Secretary Part 5

Explanation:
This is the fifth and final comic in the Secretary story-arc. The culmination has Black Hat up to his usual shenanigans in the US Senate chamber room .
The hearings have ended, with the chairman deciding to sentence him to death, instead of confirming his position of Internet Secretary. Black Hat replies that he was "never interested in taking the position." This would be quite weird, as Senate confirmation meetings take a long time. The committee members are obviously surprised, and they question Black Hat, trying to get him to reveal his motives. He then cryptically replies that "It was taking us a while to move the pumps into the maintenance tunnels." The confused committee members then look at each other.
A red playpen ball bursts out of the panel and rolls towards the committee chairman, before being followed by a geyser of red, white, and blue balls, which begin to engulf the room and the Senate rotunda. Of course, Black Hat has already escaped by grabbing Tron Paul's lightcycle and using it to smash his way out of the rotunda.
Outside the Senate, Cory Doctorow offers Black Hat a lift and asks if he's a fugitive now, and Black Hat replies that they never had his name, which is odd, considering that they know he's stolen a nuclear submarine, along with everything else mentioned in 496: Secretary: Part 3
Back at Congress, they seem to have forgotten about Black Hat's "gleeful mayhem" and are jumping off the balcony into the ball pit below.
The title text refers to Al Gore . Al Gore was the Vice President under President Bill Clinton and ran as the Democratic nominee for President in 2000. Al Gore has had quite a history with the Internet , including one oft-misquoted (rather, quoted out of context) interview with CNN in which he told Wolf Blitzer , "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Many spun this to mean he claimed to have actually invented the Internet himself, although some of its pioneers clarified what Gore actually meant (that "his initiatives led directly to the commercialization of the Internet") and agreed with this assessment. [1] [2]
The Senate or a Senate committee, in reality, cannot sentence a person to death, as that would be a bill of attainder , which Congress is prohibited from passing by Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution: "No Bill of Attainder ... shall be passed." "An unorthodox move," indeed.
Tron was an arcade game, based on the movie of the same name, and both released in 1982. The characters would play on a grid in lightcycles that left behind walls of light. The objective of the game was to force the opponent to run into the wall of light, similar to the Snake game .
Of course, playpen balls have been the topic of many comics before, notably in 150: Grownups .
All comics in the Secretary series are:
This series was released on five consecutive days (Monday-Friday) and not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule.
It is possible that this series is a continuation of 493: Actuarial , in which Black Hat demonstrates great power over even Internet trolls via his sociopathic ways. This would explain why Black Hat was nominated as Internet secretary.
[The Senate. Black Hat sits before the committee at his hearing to become Internet Secretary.] Chairman: We were convened here to review your nomination for the position of internet secretary.
Chairman: However, on review of your qualifications, we've decided to sentence you to death.
Chairman: An unorthodox move, sure. But the vote was unanimous. [Black Hat is leaning back in his chair.]
[Tron Paul's lightcycle swerves wildly.] Meanwhile...
Tron Paul: There's no grid! How do I steeeeer!!!!!
[Back at the Senate. Black Hat is standing.] Black Hat: Well, it's been fun. But I was never actually interested in taking the position. Good lord; listening to internet arguments all day? No thank you.
Chairman: Then why did you sit through all those hearings?
Black Hat: It was taking us a while to move the pumps into the maintenance tunnels.
[The committee members murmur among themselves.]
[There is a panel in the floor between Black Hat and the committee.] RUMBLE plink plink
[A red playpen ball bursts out of the panel and rolls towards the committee chairman.] plink
[The room is still. Black Hat's arms are folded.]
[A geyser of red, white, and blue playpen balls bursts through the panel in the floor. Black Hat is already gone.] FOOM
[The committee members chase Black Hat out the door as the Senate floor floods with playpen balls.]
[The chase continues into the rotunda, as does the flood of playpen balls.]
[Black Hat stands in the middle of the rotunda as it fills with playpen balls, surrounded by members of the committee.] Committee Members: Security! Someone! Committee Members: Get Him!
[Tron Paul bursts through the wall.] CRASH Tron Paul: Aaaaa!
[Black Hat grabs the bottom of the lightcycle as Tron Paul goes by.] snag Tron Paul: Hey!
[Black Hat swings onto the top of the light cycle.]
[Black Hat crouches on top of the light cycle.] Tron Paul: Get Off!
[Tron Paul and Black Hat crash through the far wall of the rotunda.] CRASH
[Tron Paul hits the ground.] WHAM Tron Paul: Ow!
[Black Hat runs away.] Tron Paul: Ughhh.
[The lightcycle disappears.] Tron Paul: I feel queasy... Cory Doctorow, above: Hey! Black Hat: Hi, Cory. Cory Doctorow: Need a lift? Black Hat: Sure.
[Black Hat and Cory Doctorow depart in Doctorow's balloon.] Cory Doctorow: So are you, like, a fugitive now? Black Hat: Well, I never did give them my name...

[Senators play in the playpen balls.] But in the rotunda Senators: Let's jump down here from the balcony! Senators: Senior senators first! Senators: Wheeee! Senators: I'm a submarine! All is forgiven.


Scantron

Explanation:
This comic is a take on the instructions "Remember to use a #2 pencil on the Scantron" that most modern students in the US have heard many, many times, a warning that seems unnecessary to many because #2 pencils are the most common type of pencil, and most students wouldn't have any other kind. Scantrons are standardized machine-readable papers used by students to answer multiple-choice tests. Often, the instructor will remind students to use a #2 pencil, which is a US classification of pencil hardness and equivalent to the HB term that is used in Europe. #2 pencils use a medium-hardness graphite considered ideal for Scantron use because the graphite is soft enough to leave a dark mark but hard enough to not smudge, both aspects that improve the performance of machine-readable paper. Miss Lenhart seems to have given her class one of these tests.
The joke is that the student used a #3 (or 'H') pencil, which has a slightly harder graphite rating, as opposed to the #2. Instructors and examiners usually place great emphasis on using a #2 pencil, as if not using one would lead to dire consequences, but without explaining why. The comic jokingly suggests that these consequences would include causing the grading machine to explode, killing harming people nearby and leaving a bloody mess.
The title text refers to the instruction to "fill in all the bubbles completely." This again improves the performance of machine-readable paper. The student states that he spent an inordinate amount of time making sure his markings were perfect because he had been warned so many times to do so, but five seconds is usually enough.
This is the first of only two comics where Miss Lenhart is both drawn and named, the second being 1050: Forgot Algebra .
[A classroom scene. There are two desks, and the front one is occupied by the student. Miss Lenhart stands panel right facing the student.] Miss Lenhart: Okay class, I've turned in your exams for grading. Now— Student: Miss Lenhart?
[View is now simply student in desk and teacher. The student is holding a pencil. Miss Lenhart looks horrified.] Student: I used a #3 pencil instead of a #2. Will that mess anything up? Miss Lenhart: You WHAT?
[Miss Lenhart stands, covering her face, in front of an off-panel right explosion. The unseen speaker is off-panel right.] AIEEE BLAM Unseen speaker: OH GOD!
[The student and Miss Lenhart are left-panel. The student looks shocked, and Miss Lenhart is still covering her face. The unseen speaker is still off-panel right.] Unseen speaker: Oh god! I've never seen so much blood!


Election

Explanation:
This comic was published the day after the 2008 presidential election in the US. Cueball has been closely following the quantitative aspect of the election for over a year and a half, and he seems to be relieved that it's over. Now that the election has passed, he does not have to follow the many different opinion polls, number-crunching analyses, and news clips about people like Joe the Plumber that he has kept close track of during the election season. As soon as he says this, however, he starts to search for information on the 2012 election , suggesting that his political obsession has not at all passed.
A list of the elements Cueball had been thinking about:
The title text is about statistician Nate Silver , who became something of a geek celebrity for his analysis during the campaign. He correctly predicted the outcomes of 49 of the 50 states in the 2008 election on his blog. It jokes that having him predict the outcomes of life decisions would make choosing the best thing to do very easy. So if Cueball ask Nate - "Should I sleep with her?", then Nate could give him a forecast like this: "Well, I'm showing a 35% chance it will end badly." Later, in 2016, Nate Silver's website, FiveThirtyEight, launched an advice column thus making the title text partially come true.
[Cueball sits at his computer desk, staring at his computer.]
Cueball: It's over. Cueball: After twenty months it's finally over. Cueball: I don't have to be an election junkie anymore.
[Close-up of Cueball's face and screen.]
Cueball: I don't have to care about opinion polls, exit polls, margins of error, attack ads, game-changers, tracking polls, swing states, swing votes, the Bradley effect, or <name> the <occupation>. Cueball: I'm free.
[Cueball staring at his computer screen, full shot.] [Cueball types on his computer.] Tap Tap
[On screen:] Google '2012 polling statistics'


Faust 2.0

Explanation:
E.U.L.A. is short for End-user license agreement , a license that software makers often attach to their software but people do not usually read. Agreement to an E.U.L.A. is assumed when a user uses the software or service that the E.U.L.A. is attached to, which has led a case where users have unknowingly actually agreed to give away their immortal souls because of a clause in an E.U.L.A. However, in the European Union, all provisions of these agreements that aren't already codified in law actually are not legally enforceable, unless they could be read and agreed to before purchase and first use.
A Faustian deal is done by someone who sells his soul to the devil for something desired in this life, a textbook example of wanting instant gratification. The mortal will get the things he wanted, but when he dies, he will have to suffer eternal torment. As the span of a human lifetime is an eye-blink compared to eternity, this is a really stupid thing to do. It is named after the folkloric character Faust , whose story has been the subject of numerous adaptations.
In this comic, Cueball turns an E.U.L.A. around on Mephistopheles , the demon Faust sells his soul to in the stories, by posting a sign saying that anyone entering the room agrees to turn over their own immortal soul rather than negotiate with Cueball for his. It is unknown whether this clause applies only to demons or to everyone , which would be quite horrifying.
The title text makes reference to how easy it is to cut open one's own hand while trying to open a newly-bought CD case. Incidentally, a pen works just fine, though the blood is referencing how Satanic contracts are signed in blood. The only blood on the E.U.L.A. contracts that Randall "signs" by opening a CD is the blood coming from when he cuts himself like this.
A short time later, a similar demon was depicted in a similar fashion in 533: Laptop Hell , although with a trident and in Hell. Although not mentioned in the comic, he was also named Mephistopheles in the official transcript.
[Over the left side of the main panel, below the middle, is a small panel partly outside the main one. The comic begins inside this panel where a devil drawn like Cueball, but with two small horns on his forehead, is shown from the waist up, raising one hand while moving into the main panel. In the caption below, we learn that the devil is Mephistopheles.] Mephistopheles: Mortal! I come offering a deal-
[In the main panel, with all drawings right of the smaller one, we see the mortal, Cueball, sitting at his desk typing on his laptop. Mephistopheles, now drawn in full figure, has stopped before a sign on a stick in the floor reading it out loud while pointing at it with one hand and holding the other hand in front of his mouth. The text on the sign is visible but unreadable in itself.] Cueball: Read the sign. Mephistopheles: "By entering this room, you agree to forfeit your own soul rather than negotiate with the mortal residing therein..." Mephistopheles: Wait, you can't- Cueball: Too late.
[Caption below the panel:] Mephistopheles encounters the E.U.L.A.


