AI

Explanation:
This comic is a reference to the wildly funny [ citation needed ] video of two Cleverbots talking to each other. By recording and analyzing whatever humans type into its input, they can sound pretty human to whoever is reading their response.
Megan has been watching the video and asks Cueball about it. He says it's just "clumsy sampling" as they are still very far from sounding like humans and holding normal conversations.
Megan then sums up that as of the release of this comic computers were good at chess and at driving cars through a desert (i.e. a place with no obstacles to hit. The ability of such self-driving cars would improve much later, with this comic being the first with a direct reference to such cars. Later self-driving cars became a recurring topic on xkcd). But they cannot hold a conversation for five minutes. And she thus concludes that a cleverbot would be perfect for attending Burning Man .
Burning Man is a week-long event held yearly in Black Rock City, Nevada. The festival encourages an artistic, anti-establishment philosophy and attracts a broad but devoted following combining hippies, anarchists, nudists, techno-utopians and survivalists. Shows of custom cars on the desert plain are a big part of Burning Man, and mental games like chess are a popular way to pass the time there. However, a common joke about Burning Man attendees is that they can only talk about Burning Man - hence why they can't hold a five minute conversation.
A tradition of Burning Man is not to shower while you are there, mostly because all water must be brought in from offsite. And of course Cleverbot reacts badly in showers because if you do try to shower a Cleverbot, you end up with a shorted out computer.
[Megan sits on an office chair at a desk. A laptop computer is on the desk, audio from a Cleverbot chat is shown coming from the laptop with a zigzag line from the screen. Megan has turned her head away from the computer to the right addressing Cueball off-panel.] Megan: Did you see the Cleverbot-Cleverbot chat? Cleverbot (from computer): I am not a robot. I'm a unicorn.
[In the next frame-less panel, Megan has turned the chair away from the desk, which is not shown, and is now sitting with her hands in her lap in front of Cueball who holds one hand up as he replies.] Cueball: Yeah. It's hilarious, but it's just clumsily sampling a huge database of lines people have typed. Chatterbots still have a long way to go.
[A close-up of Megan's head and shoulders. She has a hand to her chin and appears to be contemplating the last remark. Cueball replies from off-panel.] Megan: So... Computers have mastered playing chess and driving cars across the desert, but can't hold five minutes of normal conversation? Cueball (off-panel): Pretty much.
[Both are shown again as in panel two, Cueball with his hands down.] Megan: Is it just me, or have we created a Burning Man attendee?


File Transfer

Explanation:
Cueball is trying to help two people, his friend and his friend's cousin, exchange a 25 MB file. Most people know how to use email to send files through the internet, but (as of 2011 when this comic was published) 25 MB exceeds the attachment size limit of most email services. The reason there is a limit is because every email has to be transferred between several mail transfer agents, and each one has to temporarily store a copy of the email. Space constraints on those mail servers means that they must impose size limits, and an email with such a large attachment will therefore not be delivered.
The next option is to upload the file to an FTP server (FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol , as opposed to HTTP, Hypertext Transfer Protocol ), used to transfer files between computers on a shared network, such as the internet. However, FTP servers are a touch more esoteric than a mere email attachment, and many internet users don't have access to one of their own.
Web hosting is simply the ability to create a website and store all the data for said website on a server which is connected to the internet. If Cueball's friend's cousin had the ability to do that, sharing the file would be as easy as putting a copy of it in an accessible directory and sending the link to the desired recipient.
Megaupload was one of many sites on the Internet that recognized most users' inability to host large files on their own, and so offers to host large files, sometimes for free, sometimes for a small fee. The payoff is that in order to make such a service profitable, many of these sites are cluttered with banner and pop up ads in a mad effort to squeeze as much ad revenue out of every page view as possible. It's not a dealbreaker for some, but Cueball seems to think it'll be too much for his friend's cousin to handle.
AIM Direct Connect was a file sharing system on AOL Instant Messenger, which was already suffering severe drops in popularity by the year 2000. Clearly, Cueball is grasping at straws here: anybody desperate enough to invoke the name of AOL as a solution instead of a problem must be at their wits' end.
Dropbox is a program with a web-based GUI that automates file sharing between two computers on the internet. But this solution also has its issues, as it requires that at least the sending party has a Dropbox account. Installing Dropbox software is not actually required, since Dropbox also provides a web interface for uploading and downloading files. At the time of the comic's publication, Dropbox was still relatively new and unknown, thus why it is not Cueball's first suggestion.
While Cueball is still explaining Dropbox, the friend's cousin has copied the file to a USB drive and physically transported it to the friend's house, circumventing the Internet entirely. It's not an elegant solution, but sometimes traditional methods are the most efficient ways to get something done.
When used to transfer files between computers in the same room or building, this same approach is referred to as sneakernet . This comic is also an illustration of what Andy Tanenbaum said in 1989: Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. Sneakernet was examined in this What If article.
Tim Berners-Lee developed the http protocol, the html markup language and the first web browser. Therefore he is considered to be the inventor of the World Wide Web. He envisioned originally an interactive web, where it would have been possible for the users to change a website directly using the browser, which would have made it possible to upload a file directly to a webpage:
Tim Berners-Lee's original vision of the Web involved a medium for both reading and writing. In fact, Berners-Lee's first web browser, called WorldWideWeb, could both view and edit web pages (from Wikipedia WebDAV ).
In contrast to this, a static web ("web 1.0") came alive, which developed then later to the interactive "web 2.0" we know today. Wikis like this website , where the page content is editable via forms, are a perfect example for this "emulated interactivity". From the technical point of view, the webpage is still static and the browser is just a viewer for html pages with the limited possibility to send some form data to the server. Scripts on the server, which process this form data, change then the web page. This mechanism is a more complicated work-around for what Tim Berners-Lee originally planned.
Dropbox and the web interfaces of email providers are further examples of this "emulated interactivity". The title text assumes, that Tim Berners-Lee feels probably generally sad, that his invention developed into this unnecessary complicated way and misusing emails (maybe even via the web interface of email providers) for file sharing is therefore especially painful for what could have been so simple.
[Cueball stands near a computer, talking on the phone to another person.]
Cueball: You want your cousin to send you a file? easy. He can email it to- ...Oh, it's 25 MB? Hmm... Cueball: Do either of you have an FTP server? No, right. Cueball: If you had web hosting, you could upload it... Cueball: Hm. We could try one of those MegaShareUpload sites, but they're flaky and full of delays and porn popups. Cueball: How about AIM Direct Connect? Anyone still use that? Cueball: Oh, wait, Dropbox! It's this recent startup from a few years back that syncs folders between computers. You just need to make an account, install the- Cueball: Oh, he just drove over to your house with a USB drive? Cueball: Uh, cool, that works too.
[Caption below the panel:] I like how we've had the internet for decades, yet "sending files" is something early adopters are still figuring out how to do.
This comic has a resemblance to both 1810: Chat Systems and 2194: How to Send a File


