Virus Consulting

Explanation:
This comic is another in a series of comics related to the COVID-19 pandemic , specifically regarding the COVID-19 vaccine .
This comic imagines a scenario where Ponytail works for a consulting firm , which offers advice about viruses, specifically COVID-19. Ponytail tells a panel of people (the government?), consisting of Hairbun , Cueball and Megan , that though they are worried about COVID-19 variants , the fact that the number of people vaccinated is increasing considerably is a good sign. Hairbun then accuses Ponytail's firm of simply "telling them what they want to hear", accusing her firm of giving them false hope to make them keep retaining her firm.
The punchline comes in the final panel where it turns out that Ponytail's colleague, Black Hat , is consulting a different set of clients, which are the viruses themselves. He presents the exact same graph to the viruses and gives them the opposite message: though COVID-19 variants seem to be exciting to them, vaccination numbers are terrible news to their propagation and survival. This repeats the idea of 2287: Pathogen Resistance where the pandemic is seen from the virus' perspective. As in that previous comic, it is the virus that is in a lot of trouble, which is another way of saying that humanity stands a good chance of surviving this situation. (That humanity will survive is also good for the virus, which needs living humans so that it can spread.) This is not the first time that Black Hat has given advice to natural disasters that can kill humans, see 1754: Tornado Safety Tips .
The fact that another member of Ponytail's firm is telling clients that they should be worried is what Ponytail refers to when claiming that her firm does not simply tell clients what they want to hear.
Secondarily, the comic is making fun of the perception that consulting firms will offer their services to whoever can pay, even if they are harmful to society, a perception with some basis in fact .
Around the time of the comic, several SARS-CoV-2 variants , commonly called "COVID variants", had been in the news. The SARS-CoV-2 virus had already been seen to have mutated into many different strains, some of which spread more easily among humans. It was still unknown whether the different variants have a greater individual fatality rate. The contemporary SARS-CoV-2 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna as well as the Regeneron therapeutic monoclonal antibodies all effectively protect against at least the New York ( Lineage B.1.526 ), South African ( Lineage B.1.351 ), and U.K. ( Lineage B.1.1.7 ) variants according to two recent study preprints released April 22, 2021. Further research and peer review was ongoing.
Since the original date of this comic, the common practice changed from describing variants by geographic origins. Variants Of Concern and Variants Of Interest might indeed have arisen spontaneously in the place where their changes had first been detected in (or most directly traced back to), but there was no good reason to perpetuate a stigma upon any particular region. Instead, greek letter-names were applied to the major variations. (For the above noted versions "New York" became Iota, that South African version was identified as Beta, and U.K. (or "Kent") had been assigned as Alpha.) Not all lettered VOCs/VOIs became major players on the global stage, but by by November 2021, the ' alphabet ' had reached Omicron (the fifteenth letter but the thirteenth actually used, having just skipped the letters "nu" and "xi" to avoid undesirable sound-alike associations) and, while there is still much to study, this seems to have the capability of greater transmissability and retransmissability (even in the vaccinated) but, initially at least, also lower illness/hospitality/mortality rate. All these factors have reinforced the potential for the Omicron variety to spread more easily in the human population, as more of an endemic than a pandemic, and thus also to dominate the field against its fellow viral variations.
(The "BA.2" sub-varient of Omicron has been seen to be again more dangerous and resistant to preventative/theraputic treatment than the prior Omicron but, as of April 2022, calls by some to give it a Virus Of Concern letter (probably "Pi") have not yet been acted upon.)
Possibly, with hindsight, this actually suggests that Black Hat's caution (and perhaps subsequent advice) has been taken on board by the respective clients. On the other hand, it could be equally true that humanity is just becoming more blasé, or just overly weary of repeating lockdowns/masks/etc, and is no longer fulfilling the original good practice. But all this is in the future, for the comic, and even this explanation doesn't yet know how how it will turn out.
Back in the original comic's time, the title text notes that the firm's "virus division" (the group advising the viruses themselves) has started to get worried that their jobs are becoming obsolete, due to vaccine efficacy. Thus, they are demanding to be paid "up front", before consulting/advising services have been rendered to their clients. Dependent upon the expectations of each party, payment can be asked for "up front", deferred for invoicing once services have been rendered, or a combination of the two. The weaker party to a contract may need to submit their transaction, or a guarantor, before the other spends too much effort in fulfilling their side of the contract.
[Ponytail stands in front a chart, with a labeled graph with an upward-curving line at the top, and several box-and-whisker plots below, with unreadable text and labels. She is holding a pointer towards the plot while addressing a panel in front of her to the left. The panel is seated behind a desk and is composed of Hairbun, Cueball and Megan. Cueball has one arm on the desk.] Ponytail: Now, I know you're worried about the variants, but this graph should be encouraging. Ponytail: Your rollout is going well. The vaccines are good. They work. Label on graph: Vaccinations
[Same setting in a narrower panel without the chart. Ponytail has the pointer to her side. Cueball has his arms under the desk as the other two.] Hairbun: You're just telling us what we want to hear. Ponytail: If you think that, you should see the reports from my colleagues who work for COVID.
[Close-up of Ponytail in a very narrow panel.] Off-screen voice: They work for who?? Ponytail: Our firm has lots of clients.
[Black Hat stands in front of an identical chart as in panel one, and points to it with a pointer in the same way as Ponytail did. Only he is looking to the right at his clients. He is speaking to a panel of three large coronaviruses, two of which floats above the desk, the middle one is partly below the desk. Across the top frame of the panel there is a box with a caption:] Meanwhile... Black Hat: Now, I know you're excited about the variants, but this graph should be terrifying. Black Hat: We're in real trouble here. Label on graph: Vaccinations


Types of Scientific Paper

Explanation:
In this comic, Randall describes categories of scientific papers with somewhat humorous generalized titles.
[Heading:] Types of Scientific Paper
[An array of 4 rows with 3 scientific papers each, is shown. We see the first page of each paper, but only its title is legible. Headings are shown as black lines, paragraphs of text are shown as several squiggly lines and figures are shown as empty white rectangles. Titles are as follows:] We put a camera somewhere new Hey, I found a trove of old records! They don't turn out to be particularly useful, but still, cool! My colleague is wrong and I can finally prove it The immune system is at it again We figured out how to make this exotic material, so email us if you need some What are fish even doing down there This task I had to do anyway turned out to be hard enough for its own paper Hey, at least we showed that this method can produce results! That's not nothing, right? Check out this weird thing one of us saw while out for a walk We are 500 scientists and here's what we've been up to for the last 10 years Some thoughts on how everyone else is bad at research We scanned some undergraduates
The comic inspired many derivatives, changing the paper titles to be more relevant to specific fields.
The hashtag #TypesOfScientificPapers on Twitter includes many of these.
There is a generator .
There is a moodboard compiling hundreds of them .
Some examples include:


After the Pandemic

Explanation:
This comic is another in a series of comics related to the COVID-19 pandemic .
There is no hidden humor in this comic, it simply states an opinion. Randall is saying that he is looking forward to not having to wear a mask everywhere after the pandemic is over.  Mask mandates were a common way various organizations reduced the spread of Covid-19.  Now that the vaccines exist, people are assuming that these mask mandates will soon end, and in many jurisdictions they have already.
However, Randall hopes that people will continue to wear a mask when they are sick, as is common in many East Asian countries.  This lets other people know the person may be sick, or trying to avoid becoming sick, so they can give the person extra distance.  Wearing a mask reduces the spread of infectious droplets when one exhales or coughs, and reduces exposure to droplets from others.  Both features help reduce the spread of communicable diseases.  Also, Randall thinks other people coughing on him is gross, as do most people.
Masking when ill would help reduce influenza, tuberculosis and colds.  The flu is a deadly disease that usually kills tens of thousands of people each year.
People with less common diseases, like tuberculosis, may be more likely to wear a mask if mask wearing becomes more common, so they don't feel as conspicuous. For less severe illnesses and less vulnerable populations xkcd's wish may not be such a good idea, as every cold - albeit unpleasant - constantly trains the immune system and keeps it alert. [1]
The title text continues this line of reasoning by saying Randall wants to worry less about COVID-19, but hopes people would worry more about colds. Colds are generally mild and might cause someone to spend a few days home sick from work or school. However, colds cost tens of billions of dollars annually in the US.  Costs include the value of lost productivity at work or school, time spent caring for the sick, cost of doctor visits and medications.  Inappropriate treatment of colds with antibiotics is common, and contributes to the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria , and clostridium difficile infections . [2] .
Randall has made a specific corona comic targeted at colds before: 2306: Common Cold . And in 2015 he probably had a severe cold (or more than one) as he published these two comics 1612: Colds and 1618: Cold Medicine in December 2015.