Dark Flow

Explanation:
This comic is about astronomy and the Your Mom jokes that have become increasingly widespread in urban parlance. Beret Guy is reading a research paper presumably discussing Dark Flow , an observed anomaly in the motions of the galaxies that some theorize is caused by an unobservable sibling universe or similarly supermassive object beyond the edge of the visible universe. Cueball sees this as an opportunity to make yet another Your Mom joke, implying that Beret Guy's mother is fat.
But apparently, Beret Guy's mother is dead, or at least missing, and he takes the joke seriously. He looks toward the sky and wishes that his mom pull harder so that he could be with her. The joke has been turned onto itself.
The title text is a continuation of Beret Guy's thoughts and refers to another piece of science phenomenon that has been observed in space, the Pioneer Anomaly . The Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft had been slowed down by an (at the time) unknown force as they exited the solar system, which he says is caused by the force of his love, probably toward his mom. This force has since been explained entirely in 2012 by the probes being decelerated by thermal radiation.
In 2310: Great Attractor , the more local Great Attractor is pulling Beret Guy so hard that he can sleep on vertical surfaces when it is close to the horizon.
[Beret Guy is sitting at a computer, and Cueball is sitting in an armchair, reading either a book or a newspaper.] Beret Guy: According to this A.S.T. paper, every galaxy is being pulled toward one area of the sky.
[Only Cueball.] Beret Guy [off-panel]: They hypothesize that it may be due to a supermassive object beyond the edge of the visible universe. Cueball: Maybe it's your mom. Zing!
[Only Beret Guy.] Beret Guy: Do you think?
[Outside at night, on a rooftop. Beret Guy is looking up to the sky, next to a telescope.] Beret Guy: Pull harder, mom. Beret Guy: I Miss you.


Terminology

Explanation:
This comic shows a map of the world. The X in the center, labeled "ME," indicates Randall 's approximate location in the U.S., and two arrows point west and east from it. The map uses a format, popular in America, that places the American continents centrally, therefore splitting Asia (parodied by "you-cut-asia-in-half" ). The comic then shows Europe labeled " The West " as it is commonly referred to, despite being located to the east of Randall, and Asia similarly labeled " The East ", despite being west of Randall. Randall is therefore annoyed with the common terms "the West" and "the East" referring to locations east and west of him respectively.
"The East" and "the West" were defined in geographical terms from the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia .  They were later expanded or (mis-)appropriated to include references to cultural, racial, political, and trade connections.  Another east-west division comes from zero longitude (the prime meridian ): the Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere are defined in reference to it, and world maps are often centered on it.  The fact that the prime meridian runs precisely though the Greenwich Observatory, in London, is an artifact of the British Empire's dominance —and British exploration of the world— in the 1700s and 1800s. In particular, British astronomical tables (made by the Royal Observatory in Greenwich , London) were widely used to determine longitude all over the world.  The need for establishing a precise zero-longitude is one of the two technological necessities to make a sextant work as a tool to calculate accurate position for map making.
In short, "the East" and "the West" should simply be viewed as a reference to map coordinates and not as relative to where you are as suggested by the comic.  An America-centered map does not redefine "the East" or "the West" anymore than an Australian up-side-down reversed map redefines "the North" or "the South".
The convention of orienting maps with north at the top and west at the left was started by the Greek geographer Ptolemy . In his work Geography , he introduced the first coordinate system with latitude and longitude. Randall shows some other possible map orientations in 977: Map Projections .
The title text comments on the similarity in shape of New Zealand and Japan, and he suggests that one may in fact be the other in disguise, much like Clark Kent and Superman , as well as similar superhero alter ego pairs. The similarities between New Zealand and Japan are partly explained by the fact that both formed as volcanic island chains.
[Map of the world with North America centered. An "x" is placed near the east coast. Asia is labeled "The East" and Europe "The West."] "The East" <- West x (me) East -> "The West"
[Caption below the frame:] This always bugged me.


Legal Hacks

Explanation:
Megan notices that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) is blocking access to some webpages. Cueball is thankful that cryptography offers a way around such censorship.
Encryption, the study and use of which is known as "cryptography," or "crypto" for short, is the art of transmitting messages that can only be read by the intended receiver(s) by using mathematical techniques to conceal ("encrypt") the data in the message. One common and effective way to encrypt messages is the RSA algorithm , which is based on the difficulty of integer factorization for products of two prime numbers.
Being able to share unbreakable codes and decrypt other people's codes gives countries a military advantage - for example, in World War II, the Americans and British were often able to figure out where a German attack would be coming and send reinforcements there, because they had cracked the German codes . Because of this, the United States government initially tried to keep the mathematical details of strong encryption algorithms (including RSA) inside the country by classifying the algorithms as a weapon. It is a crime to share certain kinds of weapons technology with other countries without permission. Amateur and professional cryptographers, angry about the attempt to restrict their work, lobbied the government to change the rule and stop treating cryptography as a weapon, in part so that they could continue to collaborate with colleagues overseas, and in part because they wanted the ability to pass secret messages that the government could not easily decrypt. The export restrictions were gradually loosened and would have mostly been lifted by the year 2000.
In the comic, Megan makes the provocative and counter-intuitive point that perhaps the cryptographic community could have best ensured easy access to the RSA technique by *allowing* the government to treat RSA as a weapon, and then, once everyone is certain that RSA is a weapon, invoking the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution , commonly known as the " right to bear arms " amendment (that is, the right to own and use weapons). In other words, if RSA were a weapon, it would be granted constitutional protections.
This interpretation is likely a reference to the very strong social and political movements opposing arms control in the United States.  The legal basis for this movement is the position that most or all laws prohibiting private ownership of firearms (and potentially other weapons), violate the Second Amendment. Accordingly, publicly referring to the Second Amendment tends to imply opposition to gun control. Megan's implication is that, by connecting RSA to this debate, crypto enthusiasts would gain a large group of unlikely allies who are strongly committed to keeping weapons legal and unrestricted. They could also invoke the legal cover of the Constitution, allowing them to fight restrictions in court.
Cueball is surprised and impressed by this point, and pauses to contemplate Megan's strategy.
It should be noted that there are major weaknesses in this argument. The Second Amendment only applies in the United States, meaning that imports and exports of munitions could still be banned. It might provide some protections against the ability of the US government to restrict RSA within US borders, but it could still be restricted in other countries, potentially hampering its use in global communications.
The title text claims that this is a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution, because cryptography (a modern weapon) is analogous to muskets and cannons (the weaponry in use in the 1780s, when the Second Amendment was drafted). As evidence for the analogy, the title text points out that Jefferson would have been a big fan of cryptography, which is plausible, because President Thomas Jefferson (the 3rd President of the United States) was an amateur scientist who enjoyed studying a very wide variety of fields (in fact, he invented the Jefferson disk , an encryption device that was quite advanced for its time). The point is somewhat facetious, because it is hard to imagine a modern technique that Jefferson would not "be totally into." Also, the mere assertion that an early President would have been a fan of a technique is not very good evidence that the technique would be legally permitted by a particular Amendment.
[Megan sits at her computer, Cueball standing behind her.] Megan: Another ISP's filtering content. Cueball: Thank God for Crypto.
[Cueball stands alone; Megan is presumably off-panel left.] Cueball: It wasn't that long ago that RSA was illegal to export. Classified a munition.
[Megan, sitting in her chair, is looking back towards Cueball, presumably off-panel right.] Megan: You know, I think the crypto community took the wrong side in that fight. We should've lobbied to keep it counted as a weapon. Cueball: Why?
[She is now turned around in the chair looking at Cueball, who is in-panel again.] Megan: Once they get complacent, we break out the second amendment. [Cueball has his hand on his chin, contemplatively.] Cueball: ...Damn.


