow going down and right to a reply underneath them, all from the same account, which is called ContextBot. It also has a profile picture with three people standing behind a see-through material with a hole in it. The person on the left is not behind the part with hole and is thus completely greyed out. The other two only have their legs covered, the rest is thus not greyed out because it is behind the hole. The left is a Cueball, the middle may have glasses, and the right has hair. Below them is a black band in which the name ContextBot is written in white.] Close-up face with hair and glasses: The things I put up with... ContextBot: (His building's WiFi doesn't reach the bathroom.) Cueball and Megan holding each other: You'd think by now I'd have learned never to trust anyone. ContextBot: (She downloaded a torrent that turned out to be an encrypted .rar and a link to a survey.) Blondie: I officially give up. ContextBot: (She hit alt-tab to hide Minecraft at work and accidentally dropped a stack of diamond into lava.) Hairy: Sighhhh ContextBot: (He thought these grapes were seedless.)
[Caption below the panel] Everyone stopped complaining about Google's data-gathering when they launched ContextBot, a system which replies to vague, enigmatic social network posts with context from the poster's life.


Eyelash Wish Log

Explanation:
This comic is based on a common superstition that when someone's eyelash falls out, that person can make a wish on it. This comic appears to be a page from the fictitious Wish Bureau in charge of granting said wishes. And of course the wisher is Black Hat and he has quite a few wishes, most of them based on the previous wish. A common trope in fiction is that wishing for more wishes is prohibited and for many of his wishes Black Hat attempts to circumvent that.
January 9 That wishing on eyelashes worked This wish is pointless. If wishing on eyelashes worked, then this would do absolutely nothing (because it already works) and if it didn't then nothing would happen because wishing on eyelashes wouldn't work.
January 12 A pony This wish functions as a test to see whether or not previous wish worked. It can be assumed that it did, as Black Hat then continued to make additional wishes. Wishing for a pony is a stereotypical wish made by very young girls; since Black Hat is an adult man (with a very dark sense of humor), the contrast is humorous.
January 15 Unlimited wishes This appears to have failed, due to the traditional ban on wishing for additional wishes in conventional folklore.
January 19 Revocation of rules prohibiting unlimited wishes An attempt to circumvent the ban in the previous wish by wishing the ban away.
January 20 A finite but arbitrarily large number of wishes Another attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes by asking for a number of wishes that is limited, but as large as he likes (and there are some very large finite numbers out there, such as Graham's number ).
January 28 The power to dictate the rules governing wishes Yet another attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes.
February 5 Unlimited eyelashes This wish likely caused Black Hat to grow unlimited eyelashes, which could be quite inconvenient and painful. And, yes, one more attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes.
February 6 That wish-granting entities be required to interpret wishes in accordance with the intent of the wisher This wish is likely a response to the previous day's misguided wish. It's actually quite a common problem that people making wishes leave them open for misinterpretation.
February 8 That wish-granting entities be incapable of impatience An attempt to prevent whatever being is powerful enough to grant wishes from becoming angry with Black Hat while he gives very specific instructions so wish-granting entities cannot misinterpret what he said. (It would appear that the previous wish failed.)
February 12 #1 Unlimited breadsticks The first wish of this day seems to be a reference to the unlimited breadsticks offered at Olive Garden .
February 12 #2 Veto power over others' wishes A power that could be interesting to have. It also very much fits with Black Hat's character.
February 19 Veto power over others' wishes and all congressional legislation An improvement of the previous wish. This would be very interesting to have indeed, especially if you are Black Hat, because you could veto any federal law, a power normally entrusted only to the President of the United States .
February 23 The power to override any veto This wish would allow Black Hat to override vetoes which in addition to the previous wish would effectively make him control the US legislature and, to some extent, also all other governing bodies. (Notably the UN , where the veto powers wielded by the five permanent members of the Security Council cannot be overridden and can have large impacts on global politics.) Note that it will not allow him to turn laws off (veto them) and on again (override the veto) at any moment, as once a bill becomes law it cannot be vetoed. Without the ability to propose legislation, Black Hat's powers are still limited. The wish may also refer back to the February 19 wish: by granting himself veto power over wishes, Black Hat just made vetoes more powerful than wishes; now he is trying to control other people's vetoes as well, lest they one-up him.
February 27 The power to see where any shortened URL goes without clicking This wish relates to a common practice especially in tweets or other short length media where full-length meaningful web addresses such as www.somewhere.com/articles/specificdate/title-of-the-page.html would not be feasible. So a more compressed but nonsensical string of seemingly random characters is used which links to a link of the full text address. This creates some problems for people who are security or privacy conscious and prefer to be informed beforehand where they will be traveling on the Internet. The use of shortened URLs is also central to many types of trolls or practical jokes (see bit.ly/IqT6zt for an example), by directing someone to a different location than the link would initially suggest. Thus Black Hat might be wishing to be able to tell where the links go for the purpose of avoiding this sort of trolling.
February 29 The power to control the direction news anchors are looking while they talk This wish likely appeals to Black Hat's mischievous side, allowing him to cause news anchors to look at the wrong camera during live broadcast. Repeatedly switching to the incorrect camera would cause havoc in the studio. Additionally, Black Hat may also attempt to get a news anchor fired by having them stare where they should not such as a female anchor's breasts.
March 7 The power to introduce arbitrary error into Nate Silver's predictions A reference to Nate Silver , who is a former writer for Baseball Prospectus working on predicting baseball players' stats and now writes for Five Thirty Eight in which he predicts the outcome of elections based on polling data. Influencing Nate Silver's predictions would allow Black Hat to indirectly influence the result of elections, by adjusting the Overton window of which candidates and policies are considered to have "broad public support" or "electability" or the like. This would tighten the Black Hat's control of the US even more.
March 15 A house of stairs This wish refers to the lithograph House of Stairs by M. C. Escher , or perhaps another of his lithographs, Relativity .
March 23 A universe which is a replica of this one sans rules against meta-wishes Another attempt to circumvent the rules against wishing for more wishes by creating a parallel universe without such rules.
March 29 Free transportation to and from that universe While the previous wish may have worked, Black Hat notes a problem with it: he is still in our universe with no way to get to his new one.
April 2 A clear explanation of how wish rules are structured and enforced It appears that one or both of the previous two wishes failed, so Black Hat tries to discover exactly what is offending the Bureau. Having clear rules and how they work helps anyone finding loopholes in them.
April 7 The power to banish people into the TV show they are talking about Black hat is obviously fed up of hearing people talking about certain TV shows, and would like to be able to banish them into the show, thus prevent him having to listen to those people. Depending on the show in question, it could be quite horrifying for the person getting banished.
April 8 Zero wishes An attempt to hack the wish-granting system by using a quite common vulnerability in input validation: an unexpected value. There may be multiple vectors this can work: in many computer systems, 0 is reserved for unlimited or undefined in Assembly languages, do-while loops are more efficient than while loops, but famously do not check their condition on the first iteration. This means that 0 is effectively 256 for 8 bit counters, 65536 for 16 bits, etc. If the wish granter wrote the wish laws in assembly and used this optimization, initializing the wish count to zero would give him a large number of wishes dependent on the size of the counter. the number may be used as a divisor in some equation and this will make the system divide by zero and probably crash there also may be an assertion like " number of wishes granted == 1 " which would fail, again crashing the system similarly, if viewed as a computer system, it is possible that the wish decrement (subtracting 1 from the number of remaining wishes) is performed after the wish is granted, thus resulting in either −1 wishes (another common placeholder for unlimited numbers), or an integer overflow if the wish counter is stored as an unsigned integer; the overflow can result in an exception, otherwise −1 becomes represented as one less than the size of the integer – basically, an extremely large number. However it seems the eyelash wish-granting system does proper input validation on zero because it did not crash or grant unlimited wishes This wish may also be a reversal of the January 9 wish. Black Hat is attempting to win his game by introducing a logical contradiction : if he gets "zero wishes", this is one wish granted; however, if it is not granted, then, de facto, he will have been granted zero wishes. This is a common technique used in logical proofs to show that an earlier assumption does not hold (in this case, the possibility of eyelash wishing to work).
April 15 Veto power over clocks Midnight, April 15 is the deadline for filing income tax returns in the United States. It may also be that Black Hat, now in control of all human legislation, is attempting to extend this to further control also rules of nature – in this case: time. The strange wording is likely to be due to Black Hat having consulted with the wish-hacking manual he acquired April 2.
April 22 A Pokéball that works on strangers' pets A reference to the Pokémon series of video games. A Pokéball can be thrown at a Pokémon (or in this case, a pet that the Pokéball thrower finds either annoying or cute) to capture it and achieve ownership of it. Unless cheats are used (and in Pokémon Colosseum , in which a criminal organisation uses illegally modified pokeballs), Pokéballs cannot be used on Pokémon owned by other people in the Pokémon games . Many players wish to obtain the often high-level Pokémon of NPCs, and Black Hat may also be interested in pranking other players by stealing their powerful Pokémon. This was later revealed to be one of Randall's wishes in the title text of 1705: Pokémon Go .
The title text, a wish to have control over coefficients of friction during sporting events, is yet another mischievous wish. The coefficients of friction, though usually not noticed as they are unchanging, are all-important when performing physical activities — imagine trying to play hockey on a field of sandpaper or sprinting over a sheet of ice. In addition to the difficulty going where you want or getting any balls that might be in play where you want them to go in a changing friction environment, angular momentum would also be very difficult to control.
Note that when Black Hat makes meta-wishes no follow-up wishes are logged. Since the meta-wishes failed, no valid eyelash wish condition existed and the illegal test wishes were not logged in the eyelash wish log.
Eyelash Wish Log Wish bureau ID#: 21118378 Date range: Jan-Apr 2012
[a picture of Black Hat is above text saying Wisher]
Date Wish Jan 09 That wishing on eyelashes worked Jan 12 A pony Jan 15 Unlimited wishes Jan 19 Revocation of rules prohibiting unlimited wishes Jan 20 A finite but arbitrarily large number of wishes Jan 28 The power to dictate the rules governing wishes Feb 05 Unlimited eyelashes Feb 06 That wish-granting entities be required to interpret wishes in accordance with the intent of the wisher Feb 08 That wish-granting entities be incapable of impatience Feb 12 Unlimited breadsticks Feb 12 Veto power over others' wishes Feb 19 Veto power over others' wishes and all congressional legislation Feb 23 The power to override any veto Feb 27 The power to see where any shortened URL goes without clicking Feb 29 The power to control the direction news anchors are looking while they talk Mar 07 The power to introduce arbitrary error into Nate Silver's predictions Mar 15 A house of stairs Mar 23 A universe which is a replica of this one sans rules against meta-wishes Mar 29 Free transportation to and from that universe Apr 02 A clear explanation of how wish rules are structured and enforced Apr 07 The power to banish people into the TV show they're talking about Apr 08 Zero wishes Apr 15 Veto power over clocks Apr 22 A Pokéball that works on strangers' pets