Bubble Wrap

Explanation:
Bubble wrap is packing material made by melting two sheets of plastic together with little pockets of air (the "bubbles") spread throughout the surface. It is wrapped around fragile items for moving or shipping because the air pockets act as a cushion if the item(s) within are struck or shaken. Many people enjoy popping bubble wrap as a mindless hobby, perhaps due to the tactility and other sensations of each bubble makes as it bursts.
The premise behind this comic is that the air inside each bubble comes from the factory where it was made, and thus as each bubble is popped that air — along with anything in it — is released. If one had a very sensitive sense of smell, one could detect unique odors present in the factory at the time not present where you are popping the bubble wrap. The comic has Cueball smelling WD-40 (a penetrating oil likely to be found where machines are running), diesel fumes (likely found where trucks drop off supplies or pick up product) and what he thinks is sea air, causing him to muse that the factory is by the ocean.
In reality, the air inside most factories is much like the air anywhere else. [ citation needed ] This is particularly true for modern factories which are much cleaner than the popular conception of a dirty, smelly factory from early in the days of industrialization. One would be unlikely to distinctly smell WD-40 or diesel fumes standing in such a factory unless it was right after or right near they were used. It would be even less likely to them smell them when the minuscule amounts of air in the bubbles was then diluted in the larger amount of air surrounding you when they are popped. Furthermore, although the comic suggests popping the bubbles gives one a "tour" of the factory, in fact all of the air added to the bubbles would only come from air near the machine where the wrap is made. It would be even less likely to pick up smells from other parts of the factory such as diesel fumes from the loading docks, since air is not added to bubble wrap there.
Although this scenario is unlikely given human olfactory ability, scientists with very sensitive equipment have done essentially this with ice cores. As ice is laid down in places such as the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets, it traps small bubbles from the atmosphere at the time within it. As long as the ice remains frozen, those bubbles remain trapped and do not interact with the current atmosphere, preserving a record of the chemical composition of the air in the past. There have been many scientific expeditions to drill ice cores and then melt pieces of them in a laboratory where special equipment can analyze the ancient air as it is released to study the quantity of oxygen and CO2 within in. The deeper the core is drilled, the farther in the past the sample.
The title text references David Attenborough , who is famous for having narrated many influential documentaries for the BBC about life on earth. He is renowned for having brought science into the homes of tens of millions. The title text humorously suggests that Cueball thinks his "narration" about what he smells in the bubble wrap is as important and distinguished as Attenborough's award winning work.
[Cueball is holding a large piece of bubble wrap in both hands, clearly pressing one of the bubbles with his fingers so it pops, indicated with several small lines going away from that spot, and a sound.] Cueball: Hmm... Cueball: WD-40, diesel fumes... Cueball: And is that sea air? I guess they're near the ocean. Bubble wrap: Pop
[Caption below the panel:] If your sense of smell is good enough, popping bubble wrap gives you a tour of a bubble wrap factory.


March 2020

Explanation:
This comic is another in a series of comics related to the COVID-19 pandemic , specifically regarding the COVID-19 vaccine .
This comic shows 15 calendars and Cueball next to them. The first three months on the calendar are January, February and March 2020. It would be expected that the months would increase in order, but the calendar month stays at March 2020 until the final panel of the comic, where it switches to May 2021, the month this comic was released, indicating that Cueball is "stuck" in March 2020 for more than a year. The COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States in March 2020 and Cueball (probably representing Randall ) may feel that he has been unable to move on with life, or that time was at a standstill until he was fully vaccinated. It is plausible that Randall was past the two weeks after his final vaccination when this comic came out. He has made several comics centered around that of being fully vaccinated in the weeks up to this comic. Specifically 2450: Post Vaccine Social Scheduling and 2454: Fully Vaccinated in April.
In the penultimate 2 panels, Cueball is shown getting his two doses of the vaccine, with Ponytail and Hairy administering the vaccine. Also these two panels are in March 2020, but in reality they are most likely in March 2021 and April 2021, as there are typically 3-6 weeks between first and second dose depending on the type of vaccine. In the final panel, the calendar has switched to the current month, May 2021, showing that Cueball can now resume life after getting vaccinated, and most likely having passed the two weeks after final shot mark.
The title text references 630: Time Travel , another time-related comic. While it’s technically true that the vaccines were brought from the year 2020, it was through the ordinary “one day per day” form of time travel illustrated in this earlier comic.
Interestingly, there are only 15 panels, so if the 'normal' months increased in sync, it would "only" be March 2021, not May 2021. This may refer to the strange distortion of time during the COVID-19 pandemic . Clearly 17 panels would have made more sense when counting months, but the point here is that time has been at a standstill the last 14 months from March 2020 to April 2021; how many panels represents those 14 month (14, 12 or 10) is not important. Using 15 panels, makes the first 3 and the last 3 stand out from the 9 in the middle, which makes sense from the flow of the comic.
[In a 3 column by 5 row grid of panels, 15 monthly wall calendars are shown. All calendars have a large header with month and year given on two lines. Below this is a black border with 7 white lines, for each day of the week, and below that 5 rows with 7 columns, making all calendars the same, with 35 spaces. Nothing is shown in these grids. Next to each of these calendars Cueball is shown. In the first 12 panels, Cueball is standing next to the calendar, in only slightly different poses. The text on the calendars only change in the top row, then it stays the same for the next nine panels:] Calendar: January 2020 Calendar: February 2020 Calendar: March 2020 Calendar: March 2020 Calendar: March 2020 Calendar: March 2020 Calendar: March 2020 Calendar: March 2020 Calendar: March 2020 Calendar: March 2020 Calendar: March 2020 Calendar: March 2020
[In the bottom row's first panel the calendar is, as always, to the left, but now Cueball is wearing a mask and sitting on a chair leaning a bit to the left while he is being vaccinated by a masked Ponytail to his right. She is inserting the needle into his left arm. To the right is a tall but small table with the vial from which she has drawn the vaccine standing next to the lid of the vial.] Calendar: March 2020
[The bottom row's second panel is similar to the previous with Cueball wearing a mask and sitting on a chair leaning a bit to the left while he is being vaccinated - although this time by a masked Hairy, standing to his right. Hairy is also inserting the needle into his left arm. To the right is a different small table, with only one leg. On it is a vial from which Hairy has drawn the vaccine. Also some other black things are lying on the table, maybe other syringes for administrating the vaccine.] Calendar: March 2020
[In the final panel Cueball again stands next to the calendar, but finally the text has changed.] Calendar: May 2021


Vaccinated

Explanation:
This comic is another in a series of comics related to the COVID-19 pandemic , specifically regarding the COVID-19 vaccine .
Hooray, Cueball and Megan are finally fully vaccinated! This means that they are now able to socialize within society, as they are unafraid of being infected by COVID or spreading COVID to others.
However, the punchline lies in the fact that Cueball and Megan have never been good with social interactions , and are still unsure of how to do this.
The title text continues with this theme, as Cueball (or Megan?) is good at building mathematical models to know when it is safe to attend parties (and other large gatherings), but the issue remains that they are not commonly invited to these events, or are socially awkward when attending them.
[Cueball is holding his phone up, looking at the bright screen (indicated with lines emanating from the screen). Megan stands next to him looking down at his phone.] Cueball: It's official: We're fully vaccinated. Megan: It doesn't feel real.
[Cueball has put his phone away, and they are looking at each other.] Cueball: I can't wait to hang out with friends again. Megan: Seriously.
[In a frame-less panel they are just standing next to each other, but looking away from each other.]
[They look back at each other and continue the conversation.] Cueball: So, uh...how do we... Megan: I was hoping you knew. Cueball: I'm realizing now, I was hazy on this before the pandemic.


90's Kid Space Program

Explanation:
The "launch system" is just one of the rubber popper toys popular in the 1990s. These toys are little rubber hemispheres, about 1" (25 mm) in diameter and 1/8" (3 mm) thick. When turned inside-out and placed on a hard surface, they will, after a short wait, snap back to their original shape, popping up into the air. The joke is that kids who grew up with these toys will think they're a great idea to propel a space ship to orbit, when in fact the toys launch at mere tens of kilometers per hour, far short of the thousands needed to reach orbital speed [ citation needed ] . But now kids playing with these are those that make rockets, hence the title 90's Kid Space Program (KSP).
Even if the popper-based propulsion system could generate enough acceleration to reach orbit, the abrupt impulse would likely cause serious harm to any astronauts.
The title text implies that many working now at NASA were 90s kids. Both categories would include Randall , as he was born in 1984 and previously worked at NASA.
The title is a reference to the Kerbal Space Program (KSP) which has been a recurring theme on xkcd, and it has previously been hinted at that NASA's employees uses this program in 1244: Six Words and 2204: Ksp 2 . And also that you learn more about orbital Mechanics by using KSP than from being hired by NASA in 1356: Orbital Mechanics .
[A command and service module representing the tip of a spacecraft, is attached by four long trusses to four equidistant points on the edge of a giant light green pepper (a green "hill" with a round raised edge around it).  The popper is in its inverted configuration, ready to pop. There is a caption beneath the panel:] The 90's Kid Space Program prepares for their first orbital launch