A Bunch of Rocks

Explanation:
Cueball awakens to find himself trapped for eternity in an endless expanse of sand and rocks. At first, he uses this time to derive all of mathematics and physics, plus more, including quantum mechanics and general relativity . Next Cueball creates a computer that can process any possible function, out of rocks and rules for the interaction between rocks. He then simulates a particle followed by the interactions between particles, followed by the entire universe. The amount of time it takes to simulate the change in the universe merely from one instant to the next takes an extremely long time, as the time it takes to update just one row of rocks would be eons, assuming a realistic time to place each rock.
Cueball is using the rocks to build a cellular automaton , a computational model based on simple rules to advance from one state to the next. Certain cellular automata are Turing-complete , which means that they can be used to represent any conceivable algorithm if expanded infinitely, including simulating the physics of the universe. He specifically seems to be running Wolfram's Rule 110 , which is capable of universal computation. When using Rule 110 for universal computation, one builds a background pattern, which can be seen in the comic as the pattern of smaller triangles, and then performs computation by sending out "rockets" to collide and interact with each other. Cueball can simulate the functioning of an entire universe because he has unlimited time and space (and rocks).
Cueball then apologizes for any flaws we see in the simulation. This implies that the audience is living in Cueball's simulation, making Cueball essentially God, and that he might make mistakes along the way.
The final frame cuts to a classroom where a bored student stares at his hands waiting for class to end. Cueball admonishes the student for thinking that class is lasting forever, the joke being that the boredom felt in a classroom is nothing compared to the boredom that inspires Cueball to spend his endless time toiling to keep the universe moving. Indeed, the minutes of lecture actually took many "billions and billions of millennia" for Cueball to simulate. Another possible explanation is that the entirety of this comic is a fantasy in Cueball’s mind as he zones out during a math lecture.
The title text suggests that Rule 34 should be called on Wolfram's Rule 34 . Rule 34 (see 305: Rule 34 ) is a humorous rule of the Internet that states, "If you can imagine it, there is porn of it. No exceptions." Wolfram's Rule 34 is a cellular automaton. Therefore, the title text says that either someone has made pornography featuring the cellular automaton in question, or someone has used the cellular automaton to produce pornography.
The three diagrams in the "Physics, too. I worked out the kinks..." panel are, from left to right:
The graph that represents particle interaction is a Feynman Diagram . This shows the interaction of subatomic particles that collide and exchange some momentum via a photon. The slope of the middle line represents the distance moved and the time lost/gained during the interaction.
[Cueball is standing in a desert with lots of rocks lying around. He is narrating his own situation. The first panel spans the entire width of the comic. The first line of text is written to the left of him, the second line to the right.] So I'm stuck in this desert for eternity. I don't know why. I just woke up here one day.
[The next four panels take up the second line of the comic.] [Cueball stand in the desert.] I never feel hungry or thirsty.
[Cueball walks in the desert.] I just walk.
[Zooming out while Cueball continues to walk in the desert.] Sand and rocks
[Zooming far out as Cueball again just stands in the desert. First line of text, above him, is a continuation of the text in the previous panel. The second line is below him.] stretch to infinity. As best as I can tell.
[The next three panels take up the third line of the comic. The last takes up half the width.] [Cueball is sitting in the desert, in a contemplative position. First line of text above him, the second below.] There's plenty of time for thinking out here. An eternity, really.
[Cueball is sketching stuff in the sand. First line of text above him, the second below.] I've rederived modern math in the sand and then some.
[Three different graph types are depicted. First line of text above them, the second below.] Physics too. I worked out the kinks in quantum mechanics and relativity. Took a lot of thinking, but this place has fewer distractions than a Swiss patent office.
[The next eight panels take up the fourth and fifth lines of the comic. All pictures are the same size.] [Cueball is walking along the desert, laying out rocks on a line. Four have been deployed. He is laying down the fifth and has a sixth in his other hand.] One day I started laying down rows of rocks.
[Cueball, with a rock in his hand, continues to deploy rock 16, in a more intricate pattern. There are grid-lines in the sand (5 rows, 6 columns), with each intersection either empty of filled with a rock. No rocks lay anywhere but at an intersection on the grid.] Each new row followed from the last in a simple pattern.
[Zooming out showing even more laid out rocks. Cueball is seen directly from above, and we see his shadow falling on the grid of rocks (7 rows, 14 columns).] With the right set of rules and enough space,
[Continues to zoom further out showing clear triangular patterns (with no rocks) in the laid out grid of rocks. Cueball is not seen. (8 rows, 42 columns). First line of text above the grid, the second line below.] I was able to build a computer. Each new row of stones is the next iteration of the computation.
[Zooming far out (no Cueball) with rows intersected by five clear V lines on top of them. The V's are drawn inside each other, with the smallest V at the top right, and the other V's starting just to the right of the previous one, and then continuing the same distance past the previous V, as the total length of the first V. The "*" in the first line of text above this grid references to the footnote below written in a smaller font.] Sure it's rocks instead of electricity, but it's the same* thing. Just slower. *Turing-complete
[Cueball stands in a contemplative pose (on a clean white background - i.e. no dessert).] After a while, I programmed it to be a physics simulator.
[A black panel with white drawings and text. A small white dot (a particle) is labeled by two arrows coming of two binary strings.] Every piece of information about a particle was encoded as a string of bits written in the stones. 00101010 00101010
[A Feynman diagram showing two particles interacting. Two arrows going in and out with a snaking line between them.] With enough time and space, I could fully simulate two particles interacting.
[The next two panels take up the sixth line of the comic. The second panel takes up three-quarters of the width.] [Cueball standing before the vastness of the desert, with his programmed lines of rock stretching to infinity.] But I have infinite time and space.
[A black panel with white drawings and text. Depiction of two large galaxies, one with four jets coming out of its center, the other a flat disc. Several smaller galaxies and/or stars are shown around them.] So I decided to simulate a universe.
[The next four panels take up the seventh line of the comic. They are of similar widths.] [Cueball is walking by his grid of rocks, lines indicate he has just thrown another rock down in its place. It falls so hard it sinks into the sand that splashes out around it. The 14 rocks above him lie on the grid, four others below this grid have not been used yet.] The eons blur past as I walk down a single row.
[Zoom far far out to show multiple rows of rocks. It is not very clear that there are several triangular patterns (with no rocks) in different sizes in the laid out grid of rocks. There are about 50 rows and 90 columns. There are six large triangles on top of each other at the left edge. To the right, there are three even larger triangles from top to bottom, the one in the middle further to the left than the one above, but further right than the bottom one.] The rows blur past to compute a single step.
[Shows the placement of two particles in the simulation.] And in the simulation...
[The two particles have moved just long enough as to not overlap with their previous positions, shown as an after-image with faint gray lines. The text continues directly the one from the previous panel.] another instant ticks by.
[The next two panels take up the eighth line of the comic. They each take up half the width.] [A Cueball-like person (you) observes a mote of dust vanish.] So if you see a mote of dust vanish from your vision in a little flash or something
[Cueball is standing between two rocks on the ground, while holding two rocks, one lifted up to his head. The first line of text is above him. It is a direct continuation of the text in the previous panel. The second line stands below to the right of him.] I'm sorry. I must have misplaced a rock sometime in the last few billions and billions of millennia.
[Cueball stands in the "clean" part of his infinite desert, in front of the vastness of his infinity of infinite lines or rocks.] Oh, and...
[A Cueball-like student sits in a classroom with his head in his hands, Megan sits behind him, and a teacher points to the blackboard. A clock shows the time at five minutes to ten.] If you think the minutes in your morning lecture are taking a long time to pass for you ...


Theft of the Magi

Explanation:
This comic is a satirical play on O. Henry 's short story " The Gift of the Magi ." In O. Henry's story, a couple with very little money goes to great lengths to purchase gifts for one another. The wife sells her prized possession, her hair, to purchase a fancy chain for her husband's prize possession, a watch; the husband sells his watch to purchase some fancy hair accessories (clips/combs) for his wife. The story is about selflessness, as each party sold their prize possession to purchase something to enhance the other's prize possession.
In this comic, however, the opposite occurs: Black Hat stole Danish 's Roomba (an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner) and sold it to buy a new game for his Xbox , while Danish stole Black Hat's Xbox and sold it to buy a "dueling harness" for her Roomba, highlighting their mutually destructive selfishness. Although these actions reflect their sociopathic personalities and are at each other's detriment, both are apparently touched by the simultaneity of their selfish actions and the symmetry of the consequences. This is a play on the reaction that readers typically have upon reading the O. Henry story: although neither of the characters can actually use their gift, the gifts are touching nevertheless because they are literal symbols of the self-sacrificing love the characters have for each other.
The "dueling harness," also mentioned in the title text, is an invention by Randall , which presumably would allow Roombas to wield weapons and battle each other like the robots in Robot Wars .
[Black Hat is holding up a copy of Left 4 Dead . Danish is holding up a small harness.] Black Hat: Hey. I sold your Roomba on Craigslist so I could buy myself Left 4 Dead . Danish: But I eBayed your XBox so I could get this dueling harness for my Roomba! Black hat and Danish at the same time: Aww.


Experimentation

Explanation:
College (undergraduate university, for international readers) is often a young adult's first experience with independent living. As a result, it is a time to "find yourself," so the aphorism goes. This often includes a certain amount of sexual experimentation, including same-sex experimentation.
This comic applies a scientific interpretation to a colloquial expression (a favorite on xkcd ). Usually, "lesbian experimentation" refers to a woman engaging in one-night stands with other women to satisfy her curiosity about the experience and discover her own sexual orientation. Megan , however, does the "experimenting" according to the scientific method : hypothesize, experiment, draw conclusions, repeat. She formulates a hypothesis about her sexual orientation (apparently something along the lines of "I am a lesbian"), which she proceeds to test by experiments (sexual encounters) with female partners as the experimental group and male partners as the control group . She used large sample groups and multiple experiments (the reference to "control group B" implies at least two separate experiments). The title text implies that Megan "experimented" with the entire sophomore class (both males and females) before dating Cueball .
[Cueball and Megan are holding hands, and Megan is pointing off to the side.] Megan: Oh, hey, it's twelve of the dudes from control group B!
[Caption below the panel]: I'm cool with her past lesbian experimentation, but I wish she hadn't insisted the experiments be scientifically rigorous.


Drapes

Explanation:
This comic plays on the classic question "does the carpet match the drapes," where the 'drapes' are the hair on someone's head, and the 'carpet' is their pubic hair. The assumption is that some people artificially dye their head hair, but typically would not dye other body hair, essentially asking "Are you a 'natural' red-head/blonde/etc.?" The classic question doesn't mention upholstery, hence Cueball 's confusion. There is some speculation about other body/arm/leg/arm-pit hair interpretations for upholstery .
This comic could also be a self-referential joke where the furniture is a double entendre to the art of the comic itself. The "carpet" is the white background of the comic, which matches the black "drapes" of Cueball, the woman, and the words. The "upholstery," in this case, is the woman's hair, which is colored and heavily bordered to create a 3D effect, which does not at all match the rest of this comic. The fact that Cueball seems confused (as per the last panel and title text) suggests that the fourth wall may have been broken.
Alternatively, it could be that the woman is wearing a wig , and the "upholstery" is her natural hair or something similar.
Or the woman is talking literally about her home's decoration.
Cueball: So, does the carpet match the drapes?
Woman: Yeah. But not the upholstery.
[Woman walks away.]
[Cueball scratches his head, confused.]


