Simple Answers

Explanation:
This is Randall 's commentary on some of the baseless skepticism and equally baseless optimism directed at new technologies. Related: 1215: Insight and 1227: The Pace of Modern Life . While it's always healthy to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of cutting-edge tech before blindly diving in and adopting it, it's not healthy to base that evaluation on unrealistically high standards and expectations. [ citation needed ] New developments will have pros and cons, and it's hard to tell whether they make the world a better place or not.
Randall has set up a Q&A for this kind of questioning. Most of the them are straightforward, but we'll provide some commentary on selected questions.
Will [ ] destroy whole industries? Yes. A widely adopted technology usually causes another to gradually phase out, and industries will rise and fall as technologies do. This is a bit of a loaded question because "destroy industries" sounds negative, and only covers half the effect — instead of merely destroying them, we're also replacing them with something (hopefully) better.
Will teens use [ ] for sex? Yes. Were they going to have sex anyway? Yes. Sex is pretty important to almost everyone, so it'll find its way into most generic technologies. Hormone-crazed tech-savvy teenagers are a particularly strong intersection of the two. Parents fearing teen sex might be worried about how their kids would use the technology, but the second question puts such concerns into their proper context quite concisely.
Will [ ] destroy music/art? No. Every new technology for reproducing musical and artistic works (such as player pianos and video cassette recorders ) has been accompanied by warnings that it will destroy the industry that supplies it content. The reality is a special case of the "destroy industries" question - old business models will fall but new ones will arise in their place, and art and music as a whole will survive.
But can't we go back to a time when— No. Elderly people express their disapproval of today's technological luxuries, nostalgically longing for a time before Foo or Bar came around. That's just how the stereotype goes, but there is a large helping of truth to it. Usually, their sentiments are not a fair judgement, but an emotional attachment to the olden days and a resistance to change .
Will [ ] bring about world peace?- No. People have been trying to bring about world peace for centuries; sadly, other people are in no such hurry and insist on more conflict to solve their own problems.
The final answer is a depressing and strangely beautiful comment on human nature: Will [ ] cause widespread alienation by creating a world of empty experiences? We were already alienated. Skeptics may be concerned that a new technology will make people's pleasures and interactions more artificial and shallow; Randall comments that this is already something well known in our society.
From the Title Text, Will [ ] allow us to better understand each other and thus make war undesirable? describes the usual theory that a technology might use to bring about world peace. Unfortunately, not only does the answer seem to be "no" to World Peace either way, but there's no indication that increased global communication actually facilitates understanding and empathy between distant communities. In fact, many cynics say the Internet has in fact caused the opposite effect, causing people to fracture into like-minded cliques rather than intermingle.
[Caption above the chart:] The simple answers to the questions that get asked about every new technology:
Will [ ] make us all geniuses? No Will [ ] make us all morons? No Will [ ] destroy whole industries? Yes Will [ ] make us more empathetic? No Will [ ] make us less caring? No Will teens use [ ] for sex? Yes Were they going to have sex anyway? Yes Will [ ] destroy music? No Will [ ] destroy art? No But can't we go back to a time when- No Will [ ] bring about world peace? No Will [ ] cause widespread alienation by creating a world of empty experiences? We were already alienated


Syllable Planning

Explanation:
Cueball wants to say ri-fucking-diculous , but he inserts the fucking too late in the word. Now, he has to say ridicu-fucking-lous , which sounds ridiculous.
This is an example of tmesis , the breaking up of a word to include another within it, and more specifically of expletive infixation . Normally, for rhythmic reasons the included word is inserted before the stressed syllable ( ri dic ulous becoming ri-fucking- dic ulous ) which is what Cueball messed up. However, in some cases it is also possible to break the word after a prefix instead, so for some words there are two ways to do it e.g. unbe-fucking- lie vable (before the stressed syllable) or un-fucking-be lie vable ; this is because unbelievable is a combination of un and believable to negate believable which is an actual English word [ citation needed ] and therefore it still sounds good.
The title text introduces a further example, with speaker inserting the fucking too late into the word absolutely —which would have resulted in absolute-fucking-ly —but leaving the word unfinished when they realize their mistake. The more usual tmesis here would be abso-fucking-lutely .
Cueball: Man, that is ridicu -fucking—... ...Hang on, I inserted "fucking" too late and now there's just one awkward syllable left. Can I back up? [Cueball is standing next to Megan.]


Shoot for the Moon

Explanation:
The comic and the title text both parody the motivational quote attributed to Leslie Brown , which originally says, "Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
In the original form, the phrase "Shoot for the moon" is figurative, meant to inspire people to pursue ambitious goals, reasoning that even if they fail to achieve them, they may still accomplish other great things while trying. The comic and title text, on the other hand, is literally referring to the moon, and using the word "shoot" not in the sense of "aspire" but to mean "fire a weapon at." The comic further explores the humorous motivations for "shooting the moon"; Megan wants to destroy and kill the moon in order to humble it, feeling taunted by its orbiting merrily over her head, and so she inspires her students to physically attempt to destroy the moon whenever possible, only to become sheepish when she realizes the moon is right behind her, as if it were a person who could become offended by what she is saying. This is, of course, a common comedy trope .
The title text invokes another literal interpretation of the phrase - if a space vehicle aims at the Moon and misses, it will end up in a new orbit, possibly (depending on its velocity) escaping from the Earth-Moon system and following a separate but nearby orbit around the Sun. A solar orbit is very hard, very fuel-intensive, and very lengthy to return from, despite physically meaning you will remain very close to Earth, even close enough to see it with some optical magnification. Thus, as a hypothetical space explorer's life support gradually ran out because his craft could not make it back to Earth in time, he would be taunted by Earth remaining close to him.
Getting stranded on the Moon was the subject of the title text of 1510: Napoleon and of 1484: Apollo Speeches .
[Megan stands at a lectern.] Megan: Students, shoot for the moon. If you miss,
[A surprisingly lunar-like object is starting to edge into the frame.] Megan: SHOOT AGAIN . Megan: Keep shooting and never stop.
[The moon is now almost entirely in-frame.] Megan: Someday, one of us will destroy that stupid skycircle. And— Megan: ...What? What are you all—
[The moon is now in frame, lurking ominously in the background.] Megan: ...it's right behind me, isn't it? Megan: Shit . Megan: Everyone act casual.


Pi vs. Tau

Explanation:
This is yet another of Randall 's compromise comics . A few mathematicians argue as to whether to use pi , which is the ratio between a circle's circumference and its diameter, or tau , which is the ratio between a circle's circumference and its radius.
Some consider pi to be the wrong convention and are in favor of using tau as the circle constant; see the Tau Manifesto , which was inspired by the article " Pi is wrong! " by mathematician Robert Palais and publicized by Vi Hart .  Others consider proponents of tau to be foolish and remain loyal to pi (see the Pi Manifesto ). Of course, regardless of which convention is used, the change is merely in notation — the underlying mathematics remains unaltered. Still, the choice of pi vs. tau can affect the clarity of equations, analogies between different equations, and how easy various subjects are to teach.
Most people know π (pi) by the approximation 3.14, but do not know τ (tau) which, by definition, is twice as large as pi. Randall is suggesting using "pau", which is a portmanteau of "pi" and "tau", as a number situated, appropriately enough, halfway between pi and tau, i.e. 1.5 pi or 0.75 tau. But of course his number would be inconvenient, as this value does not naturally turn up when working with circles or other mathematical constructs, so there are no commonly used formulas that would use pau.
The title text claims that pau can be approximated by e+2, as both values are roughly 4.71 — a similarity that holds little since it requires another irrational constant, e (although knowing the value of pau is somewhat more helpful in remembering e to 2 digits). It also attributes the nickname "Devil's Ratio" to pau, due to the sequence 666 supposedly appearing four times in the first 200 digits of pau when expressed in the octal base. However, this is not the case, and was likely due to an error in the computer system used by WolframAlpha; for more details see below.
The Tau/pi controversy was later mentioned in 2520: Symbols .
[On the left is a "forbidden"-style slashed circle with the π symbol, captioned "Pi". On the right is a "forbidden"-style slashed circle with 2π, captioned "Tau". Between these is 1.5π, captioned "Pau".] [Caption below the panel:] A compromise solution to the Pi/Tau dispute
Possibly, Randall used Wolfram|Alpha to calculate the result (he uses it a lot, for example What-if 70: The Constant Groundskeeper or What-if 62: Falling With Helium ).
However, when the comic was published, there was a bug in Wolfram|Alpha so that, when getting 200 octal digits from "pau", it just calculates the decimal value rounded to 15 significant digits (this is 4.71238898038469) and expands that as octal digits as far as needed.
This gives a periodically repeating number. In the first 200 digits of the octal expansion, the sequences 666 and 6666 do occur, twice and once, respectively. There are 4 occurrences, however, in the first three hundred and ten (310 in base 8 equals 200 in base 10) digits:
Expansion that long indeed does contain 666 (the number of the beast ) four times (with one instance as 6666). It also contains 0000, 222, 444, and 7777, but they only appear once in a run.
In the first 500 digits of the actual octal expansion of pau, we also find that 6666 occurs once, and 666 occurs two other times:
(Note that this contains 500 digits after the decimal point.) No other run of 3 or more repeated digits (e.g. 111) occurs as many times, although 1111 occurs once, 111 occurs once elsewhere, and 333 and 777 also occur once each. 9 other strings of 3 digits occur 4 times, namely 164, 362, 521, 644, 432, 730, 43, 216, and 450, and only 573 occurs more often, as it occurs 6 times. Therefore, if 6666 is counted as two occurrences of 666, it is actually the joint second most common string of three numbers in the first 500 digits.
Coincidentally , e+2 is also very similar to 1.5 pi, although only to a few digits.