NASA Award

Explanation:
In this comic Hairy is awarded a " Nobel Prize " by NASA , represented by Ponytail handing him the award, as well as Cueball and Megan . He receives this award because he has found "life on Mars" by looking at NASA's images from their Mars missions. Hairy looks at his prize, and remarks that it is just a rock on a ribbon. To this Ponytail replies that from a certain angle... implying that if he looks hard enough the rock might look like a Nobel Prize. Just like Hairy, by looking at the pictures in the right way, found something that looked like life on Mars.
This comic jabs at poorly-supported claims of discovering alien life, particularly when instances of pareidolia are used as "evidence" of such life. Pareidolia is the tendency for perception to spuriously impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous visual stimulus, for example a rock that is interpreted as a face. A famous example is the Face on Mars , a 2km long hill that can be said to resemble the face of a human when viewed on low resolution images, at a specific angle and lighting conditions. At the time some people claimed this was proof of an ancient Martian civilization. Later higher resolution images showed that the face was an optical illusion.
Rocks make for poor prizes as they make for poor evidence [ citation needed ] , and looking from different angles is of no use for either.
If you're actively looking for patterns in large amounts of data (especially if it's any pattern, largely undefined until it is 'found') then you are likely to dismiss all the data that does not support your preconceived ideas and seize upon the small randomnesses that you have managed to trawl though and classify as 'interesting'.  This is an example of Confirmation Bias . It's possible that the featured NASA personnel specifically sifted rocks looking for one that looked like an award.
The title text explains how you find life on Mars. Just access other people's images that have been taken on Mars, and look for plants and animals. This is lampooning the simplistic notion that life on Mars would be detected by looking at photos at all.  In reality, all extraterrestrial life (in this solar system at least) is almost certainly microscopic.  The notion of detecting it by studying photos of the Martian surface is just as absurd as the idea of looking at the photos and expecting to see dogs and trees and other familiar macroscopic lifeforms.
Building a camera and landing it on Mars is what NASA does with their Mars rovers and other Mars missions. The camera is a small part of the entire mission, though an important part. But this is why the title text talks about landing the camera on Mars. The space probes are the cameras.
[Cueball, Ponytail, Hairy, and Megan stand on a two tiered platform. Ponytail and Hairy are are on the top step, with Cueball and Megan standing on the lower step looking up at the other two. Ponytail holds a necklace with a rock attached to the end up in both hands offering it to Hairy.] Ponytail: We're honored to present you with this Nobel Prize! Hairy: That's just a rock. Ponytail: Yeah, but from a certain angle...
[Caption beneath the panel]: NASA has a new award for people on the internet who claim to find life in their Mars photos.


Astrophotography

Explanation:
Astrophotography is the practice of taking pictures of astronomical objects.  Sometimes it is specified as a hobby, as opposed to the work of professional astronomers.  Astrophotographers like to take pretty pictures of all sorts of objects in the sky, but photographing the Sun is a popular subgenre within the field, especially if something is transiting in front of it.  Typical things include planes, the International Space Station (ISS), and the Moon ( Solar eclipses ).
During the Total Solar Eclipse 2017 visible across US it was possible to see the ISS pass in front of the Sun during a partial part of the Eclipse (from a site that was later in the total Eclipse zone.) This was photographed and filmed by Destin from Smarter Every Day and can be seen in his video Space Station Transiting 2017 ECLIPSE . (Go to the time of the flyby of the ISS in the video here ).
Two years later he did another episode South American Eclipse - Argentina . In this video there was only the moon eclipsing the sun, at first, but then towards the end the sun begins to set behind the distant mountains creating a shadow scenario between Moon and mountain shadows as displayed in this comic.
This comic thus combines those two videos, which Randall must have seen, and then adds several more layers caused by the Astrophotography community's One-Upmanship. The practice of "one-upmanship" refers to the practice of achieving something superior to what another has achieved, or "getting one up on" them. The term originated in the 1950s or earlier.
The caption claims that the photo shown in the comic is the result of a continuous string of one-upmanship among astrophotographers in a community, each striving to one-up the other.
In this comic there seems to be an abundance of things:
Taking the picture required precisely scheduling and arranging the relative positions of several of the various subjects (and photographer) to coincide with the predictable but rare conjunctions of the rest of the scene, as well as special equipment:
The title text describes a similarly outlandish photo attempting to one-up Cueball and Megan, done simultaneously on the next hill over, thus a place where the same ISS transit can be seen:
[Cueball and Megan stand on a hill with the dark yellow sun setting behind them. Outside the Sun's disc everything is black. All that can be seen is silhouettes against the sun. Cueball is at the top-left of the hill, holding a bow in his left arm, which has been recently shot, as indicated with lines along the string. The the arrow is to right, where it has speared a ball. Megan is at the bottom-right of the hill, juggling four other balls, one near her hand, two above her and one higher up than the path of the arrow. There are two planes going in opposite directions with banners on them with words readable against the Sun. Above the planes is the shadow of the International Space Station. Finally Sun is partially eclipsed by the moon in the upper right corner.] [Banner 1]: Nice [Banner 2]: Shot
[Caption beneath the panel]: Our astrophotography community's one-upsmanship[sic] is getting out of hand.


Muller's Ratchet

Explanation:
In this comic, Randall reviews a passage explaining the internet with terms associated with evolution, comparing the constant resharing and changing of popular photos to evolutionary processes, namely Muller's ratchet and recombination .
An image of Hairbun showing a cat to Cueball , who is apparently shocked, is used as an example of the subject phenomenon. This image is altered in various ways:
Recombination is the combination of genetic material from chromosomes, shuffling genes during meiosis. In this case, it is being compared to shuffling and recombining aspects of an edited digital image.
Sometimes, genetic mutation can create better genes - like the sword being given to the cat in the image. Other changes remove or degrade from the genetic history, without apparent detriment, just because the circumstances do not currently confer any significant advantage to it. If the 'lost' ability is perhaps useful in dealing with an infrequent environmental stress then the loss of its utility might be felt a generation or two later.
With recombination, useful novel changes can be shuffled into the population without necessarily bringing in a less useful mutation, creating descendents with both the obvious advantages (a sword) and the previously more established resilience (the fuller frame).
The degradation of digital images has previously been explored in 1683: Digital Data .
The title text has a double meaning, referring both to the ways these particular images on the Internet illustrate these evolutionary processes (which are driven by the mechanisms of biological reproduction, including sexual reproduction) and to the amount of erotic imagery illustrating the mechanics of sexual activity one might find on the Internet .
[A caption sits above a slightly greyed-out photo of Hairbun holding out a cat to Cueball, who has his hand over his face and is leaning away. Below are arrows leading to much smaller variations of the photo, all altered in some way.] [From left to right: Image with the sides cropped and black text bordered by white in the bottom center; image with black text in white box with black border above cat, on Hairbun, and on Cueball; image identical to the original but with softer edges; image cropped around all sides to exclude all negative space around frame, with white text bordered by black near the top and bottom center; image cropped to cut out half of Hairbun and Cueball's legs and featuring the cat holding a sword out at Cueball; image same as the original except with black text bordered by white on top of the cat, Hairbun, and Cueball; and image blurred out and at low resolution with black text in white oval on top of Hairbun and Cueball.] Caption above: When a photo goes around on social media, people create lots of new versions of it.
[A larger depiction of an image altered to cut out some of Hairbun and Cueball's legs and the cat holding a sword to the left of a caption, with a faint, shadowed wordmark saying "Made with SwordApp ] Caption: Sometimes, one of the edited versions becomes more popular and supplants the original. But often, the new version isn't made from the best copy of the image. It may be pixelated, cropped, or watermarked. [The same image appears with a more transparent box around it showing the cropped-out areas and an arrow pointing into it saying "lost". To the left is a caption.] Caption: As long as those flaws are minor enough that they don't cancel out the big change, the new version can still win out. Each good change brings with it random background damage. The degradation only goes one way. Once an image is cropped, its descendents will be, too. This steady loss of information is called Muller's Ratchet . [The original photo and the edited replacement are side-by-side, with the original on the right and the replacement on the left. The area above the cat where the sword is shown in the replacement is circled with a dotted line in both images. In the original, the area inside is greyed out, and in the replacement, the entire image is greyed out except for that area.] [Arrows point from the emphasized parts of both images to a new photo below that combines the original image with the sword from the replacement. The dotted line is still present. A caption sits to the left.] Caption: But there's a solution. The old versions are still around, so if you have an image editor that lets you splice together parts of two images, you can make a new version with the best parts of both. This process is called recombination... ] [All previous panels are grouped in one large panel, with a caption below the entire frame] Caption: People use evolutionary metaphors to explain the spread of internet content, but at this point we have so much more experience with the internet that I feel like it often makes more sense the other way around.


Dimensional Chess

Explanation:
Being good at chess is often regarded as a sign of high intelligence. A skilled player must be able to consider possibilities several moves in advance, which can be represented as an exponentially growing tree of possibilities.  The branching factor of chess, the approximate number of legal moves available at any given time, is about thirty-five, although most players (human and computer) will use heuristics to prune the trees to regard only likely or promising moves.  Expanding the playing field by generalizing to three-dimensional chess (or beyond) will increase the branching factor even further, and so someone who is able to competently play three-dimensional chess could be regarded as even more intelligent than someone who can only play two-dimensional chess. Making chess into an N -dimensional game thus makes it arbitrarily more difficult, even before Randall's addition of non-uniform dimensionality of the board.
Regarding Randall's rule that "every row has one more dimension than the one behind it," it is easiest to see how this is applied with the first two rows on each end. The first row on each end is a like a row on a traditional two-dimensional chess board (albeit played with three-dimensional pieces): you can go from left to right, or forward into the next row. The second row then becomes a two-dimensional row of a three-dimensional space: you can go left to right, forward to back, and now top to bottom. Note that there are seven spaces (represented by "shelves") from top to bottom, as opposed to the typical eight rows from left to right/front to back. This is likely to make sure there is symmetry between how many additional spaces are on top versus on the bottom (three, in this case). Moving another row would presumably add movement in some other direction to make it more complicated/interesting. This escalates until somehow the middle two rows require moving pieces in five dimensions (the middle two rows are four-dimensional rows + moving to other rows as fifth dimension), despite humans only being able to experience three spatial dimensions. [ citation needed ] This could potentially be accomplished via playing on a computer.
There are eight squares on the first row, 56 on the second row and presumably 504 on the third and 1512 on the fourth, thus making the total number of squares 4160 rather than the 64 of a traditional chess board. The drawing shows apparently five squares (or boxes) stacked on the third row and if this is also formed symmetrically, there are four hidden out of sight. The middle rows are already quite convoluted but it seems as if Randall drew three boxes along this dimension. Due to this dimensionality increase, there is plenty of free space in the middle board, drastically changing the game dynamics such that shadowing plays very little role and that movement is very unrestricted.
The title text refers to the practice of writing down what happens throughout the game, so that it is possible to review how the game progressed later. Recording moves in this fashion is required in most tournament situations. There are several common forms of Chess notation used for this purpose, and as well as indicating the moves, players may add annotations indicating their opinions about whether a particular move was good, bad, or peculiar. According to the title text, every annotation is followed by "?!"—which indicates a questionable move, of dubious value but not obviously a blunder either. The joke is that the variable-dimensional game is so complicated that any move will answer this description.
There appears to be the normal chess pieces (so no Fairy chess pieces ), but the game has already started (there are white and black pawns in one of the middle squares, and both white and black knights have moved.
Note that "in dimensional chess" may be a pun on " N -dimensional chess."
[A chessboard is depicted in the middle of a stack of boards. All pieces visible on the middle board are in their starting positions, except the white knight from a2 at d1 and the black pawn from g2 at e2. There are three boards each above and below the original, missing columns a and h. On columns c & f on each board, there are clear cubes with a small pedestal on each square. Columns d & e are similar, except with multiple cubes on each square. No chess pieces are visible, except for a white piece -- not clearly visible, but implicitly the white king's knight -- on the second board above the middle on b2 and a black pawn on the top board on f3. Below the chessboards is a caption] [Caption below the panel]: The problem with N- dimensional chess is that N is a constant across the board. In my new variant, every row has one more dimension than the one behind it.