Induced Current

Explanation:
This comic is exaggerating the effects of the physics stated. Solar flares eject, among other things, ions, electrons, and radiation. The charged particles reach Earth after a day or two, and in history has knocked the power out in some areas during a large flare. They can marginally affect the magnetic field of the Earth, or dent it, as Cueball says. A voltage occurs in a conductor (the wire) when subjected to a changing magnetic field. However, this change is small and influences only very long conductors, such as telephone lines.
Interestingly, phenomena as described by Cueball have occurred several times in recorded history, with effects quite nearly like those described, most notably the Carrington event of 1859. In 1859, a solar storm produced a series of powerful geomagnetic storms across the world, and many telegraph operators reported electrical phenomena (electric shock from the apparatus, messages sent and received despite disconnect from power sources, and pylons carrying telegraph lines sparking and arcing with current) all across North America. For this to occur in shorter conductors, (e.g., Beret guy's extension cord,) a solar storm would have to be so destructively large as to pose far more danger than just fires. The chances of such a solar event occurring again are not prohibitively small, though quite infrequent, and the last one, of comparative size and strength, was recorded in 2012 .
Mythbusters is a show that tests urban legends or myths that viewers submit. They have a classic style of scaling up myths to comical sizes. By starting the myth that a fire would be formed from the large voltage across the wire induced by the Earth's magnetic field, Cueball hopes to see it tested on Mythbusters , and perhaps then scaled up to astronomical proportions. This comic may also reference how Mythbusters was running out of urban legends to test, and has resorted to testing the feasibility of viral videos, movie scenes, proverbs, and the like, plus occasionally making up urban legends.
The title text refers to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) , the most powerful particle collider in the world and the fear of some people of the production of stable microscopic black holes destroying the Earth. Of course, testing something like this would be outside the scope of a show like MythBusters . Additionally, if the myth was confirmed, the planet would be destroyed, and nobody would like the MythBusters anymore. However, that wouldn't be much of a problem, seeing that there would be no one around to like anything.
[Beret Guy, extension cord in hand, approaches Cueball as he works at his computer.] Beret Guy: Can I plug my extension cord over here? Cueball: No. Beret Guy: Why? Cueball: Solar Flares. [A diagram is displayed, illustrating the Earth's magnetic field being permanently impacted by a large solar flare (represented by a large arrow).] [A second diagram is presented, illustrating the Earth's rotation and the resulting impact that the solar flare would have on the earth's magnetic field.] Cueball: A large solar flare could dent the Earth's magnetic field inwards. The Earth's spin could then induce a strong current in any long conductors, melting them and starting fires. By extending your cord, you could kill us all. [Stunned, Beret Guy looks down at the cord he carries.] Beret Guy: Really? Cueball: Warn your friends. [Dejected, Beret Guy walks away, cord in tow.] [Cueball looks up from his computer as he is braced by Megan, a stern look in her face.] Megan: That was mean. Cueball: Listen, somebody has to keep Mythbusters in business. Next season should be fun.


Egg Drop Failure

Explanation:
A common competition for school -age children (e.g. in science fairs or summer camps ) is the ' egg drop ': each team is given an unbroken egg (either raw or boiled, and usually of a chicken ), and may be provided with an assortment of materials, e.g. newspaper, popsicle sticks, string, tape, etc. The challenge is to build a contraption that will allow the egg to be dropped from some specified height onto a hard surface without breaking. In some competitions, the rules permit the contraption to be constructed from any available materials; other times, it is limited to only the materials that have been provided. Scoring varies wildly - common elements are speed of assembly, mass of the contraption, creativity of design (as determined by judging or voting), and/or accuracy of landing within a target area - but one near-universal rule is disqualification if the egg's shell is broken.
In the comic, the competitor fails, not because of any flaw in his design, but because the egg hatches unexpectedly during the fall. In reality, the hatching process usually takes many hours [1] [2] — much longer than the few seconds of a typical egg drop; furthermore, the newborn chick cannot fly immediately. However, if it were to magically happen as in the comic, then the competitor would be disqualified because the egg technically broke when the chick hatched from it.
The title text suggests an alternate strategy, one Randall hears was successful in real life: select for your egg one that has not yet been laid. The hen provides both active lift with her wings and significant padding with her body and feathers, thus nearly guaranteeing that the egg will survive the fall. But the chicken may not be permitted in some contests if it is not one of the allowed materials. And even if it were, a chicken might be heavier than the usual contraptions of newspaper and string, [ citation needed ] so it might lose anyway if weight is one of the scoring criteria.
[Boy tosses contraption off of building with egg in it.] [Egg cracks and little chick flies out while people look quizzically at the hatched egg.] Egg: Crack Chick: Chirp, chirp [Device with cracked egg lands on ground.]


Sleet

Explanation:
Megan is seen leaving an apartment, trudging through freezing temperatures and foul weather , when she could be in a warm, cozy bed. The dialog is likely her thoughts, rather than speech. She is fed up with the second person's endless discussion of digital rights management (DRM). She probably agrees with his position, but would rather face the weather than his endless rehashing of the issue.
The words in the first panel are the opening lyrics of the Christmas standard, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! .
In the last panel, Free Culture refers to a book by Lawrence Lessig , who advocates for fewer restrictions in many areas. Randall had previously advocated this title himself in 86: Digital Rights Management and 129: Content Protection , and mentioned Lessig in 343: 1337: Part 3 .
In the title text, it is revealed that Megan herself is also guilty of droning on about 'boring' subjects, likely to the annoyance of those around her. In this case, complaining about science-fiction TV series Battlestar Galactica , which tends to produce strong reactions among geeks . She has gone outside to avoid the boring rant. However, given the opportunity, it is she who would be doing the ranting.
[The comic is set on a rainy, cold, windy street; Megan is walking along said street with a scarf; narration is from Megan's point-of-view.] The weather outside is frightful. I hate trudging through the icy slush and biting sleet. But it beats lying in our warm, cozy bed Listening to you talk about DRM for hours on end. Offscreen: Come back! Just listen to this one quote from Free Culture!


Alternate Currency

Explanation:
Cueball is shown watching television, where it is announced that the US dollar has collapsed and been replaced by an 'alternative currency' of humorous pictures commonly shared on the internet (an Internet Meme ). Such a currency would be utterly useless; for untraceable and easily counterfeited .gif and .jpeg files to become more monetarily stable than the US dollar would mean that the economy is all kinds of screwed , to the point of utter absurdity.
The title text pokes fun at users of 4Chan who are notoriously known for their habit of hoarding image macros, a practice he suggests is almost useless except in the instance jokingly suggested by the comic. 4Chan is also reputable for reducing the Happiness and Success of many people their community targets anonymously.  Randall also pokes fun at himself in saying, "I have been preparing for this moment my whole life," indirectly implying he is also guilty of this practice.
The "rare pepe" meme that has recently sprouted on 4chan implies that some photoshopped pictures of Pepe the frog are valuable and that they could be sold. 120 Rare pepe's reached a price of $99,166 on eBay before being removed as seen here.
With the rise of cryptocurrency and NFTs, this absurdist comic is becoming indistinguishable from reality.
[Cueball is standing in front of a televion] Television: With the collapse of the dollar, the government has endorsed an alternate currency. Your monetary worth is now determined by the number of funny pictures saved to your hard drive. [Caption below the panel:] I have been preparing for this moment my whole life.


Friends

Explanation:
Cueball is talking to Megan . He confesses that he has a crush on her. Usually the next step in Western cultures, when someone likes someone else, is to ask the other person out (in other cultures, such as Islamic or Indian cultures, it would be more appropriate to request that one's parents contact the parents of the person one has a crush on). But Cueball takes a different route, and in the comic, he explains his thought process. Presumably he actually explains this to Megan.
He explains that he is afraid of rejection, and so instead of asking her out directly, promises to be her "best friend" and someone who is always "there for you," in the hopes that this will eventually lead to Megan developing an attraction for him. This way, Cueball does not have to risk Megan saying 'No' to him, as she will be led to make the first move instead. Cueball is aware that this may not be an ideal situation for Megan, conceding that she may end up changing her definition of happiness to make her feel more comfortable in the relationship, while she is conscious of the fact that she doesn't really love Cueball. Cueball recognizes that if Megan fell for him this way, she would probably have this fact at the back of her mind forever.
And so, after painting this elaborate - but troubling - future, Cueball asks sound good ? Megan, however, is not won over by Cueball's plan, and she tells him that she is going to date "this jerk ", poking fun at him saying 'I will tear down the jerks you date'. (Although she could have said any name here -- to Cueball it will always sound like jerk !) This suggests that she would much rather date someone else rather than date Cueball whom she -- as he correctly implies -- does not love.
Cueball declares that the other suitor doesn't respect you , an absurdly hypocritical comment given his manipulative plan. He explained earlier that he would tear down the jerks you date ; this last line could also be him actually executing on the plan he just detailed.
The title text is a play on the concept of friends with benefits , wherein two friends have casual sex without entering a committed relationship. Friends with detriments suggests that having Cueball as her "friend" damages Megan's chances of getting a relationship (and sex) with anyone else, since Cueball will tear any candidate down. Also, despite Cueball claiming to be Megan's friend (and appearing to value this friendship), his plans are rather selfish and manipulative, making him a "friend" who is in fact detrimental.
[Cueball is talking to Megan.] Cueball: I have a crush on you.
[Cueball is shown alone.] Cueball: I could ask you out, and move on with my life if you said no.
[Cueball has his arms out.] Cueball: Or, Cueball: WE COULD BE FRIENDS!
[Cueball has one palm out.] Cueball: See, I don't want to consider that you might not be attracted to me. I'm scared of rejection, so I've decided relationships should grow smoothly out of friendships.
[Megan is shown sitting at her computer.] Cueball: When you have problems, I'll be there for you, night after night. Cueball: Selflessly. Computer: *hug*
[Megan is shown slamming a door and walking to Cueball to get a hug.] Cueball: I'll tear down the jerks you date, and wait for you to realize how good I am for you. That only I will ever understand you. SLAM Megan: Sniff Cueball: There there
[Cueball is shown alone again.] Cueball: You don't want to hurt my feelings, and I won't ever force the issue. I'll tell myself it's because I "value our friendship."
[Again.] Cueball: Bit by bit, I'll make you depend on me.
[Cueball and Megan are shown sitting on a rock in a park, reading a book together.] Cueball: You'll think about how long it would take to build this kind of connection again.
[Cueball and Megan are shown sitting on a couch drinking, getting closer, and kissing.] Cueball: And in a moment of weakness Cueball: and loneliness Cueball: you'll give in.
[Megan is shown sitting at the computer with Cueball behind her facing the other way washing dishes.] Cueball: It'll feel comfortable and natural. You'll quietly revise your definition of love and try to be happy. And sometimes you will be.
[Megan is shown sitting at the computer.] Cueball: Only the wistfulness in your gaze and the tiny pause before you say "I love you" will hint that this wasn't the ending you'd hoped for. Cueball: Sound good?
[Megan is holding hands with another boy, talking to Cueball.] Megan: ...I'm going to date this jerk. Cueball: But he doesn't respect you!