Job Interview

Explanation:
Following on from his attempts at networking , Beret Guy , the oddball of the xkcd cast, conducts an interview for a programmer position at his mysteriously successful company.
Much like most of Beret Guy's interactions with people, Beret Guy is cheerful and upbeat, yet indicates that he has at best a scrambled understanding of how people in this situation normally act. Because of this, the job interview becomes increasingly bizarre, starting with Beret Guy's assertion that the company headquarters is a "real building [he] found", implying that the building's reality might be in question. In addition, "finding" the building may imply that he does not own or rent it, but simply found it empty and moved in. He says his company makes phone accessories, but then adds, "like apps and stickers," two wildly different products in terms of both production and profitability. He is strangely vague about both the position ("someone to write on our computers") and the salary ("a bunch of paychecks"). Then he mentions ghosts, which is either a powerful disincentive from joining the company, yet another sign that Beret Guy is mentally unsound, or both.
The strip finishes with Beret Guy plugging a cord into an electrical outlet clumsily labeled "Soup," which then, implausibly, actually starts dispensing soup. Most electrical outlets do not function like this. [ citation needed ] However, this is a typical behaviour of Beret Guy - see a similar example in: 1395: Power Cord .
The title text makes reference to the biblical story of Job (pronounced with a long O to rhyme with globe), who was put through many horrendous ordeals to test his faith in God. This suggests that the interviewee will be taking on not a "job experience" but rather a "Job experience" (i.e. the job will be a horrendous ordeal).  Alternatively, it's a Homestarrunner reference .
Other job interviews were portrayed in 125: Marketing Interview , 1088: Five Years , 1094: Interview , 1545: Strengths and Weaknesses , and 2597: Salary Negotiation .
[Beret Guy walks in, followed by a...'prospective hire'.] Beret Guy: Welcome to our company! We're headquartered here, in this real building I found!
[Both people sit down at a table. The 'hire' has a tray with food and a beverage. Beret Guy has a bowl. In the adjacent wall, there is a power outlet with a paper label taped to it marked "Soup". A small roll of wire sits next to Beret Guy's chair.] 'Hire': What do you.. do ? Beret Guy: We make stuff for phones! Like apps and stickers.
[Beret Guy grabs the roll of wire.] Beret Guy: We want to hire you to write on our computers. We can offer you a bunch of paychecks! There are ghosts here.
[Beret Guy unrolls the wire and plugs it into the wall.] 'Hire': ...Are you sure this is a company? Beret Guy: I hope so!
[Soup streams out of the plugged-in wire into Beret Guy's bowl.]


Telescope Names

Explanation:
The Very Large Telescope is an existing telescope, while the (European) Extremely Large Telescope was in an advanced planning stage at the time of the comic's release. The Overwhelmingly Large Telescope was another proposed telescope that, as the comic mentions, was cancelled. The comic pokes fun at the generic nature of the names of the telescopes by proposing more generic but increasingly ridiculous names for future telescopes.
The title text talks about the Thirty Meter Telescope , which is about to begin construction on Mauna Kea (a dormant volcano) in Hawaii, and seems to compare it to the Eye of Sauron . It is expected to be the most advanced and powerful optical telescope on Earth when completed.
[A list of telescope names is given, with a series of checkboxes at right.]
The Very Large Telescope ☑ The Extremely Large Telescope ☑ The Overwhelmingly Large Telescope ☑ (Canceled) The Oppressively Colossal Telescope ☐ The Mind-numbingly Vast Telescope ☐ The Despair Telescope ☐ The Cataclysmic Telescope ☐ The Telescope of Devastation ☐ The Nightmare Scope ☐ The Infinite Telescope ☐ The Final Telescope ☐


New Study

Explanation:
Hairy as a news anchor is reporting on a new study. This is another of Randall's jabs at modern news networks. The joke is twofold: 1. news organizations often repeat press releases on scientific studies without fact checking; 2. the study being reported by the news organization in the comic is presumably itself invented and would not stand up to fact checking.
Some examples of how true this can be:
The title text implies there is an actual study being performed to determine what percentage of news organizations repeat "new study" press releases without checking whether they're real, and that the fake study being reported on by the (unknowing) reporter in the comic is part of the experiment being performed to find that true percentage.  When this study concludes, the reporters will not know whether to report on its findings, either because they've already reported on a similar (but fake) story, or because they no longer trust stories of that nature.
Related jokes:
Side note: People making the substitutions in 1288: Substitutions , a comic posted two weeks before this one, will read this comic as one about Tumblr posts.
[Hairy as a news anchor with a perfect black news-anchor-hair-helmet is sitting behind his desk with hands folded in front om him.] Hairy: ...And in science news, according to a new study, 85% of news organizations repeat "new study" press releases without checking whether they're real.


Git Commit

Explanation:
This comic refers to the Git source code revision control software, which saves earlier versions of files and folders for later access into a special repository. This comes in handy when you want to try out whether an idea works (branching). Further, you can collaborate with others by use of remote repositories. Perhaps most importantly, it allows members of the development team to find key changes in the history, later. Git has been discussed in 1597: Git as well.
A commit is a saved version in a Git repository; a commit comes with a message that is supposed to describe what the commit contains, similar to the edit summaries used on MediaWiki sites such as explain xkcd and on this explanation . Randall , however, finds himself losing interest in the commit messages the more code he writes and winds up just using placeholder text or jokes to himself. Presumably, this is because his separate commits are part of a large effort that can't be effectively summarized, and where there's no particular urgent need to differentiate the commits. Seeing as in this context 12 hours of coding can be considered "dragging on," it's safe to assume that the kinds of commits Randall is talking about are not for some major in-production project, nor for something that a lot of other people are working on. In both of those cases, one would be much more likely to use descriptive commit messages, since you want to flag things that are important, either from a technical standpoint (e.g. "fix the thing that's making the site not work") or for the benefit of others who want to know which commits they should be paying attention to.
The phrase "Merge branch 'asdfasjkfdlas/alkdjf' into sdkjfls-final" mimics the phrasing used by Git. A branch is a specific sequence of commits which can be made in parallel to other branches of development, and later merged. Here, we see that Randall has also gotten lazy with his branch names: "branch 'asdfasjkfdlas/alkdjf'" might be the series of two commits starting with "here have code". "sdkjfls-final" could be the branch indicated by the vertical string of circles on the left, into which the other more branch is merged in commit "adkfjslkdfjsdklfj".
Most git tools show the commit history with the most recent commits first, so showing the oldest first like this would require something like the --reverse option.
The comments go from being pretty detailed as to his thoughts and reasons for the code ("enabled config file parsing"), to relatively uninformative summaries ("misc bugfixes"), to completely uninformative words ("more code"), and then finally he doesn't even bother trying to come up with words, instead just hitting a key ("aaaaaaaa") or semi-random keys ("adkfjslkdfjsdklfj"), then goes back to typing words but words that have a bit of a craziness to them rather than having anything to do with describing the code ("my hands are typing words").  The "adkfjslkdfjsdklfj" line and similar garbage in the title text comes from having your hands on the " home row " on a standard QWERTY keyboard, then hitting "random" keys without moving your fingers from their standard home row positions.  The keys you hit "randomly" will be combinations of A, S, D, and F on the left hand, and J, K, L, and ; on the right hand (although the ; key seems to have been avoided, possibly because without the presence of surrounding quotes a ; character will end the comment). It is common to see stuff like that when a person is required to type something — i.e. a mandatory field — but they have no interest in typing anything meaningful or no idea what to write, so they just hit the easiest keys to hit and call it done.
[Caption below the panel:] As a project drags on, my Git commit messages get less and less informative.


Oort Cloud

Explanation:
The Oort cloud is a hypothesized sphere containing many small Solar System bodies , reaching out to roughly 50,000 AU (astronomical units) or nearly one light-year from the sun. Gravitational forces from passing stars or collisions with other objects sometimes perturb one of these bodies enough to let it fall into the inner solar system. When it gets closer to the Sun, which is just a bright dot at that far distance, it warms up and some of its mass is lost as gas and dust, making it more visible as an object commonly referred to as a comet. This is what has happened to a comet called C/2013 UQ4 , AKA Comet Catalina. And although this is not what will happen to Catalina, comets that get close enough to the sun may break up entirely.
There seems to be no definitive astronomical definition of the word "comet", and definitions can be challenging and problematic [1] , but in general terms a comet is a celestial object consisting of a nucleus containing a huge amount of ices and dust which, when near the sun, has an atmosphere (called coma ) and perhaps a 'tail' of ionized gas and dust particles pointing away from the sun.
The comet pictured here upon its return strangely resembles the unusual asteroid P/2013 P5 . That object sported six comet-like tails, but it's not a comet. Rather, the six comet-like tails were suspected to be caused by rapid spinning of that object.
Randal has drawn the hapless Oort Cloud object with its tails generally left of frame, i.e. away from the sun. Comet tails point away from the sun regardless of their direction of movement, as they are blown out by the solar wind which moves much faster than the comet. As neither of the other two objects have tails, this lends the picture a comical cartoon-like quality, as when Yosemite Sam is blasted by his own gun and it leaves his moustache tails statically pointing away from the direction of the blast.
Comet ISON presumably came from the Oort cloud and reached its closest approach to the sun ( perihelion ) on the day before this comic was published. The comet passed very close to the sun, at a distance of 1,860,000 kilometers or 1,150,000 miles from the centre of the sun. It was thus within one sun-diameter of the surface of the sun itself (diameter of sun = 1,391,000 km). At that distance the temperature, at approx. 2,700 degrees Celsius, vaporizes rock as well as ice and can break the comet apart entirely.
The broken-up object here is presumed to be ISON, and is labeled as such in the transcript, even though Randall hasn't unambiguously identified it. Note that it's not realistic that ISON still would have a tail so far away from the sun.
On December 2, 2013 NASA released a statement that ISON did not survive its close perihelion with the sun. The Comet ISON Observing Campaign posted a delightful biographical sketch (In Memoriam Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) Born 4.5 Billion BC, Fragmented Nov 28, 2013, age 4.5-billion yrs old) which touches on its early years, retreat to the Oort Cloud, career as a Sungrazer, "dynamic and unpredictable life, alternating between periods of quiet reflection and violent outburst", delicate inner working, and its tragic demise.
The closest approach of ISON to the earth was predicted for December 27, 2013 at a distance at approx. 60 million kilometers or 37 million miles, 170 hundred times more than the moon. The Hubble Space Telescope looked for it on December 18 but saw nothing.
This video shows an animation of the encounter at the sun: ISON 28.11.2013 .
Some more information about comets will help put the comic in perspective:
[Three asteroids float in space.] ISON: Have you noticed that bright dot in the distance? Asteroid: Yeah. What's the deal with it?
ISON: Dunno. I'm gonna go check it out.
[Pause while ISON checks it out off screen.]
ISON (broken up, with multiple tails): Wow. Do NOT go over there.