In Your Classroom

Explanation:
Randall has created a thought experiment and corresponding chart about school courses. The idea is, "the subject of the class appears in the classroom" and the chart compares how dangerous and how unusual that would be.
In the title text two points that are off the chart to the left and right are also mentioned. See details about all the subjects in the table below.
Note that Randall uses similar diagrams in each of 388: Fuck Grapefruit , 1242: Scary Names and 1501: Mysteries , which also contain different items. They  also have extra points mentioned in the title text. In the first two comics the points are also off the chart, whereas for the last the description of the point is too long to fit on the chart. Extra info outside the chart is also used in the title text of 1785: Wifi , but this is a line graph.
[Caption above scatter plot with labeled axes] Caption: The thing you study just showed up in your classroom! That's... Upper y-axis label: Good Lower y-axis label: Bad Upper x-axis label: Normal Lower x-axis label: Weird
[First quadrant (left to right, top to bottom):] 20th century authors Exobiology 21st century authors 19th century authors Robotics Paleontology Martian soil chemistry Child psychology Tourism [Second quadrant] Atmospheric physics Ethics Education Bibliography Human physiology Public speaking Architecture Library science Furniture design Culinary arts Ergonomics Botany [Third quadrant] Entomology Occupational therapy Hydraulic engineering Pest control Foodborne illness Criminal law Physiology of stress Oncology [Fourth quadrant] Ornithology Animation Petroleum geology Highway engineering Toxicology Hematology Hostage negotiation History of siege warfare Trauma surgery Volcanology Quasar astronomy


Wikipedia Caltrops

Explanation:
Cueball's car has a collection of Wikipedia links spilling out of the trunk, meant to stop Hairy who's in the following car. The idea is that by dropping a series of interesting links, one could stop someone else's movement as they take the time to go through them all, provided that they are also easily distracted. This is analogous to the caltrops mentioned in the title; caltrops are small, spiked implements that are scattered on a road to slow down someone pursuing you. Hence the title of Wikipedia Caltrops .
Wikipedia is also a website that is notorious for having many links to other pages, which may result in a "wiki walk", a dilemma for Randall that has been discussed previously in 214: The Problem with Wikipedia (and separately with TV Tropes in 609: Tab Explosion ).
This strategy is similar to a weaponized version of 356: Nerd Sniping , using the high levels of focus that tend to come along with nerdy interests against someone. Munroe apparently reasons that, because these links would stop him in his tracks, they might do the same for a given target.
The Wikipedia links include:
Mentioned in the title text, a " Czech hedgehog " is an anti-tank obstacle made of metal, essentially a large caltrop. It would be an effective roadblock, however a sign describing it would not impede most traffic, [ citation needed ] only for those distracted as easily as Randall.
[Cueball drives a car, followed by another car driven by Hairy. Cueball is leaning on the open window looking back as 24 large paper slips with Wikipedia links are flying out of the open trunk of the car. They extend to the front of Hairy's car, obscuring that all the way up to Hairy's position in the car. None of the links can be read in full, and only on a few can parts of the actual link be seen. Many has only part of the pages title visible, some parts are obstructed partly by other slips in front of them or they have not entirely left the trunk. In once case the link is so long that it has been split on two lines on a thicker slip. There is a large part of the link that cannot be seen after the first line, but the end of the second line can be seen as well. Here the (fairly) readable parts are give, roughly in normal reading order.] a.org/wiki/Elsagate wiki/Bubbly_Creek wiki/Pheasant_Island a.org/wiki/American_death_triangle List_of_fictional_colors /wiki/Future_of_Earth#Introversion pedia.org/wiki/Fastest_animals#Invertebrates ki/Defence_Scheme_No._1 i/Boeing_YAL-1 ki/Bald-hairy /Walkalong_glider Burned_house_horizon /wiki/AVE Mizar Flying_ice_cube Time in Australia#Anomalies: Unexplained_sounds Talk:List_of_U.S._states_and_ Ebright_Azimuth Mosquito_laser January_0 /1808_mystery_eruption /Hairy_Hands Cumberland_vs._Georgia_Tech_football_game Timeline_of_the_far_future /wiki/1994_Caribbean_Cup#Anomaly
[Caption below the panel:] I have a collection of Wikipedia links to throw behind my car if I'm ever being chased by someone as easily distracted as me.


Inheritance

Explanation:
This comic is in reference to strategy board games , which often score players on some type of point system based on a variety of possible achievements. The joke in this comic is that Cueball has a massive sum of points that were not scored in the current game but rather handed down from his grandfather. Board games do not normally include an inheritance from previous sessions [ citation needed ] , in contrast to real life where some people become wealthy by inheriting vast sums of money from ancestors. Such inheritances tend to lead to 'successes' in life for those who have done little to earn their wealth.
Cueball offers to distribute a trifling fraction of his points to the other players, teasing them, but he will still have an insurmountable advantage. Despite his 'generosity', no one wants to play a game that they have no chance of winning.  The value of his score, 10,019, seems to indicate that he "earned" 19 points during the course of the game (less than his competitors) and then added 10,000 from his 'inheritance'.
The comic may be a reference to economic simulation board games like Monopoly , which was created as a critique to capitalism; in this case, no one can win the game against people who start out with a large amount of accumulated wealth. See also the ' Small Loan of a Million Dollars ' trope of a profile in which the author or subject discusses the simple tricks they used to retire early or buy a house, often involving a hurried admission of financial assistance from a family member.
The title text asks Cueball if he has any moral qualms over the source of these points, then indicates his grandfather's fortune was made through factory farming in the farm-themed board game Agricola . Factory farming is a broad term for applying mass-production techniques to agriculture, treating both plants and animals as commodities to be processed as efficiently as possible. These techniques are condemned, at least in some circles, as being cruel to livestock, in addition to having serious environmental and land-use implications, among other criticisms. The implication is that Cueball's grandfather somehow managed to introduce an immoral and/or socially harmful mechanic into a board game, greatly enriching himself and his heirs. This echoes another concern about inherited wealth: that the source of the money may have been unethical, but the heirs still get to enjoy the advantages, without considering themselves accountable for the harm. Cueball brushes off this criticism with the claim that the change was inevitable, which is a common response to analogous real-life concerns. The game Agricola was previously mentioned in 696: Strip Games and 778: Scheduling .
[Ponytail, White Hat, Megan, and Cueball are playing a board game. There are drinks on the table. Ponytail is writing something]
Ponytail: Let's see...I got 31, you have 28, 35 for you, and- Cueball: -I've got 10,019. Ponytail: *Sigh* Cueball: Hey, add another 20 to everyone, on me! White Hat: I hate this .
[Caption beneath the panel:] No one wants to play board games with me ever since I inherited 4,000,000 victory points from my grandfather.