Mystery Solved

Explanation:
In this comic, aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart's plane comes back to land after it went missing in 1937. It was presumed that Earhart was dead and that her plane went down into the ocean at some point during her journey, although various alternate theories have arisen since then, with no clear answer to the mystery. However, this comic proposes a much simpler explanation: there was no disappearance, it just took her 74 years to fly around the Earth. This explanation is simple, but impossible.
Earhart seems to think the person she is talking with is stupid for not comprehending such a simple answer, but in fact her explanation raises a multitude of other questions. Among them:
Another possibility is that she did not just fly around the earth, but flew very fast (near light speed ) for 74 years to return without having aged much . However, this would not explain why she thinks it is a long trip around the earth, and it raises the additional questions of how she would accomplish this feat in a twin-engine monoplane and how no one else noticed any signs of her plane traveling near light speed, such as a 74-year-long sonic boom.
Earhart's disappearance gave birth to many conspiracy theories. One of these, which was explored in the TV series Star Trek: Voyager , involves her being abducted to another part of the galaxy , where she was left in cryogenic stasis until found by the Voyager crew. Something similar could be the case here, having Earhart frozen by aliens until 2011.
The title text lists a few more deceptively mundane answers to long-unsolved mysteries that at first seem to dispel the questions with boring logic, but in fact raise more questions than they answer. The first is the lost colonists of Roanoke , who were one of the first groups to come to North America, but then suddenly disappeared, leaving their colony untouched. The comic suggests that they simply left to found Roanoke, Virginia . Like all the other explanations in this comic, this doesn't explain how this simple solution became lost to public knowledge. It also doesn't explain why they abandoned their original colony, or how they made it to Roanoke, Virginia, which is more than 300 miles away, or where they were between when their colony was found abandoned in 1590 and when the future Roanoke, Virginia, was established over 200 years later, in the nineteenth century.
The second mystery in the title text, the Franklin Expedition , was a British voyage in 1845 to study the Northwest Passage that also disappeared, somewhere in northern Canada. The text suggests that the expedition wasn't lost; it was still exploring and eventually found its way to the Pacific Ocean in 2009. This is impossible, because the men on the expedition would be long dead. As a side note, both of the Franklin Expedition ships were eventually found wrecked in the years after this comic was published: one in 2014 , and the other in 2016 .
The final mystery is Jimmy Hoffa , the famous Teamsters Union leader who went missing in 1975 and declared dead in 1982 (possibly murdered). The comic says Jimmy simply opted to switch to the more formal version of his name; again, this raises the question of how such a thing would be possible without anyone noticing. The current head of the Teamsters is in fact named James Hoffa (he is Jimmy Hoffa's son and goes by "James P. Hoffa" professionally); the comic could be implying that the senior Hoffa is not only alive but actually impersonating his own son, which would raise the question of why the supposed "son" doesn't look suspiciously older than he claims to be.
[A twin prop airplane flies high overhead.] Off-screen person: What's that airplane?
[The plane has landed, and the pilot is walking towards the crowd waving.] Off-screen person: Holy crap— Is that Amelia Earhart?
[A close up of Amelia Earhart waving.] Amelia: Hey everyone! My flight was a success! Off-screen person: But... Where were you!?
[A wide view of Amelia, she stops waving.] Amelia: I flew around the world! Off-screen person: But you disappeared in 1937!
[A close up of Amelia Earhart.] Amelia: Right, to fly around the world. Off-screen person: It's 2011! Amelia: The world is big. It's a long flight.
[A wide view of Amelia] Off-screen person: But you... It's not... I - Amelia: Can I talk to someone smarter?


Working

Explanation:
This comic is a jab at price-gouging shoppers who spend large amounts of time checking multiple shopping outlets for the best deals. The minimum wage is the lowest possible wage that a person could legally be paid, usually only targeted at providing unskilled laborers with an equitable level of income. In 2011, when this comic was published, US Federal minimum wage was $7.25 an hour, though certain states and cities typically have higher minimum wages. Using simple math, the caption states that a person is effectively working below the minimum wage when they spend their time looking to save a few cents on their purchases. (Randall's math checks out: $7.25/hour times nine minutes would equate to just over $1.08.)
Benjamin Franklin's adage "A penny saved is a penny earned" is usually taken to mean that a person, merely by making the effort to save their money rather than spending it frivolously, has put in worthwhile effort that makes them deserving of that money. Cueball flips the meaning of the phrase, instead saying that saving money is work just like a job, and as one would not take a job that paid less than minimum wage, the compensation is inadequate for the amount of effort it would take to drive to a cheaper gas station.
Of course, if you are unemployed and cannot expect to get any wages it could still be worth your time.
The title text, however, then goes on to talk about how the extra fuel consumption involved in finding cheaper gas leads to more extra money being spent on gas than is actually saved at the cheaper outlet.
This problem has also been examined in What if? - Cost of Pennies . See also 1205: Is It Worth the Time? .
However, Randall neglects to consider the effect that customers have on prices.  If customers consistently go out of their way to get the lowest prices, then sellers will be motivated to lower their prices to attract customers.  On the other hand, if customers consistently purchase from the most convenient seller, then sellers can raise prices without losing business.
[Ponytail is standing next to Cueball filling his vehicle with petrol. Ponytail is pointing off-screen.] Ponytail: Why are you going here? Gas is ten cents a gallon cheaper at the station five minutes that way. Cueball: Because a penny saved is a penny earned.
If you spend nine minutes of your time to save a dollar, you're working for less than minimum wage.


Stud Finder

Explanation:
It sounds like you may be interested in my new product, a— stud finder finder.
Cueball cannot locate his stud finder , so Black Hat begins a sales pitch, presumably for a "stud finder" finder. The joke is in the irony of having to find something that is used to find other things. Cueball interrupts Black Hat before he can make the obvious joke. The same comic technique is used later in 1059: Bel-Air . Currently no product exists that will locate a stud finder, although online review compilations are useful for finding the right stud finder to buy.
Studs are vertical wood members in wood-framed construction common in North America, although steel framing has become a popular alternative. These supports reinforce a wall at regular intervals, typically 16 inches (about 40 cm), and at corners, windows, and doors.
Most stud finders use an electrostatic field that is affected by the densities and types of materials in the vicinity, identifying where studs and other significant framing elements are located. One might want to know the locations of studs within a wall for installing wiring, mounting shelves and heavy objects to walls, or in this comic, hanging a picture. Wiring can be inserted between studs behind the drywall , while shelves, pictures, etc. are better affixed to studs.
Many stud finders have a light that turns on in conjunction with a beep when a higher density is detected, indicating the edge of a stud. But there are circumstances that can fool stud finders. Most are designed for the drywall-over-wood-framing construction, and can be fooled by older plaster and lath construction where the density is much more uniform throughout the length of the wall. Lower quality stud finders can also be fooled by things like moisture in the drywall or wiring within the wall cavity, and may thus beep when there is not a stud behind the scanned location. As a result, many people will try alternatives such as using a magnet to find the drywall screws or nails, or tapping a finishing nail through the wall to see if there is a stud underneath.
At the title text, Randall just gives up. Assuming there was no electrostatic interference, a stud finder going off randomly would indicate lots and lots of studs at random places that change position.
The idea of a "something doer doer" was explored again in 1821: Incinerator and the title text of 2376: Curbside .
[Black Hat sits on a couch, reading a book. Cueball is approaching him from behind the couch holding a picture in a frame, a screwdriver, and some screws.] Cueball: Have you seen my stud finder? I've looked everywhere. Black Hat: It sounds like you may be interested in my new product, a— Cueball: Shut up.


1 to 10

Explanation:
The binary numeral system refers to a counting system in base-2, which uses only the digits 0 and 1, as opposed to the more familiar base-10 decimal system, which uses the digits 0 through 9. In this case, the scale of 1 to 10 is using binary, so in decimal it would be a scale of 1 to 2. Since 4 in binary is "100" it doesn't fit into the range "1" to "10" in a binary system. And Megan doesn't even know the number "4" because she's only working on the binary system, this character does not exist for her.
It is also possible that Megan is using base-3 or base-4, both of which don't have a 4 (base-3 counts 1, 2, 10, etc., and base 4 counts 1, 2, 3, 10 etc.)
It should be noted that if Megan is indeed speaking out loud in such a way that confuses Cueball, she would be saying "ten" out loud; this would automatically indicate she is indeed using base-10 (or higher). The correct pronunciation of "10" in base-2 is "one zero".
The title text uses a similar joke. Since test scores are usually written as either a letter grade or a percentage, 11 correct questions out of 100 would be a failing score in decimal notation. However, 11/100 in binary translates to 3/4 in decimal, which would be 75%, accepted in most classes as a 'C' grade.
It could also be argued that a score of 11 should count as a "B", as 11 is B in hexadecimal, however this link is a bit more tenuous, as the whole score would then be interpreted as "B/256".
Megan: On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that this question is using Binary? Cueball: ...4? Megan: What's a 4?