Exoplanet Neighborhood

Explanation:
The diagram is a graphical representation of the statistically predicted distribution of nearby exoplanets (planets not in our solar system), based on the assumption that the exoplanets that are currently known have a distribution of orbits, sizes, and star types that is similar to the actual distribution. Astronomers are particularly interested in exoplanets within 60 light years of Earth which lie in a habitable zone ; that is, a planet whose orbit is within a certain range of distance from a star such that water could exist in a liquid state.
Since almost all life on Earth (which is the only place we've actually found life thus far) depends on liquid water in some way, these planets are considered the most likely to support life. The diagram categorizes exoplanets in two ways. The disc color indicates the characteristics of the central star, with a reddish tone indicating hypothetical planets that orbit stars similar in characteristics to our sun, while grey indicates those that orbit stars unlike our sun. The disc sizes indicates the hypothetical size of the exoplanets, with planets similar to Earth's size depicted in a slightly darker shade of either color. Because the discs represent a distribution, their positioning within the diagram is irrelevant; the spacing around the title and the Earth is an artistic choice.
It appears that the diagram is intended to cause the viewer to conclude that there are a significant number of Earth-sized planets orbiting Sun-type stars which could be habitable, and even more possibly-habitable planets around other types of stars or in other sizes.
The title text, "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!" is an allusion to the former PBS television show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in which the same line presents itself in the opening song, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" .
The title of the comic was changed from what is currently the title text to "Exoplanet Neighborhood".
Randall has commented on the results of exoplanet research before, in 786: Exoplanets and 1071: Exoplanets .
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD A portrait of all habitable-zone planets within 60 light-years of Earth (constructed from statistical data on typical planet sizes and orbits)
[The image shows many planets in different colors and a legend shows planets at different sizes.] Planets around sun-like stars Planets around other stars [A marker on both sides:] Earth-sized planets
[Center of the image.] Earth


I Don't Own a TV

Explanation:
This comic is yet another graph , describing how people who don't own a television feel throughout several time periods. While televisions have existed since 1928, regular scheduled broadcasts of television programs did not begin until the late 1940s. So before the 1950s, it was common not to own a television and therefore most people's feelings about it would be fairly neutral. This changed as televisions became cheaper and more people started owning them, meaning that if someone didn't own a television, it was generally because they couldn't afford one. This might lead to someone feeling embarrassment when admitting they don't have a television.
Gradually, television ownership increased until eventually, nearly every household had at least one television, and those that did not were more and more likely to do so by choice rather than due to poverty. The graph therefore peaks at around the year 2000, when many people would be proud to say that they did not own a television. Randall suggests that these people would feel smug because they are resisting a popular trend (owning a television) which the rest of the public take part in. The graph tails downwards at the end, suggesting that Randall believes that people are becoming less smug. This could be because of the abundance of video content and other forms of entertainment on the internet and mobile devices. So, according to Randall, people are returning to not owning a television simply because it's not necessary and these people therefore feel neutral towards their lack of a television.
Another point of view is that, with the advent of the Internet for news and weather along with video-on-demand services such as Netflix, televisions have become obsolete for some households and thus not owning one can be seen as moving with the times, or those that don't own one see those that still have one as old-fashioned, hence the smug. However in recent times television has become imbued with new technologies such as Internet access (known as smart TVs) and thus owning a television is seen as trendy again, thus the level of smugness drops.
The initial upturn from embarrassment to smugness may also be a commentary on the quality of television programs over that period. In the 1950s and 1960s, television was a major source of news and information. Those without televisions might feel that they were missing out of the important stories of the day. Also, the limited number of stations and lack of recording devices meant that discussions of the previous night's television programming was far more inclusive, with more people watching the same programs at the same time. Until the advent of PVRs, the prior night's television programming was a popular "water cooler" topic (i.e. something discussed socially at the office the next day). This means that that those who had missed out on those programs might feel socially "out of the loop".
By contrast, since 2000, many programs were criticized as poor quality or "mindless", e.g. daytime talk shows and reality shows. So, someone might feel more smug for not watching so-called "mindless television". Similarly, as television viewership increased from the 1950s through the 2000s, it is possible that other activities such as reading has decreased; especially given that the younger generation today don't remember a time without television. So, someone who did not own a television set might feel more smug because they take part in more "beneficial" activities like reading, exercise, and studying.
The title text suggests that whether people feel embarrassed or smug doesn't depend directly on what percentage of the population owns TVs (TV ownership rate) or even on how quickly this percentage is growing (derivative of TV ownership rate with respect to time); instead it depends on how the change in this percentage is speeding up or slowing down (second derivative of TV ownership rate with respect to time). Specifically, as the rate at which people adopt TV ownership accelerates (positive second derivative of TV ownership rate with respect to time), people who don't own one feel embarrassed (negative smugness); and as the market is saturated and the rate at which people adopt TV ownership slows down (negative second derivative of TV ownership rate with respect to time), people who don't own one feel smug (positive smugness). If people feel twice as embarrassed/smug when this rate of acceleration/deceleration doubles, then we have Randall's formulation: "smugness is proportional to the negative second derivative of TV ownership rate with respect to time".
As evidence for this, the adoption of TV ownership should theoretically follow a sigmoid curve , which is the graph of something that starts small, grows in a spurt, and then approaches a maximum capacity (in this case 100%). The negative second derivative of a sigmoid curve looks very much like Randall's graph.
[A graph is shown with an x- and y-axis.] How people feel when they say "I don't own a TV" by year [The x-axis is labled: 1950, 2000, today.] [The y-axis is labled neutral at zero, smug at top, and embarrassed to the bottom.] [A plot, similar to a negative sine curve between approximately 1960 and 2000, is shown in red, starting at 1950, moving into negative values, reaching the zero level again at the beginning of the 1980s, reaching its maximum shortly after 2000, and decreasing again until today. An arrow shows the current direction.]


Galilean Moons

Explanation:
Megan has somehow acquired a set of Galilean moons similar to the four primary moons of Jupiter . The positions of the moons in the successive panels are reminiscent of the observations made by Galileo Galilei in 1610, which proved for the first time that objects in the heavens could orbit something other than the Earth (today these observations can be reproduced on successive nights by anyone looking at Jupiter with binoculars). As each of Megan's moons passes close to Cueball, it says something different. Io , the innermost and second-smallest, always says "Hi!" Europa , the second-innermost and smallest, always uses the phrase "What's your name?" Ganymede , the third moon from Jupiter but the largest in size, interrupts Europa by shouting "MOOOOOON!" Callisto, the farthest from Megan, expresses its annoyance at the antics of the other three moons. ("MOOOOOOON!" might be a reference to an old joke: Q: Knock Knock. A: Who's there? Q: Interrupting Cow. A: Interrupting Co-- Q: MOOOOOOO!)
Because the inner moons orbit Jupiter faster (due to Kepler's Third Law ), they pass by Cueball more often: Io ten times, Europa five times, and Ganymede twice over the course of the comic. In fact, the outermost crater-scarred moon Callisto appears to have passed its closest approach to Cueball just before the first panel (perhaps before Megan and her retinue had walked up to Cueball) and does not approach Cueball again until the tenth panel. At that point, due to some apparent exertion on Callisto's part, it leaves Megan's orbit and begins to orbit Cueball instead. This process could be seen as analogous to the capture of moons from one planet to another, which can happen in less stable systems than our solar system if two planets were to pass close to each other, but is mostly just whimsical. The humour derives from attributing human characteristics to the moon Callisto in attempting to escape from the other three moons.
The title text refers to the unusual orbital resonance among the three inner Galilean moons: Io has an orbital period of about 1.78 Earth days, Europa 3.55 days, and Ganymede 7.15 days, putting them into a 1:2:4 resonance. Callisto, with an orbital period of 16.69 days, is not part of the resonant system. This is illustrated in the animated picture at right, where you may notice that all conjunctions between Io and Europa take place at the "12 o'clock" position and all conjunctions between Europa and Ganymede take place at "6 o'clock" position. You may also notice at the animated picture that, unlike in the fifth and ninth panels of the comic, the three moons are never on the same side of Jupiter at the same time. It is thought that this resonance came about as the moons migrated outward due to tidal acceleration ; because the inner moons migrated more quickly, first Io caught up with the 2:1 resonance with Europa and then the two of them evolved outward in lockstep until Europa caught up with the 2:1 resonance with Ganymede. If the Jupiter system were to continue its current evolutionary path for long enough (several billion years), Ganymede would eventually catch up to the 2:1 resonance with Callisto and Callisto would also be trapped in the resonance, becoming the fourth member of a 1:2:4:8 system. The title text expresses Callisto's relief at escaping such a fate, describing the relationship among the other three moons as "their weird ...thing." Callisto also escapes a common practice among certain groups of humans in which the members greet each other with meaningless phrases, usually an inside joke, whenever they meet, which could also be described as "their weird ...thing." The word "orbit" could finish Callisto's sentence, as it can also mean a sphere of influence or interest.
Later, in 2264: Satellite , Science Girl was orbited in a similar way by an abandoned satellite.
[Megan, who is being orbited by four small floating balls, approaches Cueball.] Megan: Check it out! Cueball: What? Megan: I've got Galilean moons!
[Io is at the point in its orbit closest to Cueball.] Io: Hi!
[Io, which completes a full orbit in each panel, is again near Cueball, as is Europa this time.] Io: Hi! Europa: What's your name?
[Io alone again.] Io: Hi!
[Europa returns to its position near Cueball with Io, and Ganymede joins them.] Io: Hi! Europa: What's your— Ganymede: MOOOOOON!
[Io alone again.] Io: Hi!
[Europa and Io again.] Io: Hi! Europa: What's your name? Callisto: [on the other side of Megan] Ugh .
[Io alone again.] Io: Hi! Callisto: So annoying .
[Europa, Ganymede, and Io again.] Io: Hi! Europa: What's y— Ganymede: MOOOOOON.
[Io alone again. Callisto nudges toward Cueball.] Io: Hi! Callisto: ... almost ... ... almoooost ...
[Io and Europa again. Callisto enters an orbit around Cueball.] Io: Hi! Europa: What's your name? Callisto: Yessss!