Cirith Ungol

Explanation:
This comic is a mash-up between the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the novel Charlotte's Web .
The title Cirith Ungol is a reference to Lord of the Rings where Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee were led to Cirith Ungol by Gollum and to the lair of the ancient spider Shelob .
And therefore in this comic, Frodo (by himself, recognizable because he is holding the Phial of Galadriel and the One Ring ) is being led into the lair of the spider, Charlotte. We can tell by the "Some Pig" writing in the spider web on the lower right hand corner which is a direct reference to the story of Charlotte's Web , in which a spider named Charlotte writes the very same text in her web.
The title text refers to syntactic ambiguity which is a property of sentences which may be reasonably interpreted in more than one way, or reasonably interpreted to mean more than one thing. This allows us to derive two different meanings from the same sentence.
The second part of the title text is a quote from Wikipedia, which Randall enjoys for its  syntactic ambiguity, as it can be logically interpreted in either of the following ways:
[A character in a long flowing robe holds up the Phial of Galadriel in one hand; the One Ring is dangling from a necklace in the other. The scene is a cave, profuse with spiderwebs, bones hanging in some of them. On one of the webs are words, presumably written by the spider.]
SOME PIG


Five Years

Explanation:
This comic is a take on the common and cliched job interview question here asked by Hairbun : Where do you see yourself in 5 years. The interviewer is attempting to see where the job seeker would like to take their career and also what their hopes and dreams are etc.
In the comic, instead of explaining where he would like to be in 5 years, Beret Guy and the interviewer wait around for 5 years without moving to find out. And as Beret Guy expected they stayed exactly where they were. (This could be suggesting that most people do not change much over five years.)
The title text is a continuation of their conversation in which Beret Guy turns down the job because he wants to find out what happened in the last 5 years while they were both sitting in that room.
Given Beret Guy's ability to manipulate reality ( 1099: Tuesdays ), it's possible he froze himself and the interviewer for 5 years or sped up time to ensure that 5 years would pass quickly enough that the interviewer could not react and affect the experiment.
Other job interviews were portrayed in 125: Marketing Interview , 1094: Interview , 1293: Job Interview and 1545: Strengths and Weaknesses .
[Hairbun and Beret Guy sit across from each other at a desk.] Hairbun : Where do you see yourself in five years? Beret Guy: Oh man, I don't know! Let's find out! [The characters stare at one another.] [Cobwebs and hair grow; the desk and chairs fall into disrepair.] [Five years pass.] Beret Guy: Hah— Beret Guy: I thought so!