Astronomy Status Board

Explanation:
Ponytail is staring at the sky through a telescope while Cueball is operating a checklist, visible on a large screen on what looks like a large billboard.
Since they are junior astronomers, they appear to have been tasked with simply verifying whether normal celestial objects are still present in the sky, such as the Sun and the Moon. Only large objects that are clear in the sky (at least at night for those not the Sun). Although all of these objects will eventually disappear it is not expected to happen within the life of the status board. [ citation needed ]
This is likely a reference to the many "status boards" for online services ( example , another example , a different example , a funnier example ). The joke is that it would be funny if there was a status board to check that all the celestial bodies are still there, and that with our modern culture few people are looking directly at the real sky, even though anyone with a telescope and an unobstructed view could just look at the sky to verify for themselves without referencing such a status board. This is compounded by the fact that the listed celestial bodies have existed for billions of years, and are expected to last for billions more, leading one to wonder why astronomers would bother checking and rechecking just to see if they're "still there" with any sort of regularity.
This comic may also be an oblique reference to the study of the projected future of celestial objects given our current understanding of physics.  At various points in the future the objects on the billboard may become unobservable from Earth.  The Moon is gradually receding from Earth, and when the Sun enters its red giant phase the Moon might be broken up. [1] Eventually the Sun itself will run out of usable fuel and will go dark as will other stars.  Moreover, if current theories of dark energy and universal expansion hold, the acceleration of the universe could push galaxies beyond the "Hubble Horizon" , meaning they would no longer be observable.  Matter itself could even cease to exist under some hypothetical scenarios, such as proton decay or the Big Rip .  The joke of the comic here would be that all these scenarios are only possible in the unimaginably far future (exception: False Vacuum Decay ) and do not need constant monitoring by astronomers.
[Ponytail is looking through a telescope, while Cueball is pressing buttons, which makes noises, on a remote control connected with a wire to a large board to their right. He controls the messages shown on this board.] Remote: Beep beep
[The board has a black screen, with a label in a white section above the screen:] Astronomy Status Board:
[The black screen has five rows with text in three columns. The first column is with white text. The second is in glowing green text and the last are in faded grey red text.]
Astronomers do regularly observe occultations of stars by other celestial bodies, and sometimes also search through archived images for missed occultations.  This can provide information on the size and orbit of an asteroid too small to observe directly, or other useful scientific knowledge, but occulted stars are not "gone", merely hidden.  There are also a few astronomers who are searching image archives for stars that really have completely vanished without a trace (or suddenly appeared), as this would be a sign of truly novel physics -- perhaps even a sign of extraterrestrial intelligence -- but no such vanishings have yet been identified. This comic appeared at the time the VASCO project is receiving media attention, claiming that 800 stars visible in 70 years old photos are not seen anymore .
Small stars which have exhausted their hydrogen fuel without building enough heat to fuse carbon or oxygen, are theorized to eventually collapse into faint " white dwarf stars" which are of such low luminosity that they are unlikely to remain visible to the naked eye from the Earth's surface except at very close proximities. The Earth's sun, Sol, is generally expected to follow this progression as a low-mass main sequence star, during the latter period of its stellar evolution . Although some stellar models predict that relatively rapid collapses are possible, the long time scale over which stellar evolutions are believed to occur decreases the odds of observing any one specific star both before and after this transition. In this comic, individual stars are not listed; therefore "gone" is unlikely to be useful for the stars, because a great number of stars would be "still there" until well after the expected collapse of our own sun.
One of the proposed outcomes of the ultimate fate of the universe is the Big Rip . If it's correct, all the items on the status board will eventually move from Still There to Gone, beginning with the most distant galaxies and proceeding to the the objects in our own solar system (although there will be hardly any time for the board to show Gone for the closest, especially the Moon). This scenario is dramatized in the short story " Last Contact " by Stephen Baxter.
Collisions between celestial bodies are commonly postulated as a fundamental part of the formation of planetary nebula . Since most mass in the known universe is observed to have a relatively low albedo , the presence of numerous unlit, massy bodies of planetary scale and smaller is strongly indicated. This is corroborated by measurements of orbital deflection detected in many visible stars, hinting at the possibility of large planets orbiting around them, unseen due to distance & low luminosity. The possibility of one or more local planets being "gone" could be attributed to unpredicted collision with another object of similar mass or equivalent velocity. Such a collision is one possible explanation for the sudden & catastrophic disintegration of Earth's moon, Luna, in the novel Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. This hypothetical event forms the premise of this book, during which Earth's whole sky becomes occluded by dust raised by millions of impacts across its surface & eventually by the constant incandescent descent of lunar debris itself. Again however, a single collision with any planet besides the Earth would not remove all the "Planets" from the Earth's visible night sky, so "gone" remains unlikely to be used for that category of celestial objects.
Occlusion of Earth's entire sky, due to airborne dust, volcanic ash, increased cloud cover, light pollution , or sufficiently dense layers of high-albedo material in orbit, may be the least unlikely potential reason for all of these celestial phenomena to be flagged as "gone". Notably, the phenomena in question would remain; only our view of them would be gone.


Next Slide Please

Explanation:
This comic presumes that many famous quotes are actually excerpts from slideshow presentations , and the text they were reading was split across multiple slides. Splitting sentences across multiple slides can often be a useful tool if there are images accompanying it, which could explain the specific placement of many of "next slide, please" comments. For example, in the quote "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," one can imagine the speaker starting with a slide that showed the prosperity of some people then, in the middle of the sentence, switching to a slide of many people's destitution. When using images this way, it is often better for timing purposes to have control of your own slides. However, Randall claims that, in these speeches, the person making the speech wasn't controlling their slide presentation, so they had to ask the operator to go to the next slide. A common way to ask this is to say "next slide, please", but these requests would have been edited out of the historical transcripts. The comic imagines the places where the slide breaks might have been, and inserts that request.
Most of these quotes are drawn from speeches, which could conceivably have been accompanied by slides or other stage directions ("pause for laughter"), but the list is quite ridiculous as it includes works of literature, where the reader is the one who turns pages as necessary, and speeches from periods of history, such as the American Revolution and Caesar's Veni, vidi, vici speech, which predated slide projectors [ citation needed ] . Even in the quotations that take place in an era with slide projectors, every single one is an instance where the speaker was, quite famously, recorded live — said recordings would show there were in fact no edits, and certainly not any instructions for a slide projector operator. See details in the table below, including the quote in the title text.
The phrase "Next slide, please" is perhaps in a sweet-spot of utility and performance. A rehearsed presentation, with speaker and 'slide handler' working with a tight script, could probably do without off-stage prompting at all, or the better lecturers with an oft-repeated talk could set it all on timings knowing they can keep the changes synchronised with their speech, or vice-versa. But when a cue is necessary, an unambiguous signal should be used, and an audible 'clicker' (or a small and briefly flashed light) has been used historically, especially with pre-electronic slide-shows where the slide-operator at the back of an auditorium needed to clearly discern the intent of the person at the lectern.
In the United Kingdom, England's Chief Medical Officer caused some amusement on social media with the constant use of the phrase in coronavirus presentations, culminating in the availability of many mugs and cards with his image and this slogan on, and a campaign [1] to purchase an automatic clicker for him instead.
[A list of 12 quotes is given. Above is a large header with a question, and then a description, before the quotes follows. The text above the quotes is centered:] Did you know? Transcripts of famous quotes often leave out the slideshow instructions. Here’s how these lines actually sounded:
[The first six quotations, are written so they fit around an image of Ronald Reagan standing next to his slide showing six segments of the Berlin Wall. A large arrow points down on to the middle segment of the wall. There is something on the ground in front of the wall, could be puddles or debris. The image is to the right, and the two first and last quote goes above and below the image, while the other three stops to the left of the image:] "Give me liberty or give me—Next slide, please—death!" "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down—Next slide, please—this wall." "It was the best of times—Next slide, please—It was the worst of times." "We have nothing to fear but—Next slide, please—fear itself." "To be or—Next slide, please—not to be, that is the question." "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art—Next slide, please—more lovely and—Next slide, please—more temperate."
[Below those five quotations is three more quotes to the right of an image showing Winston Churchill standing next to his slide showing a beach. The sun and three small clouds are over the ocean which has white waves on the black water. Ponytail is sitting under a parasol to the left, Cueball is sitting on the sand to the right with a drink in his hands, and behind him is a kid running after a large beach-ball.] "We shall fight—Next slide, please—on the beaches, we shall fight on—Next slide, please—the landing grounds..." "Read my lips—Next slide, please—no new taxes." "That's one small step for man—Next slide, please—one giant leap for mankind."
[Below this picture is the last three quotations, without any pictures:] "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears! Next slide, please. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of—Next slide, please—a good fortune, must be in want of—Next slide, please—a wife." "Veni, vidi—Velim, pictura proxima—vici."


Hippo Attacks

Explanation:
The first part of this comic deals with unreliable sources on the internet. Neither "viral posts" nor "random listicles " are usually very reliable sources of information. They rarely cite their sources, [ citation needed ] and they are often published without much fact-checking, as published volume and impressive-sounding numbers are far more important for ad-revenue than actual facts.
The viral post appears to be this Facebook post. The relevant source is unknown (and may very well be made up, since the source is ClickHole, a satirical website formerly owned by The Onion ). There are a number of listicles Cueball may be referring to, but they all appear to be citing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , however, even they do not seem to provide source for the number of fatalities caused by hippopotamus.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA , pronounced HIP-uh ) is an American healthcare law enacted in 1996. One of the most commonly cited provisions from HIPAA is the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which regulates the use and disclosure of protected health information.
In this comic, Cueball and Megan are discussing the number of hippopotamus attacks, which is unverified. Megan proposes an alternative explanation as to why this particular number is hard to come by: it would be violating the patients' privacy to create statistics of a very specific and unusual cause of death. The punchline comes with the pun on "hippo violation" ("HIPAA violation").
The title text amplifies the criticism of listicles. They sometimes provide factoids with regards to ill-defined, hard-to-measure numbers, and these factoids might end up in common circulation between such articles. One extreme example would be the number of waves in the ocean. Some problems with this definition would be:
With different replies to these questions, wildly different answers could be reached. But, counting every body of water on the planet, 850 trillion waves works out as around 2.354 (unique) waves per square meter.
[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at his desk. He has lifted both arms with palm up towards the screen of his laptop in front of him. Megan stands behind him to the right, looking over his shoulder at the screen.] Cueball: I hate unsourced statistics. Cueball: This viral post says hippos kill 2,900 people a year, but this random listicle says 500. Megan: Makes sense. Megan: Publishing the real number would be a HIPPO violation.