File Extensions

Explanation:
Computer file names often end in file extensions like ".ppt" or ".exe". These extensions are a holdover from early operating systems like DOS in which filenames had a maximum eight characters followed by a period and the three-character extension. The extension was used by the operating system to determine filetype so that the system would know how to handle the file (e.g. which program could open the file). Newer operating systems and file systems now accept longer-than eight-character filenames, and extensions of greater than three characters; although most extensions remain three characters.
Most extensions are created as proprietary to certain pieces of software, although software by other developers may later be designed to be able to read the format. For example, .doc is a Microsoft Word document, although because of that software's popularity, many word processors include the ability to open .doc files. Some common file extensions are not proprietary to a piece of software and may be handled by various programs; .jpg or .gif images are examples. In either case, a file's extension is generally a good indicator of what type of data the file contains.
Certain file types are more prevalent for certain uses, with some being almost exclusive to one use, while other are in general use and might contain almost anything. Here, Randall presents a series of file extensions which often contain information, and he is rating the reliability of the information they generally contain from most reliable to least.
Note that while the extensions .xls/.xlsx, .doc, and .ppt were originally exclusive only to Microsoft Office and users of Windows, there now exist a number of open source programs such as Open Office, Libre Office, and some Android apps that are capable of editing such files. These programs can run on systems other than just Windows, such as Linux, perhaps contributing to making them even more widespread and easy to make than before.
The title text refers to how .txt files contain only plain text and nothing else, meaning that any alignment (such as for indentation, tables, or justification ) would have to be performed manually by adding in spaces or tabs. Anyone who would go through such an effort to improve their text's readability is likely to be trustworthy, and almost by definition, the opinion presented would be justified.
[Caption above the bar chart:] Trustworthiness of Information by File Extension
[A line is going down and from that gray bars charting the trustworthiness in a bar graph that goes both left and right of the line. No units or figures are given. For ease of comprehension this transcript will arbitrarily designate the highest score as [+100]; subsequent scores are estimates based on the size of their bars.] [+100]: .tex [+89]: .pdf [+85]: .csv [+67]: .txt [+65]: .svg [+49]: .xls/.xlsx [+21]: .doc [+15]: .png [+14]: .ppt [+3]: .jpg [-8]: .jpeg [-36]: .gif
The various extensions are, for the most part, abbreviations of the file type.


Year in Review

Explanation:
Many news organizations will recap the major stories of the past calendar year in late December (typically before the year has actually ended). This includes specialized news outlets such as sports stations which recap major sports stories or best plays of the year. Here, Cueball ,  as a news anchor , expects Megan to talk about major news stories of 2013 such as the roll-out of Obamacare , the election of Pope Francis or the death of Nelson Mandela , to give a few examples.
Instead, Megan only recaps one thing which was important to her: She did not see the aurora borealis (i.e. northern lights) in 2013, the dazzling natural geomagnetic light display caused by the solar wind . In 2013 a solar maximum was expected at its solar cycle , but the activity of the sun wasn't as heavy as before. So, a northern light had been very rare in this year. Megan has never seen the northern lights, and she is frustrated that it did not happen for her in 2013, thus overshadowing all other events. She even leaves in the middle of the review when she notices the sky clearing up, as she wishes to check if there are any northern light this evening. This may very well be Randall's own frustration which is displayed here.
It turns out in the title text that Megan is actually reviewing the astronomical year, only considering astronomical events. She even rates it much like a movie review, although she seems to use the A-F grade scale . She only gives the year a C- (C minus), which would usually be the lowest passable grade, so she just lets the year pass in spite of the two failing events mentioned in the title text.
In the title text, Megan specifically complains about not being able to see aurorae from her house. If Megan actually represents Randall's frustration, then to expect to see it from a house in Massachusetts would be a lot to ask for. Usually, people who wish to see Northern lights will travel to an arctic area and stay away from light pollution from cities. But in years with heavy solar activity, northern light may be visible even south of Massachusetts.
The title text also refers to Comet ISON . In February, a rough estimate of the comet's behavior predicted that it would become brighter than the full moon, a prediction that was widely reported by the media even though it was based on limited data and astronomers knew that it would not reach this brightness. In the end, although it was visible to the naked eye, it was never as bright as anybody hoped and apparently disintegrated on November 28, 2013, at its close approach to the sun.
The title text also refers to the 2017 total eclipse , which was visible as a partial eclipse for a few hours throughout North America on August 21 Monday, including a 100-mile wide band across the United States where it was a total eclipse for a couple of minutes in the early afternoon. Eclipses are completely predictable - although the weather might be cloudy so that the sun is blocked during totality, they will happen anyway. So Megan is being extremely pessimistic to even suggest that the 2017 eclipse might get canceled. Humorously, her statement that someone might decide to cancel the eclipse makes it sound like a concert that could be canceled by the organizer. It seems that Megan thinks that the "they" who could cancel the eclipse are the same "they" that caused the comet to disintegrate and the solar activity to stay low. Anyone with the kind of power to stop a solar eclipse from happening would be god-like compared to humanity. The next time that the eclipse was mentioned was in the New Year comic for 2017: 1779: 2017 . The subject of the title text of that comic is the likelihood that the eclipse will indeed happen as planned.
All in all, the comic suggests that the only events of significance to Megan (and Randall) are astronomical ones; the actions of humanity pale in comparison.
The joke of Megan answering a question in an interview in an unexpected manner has been used before in 1111: Premiere .
Interestingly in 1037: Umwelt there is an aurora story line where Megan stays inside at her computer even though it can be seen from her own state, letting her friend go out alone. (So not the same Megan for sure).
[Cueball is a news anchor sitting with his arms on a desk looking at Megan, a reporter shown in a feed on a screen to his right. There is a title below the feed.] Cueball: We go live to our 2013: Year in Review! Megan: Thanks! Megan: In 2013, I didn't see an aurora. Cueball: I- what? Title: Year in Review
[Zoom to the top part of the screen with Megan. Her text is written above the screen without a frame around this segment of the comic.] Megan: The northern lights. I thought this would finally be the year. Megan: But it didn't happen.
[Back to the original view but Cueball has turned more towards Megan, with only one arm on the desk.] Cueball: Oh. Uh... What about the rest of the year? Megan: What do you mean? Cueball: Any big news stories? Megan: Oh yeah, tons. Title: Year in Review
[Same setting but Megan turns away from Cueball, who has taken both hands of the table. Megan is looking to her left at something off screen. Beat panel.] Title: Year in Review
[Cueball turns back to face the viewers, both hands back on the desk, as Megan is leaving the screen, walking out to the right, her face already hidden by the frame of the feed.] Cueball: ...Well, that was 2013: Year in Review. Megan: The sky's clearing up. I'll be outside. Title: Year in Review


Profile Info

Explanation:
On most websites people are forced to create an account to get proper support, be it technical support or simply ordering products. This usually consists of the user's name, email address, phone number, and also the user's home address if ordering a product that must be shipped by mail. It's not uncommon for the websites/companies to then use that information for presenting new advertisements in the near future, or even sell it to others for their schemes.
In 2013 (publishing of this comic), a recent trend was to allow harvesting of profile pictures and real names, mostly by automated processes with little to no human interaction. The personal information is collected in context with other information, such as the purchase or product review history, and shown to people (typically friends and contacts) who are viewing similar products.
The title text references the fact that most of these companies have an "opt out" option so that your name won't be used, but then emphasizes that YouTube (a subsidiary of Google ) at the time of this comic forced YouTube user accounts to be tied to Google+ . Google+ required the use of the 'first name' and 'last name' convention typical of western cultures, where one cannot 'opt out' (though these requirements did allow for the abbreviation of names). However, this has not stopped people from using names that aren't their own, but using names like "Barack Obama" and "Chuck Norris". Some similar websites allowed the use of aliases in their initial terms of use, but then later changed their TOCs to prohibit use of "false" names. YouTube was one such system; after the merge with Google+ for authentication, both sites automatically linked your false-name account with your real name account, in some cases banning and blocking people with suspected false name accounts.
To try to put a stop to his own information being used, Cueball sets his last name to "If-you-see-this-name-in-an-ad-give-the-product-a-one-star-review-Smith", a name which includes a phrase that would negatively affect any marketer's attempts to advertise an online product. [ citation needed ] This name would pass though most harvesting software as-is, and may very well end up being used in such ads, unless some very clever software is able to detect sentences as part of names or similar. In fact much spam is stopped by identifying emails through Honeypot accounts, among other methods.
Hence engineering part of your profile could be a winning strategy to signal to your friends that your information is harvested without your express knowledge.
[Cueball is sitting at a desk, using a desktop computer. He is filling in a form on a webpage.] First Name: John Last Name: If-you-see-this-name-in-an-ad-give-the-product-a-one-star-review-Smith
[Caption below the panel:] How to deal with companies harvesting your profile for marketing