Chin-Up Bar

Explanation:
Black Hat has once again showed everyone that he is a classhole , with a plan to block traffic on the longest single-tier escalator in the Western hemisphere. At the time of the comic's publishing, that placed the comic in the Wheaton station in Washington D.C. 's Washington Metro subway system, where the 70-meter (230-foot) escalator is. It's clear that Black Hat knows it is the longest and that this is the reason he has chosen this exact escalator for his plan.
Black Hat carries a chin-up bar over his shoulder up the escalator, resulting in a conversation with Cueball , riding up behind him, about Black Hat's motives for doing such. Black Hat uses sly conversing methods to avoid saying his true motives. First he counters the question with another question: Why aren't you wearing a hat? Cueball's reply is a normal I'm not really a hat person , whereas Black Hat's copy reply is not a real answer; I'm not really a not-carrying-a-chin-up-bar person , which is probably a sentence never used before this comic. [ citation needed ] It takes Cueball a second to process this answer, but he doesn't give up and asks why again. Black Hat continues deflecting his questions by stating that he's not a psychologist , although he clearly is aware of his own motives and intentions. (One could argue that it would take a psychology degree to explain those motives and intentions.)
After this they reach the top and once they get off Black Hat quickly turns around and locks the bar in place at about waist height (i.e. as high up as possible on an escalator), just before the moving part of the escalator ends.
Chin-up bars are typically capable of holding up a 300 pound (130 kg) person without moving, and a bar like Black Hat has brought with him can be installed easily in a doorway , or in the opening of an escalator…
The unexpected appearance of a solidly attached bar at the top of a crowded escalator could be disastrous. The first people would probably stumble backward to avoid it or hit it and topple backwards, and collide with the passengers immediately behind them, knocking them off their feet and likely creating a domino effect all the way down. Indeed, this is exactly what happens and is depicted in the last panel. Black Hat and Cueball are seen on the descending escalator in the background, Cueball has turned around looking at the scene and displaying worry about what Black Hat has done, but Black Hat isn't even looking at the chaos he has caused, completely ignoring all the falling bodies. Although it might be possible, the two are fairly lucky to be unscathed, as they could have been hit by someone in the pileup falling all the way over in their side of the escalator. Since they are most likely on the way down to a subway, the traffic should make it easy for them to get away on the next train, before anyone has a chance to try and find the perpetrator, so Black Hat gets away with his schemes once again.
In the title text it is made clear that the few people that actually escaped the moving stairs were unable to use the emergency shutdown because Black Hat had disabled the system, presumably before ascending in the first place. This is stated to have caused the stampede to last for two hours and waves of falling people would end up reaching the bottom three times, before ascending with the stairs again. The reason for this extended mayhem could be that only the very first people at the top of this domino effect who actually hit the chin-up-bar know what caused the problem to begin with. Since they are likely among those people too hurt to explain anything in time, the next group of people trying to get out after the first wave of falling people might just proceed to run into the same problem at the top once again. The problem is exacerbated by the disabled shutoff, so even if someone sees the chin-up-bar and knows how to escape, they would either be pulled back into the crowd of traffic or be free but unable to help. This helps to explain why the cycle of crowd collapse happened three times, and the use of the word "stampede" connotes the panicked, unorganized behavior of the trapped people that serves to make the problem worse.
Alternately, the stampede reaching the bottom might suggest that the people traversed the entire length of the escalator, though this is not sufficiently wide enough for a human body.
[Black Hat is in the middle of on an escalator with five other people as it ascends. He carries something like a a pole.]
[Zoom in on Black Hat and Cueball.] Cueball: This is a long escalator. Black Hat: 70 meters. Longest in the country.
[Black Hat goes upwards holding his pole.]
[Cueball is still behind Black Hat.] Cueball: Why're you carrying a chin-up bar? Black Hat: Why aren't you wearing a hat?
[The view returns to the original view only showing the six people ascending, only shifted so they are all a bit longer to the right.] Cueball: I'm not really a hat person. Black Hat: And I'm not really a not-carrying-a-chin-up-bar person.
[Close up on Cueball on the escalator.]
[Zoom out. Black Hat still has the pole in his hands.] Cueball: Seriously, why did you bring it? Black Hat: How should I know? I'm not a psychologist.
[Zoom in on the top of the escalator where Black Hat steps off and installs the chin-up bar on the exit of the escalator.] Twist Click Click
[View from above towards both ascending and descending escalators. Black Hat and Cueball are on the descending escalator.]
[The final panel takes up two entire rows and shows all people falling down.]
It would appear that the man behind Cueball with glasses and a goatee is the psychologist from 435: Purity , and then Megan next to him could be the sociologist from the same comic. This gives new meaning to Black Hat's line about not being a psychologist.
Escalators were also the subject of the earlier comic 252: Escalators , a rather more funny take on these dangerous devices.


Neutrinos

Explanation:
The " Neutrino speed of light thing " mentioned in this comic was an actual story from the day before the comic was posted. An experiment at CERN caused a stream of neutrinos to be passed from CERN in Switzerland to a receiving station at the INFN laboratories of Gran Sasso in Italy ( LNGS ). The initial findings from the experiment were that the neutrinos arrived at the detector in less time than a beam of light would have taken. The neutrinos had apparently exceeded the speed of light .
Albert Einstein famously posited that the speed of light in a vacuum is both constant and absolutely the fastest possible speed for any object in the universe. Nothing can accelerate to any faster speed. Therefore, a report that neutrinos have been found travelling faster than light challenges a fundamental law of physics and turns all of physics, or at least special relativity , on its head.
Prior experience has shown Cueball that in such cases, arguing with people and preaching caution is futile and will lead to "pointless arguments about Galileo". Galileo Galilei was famously convicted of heresy for his defending the heliocentric system , and is often used as an example of revolutionary ideas being suppressed by the powerful. Believers in the new findings would thus accuse Cueball and the scientific community of being as stubborn and oppressive as the Inquisition in Galileo's time, and even compare them to the Thought Police from George Orwell's 1984 , another popular archetype of oppressive measures.
Cueball realizes that it is more satisfying and profitable to place bets with them instead. His reasoning is that almost invariably, these supposedly world-changing discoveries end up falling apart after further investigation, and that if it doesn't, then the discovery itself will satisfy his scientific curiosity enough to outweigh his monetary loss. This is similar to Stephen Hawking 's scientific wagers , where Hawking set bets such that, if he was wrong, he would be paid, and if he was right, he'd have to pay and wouldn't mind because he'd just have been proven right.
The title text is a reference to a graph published similar to, if not the same as, the one found here . The continental drift can be seen, as well as the clearly marked jump showing the earthquake in question.
Postscript: Cueball (that is, Randall) was correct. The experiment was found to be flawed. Neutrinos are not faster than light , the data was probably wrong due to a faulty connection on an optical fiber.
[Megan and Cueball are talking.] Megan: Did you see the neutrino speed of light thing? Cueball: Yup! Good news; I need the cash. Megan: Huh? Cash?
[Text above half-sized panel.] Yeah. When there's a news story about a study overturning all of physics, I used to urge caution, remind people that experts aren't all stupid, and end up in pointless arguments about Galileo.
[Half-height panel.] [Cueball sitting on chair, looking down at laptop in his lap. Books and things are on a desk in front of him.] Cueball: No, this isn't about whether relativity exists. If it didn't, your GPS wouldn't work. Cueball: What do you mean, "science thought police"? Have you seen our budget? We couldn't begin to afford our own thought police.
[Megan and Cueball talking again.] Megan: That sounds miserable and unfulfilling. Cueball: Yup. So I gave up, and now I just find excited believers and bet them $200 each that the new result won't pan out.
[Same as last panel.] Megan: That's mean. Cueball: It provides a good income, and if I'm ever wrong, I'll be too excited about the new physics to notice the loss.


Sharing

Explanation:
Cueball and Megan encounter a USB Dead Drop in a tree, placed in such a way as to simulate the tree itself has a USB port.
The Giving Tree is a book in which a tree gives everything it has to a little boy out of love and a desire for the boy's company: apples to sell, wood to build a house, even letting the boy cut it down to make a boat. At the end of the book, the boy comes back as a grown man and the tree tells him sadly that it has nothing else to give. The man tells the tree that he only wants a tree stump to sit on, and the tree gladly gives him that. Notably, the tree's moments of greatest distress come when it fears that it can give the boy no more and that the boy will leave it.
.azw is an e-book file format used and created by the online company Amazon.com , which makes and sells the popular Amazon Kindle e-reader. Complaints against the format have been made concerning its closed nature: some people claim that all information should be free and imposing restrictions on its usage is limiting growth in the modern world. This comic was published two days before the release of the fifth generation of Kindles, alongside complaints that Amazon would continue to use DRM "encumbered" e-book formats.
The comic is a criticism of the usage of DRM in digital commerce. The tree's willingness to offer up its file is parallel to the generous nature of the tree in The Giving Tree . The tree is prevented from sharing its file however, by DRM in the file. With nothing to gain from the tree, Cueball and Megan leave the tree alone, in a manner similar to the fears of the tree in The Giving Tree . The final frame is a reference to the iconic silhouette of a tree that is used in the loading screens of Amazon's Kindles, a link between the abandoned tree in the comic and an abandoned Kindle.
The title text is an elaboration on the idea of a more modern Giving Tree. While in the original book, the tree gives the boy various gifts, in the new, modern version, the tree shows "its friend" (presumably the boy) all the places the friend can buy things, using social media to do so. This, like the DRM on the book from earlier, is a criticism of some aspect of the modern world, in this case, the increased commercialism due to social media.
[Megan and Cueball hang out in front of a tree.] Megan: Whoa. What's this? Cueball: What's what? Megan: This tree has a USB port.
Cueball: Try connecting to it, I guess. [Megan brings out a laptop and connects to it.] Megan: It's offering up a drive with one file on it.
Cueball: What's the file? Megan: An eBook. "Shel_Silverstein_-_The_Giving_Tree.azw" Cueball: Never heard of it. Let's take a look!
Laptop: DRM Error: You have not purchased rights to view this title. Lending is not enabled.
Cueball: Huh. Oh well. Megan: Let's go see what Mike is up to.
[The tree is alone.]