Simultaneous

Explanation:
This comic links to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity .
Cueball and Megan are talking about the sex they just had. Cueball is remarking on how they both achieved orgasm simultaneously, but Megan disagrees.
This comic is a play on Einstein's theory of special relativity . One piece of the theory deals with two observers who are moving at close to the speed of light relative to each other. According to Einstein, events that appear simultaneous to one observer will appear to happen at different times to the other.
So when one partner is moving and the other isn't, it's possible that they experience their orgasm at different times relative to each other. That would require one partner to be moving really fast in one direction, which would make them a really bad partner. [ citation needed ] On small speeds, this effect could not be measured.
The other joke is that partners often disagree with each other — even when the difference is minor and not important to the matter.
The title text is reference to the twin paradox, which arises from another piece of special relativity. In theory, if you stick one twin on a spaceship at near light speed and keep the other back on Earth, and assuming neither accelerates, each will perceive himself to age slowly while the other ages quickly, forming an apparent paradox. Megan expresses a preference for Cueball's older twin, who will be more "mature," meaning both older and presumably less combative about simultaneity. Again, the joke here is that at relativistic speeds, there could be disagreement about which twin is truly the "older" one.
[Cueball and Megan are in bed.] Cueball: Mmm, simultaneous orgasms. Megan: That wasn't simultaneous. Cueball: Huh? It totally was! [Caption below the panel:] A common disagreement when one of you is doing all the moving.


No One Must Know

Explanation:
Black Hat and Danish are more known for their sociopathy than their affection. In the first panel, they are affectionate towards each other, holding hands and using terms of endearment by calling each other cake names, i.e. danish pastry and pie . The entrance of Cueball , and his observation of this state, leads Black Hat and Danish to kill him and bury the evidence, so that no one knows that side of them, but 433: Journal 5 states that they are, in fact, in a relationship.
The title text provides the alternative hypothesis that they were planning on killing him the whole time and were intentionally acting affectionate for the mental effect it would have on their victim.
542: Cover-Up provides a possible continuation of this story.
[Black Hat and Danish are talking and holding hands.] Black hat: You're my dearest darling danish. Danish: And you're my lovely cutie pie. Black hat: Well, you're- [Cueball enters.] [Black Hat and Danish look at each other and let go of each others hands.] [Black Hat holds a bloody sack, while Danish pushes down on a shovel to make a hole for what is presumably Cueball's body.]


Wood Chips

Explanation:
Cueball has tried to play an elaborate hoax on a woman involving wood chips that match the composition of the wood used to build a 19th-century ghost ship called the Mary Celeste . Unfortunately, the woman has done the sensible, reasonable thing and thrown them out instead of checking to see if they belong to a ghost ship, whose wood chips or what-have-you would probably not have found their way to the hallway. This causes Cueball to realize that he needs to rethink the complicated way in which he creates hoaxes, because the people he is trying to trick do not follow through with his elaborate plans.
The title text suggests that he also set up some kind of chemical match with the Shroud of Turin . The Shroud of Turin is a famous artifact bearing a ghostly image of a man's face, said by some to have been used to wrap the body of Jesus of Nazareth . Radiocarbon dating performed on the shroud in the late 1980s dated it to the Middle Ages (i.e. not old enough to have been used by Jesus); however, not everyone has accepted this finding.
[Cueball leans on desk; Woman sits behind desk.]
Cueball: Did you ever figure out those mysterious woodchips? Woman: The ones in the hallway? No. Cueball: You didn't suspect that they matched the timber used in 1861 to build the "ghost ship" Mary Celeste, prompting you to send them to a lab for analysis, the results of which raised new and stranger questions? Woman: No, I threw them out. Why? [Caption below the panel:] My hoaxes need to get a lot less subtle.


Marshmallow Gun

Explanation:
Cueball has obtained a gun that shoots marshmallows and promptly decides to shoot at Megan . Having taken the first few hits without much reaction, she sighs and then brings out  the super soaker, which was first used on her in 220: Philosophy (and later reappears in 2334: Slide Trombone ), and soaks him with it.
The next day, everyone has such guns and starts shooting marshmallows at each other. We see Beret Guy and Megan who confront Cueball, saying Hey, noob ! Eat Stay-Puft® ! This is like saying eat lead when threatening someone with a regular gun, since Stay Puft is a fictional brand of marshmallows from the Ghostbusters movie. (Of course, it's also a reasonable thing to say, since marshmallows are good to eat.) [ citation needed ] These statements and many like them appear in many first-person shooter games with chat.
Beret Guy realizes that the "streams" of marshmallows are about to cross and shouts a warning, but it is too late and they cross anyway. This results in something gigantic appearing with a Foom Roaaar! off-screen. It roars at the three friends. Megan looks up and states that this is bad as the giant shouts You're shooting what? Presumably the crossing marshmallow beams have recreated the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters . In the movie, crossing the ghost-capturing streams from the proton packs was " bad ." But in the end, in which an ancient spirit took the form of this giant Marshmallow Man, the monster was destroyed as a side effect of crossing the streams.  The Stay-Puft man sees what they are shooting and is justifiably upset.
The title text is a further Ghostbusters reference, as Bill Murray was one of the actors in the movie. Since the crossing of the streams of the proton packs by Bill Murray and the other Ghostbusters is related to the destruction of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the movie, the crossing of the marshmallow streams in the comic does the opposite and summons an enormous Bill Murray.
[A box above the first frame:] I got this gun that shoots marshmallows. [Cueball removes the red marshmallow gun from a box.]

[Cueball shoots at Megan with marshmallow gun from offscreen.] Pop pop pop Whap whap whap

[Megan facepalms.] Pop Megan: Sigh.

[Megan removes a super soaker from desk drawer.] Pop pop
[Megan shoots Cueball (offscreen) with the super soaker.] Cueball (offscreen): Augh! Fwoosh Cueball (offscreen): Man, I forgot that was there.

[A box above the first frame of the second part of the comic:] The next day, everyone else got them too. [Megan and Beret Guy brandish marshmallow guns.] Megan: Hey, noob! Eat Stay-Puft®!

[Megan shoots a marshmallow gun.] Pop pop pop

[Cueball shoots a marshmallow gun.] Poppop pop

[Megan and Cueball shoot marshmallows into the air, crossing the streams.] Beret Guy (offscreen): No! Don't cross the—

[Between the last two frames is a wide gap with the following text:] Foom Giant monster (offscreen): Roaaar!

[Megan, Cueball, and Beret Guy are all standing with weapons pointed at the ground looking up.] Megan: Okay, this is bad. Giant monster (offscreen): You're shooting what ?


Flow Charts

Explanation:
Flowcharts are diagrams that represent processes in a graphical form. While predominantly used in computer programming to visualize the structure of source code, flowcharts can in theory be used to depict any real or virtual procedure. In this comic, this idea is subverted by employing a flowchart to explain how flowcharts work. Flowcharts are a recurring theme on xkcd, and a list of flowchart comics can be found here .
This seems like a faulty basis for explaining anything, but the basic functionality of flowcharts is quite intuitive, and the attempted self-description is almost unnecessary. In fact, the comic does not actually explain how to use the flowchart: it just uses an example of a very simple flowchart to demonstrate to the reader that they can easily work out how to follow it.  If the reader attempts to "game" the system by either giving contradictory answers, or refusing to acknowledge that they can see the "Yes" and "No" labels, the flowchart gets confused or becomes abusive. Just like a real computer.
If you confirm or demonstrate that you can follow the flowchart, it inevitably leads to the "Let's go drink" box, which gives rise to the assumption that the whole chart was only a pretence for drinking.
FreeBSD is a unixoid operating system for computers that is generally considered to require advanced skills [ citation needed ] . The question whether Linux or (Free)BSD is the preferable operating system is a question of almost [ citation needed ] religious belief to some. The comic takes a shot against FreeBSD by implying that one would only decide to install it when under the influence of alcohol. This may also be a reference to 349: Success .
The title text mentions Microsoft Bob , a software package published in 1995 by Microsoft . The product was targeted towards beginners, and Microsoft decided to use a cartoon-style interface instead of a more 'professional' environment. It was a commercial failure [ citation needed ] , and still serves as an inside joke among IT professionals.
Randall has made use of flowcharts before, and later he released another comic name 1195: Flowchart .
[A flow chart is shown beneath a caption. There are 14 boxes, five rhombus shaped and the rest rectangular. From all the rhombus boxes there are one arrow entering and two arrows leaving (with yes/no labels on them). One of the other boxes is the start with only one arrow leaving, and three of these boxes are endings with only one arrow entering. Three have two arrows entering and one leaving. And two have one in and one out. Caption:] A guide to understanding flow charts presented in flow chart form.
Box 0: Start [Arrow to Box 1.] Box 1: Do you understand flow charts? [Arrow to Box 2.] Yes [Arrow to Box 4.] No Box 2: Good [Arrow to Box 3.] Yes Box 3: Let's go drink. [Arrow to Final Box.] 6 Drinks Box 4: Okay. You see the line labeled "Yes"? [Arrow to Box 6.] Yes [Arrow to Box 5.] No Box 5: But you see the ones labeled "No". [Arrow to End-Box 1.] Yes [Arrow to End-Box 2a.] No End-Box 1: Wait, what? [No Arrows.] End-Box 2a: Listen. [Arrow to End-Box 2b.] End-Box 2b: I hate you. [No Arrows.] Box 6: ...and you can see the ones labeled "No"? [Arrow to Box 2.] Yes [Arrow to Box 7.] No Box 7: But you just followed them twice! [Arrow to Box 8a.] Yes [Arrow to Box 8a.] No Box 8a: (That wasn't a question.) [Arrow to Box 8b.] Box 8b: Screw it. [Arrow to Box 3.] Final Box: Hey I should try installing FreeBSD!