Internal Monologue

Explanation:
Cueball attempts social interaction at what looks like a party owing to the fact that several people have drinks in their hands.  His internal monologue is just Cueball trying to make sure he is doing the right things in the conversation, reacting appropriately, and not saying "yeah" too much.
The title text is a continuation of the internal monologue.
This is common case of anxiety for people who are usually not very skilled in navigating social situations like parties. It can become a vicious cycle in which the fear of handling the encounter badly makes one even more uncomfortable, which in turn results in behaviour as awkward as first feared. Also, for some people it's common to want to map out a pre-planned course of action that should produce desired results, a strategy that is usually doomed to failure when dealing with sufficiently complex and unpredictable scenarios like conversations with other people. This painful, and all too common, situation has been mined for comedic effect since the beginning of human civilization [ citation needed ] .
[The scene is a party. Two characters are talking - the entirety of the text is a thought bubble of one of the two.] Cueball: Am I smiling enough? Should I be leaning on something? Where should my hands go? I hope he doesn't ask me what his name is. I've said "yeah" too much; what are some other agreeing words? Oh crap, his story just got sad stop smiling stop smiling


Formal Languages

Explanation:
This joke is a play on the phrase context-free grammar , which is a technical term used in formal language theory.
Cueball crashes Megan's speech on formal language theory, nonsensically shouts "Grammar!" without any context, and runs off. Because the gag is delivered in a particularly obtuse manner, the title text clears things up by having the confused audience mention "missing context", thus having them unwittingly explain the joke.
The concept of context-free grammar is incredibly nuanced and nigh impossible to rephrase in layman's terms. Luckily, the joke only interprets the phrase "context-free grammar" literally, so no understanding of the actual subject is required.
A context-free grammar can be described as a dictionary, translating single symbols to one or multiple symbols, who then are replaced again, until no further replacements are possible. If a string of symbols adheres to this grammar, it can be reconstructed solely by following these kind of orders.
[A large banner is hanging over a podium, where a speaker (Megan) is standing behind a lectern. Cueball crashes through the left side of the panel, scattering glass.] Banner. 10th Annual Symposium on Formal Languages Crash
[Cueball stops in front of Megan spreads out his hands and shouts:] Cueball: Grammar!
[Cueball then runs off the right side of the panel, so swiftly he leaves a cloud of dust in his wake. Megan at the podium just looks after him silently.]


Curiosity

Explanation:
This comic is a reference to the NASA Mars Rover "Curiosity" landing on Mars on August 5, 2012 at 10:31pm PDT (August 6, 2012 at 5:31am GMT). NASA live-streamed the landing, but demand for the feed caused server issues. Thus, the time spent trying to download the landing images could be used as an excuse for things such as being late for work, falling asleep during the day, or just about anything demanding one's attention.
The title text is a reference to torrents , which are a more resilient peer-to-peer file-sharing method, due to the decentralized BitTorrent protocol, where the more people there are downloading a file, the more available it is. The name is a play on the file naming convention of release groups who name their files (typically for films or television shows) containing data on the file; source (CAM = Camera capture), language (SwEsUb = Swedish subtitles), source (DVDRip = Ripped from DVD), encoding (XviD = XviD codec) and group name ( aXXo = aXXo, a well known DVD movie release group). Given that the filename is loaded with keywords that are irrelevant for a still image file, it is unlikely that this torrent will contain the expected pictures.
The first images received from Curiosity via the Odyssey orbiter were low-resolution thumbnails taken from the rover's rear-facing camera, thus the file name CURIOSITY-REAR-CAM_[256px_x_256px].
[The Curiosity rover is lowered onto the Mars surface by a Sky Crane.] Your excuse for anything today: "Sorry- I was up all night trying to download photos taken by a robot lowered onto Mars by a Skycrane."


Michael Phelps

Explanation:
Michael Phelps is an American Olympic swimmer, who could easily be considered the best swimmer worldwide: he is the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, with 28 medals, 23 of them gold (won in the 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 summer Olympics, so it would have been 18 Olympic gold medals at the time the comic was published). He was most dominant in the 2008 Beijing Olympics where he won gold in all of the eight events in which he competed, the record for a single games.
Cueball and Megan find that the Olympic medalist is in Megan's pool. He refuses to leave, and is too fast to be caught. Cueball brings in boxes of Jello Mix to fill the pool with, thereby gelifying the pool and trapping Phelps or forcing him to leave.
However, according to the title text, after having waited the time necessary for the water to gelify, Cueball realizes that Phelps has eaten all of the resulting Jello. This may be a reference to Phelps being used to eating impressive food quantities (about 12,000 calories daily) , to keep up with his strenuous exercise regimen; or it may be a reference to pictures of Phelps smoking from a bong that arose after the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, as Marijuana use is often associated with an increased appetite. Otherwise, the text may simply be a reference to Phelps being capable of achieving super-human feats, such as devouring an entire pool full of Jello.
Interestingly enough, just pouring Jello powder into a pool would not solidify the water into Jello. The water would have to be boiled, then quickly chilled, for the Jello to set correctly. As Randall is a scientist, he should have known this; therefore, it's possible that he purposefully ignored this fact in favor of the humor. Michael Phelps' top speed is also only around 2.3 m/s, which can easily be outrun by anyone on land.
[Megan and Cueball standing outside their en-Phelps-ified swimming pool.] Cueball: Why is Michael Phelps in your backyard pool? Megan: I don't know. He's been there all day. Go home, Michael! Michael Phelps: Woo! 18 gold medals!
[Megan and Cueball break out a pair of pool nets and unsuccessfully try to snag Phelps.] Cueball: Can you get him? Megan: He's so fast ! Phelps: Ha hah! Can't catch me! Splash splash
[Cueball heads off to fetch something.]
[Cueball returns with a hand truck full of Jello mix.] Phelps: Oh crap.