Glass Trolling

Explanation:
This is another strip in the My Hobby series.
Google Glass is a set of glasses frames worn like typical glasses that features an optical display and internet connectivity. It responds to voice commands starting with "OK glass " , for example to initiate video recording or to check tomorrow's weather. Strangers and other people surrounding the user would often find it annoying to hear someone talking to "himself", or to Glass . Also many people who buy the newest gadgets, like Google Glass, like to brag about it, and thus would try to say OK Glass so loud that other people will notice they have these cool new glasses. This can be very annoying in general!
Randall's hobby, is saying "OK, glass " before any sentence while he is only wearing regular glasses. Like here where he (drawn as usual like Cueball , with regular glasses) is checking tomorrow's weather, not on the glasses but on his smartphone . Apparently this is even more annoying to the bystander than if he would actually wear a real Google Glass while saying so. He thus both annoys other people, mocks people who buy such glasses to brag about them, and in general mocks Google Glass.
In the title text, Randall states that there is an extra benefit by doing this while only wearing regular glasses. Because when someone is finally fed up with the annoyance and rips the glasses off and stomps on them, then it would cost much less for regular glasses than if he had to replace a "Google Glass". These are very expensive - $1,500 at the time of this comic, as the title text says. (Note that regular glasses can also be very expensive, but you could choose to wear your reserve glasses for such a prank...). Also several people have claimed to been attacked while wearing Google Glass in San Francisco, with one person claiming their attacker destroyed their Glass .
The "OK, Glass " keyword is not useless outside of Glass ; in the browser Chrome and the Android/iOS app Google Now , "OK, Glass " is also valid instead of "OK, Google " to initiate a voice command. While Cueball may be using this app, it is not necessarily the case, given that the caption states that Cueball enjoys prefacing everything with the phrase.
It seems generally that Randall is no fan of Google Glass, which was also shown earlier in 1251: Anti-Glass .
[Caption above the panel:] My Hobby:
[Cueball, wearing regular glasses, is holding his smartphone up in one hand while typing, as shown with two times two small movement lines on either side of the phone. A voice from off-panel right emanates from a starburst at the frame.] Cueball: OK, Glass, check tomorrow's weather. Cueball: Ooh, snow! Off-panel voice: Oh my god, it's somehow even more annoying than if you had it.
[Caption below the panel:] Saying "OK, Glass" before everything while wearing regular glasses.
Google Glass was a recurring theme in xkcd in 2013.


Undocumented Feature

Explanation:
An undocumented feature is a part of a software product that is not explained in the documentation for the product. Cueball has found such a feature, a chat room intended to ask for help, accessible through the help page of some unnamed old Windows utility. The people who found the chat room started out using it for its intended purpose (helping users of the utility by contacting other users), however as time has passed they have become friends and enter the chat only to talk to each other, with no relation to computer problems.
A virtual machine (or VM) is a computer program designed to emulate the hardware of a full computer. In this case, users of the old chat room create VMs only to have the old operating system installed which included the utility program. They use this setup only to access the old chat room. This is shown in the third panel where Cueball is using a modern laptop to enter the chatroom (presumably by means of a VM), whereas Ponytail is most likely using an old computer (as evidenced by the CRT monitor).
A chat room like this must be hosted on some outside server, so the narrator of the comic wonders who runs this server. An obvious thought about this is if and when the server will be shut down, effectively cutting all communication among chat users. Another obvious thought is why the utility author is still maintaining the chat server, since its original purpose of allowing communication between users with problems with the utility program is no longer an issue as everybody has migrated to more modern systems. The comic suggests that the reason for doing this can be a bored sysadmin , who is just reading the messages of the chat users and following their lives but never writing anything. This would turn the chat room into a soap opera for the sysadmin.
The Deep Web is a term used to refer to any information which is available online, but is hard to find (usually because there are no links to that information in web pages). The chat room described would be an example of this. From this point on, the comic takes an existentialist turn (a frequent xkcd trait), talking about how life is short, everything has to end, etc.
The last panel is a reference to Facebook's recent announcement that it would start autoplaying video ads, and the title text refers to YouTube requiring its users to use their real-life identities instead of just nicknames. These last parts of the comics somehow reveal that the point of the whole comic is just to complain about aggressive money-driven policies used by modern social networks in general and Facebook in particular. It is hinted that Randall would prefer older technologies, where limited resources would forbid autoplaying videos or huge databases with every detail of every user's life.
It's possible that the comic is about an actual chat room, but more likely it is a complete invention, since if it were real someone would have been able to trace its origin. However, if it is real, the participants would not want to confirm this in order to protect their privacy.
The title text mentions the simplicity of this chat; even user names do not exist and other users could only be identified by their behavior because the user names are random and can change on every login.
[A support window is shown.] An old Windows utility has an undocumented feature. If you open "help" and click on the background, you get dropped into a "support" chat room. Support Window: Launching support forum...
[An active conversation between two people is shown.] Only a few of us ever found it. But we became friends.
[Cueball and Ponytail are at computers.] We kept launching the program to check in. Eventually some of us were running VMs just to keep accessing it.
[Another conversation.] As the Internet aged, so did we.
[Three question marks.] We don't know who runs the server. We don't know why it's still working so many years later. Maybe we're some sysadmin's soap opera.
[A group of people are shown in a bubble.] It will probably vanish someday, but for now it's our meeting place. Our hideaway.
[The bubble is now smaller, and some parts of a web are shown.] A life's worth of chat,
[More of the web is shown.] Buried in the deep web.
[A flat landscape is shown with the sun at the horizon.] But even if it lasts forever, we won't. When we're gone, who will remember us?
[Cueball and Hairy are shown standing together in a bubble.] Who will remember this strange little world and the friendships we built here?
[No panel shown:] Nobody.
[An empty bubble is shown.] This place is irrelevant. Ephemeral. One day it will be forgotten.
[The bubble starts to fade away.] And so will we
[The bubble has almost completely faded away.]
[The bubble is now completely gone.]
[Caption inside a new panel:] But at least it doesn't have fucking video ads.
There are many examples of undocumented features in programs written for old versions of Windows, for example:


Sigil Cycle

Explanation:
In computer programming , a variable is a way of storing information temporarily, for use later in the program. There are different types of variables, called data types , such as integers, strings, characters, and booleans, all of them holding different types of information. Integers hold whole numbers, strings hold text, and so on. Variables traditionally have names that identify their purpose, and a programmer should usually be able to infer from this variable name what type of variable it is. For example, if you want to store the name of the customer in a catalogue service, you might store the text in a string variable called "NameOfCustomer". Because it is fairly clear that names are made up of text, it is logical that this variable would be a string variable - if you didn't have any other information about it.
A sigil in computer programming is a symbol that appears before the variable name. It is an alternative method of telling someone who is reading the program code what data type the variable is. Rather than relying on logic, then, to know that NameOfCustomer is a string, you might use a sigil "$" before the variable name, as in $NameOfCustomer, which would specify that the variable can hold text. Sigils can also specify the scope of a variable, which refers to where the variable can be used in a program, and which parts of the program can access that variable. Sigils are useful in some ways because you don't have to refer to previous program code or find where the variable is declared (created) to know what data type it is. They also provide some level typing in languages that do not explicitly declare the type of the variable.
Most programming languages have a different method for storing variables, although some languages may use the same variable types under different names. The following are the programming languages referenced in the comic and how they use variables.
QBASIC Variables of type string end with the $ symbol. Other symbols are used (% for integers, ! for single-precision, # for double-precision and, in some versions of BASIC, & for long integers), however the usual QBASIC program will use only the $ symbol and not any of the others, as the default type if no symbol is used is single-precision and that's OK for most numeric uses.
C++ Pronounced "see plus plus." Variables are just words with regular letters. It is the name of the language itself that includes symbols.
bash This is not typically thought of as a full-featured programming language, but a Unix shell. However, the shell command syntax is rich enough to be able to write simple (and sometimes really complex) programs called shell-scripts. In this language, all variable dereferences start with the symbol $.
Perl In Perl, the initial character provides the context of the variable. Scalars (text, numeric and also to references to data) start with the $ character. An @ is for an array. With %, it is a hash (a loose non-sequential array, or 'dictionary' lookup). Functions can be given a preceding &, but rarely need this in straightforward use. You can use the variables $temp, @temp, %temp and &temp simultaneously and independently. There is also the * (not in a mathematical sense) which identifies a 'glob', a way to fuse or use all those types (and more!) in 'interesting' ways if you have a yen to. A block, with {} surrounding some other suitable statement(s), can potentially be typed to (re)interpret the context within. If you have a $reference which currently points to an @array, @{$reference} will let you use it as a direct array. But in simple cases, like that, this can often be shortened to @$reference, as alluded to by the "@$PERL" of the comic. (Just as $$reference would be a valid way to dereference the $reference when it points to $scalar... or even to $anotherReference that itself points to a %hash, in which case you could even use %$$reference for 'direct' access to that. Perl can be complicated, if you let it!)
Python Variables are just words with regular letters.
Google In the beginning, Google was only a search engine. However, it now includes many apps (such as YouTube, Gmail, Microsoft products but Google [e.g. Google docs], etc.), which included a social network called Google+ (now defunct, pronounced "google plus"). Google+ accounts were referenced with a + prefix.
Twitter Twitter account IDs are identified by the leading symbol @. When an account is "mentioned" in a tweet using @, it triggers smart behavior. For example, account owners can configure Twitter to forward tweets that mention them. This feature was not present in the early days of Twitter.
Hashtags In 2007 Twitter users began a convention that a # sign (whose many names include the "hash") can be prepended to words to mark them as keywords. Twitter could then be searched for those words. In 2009 Twitter recognized the existence of hashtags and began hyperlinking them. Some other microblogging services followed suit.  Google+ eventually added hashtag support as did Facebook.
As is noted by the comic, the use of sigils to indicate types of variables varies between programming languages, from strict enforcement in languages like Perl, to their complete absence in languages like C++ (but see Hungarian Notation ). The comic notes that the use of sigils seems to be cyclic, especially if you count things like hashtags as extensions of the pattern.
The title text describes the two competing influences responsible for the cycle: The first impulse finds sigils useful to elucidate the type of the variable, especially when variable names are not very descriptive, while the latter impulse notes that descriptive variable names are much more useful for that purpose, especially in extensible languages where the built-in types form only a small part of the type system.
A sinusoidal curve is shown. Y axis: Odds that the words I type will start with some weird symbol X axis: Time Data labels: [at first peak] $QBASIC, [at first trough] C++, [at second peak] $BASH, @$PERL, [at second trough] PYTHON, [at third peak] +GOOGLE, @TWITTER, #HASHTAGS