11th Grade

Explanation:
This strip is a comparison about the time spent in 11th grade doing various things, and how important those things are to one's future. The first two bars on the chart are 900 hours of class, which is about 180 hours short of how many hours kids spend in school each year (most likely to show the lunch hour), and 400 hours of homework, or an average of about 2.2 hours per school day. Conversely, idly messing around in Perl (a programming language) for only one weekend is shown to have a much larger impact on one's future — specifically Randall's, as learning how to code would have been key to his job as a robotics engineer at NASA. This is likely due to the skills one can pick up in even just a single weekend in contrast to the often redundant, trivial, or generalist information that schools tend to convey.
This is mainly a critique to how school subjects can be rather useless for one's future or that the school is so boring that students are discouraged to pay attention in class.
The title text continues this sentiment; the fact that the subject of the conversation is left shrouded in mystery deepens the romance (in all senses of the word).
[Above a bar graph:] 11th-grade activities: [The y-axis is labeled:] Usefulness to career success [Above the x-axis are two small bars and one huge bar. Below the x-axis, each bar is labeled:] 900 hours of classes 400 hours of homework One weekend messing with Perl


Cuttlefish

Explanation:
It appears that Cueball and Megan are physicists visiting a biology lab. Their guide, a biologist looking like Cueball, gives them a description of the humble cuttlefish that is both accurate and makes them sound like other-worldly creatures with highly advanced capabilities.
The scene takes an unusual turn when the scientist implies that the cuttlefish have been easily trained to improve their capabilities. He then demonstrates this by giving a simple command, whereupon the cuttlefish rise out of the water, only to attack and kill both Cueball and Megan, demonstrating an ability to fly, talk, and discharge lethal electric shocks in the process. (See also 35: Sheep ).
This is all revealed to be a dream, but it has given Cueball a warning not to underestimate the biologists. Apparently, they can be just as crazy and dangerous as any other kind of scientist. Cueball (who represent Randall as it is xkcd that salutes in the final panel) offers a toast to all biologists everywhere and plans an alliance with them against the chemists , hoping to prevent further attacks on physicists. He is then shown drinking from a laboratory flask, something that any scientist would be wary of.
In the past, Randall has been somewhat dismissive of the non-math/non-physics scientific disciplines, so this comic may be trying to mend some bridges with biologists. But not with chemists.
In the title text, CS stands for Computer Science . The "robot revolution" references events in film and literature, wherein robots, having become commonplace in the workforce, achieve independent thought and declare war on humanity, like in The Terminator , The Matrix , or the movie I, Robot . Randall implies that the physicists will switch sides if the robot revolution arrives first. Cephalopod is the class of animals that encompasses cuttlefish, as well as squids and octopodes .
[A scientist (looking like Cueball) is pointing into an aquarium tank with two small animals floating in the water. He explains that they are cuttlefish to Cueball and Megan, who are on the other side of the tank looking into it, Cueball with a hand to his mouth. Above them there is a frame inside the panel with a caption:] We visit a bio lab: Scientist: These are cuttlefish.
[Very detailed drawing of a cuttlefish, with its special W shaped pupils, all eight arms and two longer tentacles, and the striped body with waving parts shown waving down each side. The scientist tells about the animal with text above and below.] Scientist (off-panel): They're frighteningly smart, have manipulating arms and tentacles, have ink jets, can dart backwards and see the polarization of light through their w-shaped pupils. Scientist (off-panel): And their sides are 200 dpi display screens which they use for camouflage and communication.
[Back to the original setting where the scientist stands a little farther back from the tank with his arms down. Cueball and Megan have also moved farther back and are even leaning away from the tank.] Scientist: When we realized how intelligent they were, we began to teach them. Scientist: They've advanced quickly. Scientist: Cuttlefish: GO.
[The two cuttlefish float straight out of the tank (lines indicating the movement and water splashing at the surface of the tank). The scientist looks down at them, while Cueball and Megan are holding hands and leaning farther back and Cueball taking his hand back to his mouth.]
[Pan to only the scientist, standing with one arm bend in front of him and the other holding a finger up to his mouth, and the tank from where the cuttlefish now fly toward Cueball and Megan, who are now off-panel. Lines behind the cuttlefish show that they fly right but bob up and down. The cuttlefish talk in a strange way where the letters are alternately up and down.] Cuttlefish: K i l l t h e P h y s i c i s t s Cuttlefish: K i l l t h e P h y s i c i st s [Pan to Megan and Cueball, with the tank almost inside the left frame. Both cuttlefish are surrounded by their own zigzag lines, which then extend from them in a thin line to encompass either Cueball or Megan. Cueball was running away from them, when this happens, with legs bent at the knees and arms out, one bent. Megan has fallen, lying face down with her arms out.]
[In this panel with faint gray shading, Cueball is waking up in bed from the dream, rising up to a sitting position suddenly as indicated with two movement lines behind his head. One arm is supporting him on the bed next to the pillow, and the other is pulling his sheet down away from his torso. The first sentence is maybe still part of the dream, as there is no line from Cueball to the sentence, and it is written high up. There is a line to the second sentence.] Cueball: Oh god. Cueball: I knew it.
[This panel is divided into five segments. At the top, there is a large caption in two lines. There are three drawings following each other from left to right. First, a bottle is pouring liquid into a an Erlenmeyer flask (a conical laboratory flask) that is half full. Then, Cueball takes the flask and holds it up as a salute. Finally, he drinks from it, leaning his head way back. Below there is more text.] xkcd Salutes Bio Majors If we join you against the chemists, will you train your fleshy minions to leave us alive?


2008 Christmas Special

Explanation:
This comic is the xkcd Christmas Special from the year 2008. The prologue states that due to the 2008 financial crisis , only very few images of the strip could be produced, leaving the others to be blacked out. It is therefore left to the reader to reconstruct the whole story based on the given images. While it is claimed that the reconstruction should be rather easy, the complicated and abstruse plot-line makes it nearly impossible to fill the gaps. Any attempt at inferring the missing images would therefore be largely guesswork. The comic features the well-known xkcd characters getting involved in a strange fight with cyborgs and raptors on Christmas Eve.
The line "We apologize for the inconvenience." is possibly a reference to the famous book series The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams . It appears there as God's Final Message to His Creation, written in letters of fire on the side of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains.
Panel 2: Megan strives to outdo some Christmas lights she has seen on YouTube.
Panel 3: Dissatisfied with her work, Megan is thinking about alternative ways improve her light arrangement. The idea of firing Sodium pellets into snow is probably a bad one, as Sodium reacts exothermically with water and may, in large amounts, induce explosions.
Panel 5: Probably still obsessed with the idea of creating a large and impressive light display, Megan has constructed an electronic device with an Arduino processor, perhaps to make the light chain show patterns. However, the amount of energy she used was apparently too high, causing one of the control boards to sublimate- go directly from a solid to a gaseous state without an intermediate liquid phase. She then wishes she could make the system self-repairing.
Panel 7: Megan's device has developed artificial intelligence , allowing it to feel. This is presumably a result of Megan attempting to make the device self-repairing. This common trope in science-fiction works usually leads to the system's attempting to eradicate its creator. Cueball attributes the emergence of a personality to awesome ease and power of programming in Python .
Panel 11: Out of context, this panel introduces the idea of Santa Claus being a Muslim . This may be a reference to the persistent Internet rumors that Barack Obama is a Muslim, though he declares himself to be a Christian. However, the statement could also relate to the fact the Santa Claus is usually displayed with a large beard, which is sometimes also sported by conservative Muslims.  Or it could just be non-sensical.
Panel 13: At this point the self-aware Christmas light control systems has apparently released cyborgs that tried to kill Megan and Cueball. In order to repel the cyborgs, they have cloned Velociraptors . Cueball expresses doubt whether that was really a good idea. Velociraptors appear frequently in xkcd, as seen in these comics
Panel 17: As predicted, the raptors have gone wild, but Megan, Cueball and the two smaller characters (perhaps their children) managed to cage the dinosaurs. They believe themselves safe unless the raptors learn how to build lightsabers . This is a reference to a line in Jurassic Park where the main characters believe themselves safe, unless the raptors can learn how to open doors.
Panel 19: The raptors have indeed succeeded with constructing lightsabers and must now be fought. The "Clever girl" is a reference to a line from Jurassic Park where the raptors outflank (and kill) one of the human characters wearing a similar hat.
Panel 23: IT billionaire Bill Gates has mistakenly killed Santa Claus, possibly in a sword fight. He claims to have mistaken him for Richard Stallman , a prominent free software activist. (Gates strongly opposes the idea of free software and is therefore considered an antagonist by many of its supporters.) The most striking resemblance between Stallman and Santa Claus is probably the long and untamed beard. Comic 225 is one of the most famous xkcd comics and features Stallman involved in a sword fight.
Panel 29: Megan, possibly Danish , asks Black Hat where he obtained the enormously large christmas tree that can be seen on the right side of the picture. It is implied that he logged Yggdrasil , a giant ash tree in Norse mythology. According to tradition, Yggdrasil is the world tree representing the whole of creation and holding together the cosmological structure.
Panel 31: Randall wishes Merry Christmas to all xkcd readers.
The title text refers to panel 7. In Python, modules are imported using the "import module " syntax. Skynet is a self-aware artificial intelligence system featured in the Terminator film series as the main antagonist. Importing the skynet module might therefore account for Megan's system's developing an evil personality.
Note that this comic was first published in another version that had panel 29 as panel 27 and the "Merry Christmas from xkcd" message at the bottom. As 27 is not a prime number , the current version was published in lieu of the erroneous one.
It has been observed that the top left nine panels form a Glider in Conway's Game of Life . The glider is sometimes used as an emblem representing hacker subculture , although rotated by 90 degrees. It remains however unclear whether the occurrence in the comic is intentional or owed to the prime number pattern.
The 2008 XKCD Christmas Special Due to the slowing economy, we could only afford to produce the prime-numbered panels. You should be able to infer the missing parts of the story easily enough. We apologize for the inconvenience. [The first panel is blank.] [Megan carrying Christmas lights and Cueball watching.] Megan: I'm going to one-up those Christmas light displays on YouTube. [Megan thinking.] Megan: Hmm. Needs more flair. Do you know what happens when you fire sodium pellets into a snowbank? Cueball: No. Megan: Me neither. [The next panel is blank.] [Megan sitting in front of a console.] Megan: Whoops, one of the Arduino control boards sublimated. Megan: If only I could make it self-repairing... [The next panel is blank.] Megan: Shit. The system has become sentient. Cueball: Friggin' Python. System: GRAAARR! [The next three panels are blank.] [Megan showing laptop to Cueball.] Megan: But according to this email forward, Santa is secretly a Muslim! Cueball: It explains everything! [The next panel is blank.] Megan: Okay, the cloned raptors are hunting the last of the cyborgs. We're safe. Cueball: Are you sure you thought this through? [The next three panels are blank.] [Two couples appear in this next panel.] Cueball: Are the raptors contained? Ponytail: Sure. Unless they figure out how to build lightsabers. [The next panel is blank.] [Guy with hat fighting with a raptor using lightsabers.] Cueball: It's all right. I've got her. [Lightsaber appears from behind.] Snap-hiss! Cueball: ...Clever girl. [The next three panels are blank.] [Bill Gates is holding a weapon over Santa's body. The two girls are watching.] Megan: Great. Bill Gates kills Santa. Bill Gates: I thought it was Stallman with a dyed beard. [The next five panels are blank.] [Danish and Black Hat are looking at a tree.] Danish: Where did you get this Christmas tree? Black Hat: Nowhere. Danish: Did you cut down the Yggdrasil? Black Hat: ...Maybe. [The next panel is blank.] [Megan and Cueball holding hands and looking at reader.] Merry Christmas from XKCD <3 [The last panel is blank.]


