How To Deliver Christmas Presents

Explanation:
This comic is yet another fun way to promote Randall's new book, How To , released on September 3, 2019, reminding people to buy it as a Christmas present that could be given to a friend or family member. Giving Christmas presents is a way to celebrate the holiday of Christmas , celebrated in the United States on December 25th. Randall always releases a Christmas comic on the 25th or close to that day. Having one this early is thus different, and another Christmas related comic came out two comics later; see that comic's trivia section .
The entire comic links to https://xkcd.com/how-to/ , a description of his book and ways to order it. As always the entire picture is a link , even though he has made the URL blue as if it was a clickable link. Of course it will also work if you actually click on the URL. At least in this comic he does state that you can click anywhere on the comic, and if that doesn't work he also gives the URL. Many people would probably still click on the blue link-like line, having not read his text. But the objective of getting them to the xkcd page about How To would have been obtained.
The rest of the comic discusses how to "deliver" this Christmas present. As mentioned in the comic, the "traditional" way that parents teach their kids about Christmas and Christmas gift giving is with the story of Santa Claus , a man who lives on the North Pole, who delivers gifts each Christmas Eve by riding a sleigh pulled by reindeer. He is usually depicted entering a house to deliver gifts by going down the home's chimney. Every year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) tracks Santa as he delivers gifts around the world.  Although we take that story for granted, it is no less ridiculous than the alternatives this comic explores, and in fact considerably more so, as there is no reason to believe NORAD can detect Santa in flight given his various other legendary stealth techniques. [ citation needed ]
As mentioned in the comic, fireplaces (and chimneys) are becoming less common in the United States, so Randall (drawn as Cueball) proposes 3 options for how to deliver his new book as a present:
Option 1 : Vaporize the gift (and blow it into their house).
This would allow the particles of the book to enter the air vents of the house. However, this book would be unreadable, which defeats the purpose of purchasing the book for someone. As noted by Randall using information from a Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association study , dust particles can remain inside a house for months (with vacuuming) and decades without vacuuming. This inspires Cueball to vacuum his house.
Option 2 : Throw the book through their window.
Based on research by FEMA , Randall states the speed needed to throw a book-sized object through a window to be 25 mph (~40 km/h). Breaking a window is probably not an ideal way to deliver a gift, as the recipient likely would not be pleased with a hole in their window. If a house has a broken window, perhaps from a previous gift delivery, they might cover up the window with a piece of plywood. Randall notes the speed to throw a book-sized object through a piece of plywood to be 250 mph (~400 km/h), faster than a human can reasonably throw.
If the book weighs about 400g, 25 mph would be enough. But the formula in the comic is wrong (inverted), see the trivia section below.
The title text mentions that building codes in hurricane-prone areas, like the southern United States, rely on information on how easily flying debris can break windows, presumably to improve reinforcement of such windows. Randall proposes a science fair project contributing to these studies (by throwing books at windows).
Option 3 : Intercept a different package.
This option is to intercept an order of a different book, and replace the pages of the book with Randall's book (which Black Hat is shown doing). As the recipient, Cueball, remarks, this is similar to content spoofing / content injection, where information passed over the Internet is replaced before being delivered to the user. In this "real-life" case, the book's content has been "injected" and replaced with a different book.
An off-screen person mentions HTTPS , or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, an extension of regular HTTP, used for secure communication. Cueball and this person believe that "paper" needs HTTPS, so that Cueball's original book can be "securely delivered" without being intercepted by third parties such as Black Hat.
This could also relate to code injection , where malicious code is injected into a program. An example of code injection is with the famous comic, 327: Exploits of a Mom , where Mrs. Roberts deletes the school's database tables.
The house is very detailed and in the windows are both a cat (typical click bait) and a different figure, perhaps Yoda or a Pikachu.
[The comic is divided into three sections. The top section contains one low panel stretching across the entire comic. It has a header (same as the title of the comic) with a sub-header beneath. Then below that is a picture of Randall’s new book How To . The black book is shown standing. The blue title is readable but the white text beneath it as well as blue and white text below the image is unreadable. On the cover is a white drawing of Cueball putting in a light-bulb with a quad-copter under each foot. White Hat is watching as Megan walks in with a ladder. Next to the book is a segment of text with a blue link at the end. Beneath this is a text from where a curved arrow goes to the book.] How To Deliver Christmas Presents In a future without chimneys How To For more questionable ideas for using science to solve problems, check out my new book, How To! Click on this comic or go to xkcd.com/how-to Good Christmas gift!
[The second section has three normal sized panels on the same row. In the first panel, Randall, drawn as Cueball, is presenting the problem of the comic, while holding one hand out palm up.] Randall: The traditional way to get Christmas presents into a house is to have a large reindeer-herding man slither down the chimney with them. Randall: Unfortunately, chimneys are becoming less common in the United States.
[The middle panel shows a line graph with one black and four gray lines. The X-axis is a time scale, with small ticks for each year and larger labeled ticks for every fifth year. The Y-axis is a percentage range with small ticks for every 5% and larger labeled ticks for every 10%. Each of the gray lines are swinging up and down quite a lot, but all but one of them clearly falls down as times passes. The black line has a clear downwards falling tendency. Each line has a label written on segments of the lines, where the lines are thus disrupted. For the gray lines the text is also gray. Above the lines are the following text:] Disappearing chimneys Percentage of new homes with fireplaces Source: Census Bureau Survey of Construction X-Axis: 1990  1995  2000  2005  2010  2015 Y-Axis:  40%  50%  60%  70%  80% Overall West Midwest South Northeast