Buzzfeed Christmas

Explanation:
Christmas caroling is a tradition in which groups of singers travel from house to house, singing carols .
These carolers are in front of the BuzzFeed offices singing the The Twelve Days of Christmas , which usually contains:
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me. 12 Drummers drumming 11 Pipers piping 10 Lords a-leaping 9 Ladies dancing 8 Maids a-milking 7 Swans a-swimming 6 Geese a-laying 5 Golden rings 4 Calling birds 3 French hens 2 Turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree.
The carolers changed the lyrics to match the style of headlines of the topics published by BuzzFeed, which usually contain a number and a superlative; for example, 13 Worst Plane Crashes of the Decade or 8 Otters Who Are So Cute We Can't Even Handle It . This method of writing headlines, referred to as clickbait , is used by several other news sites, because it is known to generate a lot of visits and therefore more ad revenue. Randall has touched on this subject before in 1283: Headlines .
Carolers are usually rewarded with a gift, but the BuzzFeed writers probably didn't appreciate the song, because they threw weird stuff at them.
[Four carolers (Megan, Cueball, Ponytail and Hairy) are singing.] 12 Best drummers of all time 11 Pipers whose jaw-dropping good piping will make you cry You won't believe what these 10 lords leap over [Caption below the frame] Carolers outside the Buzzfeed offices perform "12 Weird things I actually got for Christmas"


Christmas Lights

Explanation:
Each light in this Christmas scene is represented by its electromagnetic spectrum , which shows in a graphical form how much energy is radiated by each wavelength of light.
These graphs plot the intensity of all visible radiation. Infrared and ultraviolet are partially plotted also, represented by black. It starts with longer wavelengths on the left ( infrared ), continues with visible light in the middle from red to blue, and ends with ultraviolet at the right. There are 4 distinct spectra in this comic:
In the center of the image, between Beret Guy and the couple, Cueball and Megan , appears to be a light spectrum of a fire, notable because it emits a lot of energy in the infrared band (The left zone of the spectrum), emitted typically from hot sources, and in the red and orange zone. The spike toward the left hand side of the spectrum is likely the 4.3 µm resonance wavelength of hot CO 2 characteristic of burning hydrocarbons; see Emission of radiation . Given the size of the spectrum and its positioning, this represents a fireplace at which the characters are warming themselves against the winter chill.
In the right of the comic appear some spectra arranged in the form of a Christmas tree. There are 3 different spectra in this "Christmas tree":
At the top appears a complicated spectrum, possibly that of a white LED, representing the tradition in some cultures of putting a star (or an angel, but still usually lit) at the top of the Christmas tree.
In the branches there are two simpler spectra repeated at various places, one with a peak in the green zone, representing a green light source, and other with a peak in the red zone, representing a red light source. Both of these represent the tradition of putting colorful decoration in the tree, in this case apparently red and green colored Christmas lights.
In 835: Tree a similarly strange Christmas tree has been constructed using binary trees.
[Megan, Cueball, and Beret Guy sitting on the floor and a big spectrum with one peak is shown between them. On the right many smaller spectra are shown in a shape of a Christmas tree.]


Infinite Scrolling

Explanation:
Infinite scrolling is a technique in web design where a large data set is displayed as a seemingly infinite list, but in reality only the visible part of the list (and the surrounding data) is rendered. This is done to work around memory limitations of old browsers and mobile devices or to save on data transfer size.
The problem with this technique is that if you navigate from this page to a different page and go back, the location of the scrolled data set is often lost and the top of the data set is displayed again. Also it is usually not possible to point a URL directly to a certain section of the infinite list, a practice known as deep linking . For these reasons, many prefer pagination , the method traditionally used in books, over infinite scrolling.
In this comic Megan is handling the book gingerly as if it were a device with a touchscreen where the book is displayed as an infinite scrolling text. Touching a link would navigate away from the list and the current reading position would be lost.
In the title text it is an ironic suggestion that the "back" button is now useless. The back-button is supposed to give you this functionality but due to the failure to implement continuous scrolling sites and deep-linking correctly they are typically useless when the user is reading infinite-scrolling data (or worse, flat-out counterproductive, giving you the wrong page). Alternatively, this might be a joke on the stereotype that web users are unable to make the most helpful or intelligent decisions, similarly to 1454: Done , 1974: Conversational Dynamics , and 2051: Bad Opinions .
[Megan stands at a desk, reading a book, touching it very gingerly. Cueball is standing behind her. Cueball: Why are you turning the pages like that? Megan: If I touch the wrong thing, I'll lose my place and have to start over.
[Caption below the panel:] If books worked like infinite-scrolling webpages


Goldbach Conjectures

Explanation:
In mathematics, a pair of related conjectures may be described as "strong" and "weak" (or often, a normal statement and a "weak" one). A strong conjecture, if true, can be used to easily prove the weaker one, but not vice versa (i.e. if the weak statement is true, that alone isn't enough to prove that the strong one is also true). Conversely, if the weak conjecture is false, that is enough to prove the stronger one false as well, but not vice versa. Weak conjectures are often easier to prove than related strong ones.
Goldbach's weak and strong conjectures are a pair of real, unsolved problems relating to prime numbers (a number with exactly two positive divisors, 1 and itself). The comic states these under the labels "weak" and "strong".
Randall's further conjectures extend this to a whole series of progressively "weaker" and "stronger" statements. His weak conjectures are so weak that they are obviously true; his strong conjectures are so restrictive that they are obviously false. However, for the most part, they really do maintain a weak-strong relationship.
The title text gives the same treatment to the twin prime conjecture , which says that there are infinitely many pairs of primes where one is 2 more than the other (e.g. 3 and 5). The title text adds a "weak" conjecture, according to which there are simply infinitely many pairs of primes (with no mention of the distance between them). This is true; Euclid's theorem says that there are an infinite number of primes, and so you can simply pick any two (e.g. 5 and 13) and call them a pair.
It also adds a "strong" conjecture where every prime is now a twin prime. This is easily proven false; 23 is prime, for example, but cannot be one of a pair as neither 21 nor 25 are. However, Randall adds a humorous hedge that some prime numbers "may not look prime at first".
Lastly, the tautological prime conjecture states that it itself is true while making no statement about primes. It is not technically a tautology but more of a plain assertion. Randall has mentioned tautologies before in 703: Honor Societies .
Mathematician Christian Goldbach wrote a form of his conjecture (the "strong" one of the comic) in a letter to the famous Leonhard Euler in 1742. Euler replied that he considered it certainly true, but that he could not prove it.
Mathematicians have been solving related problems that are "weaker" than Goldbach's weak conjecture and working towards "stronger" ones. For example, in 1937 the weak conjecture was proven for odd numbers greater than 3 14348907 . In 1995 a version was proven based on the sum of no more than seven prime numbers, and in 2012 the ceiling was lowered to five primes. In 2013 the weak conjecture was claimed proven for numbers greater than 10 30 , while all numbers below 10 30 have been verified by supercomputers to satisfy the conjecture; these together imply that the weak conjecture is true, although there is no general proof of it for all numbers. Goldbach's strong conjecture remains unsolved.
[Six small panels with captions are arranged in an arch shape:]
[Caption under the arch:] Goldbach Conjectures
[Captions in the panels, from left to right:]
Extremely weak: Numbers just keep going
Very weak: Every number greater than 7 is the sum of two other numbers
Weak: Every odd number greater than 5 is the sum of three primes
Strong: Every even number greater than 2 is the sum of two primes
Very strong: Every odd number is prime
Extremely strong: There are no numbers above 7