Google Trends

Explanation:
Google keeps track of which searches are most popular in which regions as part of more general data mining to improve their service. For the enjoyment/education of others, they release select, non-personal parts of this data under the banner " Google Trends ."
The first statistic – that "Men kissing" was popular in Utah , a state known for possessing a large population with very conservative social values, including opposition to homosexuality – is real. The others are made up for the sake of the joke. In order:
With regards to the excerpt Randall provides in the title text:
Bloggers were recently amused to discover that, according to Google Trends, the search term: "men kissing" is most popular in conservative Utah. A few other embarrassing correlations:
[A two column table] [On the left side of the table:] Search Term
Installing Ubuntu
Running for President in 2010
Lincoln Fan Fiction
Raptors on Hoverboards
How is babby formed?
I hate this website
[On the right side of the table:] Top City
Redmond, WA
Wasilla, AK
Chicago, IL
Somerville, MA
Wasilla, AK
Mountain View, CA


Decline

Explanation:
Cueball , apparently concerned about the status of his romantic relationship, has constructed a "relationship graph" plotting an ambiguously quantitative metric for love and/or affection against what is presumably time (the x -axis is not actually labeled; ironically in 833: Convincing Cueball states that not labeling graph axes is a relationship deal-breaker). He has identified a sudden drop. Cueball's romantic partner (probably Megan ) notes from off screen that the drop corresponds to the moment Cueball's obsession with graphs began. He claims the two events are coincidental, thereby referencing the recurring xkcd theme of correlation not necessarily implying causation – see 552: Correlation .
The title text references Fourier transformation . The Fourier transform is a technique for discovering the periodic characteristic(s) of a function. A spike at one month on the Fourier transform of the love graph would mean that something happens every month that causes the relationship to change. This is presumably a reference to Megan menstruating, although this isn't proven. This is not something you should mention to your girlfriend and she asks him to stop talking before he finishes the sentence. After this graph the relationship may very well end...
Fourier transformations were mentioned previously in 26: Fourier .
[Cueball is pointing at a line graph at a specific point where it slopes down. The y-axis shows that as y increases, love increases.] Cueball: Our relationship entered its decline at this point. Megan [Outside of panel]: That's when you started graphing everything. Cueball: Coincidence!


Party

Explanation:
This New Year comic plays out at what is, probably, a New Year party thrown by Danish . (The previous New Year day comic in 2007 was also related to a wild party: 364: Responsible Behavior ).
In the first panel, we see Black Hat telling Cueball that he has hired Rick Astley to show up at a party for a girl. Cueball, assuming Rick Astley is going to perform a live rickroll, asks if that is not "so last year". Rickrolling is where one is redirected to a video of Rick Astley singing " Never Gonna Give You Up " via a weblink purporting to be something else. It was later extended to any situation where the song is used disruptively, such as during a party. It started in 2006 and grew until peaking on April Fool's Day in 2008. Thus at New Years Eve 2008, the meme was getting old. However, Black Hat assures Cueball that Rick Astley is not actually going to sing.
The comic then continued to the now ongoing party and we see the girl in question, Danish , Black Hat's girlfriend, talking with Ponytail when she notices Rick Astley at her party. Like Cueball, Danish expects Rick Astley is going to sing and rickroll her live. She obviously hates this idea and braces her self for the humiliation of being rickrolled. But she is freaked out when he just stands there staring at her, but without singing. In the end his presence alone causes her to hear the song in her head instead, and finally she flees the room screaming slamming a door behind her. Black Hat has essentially rickrolled her in her own mind, which is far worse than just playing a song for her. But Black Hat could not have done so without the willing assistance from Rick!
So when Ponytail asks Rick Astley "what did you do to her?", he begins by saying "that, my dear" and then slowly puts on sunglasses before he answers "Is how I roll."  This references both rickrolling and the "that's how I roll" meme.
Although the identity of the girl Black Hat is pranking is not stated by Randall (he refers to her as Girl 1 but he has also never given an official name to "Danish" - that is an explain xkcd name), she clearly is Danish, Black Hat's girlfriend. Danish was introduced in the Journal story-line ( 377: Journal 2 ), some time prior to this comic. At first her reaction may no look like Danish, who should play it cool according to the her first appearance! Black Hat, however,  is a master and he could know that "not getting Rick rolled" would freak her even more out. Additionally, Danish is seen with Ponytail in 405: Journal 3 . And in that comic Black Hat also shows that he can get back at her, after she claimed she was better than him in 377: Journal 2 . He also tricks her into blowing her own garage up in 433: Journal 5 . So of course he can trick her, and of course she will hate that he has rick rolled her. So not doing it with Rick Astley in her house, would drive her mad, just like Black Hat would love, even if she is his girl friend. This would also not have happened for a normal girl like Megan , whom Danish slightly resembles. Normal people will laugh not cry after being rickrolled.
The title text refers to the fact that rickrolling first appeared in 2007 (on 4chan ) and became viral for over a year. Giving that this is a New Year comic it is thus relevant to asks what meme will replace Rickrolling in the new year, 2009. Although Randall makes reference to the " Xzibit Yo Dawg " and " I accidentally... " photocaptioning memes, memebase entries suggest the "Keep Calm and Carry On" meme may well have become the most popular (and most enduring, as of 2013) meme of 2009.
As of 2022, Rickrolling is still one of the most relevant memes from that era. [ citation needed ]
Black Hat: And so I hired Rick Astley to show up at her party. Cueball: And rickroll her? Isn't that a little...last year? Black Hat: Ah, but he's not going to sing.
Danish: Hey is that Rick Astley? Ponytail: I think it is. He just came in. Danish: Oh no. Brace yourself.
Danish: Wait. He's just standing there. Where's the song? Danish: He's staring at me. Danish: This is a little creepy.
Danish: What's going on? Danish: That's actually Rick Astley staring at me. Danish: What's he doing? Danish: Oh God, I keep expecting it, hearing it in my head.
[Danish pulls at her hair.] Danish: Just do it already! [Danish runs off stage right.] Danish: Aaaaaaaa
[Danish slams the door leaving Ponytail and Rick Astley] Door: Slam
Ponytail: Mr. Astley? Rick Astley: Yes? Ponytail: What did you do to her? What was that?
Rick Astley: That, my dear,
[Rick Astley puts on sunglasses.]
Rick Astley: Is how I roll.


I Know You're Listening

Explanation:
Cueball occasionally says "I know you're listening" aloud in empty rooms. The idea is, that if nobody is listening he doesn't lose anything, but if somebody is listening he gains by freaking them out. In this case another Cueball-like surveillance man does get quite the shock.
As mentioned in the title text, this is similar to Pascal's Wager . Blaise Pascal was a French philosopher and mathematician who discussed the issue of the possibility that God actually does exist or not. According to Pascal, a rational person should live as though (a Christian) God exists, because he would lose negligible things if this turns out not to be true, but would gain immensely if it is true, by going to heaven in the afterlife. As Pascal himself recognized, this is not a proof of any god's existence, Christian or otherwise, but rather an inexorable choice made by every human being. Cueball makes a similar choice here, though hardly for such a moral reason.
[Caption above the two panels of the comic:] Now and then, I announce "I know you're listening" to empty rooms.
[Cueball is sitting in an armchair, reading. He murmurs something unreadable.]
[A second Cueball-like surveillance man with headphones, seems to have gotten up from his office chair so fast that is has fallen over and lies behind him. He is now standing in front of a large computer terminal with two screens, he can hear Cueball's mumble as it is shown as coming from one of the screens. The surveillance man is leaning back away from the terminal while holding a hand to his headphones.]
[Caption below the panels:] If I'm wrong, no one knows. And if I'm right, maybe I just freaked the hell out of some secret organization.