Forget

Explanation:
The median age in USA is currently about 37 years. Assuming that you must be at least five years old to remember a cultural event later, this means that anything that happened more than thirty-two years ago is remembered by a minority of people today. This applies to any event prior to 1980, so here in 2012, the majority of Americans are too young to remember the Seventies. However, according to census estimation the median will raise in the future, so instead of a 32 years gap between event and the moment when most people can't remember it, the gap becomes 35 years (implying a median of some 40 years).
2013: The Carter presidency Jimmy Carter was the President of the United States from 1977-1981. He lost all popularity after he was viewed as mishandling several crises during his presidency, including the Three Mile Island accident , the Iran hostage crisis , and the " stagflation " of the late 1970s. According to Wikipedia, his decisions to reinstate registration for the draft and his decision to boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow (over the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) helped contribute to his defeat in the 1980 Presidential campaign.
2014: The Reagan shooting References the 1981 assassination attempt on the then American president, Ronald Reagan .
2015: The Falkland Islands War This is in reference to the brief outbreak of hostilities between the UK and Argentina over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) located off the shore of Argentina claimed by both but controlled by the UK. Even to this date, tensions remain high over the ownership of these islands, and while many people alive today weren't alive to witness it, it nevertheless remains present in the collective psyche of both nations.
2016: Return of the Jedi release Return of the Jedi was the 3rd film in the original Star Wars trilogy, released in 1983.
2017: The first Apple Macintosh The Macintosh was a line of computers created by Apple , first introduced in 1984, with the Macintosh 128K .
2018: New Coke References a public relations blunder that the Coca-Cola corporation undertook in attempting to reformulate its cola recipe, the new formula called New Coke popularly. The public backlash so shook the company that they reintroduced the original recipe as Coca-Cola Classic within 3 months. New Coke was eventually rebranded from Coca-Cola to Coke II, and then discontinued. Coca-Cola Classic has quietly been rebranded back to simply Coca-Cola, as it originally was. The "New Coke" introduction is considered one of the biggest PR blunders from a major company ever.
2019: Challenger The Challenger was a Space Shuttle orbiter , which was launched in 1986, but exploded 72 seconds into its flight, killing everyone aboard, including Christa McAuliffe , a teacher selected to be the first teacher in space.
2020: Chernobyl Refers to the 1986 meltdown of a nuclear power plant in the Ukranian SSR (then a part of the Soviet Union). The meltdown forced the nearby city of Pripyat to be abandoned, and it remains a ghost town today.
2021: Black Monday Refers to the 1987 day of the largest one-day stock market drop in history.
2022: The Reagan presidency Ronald Reagan was an American president from 1981 to 1989, and was a generally well received president known for ending the Cold War, oversaw the Iran–Contra affair , invading Grenada , and issuing forth a number of new economic policies .
2023: The Berlin Wall Refers to the barrier surrounding the Anglo-French-controlled part of Berlin . It was erected by the East German Government in 1961 to stop illegal emigration to West Berlin (an enclave of West Germany ) after the end of the Second World War. After a friendly revolution in 1989, emigration to West Berlin (and West Germany in general) was granted suddenly and very surprisingly again on November 9, 1989. The following rush of people to the Wall from East (to cross the border) and from West (to welcome friends and relatives) in that night coined the figurative "Fall of the Wall", preceding the actual reunion of Germany in 1990 and (almost) complete demolition of the Wall.
2024: HammerTime Refers to a refrain in MC Hammer's 1990 hit song U Can't Touch This ; Randall Munroe makes reference to this song elsewhere in his comics, too (specifically 108: M.C. Hammer Slide and 210: 90's Flowchart ).
2025: The Soviet Union Refers to a country emerging after the end of World War I . It became the cold-war adversary of the United States after the end of World War II and only collapsed in 1991.
2026: The LA Riots Refers to the massive riots occurring at the release of the verdict acquitting the officers accused of the Rodney King beatings in 1992.
2027: Lorena Bobbit Refers to the woman who emasculated her husband in 1993.
2028: The Forrest Gump release Forrest Gump was a 1994 drama starring Tom Hanks as a mentally disabled man, telling his spectacular life story. The movie had a highly successful release, and some consider it one of the greatest films of all time.
2029: The Rwanda Genocide Refers to the 1994 Rwandan genocide , where an estimated 800,000 people were killed.
2030: OJ Simpson's Trial The O.J. Simpson trial was a famous criminal case during which O.J. Simpson , a professional football player, was acquitted of the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman . He was later arrested and jailed for other crimes, including armed robbery and kidnapping.
2031: Clinton's reelection Bill Clinton was the American president from 1993 to 2001. He won his second term in the 1996 presidential election . During his second term, he faced controversy during an impeachment trial, for which he was acquitted, and a large number of pardons he made on his last day of office. Clinton was a generally favoured president, exiting his presidency with a high approval rate.
2032: Princess Diana Princess Diana was a famous Commonwealth princess who made headlines after her 1997 death in a car crash.
2033: Clinton's impeachment In 1998, the American Congress voted to impeach then-president Clinton, based on allegations that he lied about relations with a White House intern . He was later acquitted.
2034: Columbine Refers to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre , where 13 people were killed by a pair of shooters .
2035: Forgot About Dre Refers to the Grammy winning 2000 song, " Forgot About Dre ," by the rapper Dr. Dre . In it, Dre complains that his accomplishments have been purposefully ignored and forgotten; ironically, at some point in the future Dre's complaints about being forgotten will, themselves, be forgotten.
2036: 9/11 Refers to the September 11 attacks in 2001, where terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center towers, in New York City . Two other planes crashed that day: one into the The Pentagon , and one in a field outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania (presumably on its way to crashing into the Capitol Building).
2037: VH1's I love the 80s I Love the '80s was a 2002 nostalgia TV series by VH1 . This will make the 1980s doubly forgotten; not only will people not remember the decade, they will not remember the famous retrospective of people remembering the decade.
2038: A time before Facebook Refers to the online social media site, Facebook , launched in 2004.
2039: VH1's I love the 90s I Love the '90s was a TV series airing in 2004.
2040: Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a devastating 2005 hurricane that hit New Orleans , killing almost 2000 people and causing 81 billion dollars in damage.
2041: The planet Pluto Pluto is a dwarf planet in our solar system. Up until 2006, Pluto was considered to be a planet.
2042: The first iPhone Apple 's first iPhone was released in 2007.
2043: The Bush presidency George W. Bush was the American president from 2001 to 2009. He was criticized for the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq , poor handling of Hurricane Katrina, and seeing the United States enter a recession. His approval peaked after the 9/11 attacks, but had fallen to historical lows by the end of his second term, making him one of the least liked US presidents.
2044: Michael Jackson Refers to the pop singer who died of drug overdose in 2009.
2045: Trying to say Eyjafjallajökull Is a reference to a volcano in Iceland that erupted in 2010. The eruption threw volcanic ash several kilometres up in the atmosphere, which led to air travel disruption in northwest Europe for six days.
2046: The Arab Spring Refers to the wave of revolutions that began in late 2010, where many Arabic nations overthrew leaders and started civil wars, with many nations converting to democracies.
2047: Anything embarrassing you do today Refers to the fact that in 35 years, the majority of Americans will not have been around on this date. However, it is to be noted that it would have to be something very embarassing for anyone more than people around or friends to notice. Usually, embarassing actions by an individual (non-celebrity) that aren't notable in some way don't end up being noticed, much less on the news. [ citation needed ]
The title text is in reference to the vastly over-saturated programming on VH1 dedicated to the history of the TV universe.
When Will We Forget? Based on US Census Bureau National Population Projections Assuming we don't remember cultural events from before age 5 or 6
By this year: The majority of Americans will be too young to remember: 2012: The seventies 2013: The Carter presidency 2014: The Reagan shooting 2015: The Falkland Islands war 2016: The return of the Jedi release 2017: The first Apple Macintosh 2018: New Coke 2019: Challenger 2020: Chernobyl 2021: Black Monday 2022: The Reagan presidency 2023: The Berlin Wall 2024: HammerTime 2025: The Soviet Union 2026: The LA Riots 2027: Lorena Bobbit 2028: The Forrest Gump release 2029: The Rwanda Genocide 2030: OJ Simpson's Trial 2031: Clinton's reelection 2032: Princess Diana 2033: Clinton's impeachment 2034: Columbine 2035: Forgot About Dre 2036: 9/11 2037: VH1's I love the 80s 2038: A time before Facebook 2039: VH1's I love the 90s 2040: Hurricane Katrina 2041: The planet Pluto 2042: The first iPhone 2043: The Bush presidency 2044: Michael Jackson 2045: Trying to say ´´Eyjafjallajökull`` 2046: The Arab Spring 2047: Anything embarrassing you do today
The very popular YouTuber Vsauce put this chart in a video called “This Is Not Yellow”, and it got almost twenty million views.