2014

Explanation:
This New Year comic is to commemorate the New Year by giving us a view of the coming year (2014) from the past. The comic includes many quotes from the 1800s and early 1900s that speak to a time close to 2014. Many of them are for the twenty-first century in general, and only three mention a year that would be 2014 exactly. All but one of them is a prediction, yet some of these are quotes from fictional literature, and therefore are not true predictions. Words are in boldface to highlight the relevant content in the quote. The grey or non-bold text is non-essential to the point Randall is interested in, and only to be used to understand the context of the quote.
The title text refers to a certain British officer, Mr. Colin Shakespeare, who experimented with and promoted the use of rope suspension bridges in India. The reference to "The Bard of Avon" is a reference to Shakespeare (the playwright) , as Avon is the river on which Stratford upon Avon is set, and is where the playwright was born and spent his youth. The author of this quote under the guise of eliminating the potential confusion that might result after decades or centuries have washed away the context, ironically and possibly vindictively, makes a point to note that the bridge is not named after the playwright, but Mr. Colin Shakespeare, whom he considers considerably less intelligent. This topic was previously covered in 771: Period Speech .
Two years before, another New Years comic with just the new years number as the title was released: 998: 2012 . But actually the content of this comic is more related to the comic coming out just before the 2012 comic: 997: Wait Wait , which is also a New Year comic, that took a look at what could happen in 2012, just as this one does for 2014... In 2016 another comic, with only the new year as the name theme, occurred again 1624: 2016 . For some reason this only seemed to happen in the even years, until 1779: 2017 was released, with 1935: 2018 being the next one.
The style of the comic is very similar to that of 1227: The Pace of Modern Life , which was released half a year earlier.
(This is a series of quotes from various people of various timeframes. Each quote is followed by the author, the document of publication if applicable, and the year.)
Notes from the past
It's desirable every thing printed should be preserved, for we cannot now tell how useful it may become two centuries hence. Christopher Baldwin 1834
I predict that a century hence the Canadian people will be the noblest specimens of humanity on the face of the earth Rev. John Bredin 1863
In the twenty-first century mankind will subsist entirely upon jellies. The Booklover 1903
The twenty-first century baby is destined to be rocked and cradled by electricity, warmed and coddled by electricity, perhaps fathered and mothered by electricity. Probably the only thing he will be left to do unaided will be to make love. Mrs. John Lane, The fortnightly 1905
To-day, in the city of New York, sixty-six different tongues are spoken. A century hence, there will probably be only one. The American Historical Magazine 1907
I often think what interesting history we are making for the student of the twenty-first century. Willian Carey Jones 1908
China may be a great shoe market a decade or a century from now. Boot and Shoe Recorder 1914
We cannot settle the problem, and I venture the prophecy that perhaps a century from now this same question may be brought before some future society and discussed very much as it is tonight. Dr. Barton C. Hirst on the subject of abortion 1914
By the twenty-first century I believe we shall all be telepaths. Gumbriel, character in Antic Hay 1923
The physician of the twenty-first century… may even criticize the language of the times, and may find that some of our words have become as offensive to him as the term "lunatic" has become offensive to us. Dr. C. Macfie Campbell 1924
Historians of the twenty-first century will look back with well-placed scorn on the shallow-minded days of the early twentieth century when football games and petting parties were considered the most important elements of a college education. Mary Eileen Ahern, Library Bureau 1926
In the year A.D. 2014 journalists will be writing on the centenary of the great war — that is, if there has not been a greater war. F.J.M, The Journalist 1934


Haskell

Explanation:
The comic pokes fun at Haskell , a functional programming language . Functional programming languages are based on the mathematical concept of a function, that is two calls to a function always produce the same results given the same inputs. Side effects of a function call are changes to the program state or observable interactions with the outside world, other than returning a value. As a simple example, if a sum function changes a global variable, or prints the sum before returning it, those are side effects. Functions in most other languages frequently have side effects, typically making them hard to analyze. Functional programming languages seek to avoid side effects when possible. Pure functional programming languages like Haskell push this agenda by isolating the inevitable side-effects (input/output at least) through the type system (more specifically in monads for Haskell).
The first joke says that Haskell only has no side effects because no one ever uses Haskell programs. Even in a traditional procedural programming language like C , if the program does not run, it can't have side effects.
In Haskell, effects are first class values. This means that you can use effects just like any value, assign them to a variable, pass them around, or manipulate them to make new and different effects. Thus, there are technically no side effects, only primary effects.
The title text is a joke about Haskell's lazy evaluation . The basic concept is that a value is not computed until it is actually used. Thus, it is possible to have a name representing the entire infinite list of Fibonacci numbers . However, until a particular element of the list is accessed, no work is actually done. The joke plays on "called" (referring to calling a function) vs. "called for" (requesting). Thus, Haskell may have value, but no one has either invoked it to get that value or requested such a language. A simpler example may be:
The "or" function is defined as a normal function but can conclude instantly without computing the 10000th Fibonacci number (a daunting task) since this second parameter isn't necessary : "true or whatever" is always true.
In reality, Haskell is indeed actively used, though it is not one of the most popular languages. It is in particular used by some financial institutions, safety conscious start-ups and websites (there are several active web frameworks in Haskell) like Randall 's own .
[Megan and Cueball are discussing.] Megan: Code written in Haskell is guaranteed to have no side effects. Cueball: ...because no one will ever run it?


Regex Golf

Explanation:
The comic talks about regular expressions , which are a way to specify textual patterns. Given a regular expression, one can search for the pattern it specifies inside a text string. If the pattern is found, it's said that the pattern "matches" the string; if it's not found, it's said it doesn't match.
The title of the comic and the first panel is based on " regex golf ", which is a discipline of " code golf ", a game in which programmers attempt to solve a given programming problem using as few characters as possible, analogous to the number of golf shots it takes to reach the goal. In regex golfing, the programmer is given two sets of text fragments, and tries to write the shortest possible regular expression which would match all elements of one set, while at the same time not matching any element from the other set.
The regex golf challenge Megan faces consists of matching all subtitles of (then extant) Star Wars films, while not matching any subtitle of Star Trek movies. Subtitles are the secondary titles of the movies, after the "Star Trek: " or "Star Wars Episode N: " . For example, in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace , the subtitle is The Phantom Menace . In the first panel, she created a 12-character regex solving the challenge.
Then she moved on to building a tool which would automatically build such a regex for arbitrary lists of text, which could be described as meta - regex golfing. But as she has lost this tool, she needs to search through her files and chooses a tool called " grep " to find it. This implies that she needs a regular expression that would find any code that appears to be a regex golf generator, which leads to another "meta-" layer of abstraction. At the end, Megan notes this sequence of meta-meta-... might go to infinity and Cueball quips that she now has "infinite problems" as a result of her efforts; Megan retorts that she already had "infinite problems" because she's geeky enough to run meta-versions of programs on themselves, and stubborn enough to continue on until she fails, to the exclusion of all else. This also seems to be a reference to a famous quote by Jamie Zawinski (see also 1171: Perl Problems ):
The first regex Megan uses is /m | [tn]|b/ , said to match Star Wars subtitles but not Star Trek .
The forward slashes / just mark the start and end of the regex. The | character means "or", so the regex matches any string that contains the patterns " m ", " [tn] " or " b " (including the spaces). The square brackets match one of the enclosed characters, meaning that " [tn] " matches either " t " or " n ". The regex is apparently case-insensitive, because it wouldn't work otherwise.
The Star Wars subtitles match the parts of the regex in the following way:
Note that if the animated film "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" were included, it would not be matched by " [tn] " because the T is the start of the subtitle and is not preceded by a space. None of the "Star Wars:" films titles announced since this comic ("The Force Awakens", "The Last Jedi", and "The Rise of Skywalker") match this regex.
On the other hand, none of the Star Trek subtitles contains an M followed by a space, a T or an N preceded by a space, or any B, so the regex does not match any of them. Note that in the original series all subtitles start with a "T" but it's the first character so it's not preceded by a space.
Here is the list that Megan probably used:
"Star Trek Beyond", which was released after this comic, would incorrectly match the regex since it is the first "Star Trek" title to contain a "b". However, since "Star Trek Into Darkness" and "Star Trek Beyond" both lack a colon in their titles, it is debatable whether they can truly be considered to have subtitles.
In the last panel "and beyond" Megan uses the regular expression /(meta-)*regex golf/ to describe her problem. * means "zero or more" of the preceding character/group (parentheses () group characters). So this regex matches "regex golf", "meta-regex golf", "meta-meta-regex golf", etc. In a way this is regex golf in itself, matching all levels of meta-regex golf while not matching anything else.
In the title text, there is a long regex that is the solution of another regex golf challenge: matching the last names of all elected US presidents but not their opponents. Note that the list of opponents include some people who were previously or later became presidents, or whose last name matches that of another person who was president, so taken literally this is impossible. To make this work the list of opponents must exclude any names of presidents. The regular expression itself works in a very similar way to the Star Wars/Trek one, including several different patterns separated by | . Each elected president matches one pattern while each opponent matches none.
The regex does not match either of the presidents elected since the comic’s release ("Trump" and "Biden"), and thus would need to be updated. The regex does match Hillary Clinton's last name, but because a person with the same last name (Bill Clinton) was president, this does not count as a mistake. There was already a losing opponent called George Clinton who ran in 1792 and 1812.
Here is a list of elected president and the patterns they match:
Some presidents are missing because they weren't elected but became presidents after the resignation/death of their formers.
And here is a list of how many unique last names are matched by each expression:
Randall's regular expression does not match presidential opponents Pinckney, King, Clay, Cass, Scott, Douglas, McClellan, Seymour, Greeley, Tilden, Hancock, Blaine, Bryan, Parker, Hughes, Cox, Davis, Smith, Landon, Willkie, Dewey, Stevenson, Goldwater, Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Dole, Gore, Kerry, McCain, or Romney.  However, it must be modified slightly, because it does match John C. Fremo nt , the runner-up to James Buchanan in 1856, as discussed by Peter Norvig at xkcd 1313: Regex Golf .  It also matches Aaron Bu rr , the runner-up to Thomas Jefferson in 1800.  Note that Norvig provides a small amount of Python code which actually plays regex golf with arbitrary lists, and found a shorter solution than Randall's for the Star Wars vs Star Trek game ( / t|p.*e/ ).
[Caption at top of panel:] Regex golf: [Megan is sitting at a laptop. Cueball is standing behind her.] Megan: You try to match one group but not the other. Megan: /m | [tn]|b/ matches Star Wars subtitles but not Star Trek . Cueball: Cool.
[Caption at top of panel:] Meta-regex golf: [A close-up of Megan at her laptop.] Megan: So I wrote a program that plays regex golf with arbitrary lists... Cueball (offscreen): Uh oh...
[Caption at top of panel:] Meta-meta-regex golf: [Megan typing at her laptop.] Megan: ...But I lost my code, so I'm grepping for files that look like regex golf solvers. [Cueball facepalming.]
[Caption at top of panel:] ...And beyond: [Another closeup of Megan at her laptop.] Megan: Really, this is all /(meta-)*regex golf/. Cueball: Now you have infinite problems. Megan: No, I had those already.