Development

Explanation:
Cueball is a news anchor reporting on a hurricane.
NHC is the National Hurricane Center and the APA is the American Psychological Association .
The reference to Piaget Stage 5 in the comic is a reference to Piaget 's Stages of Development in which stage 5 is where (to quote Wikipedia and Gruber, H.E.; Voneche, J.J.. eds. The essential Piaget .)
"'Infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things they can make happen to objects; they experiment with new behavior.' This stage is associated primarily with the discovery of new means to meet goals. Piaget describes the child at this juncture as the 'young scientist,' conducting pseudo-experiments to discover new methods of meeting challenges."
This is exactly what the comic is describing in sustained interest in objects and their properties and the handy "?"s around the picture behind the newscaster in this comic.
With that out of the way, this comic is a pun on the use of the word "development" to classify hurricanes which also uses categories from 1 to 5 as defined by the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale (Piaget's Stages go from 1-6). The comic is making a joke that if the APA were on hurricane forecast duty instead of the NHC, that the hurricanes would be classified with Piaget's stages instead of categories.
[Cueball is a news anchor at desk reporting. Behind him to the left is a black screen showing a white icon of a hurricane moving over the black ocean towards a thin sliver of white land in the top left corner. There are three white question-marks around the hurricane.] Cueball: Fear turned to confusion today as Hurricane Rina developed to Piaget stage 5, with sustained interests in objects and their properties. Hurricane: ? ? ?


Hotels

Explanation:
In this comic, Black Hat is giving all the hotels he has stayed at, likes, and wants to stay in again bad reviews, in order to lower demand for said hotel. He is simultaneously putting good reviews on bad hotels to steer other people there so there are more vacancies at good hotels. He also claims he is not influential enough to put the good hotels out of business. But even if he didn't put the hotels out of business, the market would certainly still be affected, and all so he could enjoy a lower price, once again proving he's a classhole.
The tragedy of the commons "is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen." This situation is not a complete example of this concept as Black Hat is the only one doing it. He understands, however, that if others do it, it would apply. (Another example is what would happen using a certain strategy in the game Oregon Trail ). The logic is also similar to a conversation about fighting in the war in Catch-22 . Yossarian believed that he shouldn’t fight because America will win regardless of his involvement, so there is no point in him dying.
In the last frame, Black Hat references the invisible hand which is the term coined by Adam Smith and used by economists use to describe the self-regulating nature of the marketplace. Black Hat appears to be taking advantage of this invisible hand by cutting it with a knife and eating it.
The title text is an example of Black Hat's negative reviews, which in itself is a surrealist joke about the hotel. A somewhat believable (if exaggerated) set of complaints about an awful hotel is that the "Room filled to brim with bedbugs, and when front desk clerk opened mouth to talk, semen poured out". However instead, the objects of focus are reversed, creating a ridiculous scenario for the reader to enjoy, if they are not too disgusted by the imagery of the text.
[Cueball is sitting at a desk with a laptop, looking at a review website] Cueball: What's with this negative review? You liked that hotel. Black Hat: I have a script that posts a bad review for every hotel I stay at. It reduces demand, which means more vacancies and lower prices next time.
Cueball: What if the place sucks? Black Hat: I change the review to positive to steer other people over there.
Cueball: You punish companies you like! Black Hat: The odds of my review putting a hotel out of business are negligible. Cueball: If we all did that the system would collapse! Black Hat: Doesn't affect my logic. Tragedy of the commons.
Cueball: That's not even the tragedy of the commons anymore. That's the tragedy of you're a dick. Black Hat: If you're quick with a knife, you'll find that the invisible hand is made of delicious invisible meat.


Caroling

Explanation:
Here are the lyrics for the first verse of the Christmas Carol, " Good King Wenceslas "
Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen, When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even; Brightly shone the moon that night, tho' the frost was cruel, When a poor man came in sight, gath'ring winter fuel.
While not a king, Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia is considered a martyr and a saint. Far from being responsible for any massacre, he protected his subjects from external dominance and is still a national hero to the Czech people. Black Hat is supplying disinformation to unsuspecting carolers, either to shut them up, by making them falsely think that they are associating themselves with a morally reprehensible man, or just because he's a classhole like that.
The title text references "the Feast of Stephen ", also known as the "Feast of St. Stephen" or "St. Stephen's Day", which is a holiday celebrated on 26 or 27 December by the Western or Eastern Church respectively.  (For the Eastern Orthodox Church , which still observes the Julian calendar , it falls on 9 January of the Gregorian calendar .) It is not actually a feast that involved eating a person named Stephen. [ citation needed ] If you look closely, you can see that the carolers may be a family. The man and woman are confused by what Black Hat has said, and the girl is looking to the adults, perhaps gauging their facial reactions, or just waiting for their reply.
[Three people, two the same size, one smaller stand together singing Christmas carols.] Carolers (in unison): Good king Wenceslas looked out on the—
[Black Hat leans out of an above ground window.] Black Hat: King Wenceslas massacred my people.
[The carolers stand in silence, the smaller one looks at the others.]


Subliminal

Explanation:
This comic is about the FedEx logo and how there is a subliminal/hidden arrow in the logo; specifically, in the whitespace between the "E" and the "x". When Cueball looks at the logo, he instead sees a wild scene including Guy Fawkes , Willie Mays and an assault vehicle . Megan then replies "...You either need more medication or less. Not sure which." Which is implying that he is taking medication for some condition that causes him to hallucinate (or something similar). The implication being that he either needs more medication because it isn't working properly, or less medication because it is causing him to hallucinate in itself.
Guy Fawkes was a British revolutionary who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. His likeness is nowadays used as a symbol of protest, most famously in the graphic novel and movie " V For Vendetta " and by Anonymous and the Occupy movement .
Willie Mays was an American baseball player for the San Francisco Giants who made a famous over-the-shoulder catch in the World Series. Some consider it to be the best defensive play of all time in baseball.
The title text is a play on the Internet idiom "once you see it, you can't unsee it," although it says that you can't unsee it until your body has finished processing the magic mushrooms , that you must have taken for some reason, which would be why you would keep seeing it in the first place.
[Cueball and Megan are gathered around a computer. Cueball is seated interacting with the computer while Megan stands behind them with an arm resting on the back of the chair.] Cueball: What hidden arrow? Megan: I thought everyone knew about it. Pull up the FedEx logo. Click
[Megan is now pointing at the screen.] Cueball: Where is it? Megan: Right there. Look at the whitespace. Cueball: I don't see it.
[The next panel shows a stylised view of the FedEx logo. The white space above the 'ed' in Fed is decorated to look like a tank turret with the barrel extending into the letter 'F'. Along the bottom of the letters a baseball player with the number 24 on his back is reaching out to catch a baseball. The baseball is forming the centre of the 'e' while the arm provides the break for the tail. The baseballers head marks the centre of the 'd' and the number 24 is coloured in blue to show the lower half of the stroke of the 'd'. Toward the right of the image the space between the 'E' and 'x' has been decorated to look like a Guy Fawkes mask, with ties wrapping around the 'x' and being drawn off-screen. A faint outline suggests the whitespace above the 'x' is a hat, with the brim extending into the upper part of the 'E'. Two speech bubbles are visible above the drawing, both spoken by off-screen characters.] Cueball (off-screen): All I see is Guy Fawkes watching Willie Mays catch a fly ball while an armored assault vehicle rolls past. Megan (off-screen): ...You either need more medication or less. Not sure which.


Eternal Flame

Explanation:
Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011, the day before this comic was posted. He was the CEO and one of the founders of Apple, Inc . He was the head of Apple for the introduction of OS X , the default operating system used on all modern Macintosh computers. In OS X when there is a significant slowdown, the Cursor becomes the symbol seen in the comic. It may appear when an application is not responding, or if the computer is busy. This symbol is infamous among OS X users, and is nicknamed "the beachball of death". It appears during a lag, and can take a very long time to disappear, thus seeming endless.
The title and rotating cursor above a fixture in the ground seems to be referencing the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame , suggesting that the rotating cursor above the fixture is, in fact, a monument to Steve Jobs.
The title text refers to the fact that when an application is not responding on the Mac, the application sometimes recovers and the system comes back; other times, however, the damage is irrevocable, a Kernel Panic happens and the system needs a restart.
A similar tribute comic was also dedicated to Terry Pratchett , the day after he died, in 1498: Terry Pratchett , to Gary Gygax , three days after he died, in 393: Ultimate Game , and to John Horton Conway , two days after he died, in 2293: RIP John Conway .
[Two people before a memorial with an eternally spinning wait cursor. They contemplate silently on an influential life. Goodbye, Steve.]