Fuzzy Blob

Explanation:
Cueball is taking a picture of his house, but sees a large fuzzy blob on the side of the picture. This blob seems to come from Cueball making the mistake of putting one of his fingers partially in front of the lens. This is a common enough occurrence with smartphones or compact cameras that an ordinary user should immediately be able to identify the problem; however, the comic derives humor from having no one in the comic come to this conclusion, and accordingly taking it very seriously as a perplexing mystery.
Likely, this comic stems from the resurgent talk of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) now dubbed " Unidentified Aerial Phenomena " (UAP) The topic regained popularity after the Department of Defense (DoD), recently confirmed the authenticity of 3 videos taken by US Naval personnel. It has been much discussed in mainstream news, not just among extraterrestrial enthusiasts or conspiracy theorists , some of whom have created QAnon spin-off theories.
Randall has previously expressed skepticism about claims of witnesses who claim to have seen unproven phenomena (including 'flying saucers', as well as supernatural events and cryptozoological specimens) based on the simple reality enough people carry cameras that they would be constantly captured in photos and videos. (See 1235: Settled ).
In this strip Randall appears cases where phenomena have been caught on film, but are generally unclear and ambiguous.  He appears to be suggesting that there are generally simpler explanations for what we see in the videos than objects of alien origin.  Examples in the past have turned out to be things such as birds, dirt on camera lenses and lights being reflected off glass windows or bodies of water. The fact that many people seem uninterested in the more mundane and likely explanations and assume these videos are proof of alien crafts is mocked here.
It's worth noting that Randall is a strong enthusiast for space exploration, and has expressed certainty that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the galaxy.  This strip is likely not intended to mock belief that other intelligences exist (notably, the conspiracy theorists in the strip assume the "flob" is manmade, not alien) but instead to make fun of excessive credulity, and point out that any definitive conclusion of aliens is overhyped .
The tendency to make unwarranted connections to unrelated but synchronous 'evidence' is shown in the title text. Investigation of this phenomena has brought to light 'irregularities' in the local zoning permits .  Such irregularities are extremely common in most bureaucracies, and may be the result of mundane corruption, incompetence, honest mistakes in a complex system, or the result of complexities that make consistent documents difficult or impossible. To connect such irregularities to an identified image does not follow logically, as both are pretty normal occurrences.  However, conspiracy theories make similar leaps all the time, insisting that some case of corruption, bad decision by a government official, or developing social problem is proof of a conspiracy, rather than a very normal government problem.
An alternate intention of the word 'irregularities' might be due to the necessarily zig-zaggy nature of defining a 'circular' zone footprint by drawing best-fit boundary lines only along streets, within any established grid-based system of city 'blocks'. The interpretation of why any zone is a complex and crinkly shape, rather than a strictly utilitarian rectangle, may not be so obvious from an overview that does not take into account geological or political restrictions such as the curve of a watercourse in a valley or a mandate against hi-rise buildings within a certain radius of a monument.
[Cueball takes picture of his house from a distance great enough to get the whole house in the picture. He holds the camera (or smartphone) in both hands. The shutter makes a sound:] Click
[The picture he has taken is shown below. The picture is lying tilted compared to the panel, and shows the house but with a fuzzy light brown blob covering the left part of the picture, just touching the left side of the house. Above and partly over the picture is a small frame with Cueball's response when he sees the picture:] What the...
[White Hat gestures towards Cueball with one hand, while Cueball holds his camera in one hand towards White Hat, with the picture shown on the screen, too small to see though.] White Hat: What's that fuzzy blob next to your house? It's huge! Cueball: I don't know! I looked up and it was gone! White Hat: How can a giant structure vanish? Cueball and White Hat: ...Cloaking device?!!
[Blondie is standing at the front of the panel with a microphone in her hand speaking towards the viewer. Behind her is a close up of the Blob (in black and white) on a screen. To the left of the screen is an almost bald man with hair behind his ears, holding a hand to his chin. To the right is Megan, who is holding one hand out palm up, towards the picture, which they are both looking at.] Blondie: The fuzzy blob, dubbed "flob" by internet sleuths, has city planners stumped. Man: No, that's not any type of building I'm familiar with. Megan: Could be an experimental military dome.
[Hairbun is standing on a podium behind a lectern with a microphone on it. She addresses three people in front of the stage, Cueball, Megan and White Hat. Behind them Blondie is turned the other way speaking to a camera, on a tripod. She has a microphone in her hand.] Hairbun: The zoning board investigation has found no evidence of a cloaked dome structure. Hairbun: The historical commission will be joining the research into these domes and other unusual buildings, such as the historic 4th Ave Church... Blondie: This only raises more questions.


Product Launch

Explanation:
Three people are discussing the upcoming public announcement of their company's new product, apparently an electronic device shown on the pedestal between them. Hairy mentions that smart devices can make people uncomfortable. Common reasons include:
To allay these concerns, the device should be presented as non-threatening. Cueball asks to confirm the non , implying that this was not clear to him before. In fact, it even appears he thought he was being asked to put together a threatening presentation, but does not explain.
Later, Cueball presents the device on-stage, with statements that have been styled to sound positive but carry double meanings.  The subtlety of the changes in tone could make them harder to discuss for many.
In the title text, someone is saying that the actual reveal was uneventful. Cueball interrupts, implying that there is one last feature to demonstrate, at which point the first speaker assumes the worst (that the product's most threatening aspect was saved for last).
Besides the main joke of a product that is likely so unsafe as to be illegal, the comic could also be poking fun at the desire of tech companies to make their products sound important, which can undermine the message of benign safety.
This comic was released on the day of Apple's 2021 WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) keynote, at which the company traditionally announces new features and products.  "One more thing" is a tagline famously associated with Steve Jobs' product announcements and something of an Apple tradition.
[Hairy and Ponytail are standing to the left of a wrapped object. Cueball is standing on the right.] Hairy: The press is here for the product launch! Hairy: Remember, people are wary of smart devices, so we want to strike a non-threatening tone.
[Pan over to just Cueball; Hairy and Ponytail are off of the left side of the panel.] Cueball: Hang on, did you say non -threatening? Hairy: Yes. Why- Cueball: Nothing. It's probably fine.
[Caption: Soon...] [Cueball is standing on a platform next to the previously seen wrapped object.] Cueball: They say technology can change the world, for good or for evil. Our new product will show how true that is. Cueball: We hear the plaintive cries of our customers. We want to give them what they deserve.
[Zoom in on Cueball, who has his hand up in a gesture.] Cueball: Now, let us expose our product to the atmosphere for the first time, surprising and delighting customers within a five-block radius. (Voice off-panel): I'm leaving. Cueball: No, don't worry! A staggering number of people will survive!