Converting to Metric

Explanation:
Most people will eventually develop an intuitive feel for how big certain measurements are (e.g., how long an inch or a foot is, how much a pound weighs). This comic points out that people who were brought up using the United States system of customary units probably don't have the same intuitive understanding for metric units and attempts to provide some benchmarks for these people. Most of the benchmarks are common sense, highly-useful ones (e.g., if it's 30 degrees Celsius, you'd be quite comfortable outside dressed for the beach) but some of the benchmarks are humorous and/or completely useless as can be seen below.
Some people argue for switching to metric units in the US, and these people became part of the comic 1982: Evangelism .
In the book Thing Explainer a similar chart for metrics is shown in the explanation for How to count things , with four of the five measures from this comic also explained in simple language. Only volume is left out there. Only thing used in both explanations is the weight of a cat, but in the book it weighs 5 kg rather than 4 kg in this comic.
See also 1643: Degrees about not being able to choose between the two temperature scales and 1923: Felsius about a compromise between the two scales. In the comic 1982: Evangelism , some people are stated to argue for the US to convert to the metric system, except for the Fahrenheit scale which they wish to keep.
Here both the SI unit m/s as well as the more commonly used unit kph (km/h) is given. Note that the SI prefers "km/h" over the non-standard abbreviation "kph".
The title text refers once again to Summer Glau's Firefly character, River Tam , who (after being subjected to a long series of medical experiments) is severely mentally ill and often comes out with macabre — though scientifically accurate — pronouncements. In Firefly episode "Safe" (season 1, episode 7), she says: "The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems."
The idea of the comic is to establish new metric reference points and not to resort to unit conversions. Nevertheless, the following table lists all units from the comic with their US customary equivalents:
Guide to Converting to Metric
[There are five frames with tables for different units. Between the two upper frames is the following text:] The key to converting to metric is establishing new reference points. When you hear "26°C", instead of thinking "that's 79°F" you should think, "that's warmer than a house but cool for swimming." Here are some helpful tables of reference points:
[The frame in the top left lists the following temperatures on the left, with the corresponding descriptions on the right. Next to the last three entries we see Cueball spitting on the ground. The spit freezes.] Temperature
60°C    Earth's hottest 45°C    Dubai heat wave 40°C    Southern US heat wave 35°C    Northern US heat wave 30°C    Beach weather 25°C    Warm room 20°C    Room temperature 10°C    Jacket weather 0°C       Snow! -5°C     Cold day (Boston) -10°C   Cold day (Moscow) -20°C   Fuckfuckfuckcold -30°C   Fuuuuuuuuuuck! -40°C   Spit goes "clink"
Cueball: Ptoo Spit: Clink!
[The frame in the top right lists the following lengths on the left, with their corresponding descriptions on the right. To the right of the table is a human tower of four of the people from the Serenity crew. The head of the upper person is right below the first entry.] Length
1 cm         Width of microSD card 3 cm         Length of SD card 12 cm       CD diameter 14 cm       Penis 15 cm       BIC pen 80 cm       Doorway width 1 m           Lightsaber blade 170 cm     Summer Glau 200 cm     Darth Vader 2.5 m         Ceiling 5 m           Car-length 16 m 4 cm Human tower of Serenity crew.
[The frame in the bottom left has three columns] Speed
kph   m/s 5      1.5    Walking 13    3.5    Jogging 25    7       Sprinting 35    10     Fastest human 45    13     Housecat 55    15     Rabbit 75    20     Raptor 100   25    Slow highway 110   30    Interstate (65 mph) 120   35    Speed you actually go when it says "65" 140   40    Raptor on hoverboard
[The frame in the bottom middle lists the following volumes on the left, with their corresponding descriptions on the right. Volume
3 mL     Blood in a fieldmouse 5 mL     Teaspoon 30 mL    Nasal passages 40 mL    Shot glass 350 mL   Soda can 500 mL   Water bottle 3 L         Two-liter bottle 5 L          Blood in a human male 30 L        Milk crate 55 L        Summer Glau 65 L        Dennis Kucinich 75 L        Ron Paul 200 L      Fridge
[Next to the entry on nasal passages and shot glass (starting one entry higher and finishing one entry lower) is the following text:] So, when it's blocked, the mucus in your nose could about fill a shot glass.
[Below this text is a drawing of a mucus filled shot glass.] Related: I've invented the worst mixed drink ever.
[Below this next to the four last entries we see Cueball shoving Summer Glau, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul into an open fridge. Above the fridge in a loosely drawn ellipse is the following text:] 55+65+75 < 200
[The frame in the bottom right lists the following masses on the left, with their corresponding descriptions on the right
3 g          Peanut M&M 100 g     Cell phone 500 g    Bottled water 1 kg       Ultraportable laptop 2 kg       Light-medium laptop 3 kg       Heavy laptop 5 kg       LCD monitor 15 kg     CRT monitor 4 kg       Cat 4.1 kg    Cat (with caption) 60 kg     Lady 70 kg     Dude 150 kg   Shaq 200 kg   Your mom 220 kg   Your mom (incl. cheap jewelry) 223 kg   Your mom (also incl. makeup)
[Next to the entries of cat and cat (with caption) are two drawings of cats. The second one has a caption across its chest.] Cat (with caption): Mrowl? [Below this and next to the lady and dude entries are drawings of Megan and Cueball.]


Keynote

Explanation:
According to this comic, Steve Jobs , the founder of the Apple company, lost a lot of weight due to a hormonal problem. (Though never officially confirmed, this was likely related to Jobs's battle with pancreatic cancer, which he had been fighting for years and would frequently lead to speculation about his health at the time of this comic.) Black Hat then mentions that Apple was probably excited to announce its thinnest and lightest CEO in the industry. This comment is a parody of Apple's tendency to release thinner and lighter iterations of its products. Steve Jobs' weight loss would certainly make him a thinner and lighter CEO.
The title text refers to Cory Doctorow , a blogger, journalist and science-fiction author. Doctorow is opposed to the technology called Digital restrictions management (DRM for short). DRM is designed to be abused by large corporations with negative consequences for consumers, but is disguised as a copyright protection system. Randall (jokingly) proposes that Steve Jobs is only sick because Doctorow was torturing him with Voodoo dolls for Apple's use of DRM.
[Black Hat talking to Cueball sitting at computer.] Cueball: Huh - Steve Jobs isn't doing a keynote this year, citing massive weight loss due to some hormonal problem. Black Hat: Too bad. I bet Apple was excited about unveiling the thinnest and lightest CEO in the industry.
Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011 of pancreatic cancer the day before Randall released 961: Eternal Flame . Presumably, the cancer was the cause of Jobs' weight loss, although it was not public information at the time the comic was posted.


Windows 7

Explanation:
This Comic came out 2 weeks after the beta version of the at that time not yet released Windows 7 got leaked on the internet, and 2 days after a trojan-infected version got leaked as well.
Megan is observing Cueball use a laptop on which he has installed the Windows 7 beta. However, the alleged Windows 7 beta is showing nothing but a picture of Adolf Hitler and Cueball is unable to do anything. This could hint at the version containing malware. Cueball then presses Control-Alt-Delete (the well-known Windows Secure Attention Sequence which opens Task Manager or displays a list of options which includes 'Shut Down' and 'Restart') as suggested by Megan, but only manages to make the picture's eyes flash .
The fourth panel shows Megan commenting that this Windows 7 beta is better than Windows Vista , to which Cueball agrees. The joke is that Megan deems a mostly non-functional and vaguely sinister OS, which is likely malware, better than Windows Vista, which was generally perceived as one of the worst Windows OSes.
The title text is a disclaimer stating that Randall has not tried the beta at the time this comic was written, but what he has heard about it he regards as at least mildly positive. However, he also damns it by faint praise, referring to it as hardly Hitler-y at all, a statement that could raise warning flags, as one would not generally expect an operating system to be able to be described as Hitler-y to any degree at all. "Hitler-y" is implied to mean pertaining to or having qualities similar to Adolf Hitler, the late German Nazi Party leader and perhaps the most notorious mass-murderer in history.
[Megan is standing behind Cueball sitting at a desk using his laptop.] Megan: What are you doing? Cueball: Trying the Windows 7 beta. Megan: Why is it showing a picture of Hitler? [The laptop's screen is shown with Adolf Hitler's face on it, drawn in regular xkcd style with no facial features other than his hairstyle and mustache.] Cueball: I don't know. I can't get it to do anything else. Megan: There's no UI? Cueball: No, just Hitler. [Return to the original scene, except Megan is now scratching her head in confusion.] Megan: Did you try Ctrl-Alt-Delete? Cueball: It just makes Hitler's eyes flash. Megan: Huh. [Scene remains basically the same, except Megan is no longer scratching her head and Cueball is no longer typing on the laptop.] Megan: Well, it's better than Vista. Cueball: True.


Sledding Discussion

Explanation:
Cueball and Megan have a perfectly normal sled ride down a perfectly normal hill (engaging in what's traditionally a children's pastime [ citation needed ] ) while Cueball is complaining that he has grown too old for certain things - like learning another language fluently (but not for taking a sleigh ride - although he does not really seem to enjoy it though). There is a hypothesis, called the critical period hypothesis , which states that you can only learn a language fluently before a certain age.
Cueball hates that options are closed to him and feels like he has given up a life that was once possible . The joke is that this reminds Megan about their anniversary coming up. This means that she feels that she has given up a life that was once possible by staying so long with Cueball. Actually this may be the time when they are going to break up.
The reader would thus have expected something ironic to happen at the end of the trip but instead, the only humor in the last frame arises from their commentary on the lack of humor .
Calvin and Hobbes is an acclaimed newspaper comic strip that ran from 1985 to 1995. Calvin is a six-year-old child with an active imagination, and Hobbes is his stuffed tiger who Calvin perceives to be alive through his imagination. The two frequently had philosophical conversations, often while sledding . Calvin sledded on densely-wooded hills near where he lived, and the ride would often serve as a perfect parallel to the conversation they were having; for example, in one strip, Calvin talks about how seemingly mundane decisions can nonetheless have lasting consequences, by pointing out how all of the things they see as they continue down the hill (and eventually crash into a ravine) are a direct result of him having taken a particular fork early on.
The title text notes that if you did have a Calvin and Hobbes toboggan , it would be the worst place to have a breaking-up conversation, perhaps because the sled itself would literally break-up during the journey, with potentially dangerous consequences. This is also the clue to the fact that the comic is in fact about a break-up situation.
Calvin and Hobbes is also referenced in 409: Electric Skateboard (Double Comic) .
[Megan looks out window through blinds.] Megan: It's snowing! Cueball: [from off-screen] Sled time!
[Megan and Cueball outside with sled, at the top of a hill.] Cueball: It depresses me that I'm too old to learn another language fluently. My brain's solidified.
[Megan and Cueball sledding down the hill.] Megan: Is there one you wish you knew? Cueball: No, I just hate having options closed to me. Like I've given up a life that was once possible.
[At the bottom of the hill, sled has stopped.] Megan: Yeah. Which reminds me - our anniversary is coming up.
Megan: Man, that ride failed to be a metaphor for our conversation. Cueball: Guess this isn't the Calvin & Hobbes-model toboggan.