Interview

Explanation:
This comic is based on a common annoyance when job hunting, being told that they'll "keep you in mind", but don't offer you a job. A job interviewer tells Black Hat exactly that.
Black Hat offers a briefcase to his interviewer. From the vague phrasing "this" and the context, one would expect the briefcase to contain money to bribe the interviewer into hiring Black Hat. Instead, it contains a portal or gateway into an impossibly deep chasm.
After falling through the chasm, the interviewer lands in the interviewee's seat, and Black Hat is now sitting in the interviewer's seat, effectively switching their roles.
The former interviewer tries to pull the same trick on Black Hat, creating a momentary illusion of an infinite loop through recursion , a common theme in xkcd comics.
When Black Hat opens the briefcase, however, he reveals another common annoyance when job hunting, being told that the opening has already been filled. Black Hat's statement works on two levels, one meaning that "the job opening has been filled", and the second meaning "the opening to the briefcase's chasm has been filled". In the latter sense, opening may also be used as a synonym of vulnerability, in which case filled would mean patched.
The title text is said by Black Hat. It refers to the fact that, even though Black Hat now has the interviewer's job, he has no idea what his function is.
Other Job interviews have been portrayed in 125: Marketing Interview , 1088: Five Years , 1293: Job Interview and 1545: Strengths and Weaknesses .
[Black Hat is interviewed by Hairy.] Hairy: ...but thank you for applying. We'll keep your résumé on file.
[Black Hat pushes a suitcase over the table.] Black Hat: Perhaps this could change your mind?
[Hairy opens the suitcase.] Click
[Hairy lifts open the top.]
[Camera pans over the suitcase to reveal a deep hole.]
[Camera zooms into the hole.]
[Hairy is falling into the hole.] Hairy: AAAAAA
[Hairy falls into a chair with the suitcase falling on his lap.] THUMP
[Hairy is dazed, and is being interviewed by Black Hat.] Black Hat: ...but thank you for applying. We'll keep your résumé on file.
[Hairy looks confused.] Hairy: !??!
[Hairy looks at the suitcase.]
[Hairy pushes the suitcase over the table.] Hairy: Perhaps this could change your mind?
[Black Hat opens the suitcase.] Click
[Black Hat looks inside.]
[Black Hat turns the suitcase around.] Black Hat: I'm sorry—
[The suitcase is now filled with paper.] Black Hat: —that opening has been filled.


Crazy Straws

Explanation:
A subculture is a small group of people within a culture that share some property in common, such as hackers or hipsters. Some subcultures form based on a geeky obsession over a trivial topic (for instance, a minimally-drawn webcomic). In this case, that topic is crazy straws, which are toy drinking straws designed with unusual twists and loops.  This strip uses this group as an example of the fractal nature of cultures.
Informally speaking, a fractal is a mathematical shape with an infinite level of detail. Just as fractals can always be divided into smaller patterns, Randall points out that human subcultures can always be divided into smaller subcultures. We have the "people who like crazy straws" subculture, but this is further divided into the professionals and the hobbyists. The hobbyists are themselves broken into those who accept loops in the straws and those who don't. A splinter group, as used in the comic, is a subculture that breaks off from a larger one. Of course, this nesting is not really infinite, since there is a finite number of people living. The claim that it is infinite is hyperbole.
Despite the incredible amount of work fans put into it, the whole concept seems completely inconsequential to an outsider. This irony is the source of humor in this strip. An earlier comic, 915: Connoisseur , covers a similar topic.
Paris Hilton is a celebrity who is essentially famous for being famous. The "guy named Eric" mentioned in the title-text is someone prominent in the amateur plastic crazy-straw community, but that doesn't really count as famous by most standards, so the Paris Hilton comparison is quite a stretch.
[Two people hang out with some beverages. Cueball here has a bright green crazy straw.] Cueball: The thing to understand about the plastic crazy straw design world is that there are two main camps: The professionals - designing for established brands - and the hobbyists . Cueball: The hobbyist mailing lists are full of drama, with friction between the regulars and a splinter group focused on loops...
[Caption below the panel:] Human subcultures are nested fractally. There's no bottom.


Clinically Studied Ingredient

Explanation:
This comic is poking fun at a phrase which some ads use to boost sales of their product. They state that their product contains a "clinically studied ingredient", which consumers assume means that the ingredient has been clinically tested and proven effective , or at the very least, not harmful, although neither is, strictly speaking, implied by that statement. An example of this appears on many body wash  products, bearing the phrase "Tested by dermatologists for sensitive skin" or something similar. The phrase just states that an ingredient was clinically studied and doesn't mention the findings of that study (which, for all we know, could have found the ingredient to be ineffective or harmful). In other words, the phrase is used in deceptive marketing techniques, leading consumers to believe something which encourages them to buy the product, without committing to saying it explicitly.
In the middle of the conversation, Megan tells Cueball that she has been tested. The implication is that she's talking about STDs . However she does not reveal the results of the tests, which is the primary information Cueball could be worried about, and when Cueball inquires, she acts like he is being unreasonable to also want that information. In this way, Randall is making an analogy to how a marketer might think consumers would be unreasonable to want to know the results of the clinical studies on the ingredient.
The title text mentions the legendary film critic Roger Ebert . At the time this comic was published (a year before Ebert's death), one could expect him to have watched most big-name movies that were coming out. Simply stating that he saw a movie, therefore, doesn't necessarily mean that he liked it.
Impressive-sounding but meaningless advertisement claims are also the subject of 624: Branding , 641: Free , 870: Advertising and 993: Brand Identity .
I can't help but admire the audacity of the marketer who came up with the phrase "contains a clinically studied ingredient"
[Cueball is sat on a bed, talking to a curly-haired woman standing close by.] Woman: Don't worry - I've been tested. Cueball: ...and you're clean? Woman: So many questions!


A Hypochondriac's Nightmare

Explanation:
Hypochondriacs are people who worry obsessively about their health, often looking up symptoms on the Internet and convincing themselves that they have some deadly disease. The situation depicted in this comic is described as a "hypochondriac's nightmare" because Cueball , expecting that the rash on his arm was some mysterious undiagnosed disease, spent several hours on WebMD (an online health symptom reference) looking up symptoms, yet ends up dying by slipping on a banana and getting sucked into an airplane engine. Thus he regrets wasting so much time on an ultimately fruitless task rather than something more productive to survival, such as, say, watching out for banana peels lying in front of jet engines, or at the very least, attempting to enjoy life.
The title text (in ALL CAPS thus shouting in despair) adds another level of hypochondriasm. Randall drew this particular joke to soothe his fears and reassure himself that the rash is nothing. But what if that reassurance just makes him not check out the rash, and then it turns out the rash is caused by "death mites " (which do not actually exist [ citation needed ] ) and ultimately kills him when he could have prevented it?
[Cueball at an airport slips on a banana peel and gets sucked into a nearby jet engine.] Cueball (thinking): Seriously!? This is what gets me? I wasted so many hours on WebMD worrying about the rash on my arm!