The Corliss Resolution

Explanation:
Jeb Corliss is a professional BASE jumper and wingsuit flyer, like in the fourth panel. Corliss has jumped from a lot of different buildings and monuments in the world. Hence, the Corliss Resolution.
The Fermi paradox is an astronomical problem that states: "The universe is large enough that many planets should have extraterrestrial intelligent life. Why, then, haven't we detected any signs of it?" The paradox has numerous hypothetical solutions — some say that life is much rarer than we think, and others suggest that civilizations will eventually destroy themselves (as mentioned in the comic).
Randall proposes another solution to the Fermi paradox: before they can develop space travel and the like, civilizations will inevitably invent an "activity more fun than survival." That is, something fun that's also very dangerous, such as flying off a cliff in a wingsuit.
As said in the title text, a being that can already fly (hence "avian society") would probably prefer flying around outside over developing the tools needed for space colonization.
See 384: The Drake Equation for another comic about intelligent life in the universe.
[Cueball with an unusual suit runs right with a small cloud behind his legs. The frame of the panel is only two thirds the normal height and above the frame is the text from the narrator:] Narrator: The Fermi Paradox: Planets are so common that life should be too. So where is it?
[Cueball keeps running with the small cloud behind his legs. Above him there are two frames with narration:] Narrator: Well, now we know. Narrator: It's not that life inevitably destroys itself with war.
[Cueball leaps into the air off a jagged cliff edge with gray cliffs. The image frame only covers a small part of the center of this panel. Narration text is shown both above and below the image:] Narrator: It's just that it takes longer to develop space colonization. Narrator: Than it does to invent an activity
[A Youtube video is shown with the usual icons in the black bar below the image; play, volume, full screen etc. The video shows Cueball soaring downwards as indicated with four speed lines behind his spread out arms and legs. The strange suit has opened up revealing it to be a wingsuit. The sound is on and Cueball can be heard. Above the video frame there is a final narration text in a frame. Two people are watching the video together off-panel and their comments are shown below in two voice bubbles with arrows pointing left and right.] Narrator: More fun than survival. Cueball: Wheeeee! Off-panel voice #1: Holy crap. Off-panel voice #2: I don't care how dangerous it is. I have to try it.


X11

Explanation:
X11 is the X window system (commonly X Window System or X11, based on its current major version being 11). It is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and rich input device capability for networked computers.
The X11 stacks are usually implemented using a display server. The reason that it is called a display server is that the actual viewer and the server do not need to be on the same system; X11 frequently runs over a network connection. This adds considerably to the complexity of the mechanism.
Most UNIX-based operating systems, including Linux and the BSDs use X11 as their base graphical subsystem and thus always use a display server and a display client. MacOSX has built-in support for X11, but does not use it for normal applications. For Windows, commercial and free solutions implementing an X11 display client exist.
Until 2004, for Linux the default display server was XFree86 . This project required a variation of the config file that Randall mentions. It was forked into Xorg due to disagreements over the development model.
Xorg is nowadays the default display server: X.Org Server (commonly abbreviated to Xorg Server, XServer or just X) refers to the X server release packages stewarded by the X.Org Foundation, which is hosted by freedesktop.org , and provides an interface to the standard X Window releases for the use of the free and open source software community.
Every aspect of XFree86 and Xorg can be modified in numerous ways, all the way down to tiny behaviors such as the default window size, window-border snapping, mouse button maps or how a touchpad is used. All of these settings can be found in the xorg.conf file, a massive file with hundreds upon thousands of individual settings that have accumulated over the lifetime of the Xorg project. The full documentation for xorg.conf contains all the settings contained within the file. When a problem arises in the graphical portion of a desktop using the X server, the solution may be to edit the xorg.conf file. The soul-crushing prospect of having to open and look up the correct parameter out of thousands that is causing issues is enough to destroy a person's satisfaction with their life.
Editing xorg.conf (especially manually) is much less necessary than it used to be.  In fact, some distributions do not even come with an xorg.conf file, because everything necessary can be auto-detected and/or configured elsewhere.
The Wayland project aims to replace some of X11 and not include any of the cruft that built up over the decades. It was started in 2008, way more than 19 years after the aforementioned config file turned into a hell.
The title text references a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison on the popular basis of political authority. There are a few quotes that can be pulled to sum up his ideas.
To keep our ideas clear when applying them to a multitude, let us suppose a whole generation of men to be born on the same day, to attain mature age on the same day, and to die on the same day, leaving a succeeding generation in the moment of attaining their mature age all together. Let the ripe age be supposed of 21. years, and their period of life 34. years more, that being the average term given by the bills of mortality to persons who have already attained 21. years of age.
In his day most people lived only to age 55, so he supposes that a person reaches maturity at 21, and will live until 55 and then die. For the purposes of the other arguments he makes in the letter, he also supposes that all the people of a generation are born on the same day, and that they will all die on the same day: the day they turn 56.
Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during its course, fully, and in their own right.
Since only one generation is alive in his example, his model allows for that generation to do as they please for their time on earth, elsewhere in the letter he describes that each generation should not be able to leave the next generation in a worse position, so the debts accrued by one generation must be paid off by that generation. This has built us up to the quote that everyone attaches onto.
Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right. -It may be said that the succeeding generation exercising in fact the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the constitution or law has been expressly limited to 19 years only.
Because a generation reaches maturity at 21, and at that point the previous generation dies off, and this generation has 19 productive years until they are 40 and have 15 years of senility until their own death they have full reign of the earth as they please. Continuing on under the laws (and debts) of the previous generation is "an act of force, and not of right".
Jefferson picked 19 years because that was the length of time a generation spent in power, not that every 19 years all laws should be abolished, but that every generation, each new generation should tear down all the systems put in place, re-evaluate, and build better laws, systems, and constitutions.
[The comic is a graph with a curve starting at (0,0) that snakes toward the upper right of the graph. The axes are labelled:] x axis: Time since I last had to open Xorg.conf y axis: General satisfaction with how my life is going


Dorm Poster

Explanation:
The poster on the wall is the album artwork, by Hipgnosis , for Pink Floyd's album The Dark Side of the Moon . It shows a beam of light passing through a dispersive prism and separating into a rainbow. After thinking a bit, the new student makes a poster that uses a lens to reverse the rainbow into another prism, likely to mess with his new roommate. This idea actually isn't very innovative, because the original backside of the album contained the reverse rainbow and prism (but not the lens). The setup with two prisms was used by Isaac Newton to prove that white light is composed of different colors of light.
In the title text, Randall makes the joke that by recording a record under the name "Pink FTFY" (fixed that for you), the name of his band would come immediately after Pink Floyd alphabetically, so the album would be to the right of Pink Floyd's album for Dark Side of the Moon, allowing for the same image seen in the back of the dorm room to be on the shelves of the record store. Since the cover of his album would be catching the light from Pink Floyd's album and forming white light once again, Randall would be "fixing" the cover of Dark Side of the Moon. However Randall makes the crack that no one would see the joke, because of the fact music can be bought and downloaded online, which has decreased the traffic the record stores in recent years.
[Cueball finds dorm room.]
[View into the dorm room. The left half is already occupied, and a roommate has filled his side with the normal accoutrements of dorm life. There is a Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" poster hanging on the far wall, offset and only on the roommate's side.]
[Cueball has a bit of a ponder.]
[Cueball leaves for a bit.]
[Cueball returns with an item.]
[View into the dorm room. Cueball is moving in, and has placed a second Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" poster modified with a lens in the rainbow's path. The poster is placed upside down on Cueball's side of the far wall to catch the rainbow, feed it back into the prism, and turn it back into a narrow stream of white light.]