First Time Since Early 2020

Explanation:
This is yet another comic part of the series of comics on the COVID-19 pandemic .
This comic is a chart that orders things based on the level of alarm that would occur if it were revealed that someone had not done a given thing since early 2020. Many of the items, but not all, are linked to new constraints due to the pandemic.
The title text serves as another chart point, though it isn't given where it is on the chart.
Been to a birthday party
Going to a birthday party was a normal task before the pandemic, and it's normal to say you haven't gone to one since early 2020.
Eaten at a restaurant
Eating at a restaurant was also common before governments instated lockdowns, but during the lockdowns many restaurants had to limit their service to delivery and take-out.
Seen my family
Seeing your family was fairly common before the governments instated lockdowns. However, there were emergency visits during the lockdown period.
Been on a plane
Governments around the world cancelled commercial flights during the pandemic. However, businessmen like Bill Gates used private jets during the pandemic.
Gone to a movie
Many cinema halls around the world closed due to the pandemic. Several movies were instead released directly to TV via OTT platforms.
Gone to a store
Although some stores were closed during the lockdown period, others were open for essential commodities. Therefore, going to a store for the first time since early 2020 is little strange.
Installed software updates
Regularly installing software updates is recommended, mainly for security reasons. However, many people don't follow these recommendations (mostly by fear of software inconsistency or instability), although a delay of more than one year is quite long. Mentioning software updates is weird, because it is not directly related to the COVID pandemic. On the contrary, since many people spent much more time at home and worked at home, it was all the more important to keep software up to date, especially due to zero-day exploits.
Eaten a vegetable
Since vegetables are essential to a healthy diet, not eating a single vegetable in a whole year is not recommended. [ citation needed ] Anxiety due to the pandemic and disruption of social relations may have caused people to consume more junk food than usual.
Opened the fridge
This is quite weird, since most people use their refrigerators to store fresh food. Maybe some people became anorexic because of anxiety due to the pandemic or stopped consuming fresh food and relied more on junk food. Moreover, most food products will alter or rot if stored in a fridge for more than one year, and become dangerous to eat. [ citation needed ]
Paid taxes
Although some people, depending on where they live and their income, may not pay taxes in an immediately obvious way, there are some taxes, such as VAT in many countries and sales tax in the United States or Canada, which almost everyone would pay in the natural course of everyday life, though may not be 'obvious' in the paying, or even be extracted at source (withheld from payroll) in the simpler cases. (Randall lives in Massachusetts , which does not have a VAT, but does have a 6.25% sales tax.) It is therefore strange that someone could have gone a year without paying any taxes, implying they made almost no monetary transactions in the period, nor are made (directly) responsible for any residential or property-owning taxations that might otherwise be payable to one or other layer of government.
If the statement refers specifically to filing income taxes (which is often the case when people refer to "taxes", because the paperwork and large sums of money transferred at once makes the income tax highly noticeable and memorable), it might describe someone who filed a tax return for 2019 early in 2020 and then waited until later in 2021 to file a return for 2020.
Washed my hands
One of the main pieces of advice during the pandemic was to wash one's hands, frequently. Even in normal circumstances, washing hands is a good idea to remain hygienic, [ citation needed ] and not do so for a year would be disgusting to most people, and a good way of catching diseases.
Like paying taxes, it is very common to wash one's hands inadvertently as part of another activity, so someone who actually has not washed their hands since early 2020 likely also never bathed or showered.
Seen another person
Despite the restrictions, most people will have seen another person during the pandemic, virtually or otherwise.
Seen a ghost
The fact that the speaker apparently has seen a ghost, both now and presumably before early 2020 (else they would simply say it was the 'first time' they saw a ghost) is unusual. [ citation needed ]
Served as a decoy
Similar to the previous point, this is not a normal activity, so the specificity is unusual.
Sighted land
Most people live on land, [ citation needed ] so sighting land should not be unusual, even during a pandemic. The fact that someone has gone over a year without sighting land suggests they have been lost at sea for the duration. There are several reported cases of ships' crews refused permission to disembark, due to local restrictions and/or because their scheduled relief were unable to embark, but the unluckily held-on persons forced to remain beyond their originally planned obligations should never have been left permanently beyond any tantalizingly unreachable view of the shore.
Taken more literally, it could simply mean that the person remained indoors and did not look outside, or that the person was temporarily blind.
Checked the news
If someone has not checked the news since early 2020, they will likely be in for a shock upon checking. Noting that this could possibly (if increasingly absurdly) still apply to someone like Ponytail (as portrayed in strip 2396: Wonder Woman 1984 ).
Checked on the customers in the escape room
The implication is that the customers in question have been trapped in the escape room since early 2020. Most escape rooms are not equipped to support a person for that length of time, so unless the customers actually escaped, they would likely not have survived. [ citation needed ]
Contracted a novel bat virus
As a 'novel bat virus' is what kicked off the whole pandemic, contracting another one may send the whole world into a new pandemic.
Gotten the Ferris wheel operator's attention (title text)
It seems that the speaker has been stuck in a Ferris wheel for a year. It is unclear how they may have survived.
Alternately, it would be perfectly normal that the speaker has not been at an amusement park with a working Ferris wheel since early 2020 - but it would be unusual to focus on interacting with the operator versus enjoying the attraction.
Several science fiction stories include wheel-like prisons where people stay for years, but generally they are underground and horizontal rather than in the air and vertical like Ferris wheels are.
[Heading:] "This is actually the first time I've _____ since early 2020." [Below is a long vertical arrow with the words "normal" and "alarming" at the top and the bottom of the arrow respectively. To the right side of the arrow is a list of text, with each item starting with a triangle.] ◀ been to a birthday party ◀ eaten at a restaurant ◀ seen my family ◀ been on a plane ◀ gone to a movie ◀ gone to a store ◀ installed software updates ◀ eaten a vegetable ◀ opened the fridge ◀ paid taxes ◀ washed my hands ◀ seen another person ◀ seen a ghost ◀ served as a decoy ◀ sighted land ◀ checked the news ◀ checked on the customers in the escape room ◀ contracted a novel bat virus
On July 6, 2021, four weeks after the release of this comic, an emergency patch update was released for Windows 7. Since support for Windows 7 had otherwise ended in mid-January 2020, this means that people whose computers ran Windows 7 could have installed software updates for the first time since early 2020.


Health Drink

Explanation:
This comic pokes fun at health fads, alternative medicine and the like. It points out that many such products will go out of their way to market themselves as legitimate and cutting-edge by using impressive-sounding scientific terms, yet fail to perform even the most basic part of actual science: running a randomized controlled trial to find out if the drink actually helps fight infections. When Cueball points this out, White Hat reacts as though this process is highly advanced and unreasonable, which clearly demonstrates that his product is either nonsensical or an active scam (or both).
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. For example, certain proteins aid digestion by breaking down large molecules. Every cell of the human body produces lots of enzymes; the suggestion that people may be lacking them is frequently used as a basis to peddle pseudoscientific products. Nanoenzymes are synthetic materials that perform similar functions to ordinary enzymes; although they may be useful for treating specific diseases and conditions, the average person will probably not find them beneficial. Amino acids are the chemicals that make up proteins, and therefore all natural enzymes are made from amino acids anyway. White Hat's claim use of the term is not particularly explanatory and is likely used to impress and bewilder his audience, so that they are more likely to buy the product.
The comic may reference the FDA's decision three days earlier to approve a drug for Alzheimer treatment, without direct evidence of efficacy.
The title text further showcases White Hat's incompetence. First, he suggests keeping track of large numbers of people in a clinical trial by storing their data in Microsoft Excel , a popular spreadsheet application. Despite the insistence of many companies and government agencies throughout the years, Excel is not a database , and it should not be used to store other people's personal and medical information. He then complains that Excel is too "fancy", and then calls himself a "simple country nanoenzyme developer" — this is a parody of the idiom "simple country lawyer," a trained professional who pretends to be an average joe to garner sympathy. Nanomaterials are developed using specialized equipment in laboratories by people who are extremely well-versed in science; the notion of comparing one of these scientists to a 'simple country' anything is ludicrous, and the idea that they would find Excel daunting and overcomplicated is equally so. It's ironic that the person with the seemingly very complicated work and production would be unable to perform the simple procedures which Cueball has suggested in order to make his claims rigorous and supported with evidence. In this, White Hat is demonstrating his complete incompetence and lack of knowledge into what his product actually does.
[White Hat holding a bottle and standing next to Cueball] White Hat: My new health drink is packed with amino acid nanoenzymes that I designed to train your immune system to fight infections! Cueball: Can you give it to some people and see if they get sick less often? White Hat: Whoa, that sounds way too complicated.


Base Rate

Explanation:
The " base rate " is a type of base probability, which a statistical probability can be based on. The base rate fallacy is a type of error in which people are presented with the rate at which something occurs throughout an entire population along with more specific information about a subset of that population, and tend to ignore the whole-population information in favor of the specific information.
In this case, the joke is that 90% of people are right-handed, so if there is no connection between handedness and making base rate errors, then 90% of these errors would be made by right handers.  Thus while Cueball's claim that right-handers commit 90% of base-rate errors is technically true, taking that as reason to believe that "making base-rate errors" is somehow specially associated with right-handed-ness -- as would be implied by an intervention effort specific to right-handed-people -- is itself a base-rate error.
Cueball may be holding the pointer in his right hand, suggesting he might be right-handed (as 90% of stick figures are [ citation needed ] ).  Since Cueball has no facial features it is impossible to tell if he faces the audience, or looking at his graph. However, it seems most likely that he is looking at his audience while delivering the take home message and thus points at the graph behind him. Thus he likely belongs to the 90% that makes 90% of the base-rate errors, one of those he is just committing.
In the title text, Cueball dismisses the idea of adjusting his graph to account for the difference in numbers of left-handed versus right-handed members of the population.  He suggests focusing efforts on the right-handed majority to resolve that 90% of base rate errors.  This is a somewhat common counterargument to statistical arguments of this stripe (often as justification for racial profiling, for example); it fails because if the target group is not in fact somehow special with regard to the issue at hand, there is generally "nothing to fix" and no special approach to discover that cannot be just as easily applied to the population of the whole.
Something similar occurs in 1138: Heatmap , where Cueball makes inferences simply based on a population map of the US, instead of statistical evidence.
[Cueball is standing in front of a screen that shows a bar graph with 2 bars with labels beneath. The right bar is significantly higher than the left. Cueball is holding a pointer which he points at the label of the highest bar, which has been encircled.] Cueball: Remember, right-handed people commit 90% of all base rate errors. Label: L R