Star Ratings

Explanation:
This comic deals with the idea that users when viewing online star ratings are usually heavily biased towards the best possible rating (five stars). As there are nine possible scores in the rating system in the comic (1 star, 1.5 stars, 2 stars...4.5 stars, and finally 5 stars), a rating of 3 out of 5 stars is supposed to represent "average" or "mediocre". Thus, anything above 3 stars is supposed to be "good" and anything below 3 stars is "bad". However, most people consider a four star rating to be "OK", and everything below as "crap".
On one hand there is some justification for this, as ratings are more likely to be given by people who fall onto one of the extremes (either loved or hated the product) and thus there is a tendency for ratings to be skewed either high or low. Fake reviews are also a factor that often push an aggregate score higher, although this is not addressed in the comic. For this reason, no product is so perfect that every user will give it five stars - as soon as one person gives it less than five, the overall review score would drop. So the only explanation for a five star rating is that only a few users have voted, maybe only one.
The title text may refer to the folkloric practice of attributing a feeling of a chill to someone walking on your future grave. When Randall is back home he would like to give a bad rating on Yelp — a corporation that operates an "online urban guide" — and hovering his hand over the 'one star' button, he was just 'walking' over the rating on his own future grave.
Another possible explanation for the title text is that the headstones are from people that gave the cemetery star ratings and were then murdered, having their given ratings displayed in the headstones. This in turn would explain the chill Randall feels before clicking the one-star button.
See also: 937: TornadoGuard , another comic about star ratings.
Understanding online star ratings:
5 stars: [Has only one review] 4.5 stars: Excellent 4 stars: OK 3.5-1 star: Crap.


Tuesdays

Explanation:
Beret Guy and at least one other person (probably Megan ) are sitting at a restaurant. The waitress, Ponytail , tells Beret Guy there is a special on Tuesdays for "endless wings". Restaurants often have different daily discounts to encourage people to come in. In a normal restaurant, "endless wings" would presumably refer to "all-you-can-eat" chicken wings , meaning the customer can pay a flat price and eat all the chicken wings they want without having to pay any more.
However, in this comic, instead of ordering them by telling the waitress: "I'll have those", Beret Guy tells her: "I have those", meaning that he already has literal "endless wings" (similar issues of things being taken literally are referenced in 1086: Eyelash Wish Log and 1528: Vodka ), and then begins to grow wings which ultimately appear "endless" as they grow to a span of at least the circumference of the Earth by the last panel (and presumably continue growing). The other characters scream in horror for obvious reasons.
The title text plays on another common restaurant offer of "bottomless drinks", meaning unlimited free refills of drinks. However, falling into something literally bottomless (i.e. without a bottom) would result in falling forever. (However, even this is unlikely unless the diameter of the cups that the drinks are served in is large enough to fit a whole person into.) If it was literally "bottomless", you would start to decelerate as you pass the earth's center of mass. The air pressure and heat in a "bottomless" pit would also be fatal to humans.
This is one of the few comics with lowercase text .
[Ponytail serves Beret Guy and Megan at a table.] Ponytail: ...and on Tuesdays we offer endless wings. Beret Guy: Haha, cool. Beret Guy: i have those.
Ponytail: You what?
[Beret Guy sprouts a pair of wings.] Ponytail: AAAAA!!
[Beret Guy's wings start getting longer.] Ponytail and Megan: AAAAAAA
[Wings start to extend into space out from the earth.] Everyone: AAAAAAAA


Vows

Explanation:
This comic is a joke parodying wedding ceremonies and American Football plays intended to misdirect or fool the opponents about what is really happening.
A standard misdirection play involves the offense misdirecting the defense into thinking that the play being executed is actually a different play: for example, a passing play could actually be a running play, or that a ball being run left is actually being run right, or that a field goal or punt end up being attempted to get a down .
In this comic, Cueball is about to get married to Amy, a girl looking like Megan , but the bride interrupts the ritual by saying that she doesn't want to get married. The bride then reveals herself to be a Cueball-like man and after questioning reveals that the relationship and the wedding was an elaborate con to get the advantage on the football field. "Amy" turns out to be a player for the opposing team and he had a football on his person. He then proceeds to run the ball in for a touchdown. This clearly constitutes the greatest high school football misdirection play of all time .
Randall takes the deception in a misdirection play to the next, virtually impossible level; it is unlikely that a relationship could develop to the point of marriage within the time-frame of a football game, with "the groom" not noticing that Amy was in fact a football player, or that he was standing on the football field.
The title text indicates that, in spite of the deception, "the groom" still has feelings and is not ready to give up the relationship (or at least he would like to share a beer with the opposing team like after a friendly game). Alternatively, as it is unclear who is speaking, "the bride" may have also developed feelings for "the groom" and is now awkwardly asking for a date after deceiving "the groom."
Occasionally, especially at the high school level, extreme misdirection plays are attempted where teams try to misdirect the opposing team into thinking that a play is not even being run. Good examples of that can be found on YouTube, such as this "wrong ball" trick , or that "five more yards" trick . Despite conforming to the rules of the game, these are considered to be dirty tricks and usually only work in little league football.
[A bride in full wedding dress, that looks like Megan, and Cueball with a bow-tie as the groom stand next to each other. Each has a hand outstretched toward the other.] Officiator (off panel): Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband? Bride: ...No.
[Cueball steps back in surprise. The bride removes a wig to reveal that she is in fact a Cueball-like man.] Groom: What? Amy!? Man: I'm not Amy. None of this was real. You're back in senior year. It's the big game.
[Cueball puts his hands to his head in confusion. The man holds up an American football, still holding the wig in his other hand.] Cueball: What is this!? Man: The greatest high school football misdirection play of all time.
[Cueball puts his hands to his mouth as the man in the wedding dress begins to run backwards, away from him holding up the ball.]
[Cueball remains frozen in horror as the man turns and dashes toward the goalpost in the distance.]


Sketchiness

Explanation:
Sketchy is an adjective meaning not thorough or detailed, but which in modern slang is often used to connote creepiness, or a general feeling that something is not quite right. Urban Dictionary provides a good definition of "someone or something that gives off a bad feeling".
In this comic, Randall rates words by how sketchy they make the sentence "Hey baby, wanna come back to my sex ____?" when inserted into the blank. As noted from the scale (which already starts at "sketchy" and goes up to "very sketchy"), the sentence itself is already inherently sketchy, in that it sounds like it would be a pickup line delivered by a person attempting to solicit sex from a stranger.
The sketchiness is increased by the various words which run from the relatively common or understood to the obscure and unusual.
The first few are actual terminology: A sex party or sex orgy are basically group sex parties at which multiple parties engage in sexual activity. A sex dungeon is a location where BDSM (bondage/submission — think leather and handcuffs) activity is engaged in. "Sex House" is the name of an Onion News Network parody of reality shows like Big Brother.
As the scale increases, the words become simply locations where sex might take place, which increase from comfortable to unusual and creepy (i.e. sex crate, sex ravine, sex tarp). It is particularly sketchy because of the phrasing of the sentence which implies the speaker has a specific [insert word] used for sex. It might be sketchy enough to walk up to someone and suggest "let's go down in the ravine and have sex", but it is made sketchier when the phrasing suggests going to "my sex ravine".
The title text continues the thought process with further possible sketchy words, beginning with more odd locations and moving on to "onslaught", an abundant wave of attack or overwhelming amount of something — in this case sex; "extractor" suggests some sort of device that might force someone to have sex; and finally "judge", suggesting the speaker has someone in mind to judge sex. Very sketchy indeed.
[A timeline style graph.] WORDS Arranged by how sketchy they make the sentence ´´HEY BABY, WANNA COME BACK TO MY SEX ________?`` sketchy <--------> very sketchy party --- orgy --- dungeon --- palace --- house --- shrine --- room --- basement --- truck --- platform --- van --- area --- crate --- chute --- ravine --- tarp