Elements

Explanation:
In the popular children's TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender , the four nations that inhabit the world can each telekinetically control one of the four classical elements: water, earth, fire and air. One person, the avatar, can control all four elements and is markedly more powerful than any other character. Dmitri Mendeleev is the creator of the modern periodic table, which categorizes the 118+ atomic elements by their atomic number.
The comic is comparing the control over more magical power with more practical, "science-y" power. Fire, boulders, and storms may be more impressive visually, but science has proven time and again the "boring" can have very practical, very deadly applications. Additionally, while the advantages of controlling the four alchemical elements are mostly physical and visible (characters in the show most often use their powers to push, throw, or create barriers), the phenomena related to Mendeleev's elements and his research include subatomic particle interactions. One power the depicted Mendeleev has that the Avatar definitely does not have is control over radioactive elements, and this is the subtle, slow-acting power he demonstrates.
Polonium gained a level of notoriety as the poison used to kill Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko .
The title text talks about power levels of the elements if each element had a controlling nation as per the TV show. Ununoctium (1-1-8-ium) was the placeholder name for Oganesson , the 118th element. It did not officially gain its permanent name until late 2016, 5 years after this comic was released. Oganesson is the heaviest element that has been created, as well as the one with the shortest life before it decays into other elements. Xenon is a noble gas with few practical applications, but it is sometimes used in "neon" signs.
[Aang the Avatar and Dmitri Mendeleev stand in opposition to each other. Aang wields all 4 classical elements: Water, Fire, Earth, and Air.] Aang: I'm the avatar, master of all 4 elements! Mendeleev: Really? I'm Mendeleev, master of all 118+. swoosh Mendeleev: That was polonium-bending. You probably didn't feel anything, but the symptoms of radiation poisoning will set in shortly.


Jet Fuel

Explanation:
This is another one of the " My Hobby " series, where Randall tells about a strange hobby. This comic is a reference to the " 9/11 Was An Inside Job " theory that the World Trade Center in New York City was blown up by a "controlled demolition". This is a fairly common argument that is seen on the internet.
Hairy 's statement that "jet fuel can't burn hot enough to melt steel" references a common argument used by conspiracy theorists in references to the attacks. The official investigation concluded that the combination of the impact of the jets and the subsequent fire sufficiently compromised the structural steel beams of the towers that they lost integrity and collapsed. People who do not accept this conclusion frequently insist that the flame temperatures resulting from burning jet fuel is less than the melting point of steel, and so argue that the official explanation must be wrong, supporting their argument that the towers were deliberately brought down by explosives, planted by some conspiracy.
This argument has been frequently refuted by experts , on a number of grounds. No fuel has a single burning temperature, the temperature of any given flame depends on a number of factors, which can be hard to predict in uncontrolled situtions. In addition, multiple fuels could have contributed to the fire, including not only the jet fuel but also flammables inside the building, and even metals (such as aluminum) that would have been pulverized and dispersed by the impact. Importantly, it is not necessary for beams to melt in order to collapse a building. Metals lose much of their structural strength well below their melting point. If enough beams were sufficiently weakened, they would fail under the weight of the building, putting more pressure on the remaining beams, which would then be likely to fail, and so on.
Cueball, however, doesn't argue with Hairy's premises, but instead tries a different tack, by appealing to a completely different conspiracy theory, concerning chemtrails .  The Chemtrails conspiracy theory claims that the Contrails left behind aircraft contain mind-control agents planted by the US Government (or any other government, reptiloids , Freemasons , etc.), which are used to drug the population en masse. Cueball operates under the assumption that this theory is true, and points out that this means typical passenger jets would be equipped with containers of these drugs, which could potentially burn at a high temperature. Because these drugs are entirely hypothetical, no assumption about them can possibly be disproven. This puts Hairy in a position of either having to argue against the chemtrail conspiracy theory, while arguing for a 9/11 conspiracy theory or admit that there are factors he can't account for. This is unlikely to shake Hairy from his beliefs, but Cueball appears to find it entertaining to force a conspiracy theorist to confront the contradictions between conspiracy theories.
The title text is the natural "double down" on a theory which says that the conspiracy theory itself was concocted by the government and was supposed to distract from the truth, a parodic theory already seen in South Park episode Mystery of the Urinal Deuce .
[Hairy throws his arms out as he talks to Cueball, who answers while lifting a hand palm up.] Hairy: 9/11 was an inside job! Jet fuel can't burn hot enough to melt steel! Cueball: Well, remember — jet fuel wasn't the only thing on those planes. They would've also carried tanks full of the mind-control agents airliners use to make chemtrails. Cueball: Who knows what temperature that stuff burns at! Hairy: Whoa. Hairy: Good point!
[Caption below the panel:] My Hobby: Playing conspiracy theories off against each other.
For those wondering: it is true that kerosene does not burn hot enough in air to melt steel, but it does burn hot enough to cut the steel's supporting strength roughly in half, which is more than enough to collapse a building weighing thousands of tons.  (Although standard engineering practice is to use a safety factor of three, and a safety factor of two is sufficient to allow for a 50% reduction in strength, over half of the columns in the two towers were severed in the initial impact, increasing the stress on the remaining columns.)
Cueball messing with 9/11 truther conspiracy theorists was also the subject of 690: Semicontrolled Demolition , and in 496: Secretary: Part 3 Black Hat claims the Twin Towers never actually collapsed. Chemtrails are mentioned again later in 1677: Contrails and 1803: Location Reviews .


Prairie

Explanation:
This comic refers to the song America the Beautiful , which contains the line "amber waves of grain," which refers to the plentiful wheat fields in the Midwestern US. The waves, in this context, are being likened to the waves in the ocean, as the wind can make the wheat move in such a way as to resemble waves.
In quantum mechanics the wave-particle duality explains that particles can act like both particles and waves, depending on the context. Using a comedic adaptation of quantum theory, Megan states that the waves of grain become particles of grain when observed, which, in a way, is true. However, this is not a perfect analogy because each grain is a separate entity while an external force, the wind, is what produces the wave motion.
The title text builds on the quantum mechanics principle that a laser is a coherent wave .  This leads of the absurd notion that one could harness waves in grain fields for use as a laser weapon, which would be used by one state to destroy two neighbors.  There is a long running joke in the Rocky Mountain West of completely obliterating nearby states, and in particular Nebraska. The use of the word "majestic" to describe the laser is a reference to another line in "America the Beautiful" — "for purple mountain majesties" — which does in fact allude to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
[Megan and Cueball stand in a field of wheat, facing away from the panel. The figures are drawn in the typical black and white stick figure style, but the field is immensely detailed, with the grain coloured a rich amber and stroked such that individual stalks can be picked out, with a few dark bands providing contrast. In the distance a low mountain range is visible and in the sky a few scattered fluffy white clouds float low over the horizon.] Megan: Well, when we observe them, they become amber particles of grain.


Everything

Explanation:
In traditional western cliches of romance, men are expected to give women particular gifts (including flowers, candy and stuffed animals) and make declarations about how that woman is the sole focus of his life. This strip deliberately subverts those expectations by renouncing those sentiments and giving a decidedly non-traditional set of gifts, but making clear that this is a touching expression of love between these two parties.
Cueball is gathering a lot of different sorts of random things, including a parasol , a miniature Eiffel Tower , what appears to be a small round bomb with a short fuse and the bust of a mannequin . He adds these to an already immense pile of weird things including balloons and a cage with a bird.
While this happens Cueball narrates in short sentences. The first three are statements that at first seems similar to what you would find on a birthday or anniversary card from one person in a relationship to another, but in this case, all the statements ends up being negative, or at least neutral.
The negative continues in the fourth statement, but then it turns around and ends up kind of positive.
It turns out to be Megan he is talking about who is shown applying a hammer to the front of a large and strange vehicle while standing on one of its huge wheels. She seems to have built this giant super tank/machine from anything Cueball supplies her with, having several huge pigged wheels, a mounted gun, satellite dish, a crane and smoke coming out of an exhaust pipe at the top, implying it is already running it seems quite a disturbing tank she is creating. But Cueball is very fascinated by her strangeness.
Cueball's final statement is also positive: I want to give you everything (hence the title), which could have been on a card as it is. But the reason is unusual (and written at the bottom right at the very end as his final statement). The reason he wishes to give her everything is because what she does is so strange and fascinating so he does this just to see what you would do with it , referring to whatever it is Megan is building now (or later).
Some of the objects in the piles in the second panel can easily be determined, like the two balloons. But most others are more difficult to recognize. To the left there is what appears to be a cage with an animal inside, could be a bird. To the right there appears to be the hilt of a sword (maybe stuck in a stone, see 1521: Sword in the Stone ). Finally the tall thin thing sticking out of the top left of the right pile could be the stuffed giraffe from 604: Qwertial Aphasia . There are other distinct things, like the tall "cylinder" and the three "cannonballs" in a pyramid pile to the left, and something with a peculiar shape between the "giraffe" and the sword hilt. But it seems impossible to determine what they are.
The title text similarly starts with the conventional Beatles love song " I Want to Hold Your Hand " but for an unconventional reason to not fall out of a gyrocopter. A gyrocopter is a flying machine that has a rotor like a helicopter , but the rotor is not powered by a motor. Rather, the motor of the gyrocopter drives a propeller that accelerates the machine forward, while the air rushing past the rotor drives the rotor like a helicopter during autorotation .
[Cueball drags a small wagon and a bag full of various items.] Cueball: You are not the light of my life. Making you happy isn't my greatest dream.
[Cueball places the items in an even bigger pile of even more random items.] Cueball: Your smile is not all I live for. I've got my own stuff going on. But you're strange and fascinating and I've never met anyone like you.
[Cueball stares in awe as Megan assembles the items into a gargantuan, intoxicatingly complex machine.] Cueball: I want to give you everything just to see what you would do with it.
A larger version can be found here:


Delta-P

Explanation:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a book in which four children accidentally wander into a world known as Narnia through a wardrobe that only allows passage through to Narnia when you aren't looking for it. In the comic, someone connects an anchor to the wardrobe and throws it into the ocean. The formula describes the flow of water through the open doors when the wardrobe sits at the bottom of the ocean in 2 km depth, which means that a steady stream of water at an approximate velocity of 200 meters per second will flow into Narnia.
The evil White Witch , who has made it "always winter, and never Christmas," could not have anticipated that a wardrobe portal would suddenly begin spewing approximately 400,000 liters of water per second into Narnia. [ citation needed ]
Sea water freezes at low temperatures and flowing water freezes at even lower temperatures, depending how fast it is going. Water jetting out from this portal would be flowing very quickly indeed, approximately 200 meters per second (450 mph or 720 km/h) as the comic says; this is over half the speed of sound. And the water flow is approximately 400,000 liters per second, again, provided in the image above. The force of this water jet would be incredible.
This water would not freeze. First it would decimate any forest trees or iron lamp posts in front of it until it eventually slowed down and fell to the ground. There it would create a rapidly expanding river of sea water. Narnia would not stay frozen for long. Snow would melt, ice would break apart and the valley would quickly flood.
Delta-P is a mathematical term for the difference in pressure. The shown formula is based on the Hagen–Poiseuille equation which can be applied to a flowing liquid in a long cylindrical pipe; thus the equation here results in an unphysically high flow rate because the opening is rectangular and too short for a laminar flow . Using the Hagen–Poiseuille equation the maximum flow rate is given by:
is the pipe cross-sectional area (m 2 ) and is the fluid density (kg/m 3 ).
From the hydrostatics of water the pressure difference depends on gravity and the height:
is the gravitational acceleration (m/s 2 ) and is the height (m).
Putting this together and changing the cross-sectional area to a rectangular area we get the formula used by Randall:

Assuming the wardrobe is two meter high and one in width ( A = 2 m 2 ) and using the gravitational constant g = 9.81 m/s 2 the flow rate is 396 m 3 per second, or roughly 400.000 liters per second.
The water jet velocity v is based on Torricelli's law :

It gives 198 m / s in this scenario.
The title text references the video game Portal in which you solve puzzles using a gun which projects portals onto certain surfaces. In the game you cannot shoot a portal through a portal, but Randall says that if you try to create a portal with the portal gun through the wardrobe, space and time knot together.   C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series (like most of his writing) is influenced by his views on Christianity and morality (he did not set out to write a "Christian story", but later accepted that there are many parallels between the Chronicles and his faith), with Aslan the lion representing Jesus Christ.  As such, Aslan often provides lessons and advice on morality and faith to the main characters; however, the Space Sphere (a minor character in the game Portal 2 ) is a barely-sentient AI whose only preoccupation is going to space, and it would not be receptive to Aslan's teachings.  The Space Sphere might be more interested in Lewis's The Space Trilogy , a trilogy of science-fiction books in which the main character travels through space and learns that the divine struggles between good and evil on Earth are also reflected elsewhere in the solar system.
[An open wardrobe, with a boat anchor attached to one corner, falling towards water.] [Below the water line a formula with its variables explained is shown:] Q = A * sqrt(2 * g * d) Q = flow rate A = area of opening d = ocean depth (2 km) g = Earth gravity
[And below the formula:] Flow: ~400,000 liters / s Water jet velocity: ~200 m / s
[Caption below the frame:] The White Witch didn't know what hit her.


The Important Field

Explanation:
In this comic, a soldier with a green hat with a black emblem on the front, is using his computer to access an online web interface to launch a missile at a target. The joke is that even though the interface only asks him to enter the target coordinates once, it asks for his email address twice, even though the coordinates are by far the more important detail to get right (launching the missile at the wrong target could result in a disastrous loss of life or property damage).
It is common for online interfaces to force users to type certain details twice, as a form of redundancy checking to ensure that the user really has entered the correct details and hasn't made an error. Some forms even go the extra step of preventing the user from copy-pasting into the second field, which would render it useless as a redundancy check.
This is usually done for email addresses and when creating new passwords, which are used to identify and authenticate users, and are therefore important to get right.
In the title text, Randall suggests that the presence of redundancy checks can give you an interesting insight into what things people deem to be important. He gives a (supposed) real-life example of a merchant that requires only one form of ID in order to buy a gun, but two forms if you want to pay for it by check - suggesting that the seller is more worried about the safety of their money than the potential danger of giving a lethal weapon to someone untrustworthy.
[A soldier with a green military hat, with an black emblem on the front, is sitting in an office chair typing at his computer. Sounds are shown when he types, and the message he reads on the screen is shown above with a zigzag line coming from the computer screen. In the first panel he only uses one hand on the keyboard.] Computer: Welcome to the missile launch web interface! Click
[Same setting but the soldier types with both hands.] Computer: Enter the target's coordinates. Type Type
[Same setting as previous panel.] Computer: Enter your email address for our records. Type Type
[Same setting except the soldier has stopped typing.] Computer: Enter your email again, to ensure you typed it correctly.


Alternative Literature

Explanation:
While the comic is funny on its own in a " Wake Up , Sheeple " kind of way, the title text reveals that the comic is a parable about homeopathy . The comic title is a play on alternative medicine .
In the comic, it is implied that Cueball has been scammed into buying blank books, though he attempts to defend it as a valid choice (ironically, he thinks that it is the other people who are being scammed, not he). The title text likens this to the CVS Pharmacy selling homeopathic pills using methods that does not clearly distinguish them from real pharmaceuticals. Homeopathy is a pseudoscience based on the idea that a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure that disease in sick people if administered in sufficiently small doses. It is possible that Cueball actually bought blank notebooks and is scamming himself into believing he made a valid and logical choice.
Homeopathic remedies are prepared by repeatedly diluting a substance with alcohol or water . Somewhat counter-intuitively, homeopathy considers the weakest dilutions to have the most powerful healing effect. Frequently, in fact, the dilutions are repeated past the point where any number of molecules of the "active ingredient" can remain.
Selling a homeopathic remedy as actual medicine when it is just water is analogous to selling blank books. The smudge of ink Cueball mentions in the comic may be referencing the fact that some of the less diluted homeopathic remedies can contain a tiny amount of the original substance.
[Cueball and a friend stand in front of Cueball's bookcase. His friend flips through a number of them.] Friend: All your books are full of blank pages. Cueball: Not true. That one has some ink on page 78. Friend: A smudge. Cueball: So?
Friend: There are no words. You're not reading. There's no story there. Cueball: Maybe not for you. When I look at those books, I think about all kinds of stories.
Cueball: Reading is about more than what's on the page. Holding a book prompts my mind to enrich itself. Frankly, I suspect the book isn't even necessary.
Cueball: The whole industry is evil. Greedy publishers and rich authors try to convince us our brains need their words. But I refuse to be a sucker. Friend: Who sold you all these blank books?


November

Explanation:
This comic is a homage to Charles Schulz , the creator of the comic Peanuts , who was born on November 26, 1922. Both comics carry the idea that when you start thinking about your tongue, you can hardly stop thinking about it. (Similarly: if you start thinking about your breathing, you stop breathing unless you consciously think to breathe, same goes for blinking.) This is similar to the ironic process theory , where trying to not think about something will invariably make you think about it. The intention of Black Hat in this comic is for Cueball to consciously feel his tongue for the entire month of November. Since it was Black Hat's idea, Black Hat probably suffers the same consequences.
This is similar, in concept, to the expression and phrase used for trolling in online communities, " You Are Now Breathing Manually ".
The line "you are now aware of your tongue" was mentioned much later in the title text of 2563: Throat and Nasal Passages . Here it was throat and nasal passages awareness which was the subject, due to the, at that time, two year long 2020 COVID-19 pandemic .
[Black Hat and Cueball sit in a room.] Black Hat: Did you know November is Tongue Awareness Month?
[Cueball is suddenly aware of his tongue.]
[Cueball continues to be aware of his tongue.]
[Cueball is painfully aware of his tongue.] Cueball: I hate you. Black Hat: Enjoy the next four weeks.