Alien Visitors

Explanation:
This is the first comic in a new series , followed in the next comic by 2478: Alien Visitors 2 .
This strip satirizes the ancient astronauts hypothesis: that aliens were involved in building the pyramids and Stonehenge . This concept, popular in some circles, is based on the assumption that earlier civilizations lacked the technology to build such large structures.  There are also geometric or other scientific properties to these structures, which some people assume that humans of that era would have been incapable of creating. Erich von Däniken , a Swiss author, is one of the foremost proponents of "ancient astronauts." Some say that such pseudoscience is inherently racist, as it assumes, without any proof, that other civilizations were unable to build their monuments without foreign help.  Although others disagree since most races and nationalities have one or another of these monuments with similar claims.
In the comic, aliens arrive with the intention of building such monuments with their highly advanced technology, including some sort of tractor beam to lift the heavy stones and another beam that can depict a pyramid. They are shocked to hear from Cueball that humans accomplished the same thing thousands of years earlier with such simple tools as ramps, and even in more than one location on Earth (Pyramids in Egypt and Mexico ). Thus they proceed to suggest a stone circle to predict the solstice, but before they can finish this sentence Megan says this is like Stonehenge.
The joke of the strip is that, if aliens were interested in building such structures on earth, they'd be just as likely to show up today as thousands of years ago.  And if they offered to build pyramids today, humans would be very unimpressed, as we've had the technology to do so for quite some time. The notion that an advanced, spacefaring species would come all the way to Earth (or whatever other planets they visit) to build relatively simple stone structures seems dubious, when put that way.
Alternately, the aliens may have visited Earth before in the past and impressed the humans of the time with their advanced technology of pyramids and stone circles, leading them to expect the same technology to impress the humans again in the present day.  This is somewhat plausible: Stonehenge is estimated to have been built around 3100BC, while the pyramids were built 500-1000 years later.  Assuming both structures were indeed built by aliens in the past, the visitors would have returned to the Earth to find agricultural civilizations almost identical to the ones they encountered centuries prior.  The aliens could have then been led to believe that human technology, if almost entirely unchanged in the 500 years since they last visited, would not have advanced significantly in a few thousand years.  Indeed, the aliens were mostly correct in this assessment: technological advancement progressed at a crawl until the scientific revolution marked the emergence of modern science only a relatively short 600 years ago.  From this perspective, the aliens would seem to be correct in their assumption that human technology would not significantly improve such that they could not impress humanity with their technological wonders.  Unfortunately, the aliens have been caught off-guard by the exponential nature of technological advancement, in that advanced civilizations have the resources to advance even more rapidly.
The aliens' reaction is frustration as they cannot teach us anything new; evidently, it does not occur to them to share their technologies for antigravity and interstellar travel (which, having come to Earth in floating spaceships, they clearly possess).
In the title text they have regrouped and would now present another wonder - gears . This is very likely a reference to the Antikythera mechanism , an artifact dating from the 2nd century BC which used a complex, geared calculating system to predict the movement of stars and planets. As with the aforementioned structures, some fringe groups theorize that such mechanisms were beyond human technology at the time, and therefore must have been given by aliens. Once again, such technology is not impressive to humans at this point, as complex, geared mechanisms are now commonplace in most human societies. Indeed, quite a bit of intricate mechanical gearing and timing has been obsoleted by electronics.
[A flying saucer is hovering high above Cueball and Megan, drawn very small standing on the ground beneath it. The aliens inside speak to them from inside their saucer, indicated with zigzag lines between it and the text.] Aliens: Greetings, humans! Megan: Whoa, aliens! Aliens: We bring you technological wonders!
[Zoom in on the flying saucer which has two beams below it, the left showing an outline of a pyramid and the right is shown lifting a large stone. Cueball replies off-panel.] Aliens: We will help you lift great stones and build towering monuments. Cueball (off-panel): Oh, pyramids?
[Zoom in on Cueball and Megan looking up, the Aliens reply from above the panel.] Aliens (off-panel): ...Yes. Cueball: Yeah, we have those. In Egypt. Megan: And Mexico. Cueball: I think they used ramps?
[Zoom back out, as in first panel] Aliens: Then we shall build a ring of stones aligned with the stars, so at the solstice- Megan: Oh, like Stonehenge? Aliens: Dammit, humans.


Alien Visitors 2

Explanation:
This is the second comic in a series , following the previous comic 2477: Alien Visitors .
The aliens now return to show us even more "advanced" inventions. As with the previous strip, the only innovations they offer are not only things that humans know how to build, but things we figured out some time ago, and are now obsolete.  As with the pyramids and Stonehenge, these inventions might have been impressive in their time, but now offer nothing to humanity.
Biplanes are planes with two sets of wings, which provide more of the necessary lift at slow speed than a contemporaneous monoplane , but develop increased drag and aerodynamic and air-frame issues as higher air-speeds became possible/necessary. Biplanes have been obsolete for most purposes since the 1930s, though they remain in use for agriculture and aerial sports.
A blimp is a lighter than air aircraft with no internal structure. These aircraft were traditionally filled with hydrogen gas to provide the needed buoyancy, due to the lower density of hydrogen and a US monopoly on helium limiting availability for the German blimp manufacturer. Hydrogen is highly flammable and thus presents a safety issue. The famous Hindenburg disaster is widely seen as a reason hydrogen airships are unlikely to be widely accepted. However, it is still disputed whether the hydrogen or the coating of the airframe caused the fire. Blimps are still used today, but only rarely, in niche applications, such as for advertising or for aerial photography/videography. Modern airships generally use helium as a lifting gas, which is more expensive, but non-flammable.
Tetraethyllead ((CH 3 CH 2 ) 4 Pb) is a chemical added to gasoline (mostly from the 1920s to the 1990s — although some countries still use it to this day ) to prevent engine knocking . Lead is toxic and bio-accumulative, and there's substantial evidence that its use in gasoline caused widespread lead exposure, impacting public health on a huge scale. The aliens seem surprised to learn of these toxic effects, and their concern implies that they may be using leaded gasoline themselves, but it's unclear whether they might think that their biology may by vulnerable to lead as well or whether they never considered that biologies alien to theirs would be.
The final invention appears to be a reference to Juicero , a defunct and short-lived brand of juicer, which has become iconic of the absurdity of modern technology investment. The company produced a high-tech, internet-connected juicer which sold for $700, and only worked on the company's proprietary branded single-serving bags of pulped fruit, which were available by subscription for $5-$7 per serving. The company raised over $100 million in startup capital, but quickly went out of business because most consumers considered the expensive product to be nearly useless, coupled with a rather damning video by Bloomberg demonstrating said packets could easily be squeezed by hand. The title text singles this invention out, calling it one of the "mistakes of the past".
After the latest showing of unimpressive "inventions", the humans start questioning how "advanced" the aliens really are. It's traditionally assumed that a species capable of interstellar travel would have a host of other advanced technologies, which is inconsistent with the unimpressive and not only obsolete, but also fatally-flawed inventions they're offering to humanity.  The humans on the ground ask whether they actually built their own flying saucer. They also consider the wisdom of standing directly under the saucer, implying that, if the aliens did build it, it's likely to be unreliable, and may be at risk of crashing (though perhaps a bit ironically, the humans say this in response to the juicer, and while the actual device it is spoofing was a failure in many ways, one thing it was not was shoddily built (aside from the fact that you could squeeze more juice by hand than by using the machine...) - one critique of the Juicero was that it was needlessly over-engineered).
[A flying saucer is flying high above Ponytail who is walking towards White Hat, Cueball and Megan. Those three are looking up at the spacecraft. The humans are drawn very small standing on the ground beneath it. The aliens inside speak to them from inside their saucer, indicated with zigzag lines between it and the text.] Aliens: Greetings, humans. We have returned. Aliens: Since you already have pyramids, we've brought you more advanced wonders.
[Pan up to only showing the flying saucer which has two beams below it, the left showing an outline of a biplane and the right is showing an outline of a blimp. The humans reply off-panel. Given their positions before, the first is probably Ponytail, but it cannot be determined.] Aliens: These machines will let you conquer the sky! Voice 1 (off-panel): A biplane? Voice 1 (off-panel): Aren't monoplanes more efficient? Voice 2 (off-panel): Does that blimp use hydrogen?
[Zoom in on the four humans looking up, the Aliens reply from above the panel. There is a chemical formula in an outline from the alien flying saucer, shown in a similar manner to the other items.] Chemical formula: (CH 3 CH 2 ) 4 Pb Aliens (off-panel): Add this elixir of lead to your gasoline and your engines will run smooth. White Hat: Lead? Isn't that stuff toxic? Aliens: Is it? Aliens: Oh no.
[Zoom back out, as in first panel but the flying saucer and the humans are shown in silhouette. A beam from the saucer is showing an outline of a juice machine.] Aliens: Okay, uh. Aliens: This device's electric press can squeeze fresh fruit juice from bags of pulp! Ponytail: ...Just curious, did you build that saucer? Cueball: Maybe we shouldn't stand right under it.


Houseguests

Explanation:
This comic is another entry in a series of comics related to the COVID-19 pandemic , specifically regarding the COVID-19 vaccine .
With COVID-19 vaccines under distribution, more and more people are becoming fully vaccinated. Cueball and Megan have apparently become part of that group, and Cueball notes that with the vaccine in their systems, they can once again start hosting people at their house — the various local and national rules maintained to mitigate infections now allowing indoors association in such circumstances for many individuals. Megan concurs, indicating they have been looking forward to having their friends over.
After a beat panel, Cueball notes that if they intend to host people, they need to clean the house. Megan promptly backtracks on her eagerness to have people over, implying that her reluctance to complete this task (possibly a rather onerous one, if they have been neglecting housework during the pandemic) may outweigh her desire to socialize. Megan claims she only feels 98% vaccinated, and thus is not completely ready for houseguests; Cueball agrees that they need to wait a few more days before they are 100% vaccinated/ready for guests.
The earlier vaccination-related comic 2460: Vaccinated depicted Cueball and Megan as not very skilled at social interactions , so it's possible they may not have many "people" to invite over anyway, or may be awkward with those they do invite over.
The title text continues the theme of "vaccination status = houseguest readiness" and assumes that this is an association of one state with the other that is commutative - that is, reversible, with either one implying the other.
In the title text, it appears Cueball and Megan have cleaned most of their house in preparation for having guests, with the evident exception of the spare room next to the living room, which is perhaps being used to store junk from the other rooms. Thus they pretend that in that room they are not fully vaccinated, as if their vaccination status is dynamically influenced by their location in their home rather than, for instance, by the memory of their adaptive immune system .
[Cueball and Megan are talking.] Cueball: Now that we're fully vaccinated, we can invite people over. Megan: Exciting!
[Same setting, without talk. Beat panel.]
[Cueball and Megan are standing in a wider panel. Megan is looking down at her torso while holding her arms out from her body.] Cueball: Which means we have to clean. Megan: ...You know, I suddenly feel only about 98% vaccinated. Cueball: Yeah, let's give it a few more days.