Fastest-Growing

Explanation:
This comic talks about the misuse of percentage of growth. It can be misleading for gauging the importance or popularity of something; If you add only 4 members to an existing group of 2, you would have achieved a growth of 200 percent.
In the case portrayed in this comic the claim appears to be that the other person's religion grew by 85%. Black Hat attempts humorously to show the flaw in using that statistic by growing his group by 100% (therefore, presumably, first place), which he simply does by adding his friend Rob to his religion, and thus increasing his membership from 1 to 2. The other person then says that his religion has a significant number of members (and not just one or two, but ended up with 35,000 this year, presumably having 'only' around 20,540 in the prior one), but Black Hat doesn't care and responds that he hopes they are all okay with being "in second place" since the main argument from the other guy was about being the fastest-growing.
The title text ponders the ironic idea of converting only the zealous door-to-door proselytizers to a very persuasive religion of one's own.
Another interpretation is that the title text could be another way that Black Hat could take the 'fastest-growing' claim out of context to make it meaningless. By composing his religion of the unwitting proselytizers of other faiths, he can claim the highest ratio of converts to current adherents. Note that the amount of people converted is often exaggerated by groups that try to spread a faith. Although the beliefs spread by his proselytizers vary widely, Black Hat is not concerned with what his so-called followers believe. Thus, he can claim the title of fastest-growing religion without having any value to his religion.
Various religions and groups encourage their members to actively recruit new followers, such as the Mormon missionary .
[A man with a combover, a book, and a clipboard approaches Black Hat.] Combover: You should check us out. We're the fastest-growing religion in the country. Black Hat: "Fastest-growing" is such a dubious claim. Combover: It's true! We grew by 85% over the past year.
[In a frameless panel, Black Hat shouts to someone out of frame.] Black Hat: Hey, Rob — wanna join my religion? Rob: Sure, whatever.
[Black Hat turns back to Combover and produces a notepad and pen.] Black Hat: Well, looks like my religion grew by 100% this year.
[Black Hat begins to walk away.] Combover: We have 38,000 members! Black Hat: Hope they're all ok with second place.


Nine

Explanation:
Most common cook times are given in either whole, half, or quarter minute increments; e.g., 2:00 min. or 1:30 min, meaning that 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 0 are the most used digits on the microwave (because microwave times are usually less than 6 minutes), and to use numbers like 6, 7, 8, or 9, one would have to cook something for that number of minutes. Cueball, however, feels bad for the under-used number '9,' so he microwaves his food for one minute fifty-nine seconds instead of two minutes, as a one-second difference is negligible.
Also, in Randall's book Thing Explainer, every number from one to ten are in the top thousand most used words except nine, which is labeled "the number after eight", "one more than eight", or (when referring to the Ninth Amendment ) "Change After Eight". This shows how the other numbers are used much more than nine.
The title text is reminiscent of comic 245: Floor Tiles .
[Cueball stands at a microwave, which hangs on the wall above the stove.] Cueball: How long do you zap these? Character off-frame: Two minutes. Cueball: Thanks! [Buttons being pushed.] *Beep* 1 *Beep* 5 *Beep* 9 Cueball: It's ok, nine. Cueball: You are not forgotten.
[Caption below the frame:] Ever since I heard the simile "As neglected as the nine button on the microwave." I've found myself adjusting cook times.
The disproportionately high frequency of low digits appearing in a random number is a similar concept to Benford's Law , which states that the lower a non-zero digit is, the more likely it will appear as the first (non-zero) digit of a random number; eg, you are far more likely to encounter a number beginning with the digit 1 than a number whose first digit is 9. However, in the case of microwaves, the reason low digits are usually at the beginning of the number is more due to the relatively short times used on microwaves, whereas Benford's Law has to do with logarithmic scale. And in the case of microwaves, 3s and 0s have an increased likelihood of appearing in later digits because times are usually given in units of minutes or half-minutes, and while it is possible to extend Benford's Law to a few digits beyond the first digit, there is certainly no preference for 3 over other digits.
Taken together, one could probably infer that the amount of time something is cooked in an oven, which is usually longer than things are cooked in a microwave, is more likely to include early digits such as 0, 1, 2, and 3 as opposed to digits such as 7, 8, and 9.


Feathers

Explanation:
Dinosaurs have been a fascinating topic in popular science and have captivated children's interest since the first fossils were discovered in modern times, around the 1700s; prior discoveries in China and elsewhere were thought to be the bones of dragons or other mythical creatures. The success of the Jurassic Park movies perpetuated an erroneous understanding of the physical characteristics of dinosaurs. Since the first movie of that series, scientific evidence has emerged suggesting that Dromaeosauridae , or " raptors ", the main antagonists of that movie, looked quite different from their animatronic and CGI versions. In particular, they are now known to have been much smaller, and are believed to have had feathers and even wings, as evidenced by quill nobs observed on the arms of raptors.
Denver W. Fowler is among the scientists who support this hypothesis. (incidentally, a " Fowler " is a hunter of wildfowl/birds) The comic refers to a publication by him and his colleagues (" et al. "), in the PLoS ONE , an online scientific journal ("PLoS" stands for "Public Library of Science").
Megan believes this new model of the appearance of raptors makes them much less cool, but the way in which Science Girl reformulates the facts to make them seem like even more vicious predators re-ignites her interest and makes the new raptors seem like at least as good a candidate for a good action thriller movie like the original version, if not better. Thus the phrase "the past keeps getting cooler". (Or that Megan, like Randall, has an irrational fear of raptors and is updating her knowledge of them.)
Clicking on the original cartoon links to a YouTube video of a bird of prey (in this case a Secretarybird ) using its wings for stability while standing on top of a struggling prey, from which one can easily envision instead a raptor upon its prey—especially in case of some kind of "raptorphobia", as for Randall (see 87: Velociraptors and 135: Substitute ). Microraptor was a small raptor with four wings, which lets you imagine even scarier scenes.
The same idea is later explored from a different perspective in 1527: Humans .
[Megan is walking up to Science Girl with a bow in her hair bun. Science Girl has a stack of three books in front of her, is reading another book and a fifth book lies behind her on the floor.] Megan: What are you reading about? Science Girl: Dinosaurs! Megan: Oh, yeah.
[Zoom out of the same scene, with Megan standing and Science Girl looking up at her.] Megan: They've gotten all weird since when I was a kid. Megan: They used to be awesome, but now they all have dorky feathers, right? Science Girl: Yup!
[Same scene in a frame-less panel. Science Girl looks down and below the two characters there is a footnote.] Science Girl: This says they now think raptors used their wings for stability, flapping to stay on top of their prey while hanging on with their hooked claws and eating it alive. *Fowler et. al., PLoS ONE 6(12), 2011
[Zoom in on the same scene, the book on the floor is outside the panel. Megan just stands staring at Science Girl who reads on. Beat panel.]
[Megan is now on the floor next to Science Girl flipping through the top book she has taken from the pile.]