Photos

Explanation:
White Hat is upset at the sight of people photographing a richly colored sunset. His argument is that by documenting it instead of simply enjoying it, they have become an observer rather than a participant in life. Cueball expresses a contrary view, saying that not only does taking a photo of something help him focus attention on it, it is also none of White Hat's business how someone else chooses to enjoy a sunset.
Cueball's logic reduces White Hat to inarticulacy, then speechlessness. Cueball then takes a photograph, implying that he would most enjoy White Hat's discomfiture by recording an image of it for posterity.
Randall discusses a similar situation in the title text, the common modern phenomenon of restaurant diners photographing their meal. However, in this case he says he does not like them to document as he likes to listen to them eat. This may be sarcasm since not many people love the sound of someone else chewing. [ citation needed ] However, some people are annoyed by the food images posted to sites such as Facebook and Instagram. Note that the photograph is taken quickly; the chewing is only delayed for a few seconds. This brevity in delay can also apply to the main comic, since spending a few seconds photographing a sunset is just a brief interruption in enjoying the view sans camera.
This comic is referenced in Thing Explainer in the explanation Picture taker by a small drawing of people taking photos of the view from the edge of a cliff. Another Cueball standing behind those taking pictures (another than in this comic for sure) is talking to Megan :
Cueball: I hate how everyone takes pictures instead of just enjoying the view. Megan: ...You say, instead of enjoying the view.
See also 648: Fall Foliage about Megan taking pictures and Cueball complaining. Later in 1719: Superzoom White Hat and Cueball again discusses photography, while in 2111: Opportunity Rover White Hat shares this same opinion again.
[White Hat stands next to Cueball on a roof. There's a colourful sunset; in the distance, there are three people (a blonde girl, a Cueball-like guy and Megan) taking photos of the skyline as the sun sets.] White Hat: Ugh, I hate how people take pictures instead of just enjoying the view. Cueball: Why?
[White Hat turns to Cueball.] White Hat: Documenting your life distracts you from living it. You're not really— Cueball: Oh, come on.
[Only both  their faces.] Cueball: Trying to take a picture of a thing makes me pay more attention to it. Some of my best adventures are built around trying to photograph something.
[The panel zooms in on Cueball's face.] Cueball: If "other people having experiences incorrectly" is annoying to you, think how unbearable it must be to have a condescending stranger tell you they hate the way you're experiencing your life at just the moment you've found something you want to remember. Why the fuck do you care how someone else enjoys a sunset?
[Zoom back out.] White Hat: Well, they... White Hat: Because I just, uh... White Hat: ...
[Cueball takes out a camera.] Click


Questions for God

Explanation:
Megan is paraphrasing a famous quote from the British applied mathematician , and fellow of the Royal Society , Horace Lamb , who famously stated in 1932 :
This was referring to two phenomena in physics that, at the time, were poorly understood and difficult to explain. Lamb proved to be correct in his prediction that quantum electrodynamics (QED) was easier to explain; nowadays we have a much clearer understanding of QED, while our understanding of turbulence has improved little. Richard Feynman , who was himself largely responsible for explaining QED, famously described turbulence as "the most important unsolved problem of classical physics".
Cueball , in response, indicates that if he were to gain divine elucidation his question would relate to the widespread schoolyard rhyme " Miss Susie ", which typically begins with the stanza:
"Miss Susie had a steamboat The steamboat had a bell Miss Susie went to heaven The steamboat went to...
Hell -o operator Please give me number nine ..."
The rhyming scheme between the second and fourth lines, and implied contrast with "heaven," causes the listener to fill in the word "Hell" instead of the innocuous "Hello". Therefore, Cueball is wondering what a steamboat, an object lacking will, [ citation needed ] could have done to deserve divine punishment.
The title text is a reference to the 1930s pulp series " The Shadow ", whose eponymous character is a psychic vigilante. The 1937 radio plays introduction began with the line "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" Unfortunately, since a steamboat is not a person, [ citation needed ] The Shadow would be unable to determine what heinous crimes the steamboat had committed to deserve damnation.
This comic, in particular the way Megan and Cueball are walking and its reference to theology, greatly resembles the later comic 1505: Ontological Argument .
[Megan and Cueball walk together.] Megan: Horace Lamb said he would have two questions for God: why quantum mechanics, and why turbulence? Cueball: I'd have just one: What did Miss Susie's steamboat do?!


Inexplicable

Explanation:
Cueball 's laptop has a problem that has resisted many hours of concentrated effort at resolution. Megan offers to help, but after trying to fix it she concludes that the laptop is “literally” possessed by an evil spirit.
A similarly unresolvable problem can be seen in 1084: Server Problem . In that case, no haunting is suggested, and Megan suggests that Cueball give up and wait for the singularity .
The title text continues the conversation: when Megan tries to return the laptop to Cueball, he refuses, as Megan willingly took possession of it in the first place. Both have clearly decided that they no longer want anything to do with an object housing a supernatural entity, and are trying to pass it back to one another.
[Cueball sits at a desk with a laptop, making a fist at it.] Cueball: Argh! Megan (off-screen): What? Cueball: Why do I always have these inexplicable, impossible-to-diagnose computer problems?
[Megan walks up to the desk.] Cueball: After six hours of this, I've concluded nothing works or makes sense. I give up on logic. Megan: *sigh* Gimme. I'll figure it out. Cueball: You won't.
[Cueball sits at his laptopless desk while Megan works on the laptop off-screen.] type type Click Megan: ? type type type Megan: ???
[Megan is back in front of the desk, clutching the laptop.] Cueball: How'd it go? Megan: Your computer is literally haunted. Cueball: Told you.


Theft

Explanation:
The term "identity theft" refers to a thief acquiring various types of a victim's identification (for example, bank account number and/or Social Security number), thus allowing the thief to pretend to be the victim and commonly steal money from the victim's bank account, etc.
This comic exaggerates the term, interpreting it as the thief literally acquiring the victim's whole personality. Like Cueball & Megan in general, the victim is implied to have some Randallian personality traits, like the love of space and existential angst. Thus, the thief is now completely overwhelmed by having an entirely new personality, not to mention one whose parts clash with each other.
The title text ponders the specifics of the identity acquisition process. Presumably, even two people whose personalities are identical would still start to think different thoughts. (This is a prerequisite for the depiction in the comic; the thief is baffled by his newly acquired interests, while the victim would not be baffled by the thoughts and interests they've developed over their entire life.) It is also wondered whether the victims new doppelganger is wondering the same thing, which could imply that their thoughts have not fully diverged. A friend comments that the victim may be overthinking the situation, and that the thief only took his credit card information. (A common method of identity theft. Does not transfer personality traits [ citation needed ] .) However, the victim is overwhelmed by existential anxiety.
[An identity thief sits in front of a laptop, looking at his hands] Thief: I feel paralyzed by overwhelming existential dread. Thief: ...and yet for some reason I'm really excited about space? [Caption below the panel:] The thief who stole my identity has a lot to deal with.


Actually

Explanation:
The image shows a sphere, a simple model for the shape of the Earth. Six people stand on its surface, talking about ways to best describe it, starting with a flat surface, the first belief held, and ending with general relativity. As the statements form a circle, the very first statement can lead recursively off the last, as described below.
The statements in detail:
Actually, measurements suggest it's flat.
Actually, it's a sphere.
Actually, it's an oblate spheroid.
Actually, it's a shape defined by the EGM96 coefficients.
Actually, it's that plus local topography.
Actually, it's embedded in a universe that's curved.
Actually, measurements suggest it's flat.
Actually...
Title text
The title text pulls the whole comic together, pointing out that each statement in the comic is more precise than the previous. Unlike the loop in the comic, someone who does this will likely eventually win any real-life debate. The victory will not necessarily be a result of actually proving your logical argument, however: the phrase "stand alone" refers to driving away all conversation, resulting in no one wanting to speak to the person.
[Six people are standing upon a white circle as if it were a miniature planet. Each person is facing the reader and says something to the person on their right. All texts are displayed as a near-continuous stream over their heads to form one circle that encloses the whole picture.] [From topmost, going clockwise.] Cueball: Actually, measurements suggest it's flat. Ponytail: Actually, it's a sphere. White Hat: Actually, it's an oblate spheroid. Megan: Actually, it's a shape defined by the EGM96 coefficients. Hairy 1: Actually, it's that plus local topography. Hairy 2: Actually, it's embedded in a universe that's curved.


Automation

Explanation:
The comic refers to the phenomenon in which computer programmers attempt to create programs to automate menial but frequent tasks, to save time and effort. These attempts often end up taking much more time than the menial tasks would have taken. The first graph reflects the assumed ideal that leads programmers into such an attempt: writing the program will take more effort initially, but once the program is complete, it will take over the routine tasks, leaving the programmer free to do something else.
However, writing a program often turns out to be not that simple: programs can have defects, and certain functionalities can be hard to implement. Because of this, programmers usually spend more time than projected to finish a program. As time goes on, the desire to see it finished can consume the programmer's effort and attention, with the menial tasks left undone.
The title text is a play on the word "automating." While "auto-" is indeed a prefix that means "self," the root word "mat," from the Greek "matos," in fact refers to "moving" or "acting," so "automate" effectively means "self-moving." However, the title text uses a double entendre of the word "mating", the definitions of which include "to copulate," or, in slang, "to screw" (the latter having the double meaning of giving someone a hard time). This rendition of "automating" translates to self-screwing ("screwing yourself over", giving yourself a hard time), which, according to this comic, happens when one attempts to automate a process.
See also 974: The General Problem and 1205: Is It Worth the Time? or the Time management category .
"I spend a lot of time on this task. I should write a program automating it!"
[Two graphs are shown, plotting workload against time.]
Theory: [The line for "work on original task" is steady but then drops down to a much lower level.] [The line for the automating job increases heavily while "writing code" and then drops down when "automation takes over".] [Both lines end up with a big amount of "free time".]
Reality: [The line for "work on original task" is steady with no drop to a lower level.] [The line for the automating job increases heavily while "writing code", then it increases again while "debugging", it drops down slightly while "rethinking", and grows up again with an infinite end while the task is still an "ongoing development".] [The line for "work on original task" ends up with "no time for original task anymore".]