MTV Generation

Explanation:
MTV stands for "Music Television", which is the name of a US-based cable channel, founded in 1981, specifically focusing on popular music and the music industry in general. The programming largely (though not exclusively) consisted of music videos . The focus of the channel has since shifted to reality shows . In the channel's heyday in the 1980's and early 1990's, it was popular with teenagers and young adults. As is often the case with youth culture, it was roundly condemned by some adults as being destructive and pointless. One of the specific criticisms was that the format of short videos, with quick-edit, highly kinetic visual styles and no underlying narrative was destroying the attention span of the youth.
Despite MTV no longer being especially popular (and no longer focusing on music videos), people still use the term MTV Generation to refer to the young cohort, and insist that they have poor attention spans, resulting from their media exposure. Megan explains that the term really originated about 25 years ago, to describe Generation X , the generation born from 1965 to 1980. The actual MTV generation has long since grown up, and most young people today either don't watch MTV, or have no idea that it was originally a music channel. Teenagers today are the children of "the MTV generation" (and even their grandchildren, in some cases).
The Breakfast Club is an iconic movie from 1985 in which 5 teenagers spend a Saturday detention together at school. Principal Vernon was the overseer of the detention, and a symbol of authority and oppression of youth - the actor playing principal Vernon was around 45 years old at the time of filming. The irony is that many adults who grew up watching the movie still identify with the teenagers, but now have little in common with them.
There are a couple of themes in this strip that Randall has covered before. One is mocking adults for the assumptions they make about young people, youth culture and new technology. Adults have a tendency to whitewash the past, and insist that modern young people are being corrupted by new trends.  And when that generation of youth grows up, they tend to make the same assumptions about the next generation. 1601: Isolation , 1227: The Pace of Modern Life , 1414: Writing Skills , 1348: Before the Internet
Another theme is making people feel old by pointing out how long ago their common memories are, as in 647: Scary , 891: Movie Ages , 1393: Timeghost , 1477: Star Wars , and 2165: Millennials .
[Teenager playing with phone walks in background. White Hat and Megan are in the foreground.] White Hat: See, that's the problem with the MTV generation— No attention span. Teenager's phone: Bleep bloop
[White Hat and Megan in frameless panel without teenager from previous panel.] Megan: You know, that phrase referred to the 12-19 demographic that formed the core MTV audience in the mid-1980s.
[Zoom in on Megan with White Hat off-panel to the left.] White Hat (off-panel): Uh huh? So? Megan: That generation's now in their 40s.
[Zoom back out to White Hat and Megan, with White Hat scratching his head.] White Hat: That can't be right. Megan: Face it: Your problem with the MTV generation is their kids .


The General Problem

Explanation:
In this comic, Cueball asks a friend or relative to pass him the salt, a common request when dining with others. Usually it is expected that the person will simply pass the salt immediately; however, the offscreen person doesn't get back to him until 20 minutes later, when Cueball repeats his request. The friend explains that they're attempting to solve the general problem of passing any table condiment, not just salt.
This is a common mistake made in software development, wherein an developer tries to solve a problem far more general than the specific one they have been tasked to solve. Sometimes, this foresight can be useful, if the developer has predicted use cases that later turn out to be needed; other times, it can lead to wasted time, or worse, overengineering, where a system is made more complex and fragile than it needed to be, instead of robustly solving a single, well-defined problem.
It isn't clear what exactly the offscreen friend is doing (or even what they could do) to solve the general condiment-passing problem; most likely they are still in the design stage of their solution and have not even started implementing it, much to Cueball's chagrin. Nonetheless they are convinced that it is worth taking the time to do this now due to the potential time-saving in the long run. In doing so, they are overlooking the more salient and saline facts of the situation; namely, that passing condiments is not something that requires a solution or takes up any significant amount of time, and that Cueball would probably prefer to have the salt while his meal is still warm.
In the title text, Randall notes a social paradox: that people tend to be disparaging of such inefficient time-wasting while it's not producing any results, but will heap praise on it when they're able to reap the benefits of that foresight.
See also 137: Dreams , 1205: Is It Worth the Time? , 1319: Automation , 1691: Optimization , and the Time management category .
[Cueball sits at a table, eating a meal.] Cueball: Can you pass the salt?
[Cueball pauses, a bite of food on his fork, silently.]
[Cueball still has fork in mid-air.] Cueball: I said- Off-screen person: I know! I'm developing a system to pass you arbitrary condiments. Cueball: It's been 20 minutes! Off-screen person: It'll save time in the long run!


Occulting Telescope

Explanation:
Cueball takes the useful practice of occulting stars beyond its intended purpose. Occulting is used in astronomy to block the light from a star under observation so that adjacent dim objects, such as any surrounding extrasolar planets , might be more easily detected and examined. This refers to a proposed starshade mission , envisioned for space telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope , in which a large occulter would fly in formation with that telescope.
Instead of blocking the light of a single star for the purposes of observation, Cueball proposes blocking the light from all stars, for the purpose of making him feel comfortable with the night sky. Cueball feels, some might say irrationally, that "there are too many stars", and "it's been freaking me out". This may be a reference to Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" which explores in depth the psychological implications by which stars make some people feel small and insignificant because they demonstrate just how vast is the universe.
The title text refers to both a Type II Kardashev civilization and a Dyson sphere .
A Dyson sphere is a theoretical construction consisting of a network of satellites that orbit and completely surround a star. The purpose of a Dyson Sphere is to capture and transmit all of the available solar energy in the star back to a planet.
A Type II Kardashev civilization is a theoretical civilization that has advanced to the point where it has harnessed the energy radiated by its own star (for example, the stage of successful construction of a Dyson sphere).
For comparison purposes:
The title text reveals that Type II Kardashev civilizations construct Dyson spheres not for the purposes of capturing all solar energy, but merely to block the view of all that hideous space. This may allude to Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel series, where a planet called Krikkit is completely obscured by a dust layer. Upon building a spacecraft to explore what lies behind that dust cover, they decide to destroy all living beings in the rest of the universe. See http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Krikkit .
The concept of an occulting space telescope was visited again in 1730: Starshade , and the idea of the vastness of space being frightening was revisited in 2596: Galaxies .
[Cueball is presenting his new telescope in front of a white board, pointing to the diagram of said telescope with a pointer. He is standing on a raised podium facing a crowd off-panel] Cueball: The occulting observatory consists of two parts—the telescope and the discs.
[A frame-less panel with a black center with white drawings that shows the diagram from the white board in the first panel. It shows a satellite  with solar panels above and below the main body which has a front end that looks wider like a telescope. The satellite is labeled with a small arrow pointing at the front end. 11 light waves are indicated as coming towards it from the right, and below these they are labeled. Three of the waves is blocked in the middle by a small vertical line which is also labeled with a small arrow. Above and below the diagram outside the black area Cueball is narrating.] Cueball (narrating): When the telescope sees a star, a disc is carefully steered to block its light. Label: Telescope Label: Light from star Label: Disc Cueball (narrating): This procedure is repeated until all stars are covered.
[Back to Cueball on the podium who now looks down on the audience from where a question emanates at the top of the left frame.] Person #1 (off screen): Wait, all? Why? Cueball: I'll feel better.
[Close-up on Cueball. as two different persons talks to him, from the lower left frame.] Person #2 (off-screen): I thought the point was to image extrasolar planets. Cueball: The point is that there are too many stars. Cueball: It's been freaking me out. Person #2 (off-screen): What? Person #3 (off screen): He has a point...


Sail

Explanation:
A billowing sail sometimes looks like the first stage of blowing a bubble. The main character is clearly surprised when a bubble is actually formed by the filled sail.
Readers infer from the title text that the water is also part of this fantastical scenario. If the boat was overturned ( capsized ) in a soap lagoon, a film would form between the mast and the boom (horizontal bar that adjusts the sail). The film would become like the sail in the comic, filling with air and forming bubbles until the film is used up.
[Someone is sailing a lateen rigged sailboat.] [The wind picks up, pushing the sail forward.] [The wind builds strength, and the sailor has to stand up to hold on to the main sheet.] [The sail balloons out, strangely distorted, and he can barely hold on to the sheet.] [Finally, part of the sail separates into a bubble, and the sailor almost falls over backwards. The sail begins to return to its normal shape.] [The sailor sits down and scratches his head in confusion as the bubble floats away.]