License Plate

Explanation:
Cueball has obtained a new license plate . The license plate number one receives is often the next in sequence, available at the time and place of registration. However, in many localities, for an additional fee one can select their own "personalized" license plate number (called a vanity plate ), subject to certain criteria, and availability.
In this comic, Cueball has elected to purchase the personalized license plate number "1I1-III1" or "one, letter I, one, dash, letter I, letter I, letter I and one". He believes the ambiguity between the letter I and the digit 1 on the plate will make it very difficult for anyone to correctly identify his vehicle if he commits a crime. Some localities have more distinct "1" and "I" characters in their license plate font than others, but often when a crime is committed witnesses only has a short time to look at the plate, and will then be confused.
In principle his idea did work, because when the police end up interviewing a witness of a crime scene in the end of the comic, he can only say that "The thief's license plate was all "1"s or something". What Cueball does not count on is that there are no other license plates made up entirely of the letter I and the digit 1. Thus, when witnesses report a vehicle with a license plate of either/or I's and 1's, the police know exactly who the perpetrator is.
Given the fact that the police still haven't caught him even though they have his address written on a Post-it note in their car, it seems like they had already thought of the same idea, and when Cueball registered such a license plate they put up the address in the police cars, as they expected him to begin committing crimes. He may already have committed more than one, but they would soon stop him before it turned into a crime spree.  (An alternative interpretation is that his crime spree has so far consisted of minor offenses, so they haven't arrested him, just issued him warnings or citations -- although one would expect him to stop once it became obvious they were onto him.)
Someone in New Hampshire appears to have done this in real life.
The title text appears to be a conversation between Cueball and the police the next day when they show up at his address. It turns out that the police suspect Cueball of six bank robberies. Cueball responds that "all" he did was vandalize the library. But the police disregard this as a nice try to avoid being arrested because witnesses saw a license plate with all 1's and I's was used.  Cueball does not understand this because he was with his car the entire time since he got the license plate. And just as he says this, he has an epiphany and states wait. OK, wow that was clever of her . It is thus clear that he suspects that Megan of having made a false license plate also with only a combination of I's and 1's. And then she has robbed six banks knowing that the police would be sure to suspect Cueball, who was so foolish to show his criminal intent by registering such a plate in the first place.
Knowing that the police will assume the car is his, she has thus framed him. Hopefully for Cueball, he can prove he was not involved in the robberies, but if the police assumed that he was the one that committed the crimes, they may not have taken so much care in collecting evidence the first day of the crimes. This will have given Megan time to run away with all the money, as no one was looking for her. So she may well have left the country with no one looking for a woman. This will make it more difficult for Cueball to avoid the blame.
It is clear that Megan would not be so stupid as to register another plate, because then they would know that there could be more than one criminal. Also she would not have had time to get it, if the crime spree began soon after Cueball showed the plate to her. But if the fake plate makes people tell about the 1s and Is then the police would not ask further and discover that the plate might have looked fake.
Note the yellow police line seems to say Police strip do not cross , where Police line do not cross seems to be the only sentence used normally (unless it is crime scene do not cross , but that also does not fit). (Of course, this could be a pun about the fact that this occurrence is a comic strip .)
[Cueball is walking in from the right holding a license plate up with both hands for an off-panel Megan to see. It is possible to see the plate, but here it looks like all I's (or 1's).] Cueball: Check out my personalized license plate! Megan (off-panel): "1I1-III1"? Cueball: It's perfect! Plate: III-IIII
[In this frame-less panel Megan is sitting in an office chair holding and looking at the plate while Cueball stand next to her rubbing his hands together in front of him.] Cueball: No one will be able to correctly record my plate number! Cueball: I can commit any crime I want! Megan: Sounds foolproof.
[A man with hair only around his neg and glasses holds out a hand towards a bald male police officer with a black peaked cap with white emblem on the front. The police man interviews their witness holding a notepad and a pen. Another likewise caped female officer is Ponytail who walks to the left arm pointing left. There is a line of yellow police tape behind them with text partially obscured by the characters. At the top left of the panel there is a small frame with a caption:] Soon: Witness: The thief's license plate was all "1"s or something. Police officer: Oh. That guy. Ponytail: His address is on a post-it in the squad car. Yellow strip (text not visible in brackets): Poli[ce strip] do not cross [poli]ce stri[p do not] cross.


ADD

Explanation:
This comic appears to be a visual representation of the thought process of someone with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Various of Cueball's thoughts or tasks that he must do are represented by balloons which are rising out of his reach. He holds the "math problem" balloon and grabs the "call mom" balloon, but notices "check oven" is rising out of his reach. He abandons the two balloons he holds to dive and grab the "check oven" balloon. Of course, this allows the other two to rise, presumably out of Cueball's reach, as the pullout reveals a plethora of other balloons already rising too high, some of which describe actions required to live, like balloons marked "breathe" or "drink water".
This represents how someone with ADD quickly drops one task to take on another, only to jump to yet another task before that one is done; or alternatively, it represents how the person with ADD feels; that while they are focusing on one task, 20 others are getting away from them. The title text further reinforces this, noting that while committing to actually complete one task (represented by tying a balloon to a tree), 20 others floated away. The task he chose to complete is (as stereotypical for someone with ADD), a task that results in no necessary accomplishment — the task is to land a rocket on the moon (Mun) in Kerbal Space Program , a PC-based spaceflight simulator and video game. Additional humour comes from the fact that landing a rocket on the moon in Kerbal Space Program would require a lot of repetition through trial-and-error, making a long and involved task during which many other important tasks might be ignored normally.
[Cueball is holding a balloon with "Math Problem" written on it. He is running to grab a balloon labeled "Call Mom" that is floating away.]
[Cueball is now holding both balloons, but looks over his shoulder and sees a balloon that reads "Check Oven".] Cueball: !!
[Cueball releases the balloons he had been holding and runs for the third.]
[Cueball jumps for the "Check Oven" balloon and snatches it just before it is out of reach.] LEAP Cueball: Hah!
[Full width panel showing 16 balloons floating away and one Cueball is holding. The balloons are different sizes and colors, labeled as follows from left to right. Listed as * Label - color] Parking Meter - blue Taxes - green Buy Soap - red Phone Call - green Relax - yellow Inbox - blue Clean - red Beat Game - green Feed Cat - yellow Drink Water - blue Call Mom - red Math Problem - green Send Card - red Check Oven (Cueball is holding this one still) - yellow Engine Light - yellow Read - blue Breathe - blue