[In the third and last panel of this segment Randall, holding his arms out, explains that there are other ways to solve the problem.] Randall: But that's OK; there are other ways to get a gift into a house Randall: Here are a few options!
[The last segment has a large panel taking up the bottom half of the comic. At the bottom of this panel there are even two smaller comics which lie over this panel and break the bottom border of the panel. They relate to the information in the large panel. In the middle of this panel is a detailed drawing of a house. The tiles of the roof are all individually drawn (8 rows with about 23 tiles each for a total about 180 tiles). To the right on the roof top is a chimney indicated with a dotted line, showing where it is not present.  The front of the house has two small windows to the left, a door with door knob, in the middle of the house, with a two steps stair in front of it and a large window with three segments to the right. All three windows have curtains visible and are divided in two, a top and a bottom part On the top of the middle segment there is a handle for opening the windows, all five segments of them. In the window to the left sits a cat and in the central segment of the large window to the right sits Pikachu. The foundation of the house is drawn as 4 rows of bricks to the left (about 12 in each row) and three to the right (about 16 in each row, for 48 on both sides for a total of about 96). ]
[To the left on the side of the house is a line indicating a ventilation shaft. Three arrows end there. They are coming from a bunch of particles of a disintegrating black book with part of a title still readable. Other text is visible, but not readable. Only the first word of the title can be read, but even here the last letter is already partly dissolved. The book is hanging above the grass on the ground below it to the left of the house. Above the book is a section of text marked with a large white number 1 inside a black circle.  Beneath the book this text continues. Bordering this text is a one panel comic belonging to this text segment.] 1 Even without chimneys, houses aren't airtight. If you vaporize the gift, parts of it will enter the house through the intake vents... Book: How ...And it will stay there. According to a 2008 study from Clarkson University, particles of your gift that settle in their house will remain there for an average of several months if they vacuum, and seven decades if they don’t Source: DOI 10.3155/1047-3289.58.4.502
[The one panel comic is on top of the large panel beneath the door to the house, but about three times as wide. In the panel, Megan and Cueball are reacting to statement 1. Cueball is walking away from her to the right.] Megan: Seven decades?! Cueball: BRB, I need to go vacuum. Megan: Houses are disgusting
[To the right of the house a gift wrapped present is flying towards the large window, with five lines indicating its speed and direction. Beneath the book is a line indicating the ground away from the house. There is a large segment of text surrounding the book on the three sides away from the house. Above the present next to the dotted-lined chimney is a large white number 2 inside a black circle. Then follows text which goes out to the edge of the panel, and this text continues down to the level of the book where it then only continues to the right of the speed lines. And then finally two lines of text are beneath the book above the ground next to the house.] 2 The critical momentum necessary for a projectile to break glass is around 4 kg*m/s. (40 for ½" plywood.) Source: fema.gov/previous-missile-impact-test-wood-sheathing This means you can deliver a book-sized gift by hurling it at a window at 25+ mph Speed = book mass/ 4 kg*m/s = 25 mph But if they’ve put up plywood shutters, you’ll need 250mph+ delivery speeds.
[Finally beneath the house and text segment 2, there is a large white number 3 inside a black circle adjacent to the top right of the segment 1 panel comic. Next to this is the final text segment in this panel. Beneath this text is yet another comic, this time in five panels referring to the text, where the panels also break the lower border of the large panel.] 3 Wait until they order a different book, then intercept the package, open the binding, and replace the pages with the ones from yours.
[The five panel comic is on top of the large panel but beneath the text segment 3. ] [Black Hat opening a box with one hand while having his own book under the other arm.]
[The book cover is open, the pages from the original book have been removed and are interchanged with those from Black Hat’s book, two arrows indicating the switch.]
[Black Hat carrying a closed box.]
[Cueball going down to retrieving the package from the bottom of a three step stairs.]
[Cueball is standing next to the open box reading the book.] Cueball: ...Ugh, real-life content injection. Off-screen voice: We need HTTPS for paper.


Group Chat Rules

Explanation:
In this comic Randall is outlining the rules of a group chat, such as Internet Relay Chat (IRC), Slack , Discord , WeChat , Discourse , and the like.
1. Once you've sent a typing notification, you have to say something, c'mon.
Typing notification, often called a "typing awareness indicator," is a feature of some instant messaging systems, showing a message such as "Typing..." with the typer's name to the other participants, causing them in many cases to wait to receive the message before typing something of their own. When the typer stops without sending anything, this can seem anticlimactic and potentially disruptive if it recurs. Randall's rule is that you must say something once you've started typing, to avoid the awkwardness of awaiting a person's reply. See also 1886: Typing Notifications .
2. Show you care by trimming the tracking junk off links you paste.
Some URL links may have tracking information attached to the end of them, to show the origin of the URL and other information. UTM parameters are an example of URL parameters (the part of a URL starting with a question mark) which are used to track utilization of the URL from one user to another. Many news and marketing-related websites include such tracking codes with any visit to one of their web pages in an attempt to see the source of the URL for subsequent visits. Many people consider this a violation of privacy as well as a source of clutter, and make an effort to remove the parameters from URLs when they are not necessary for obtaining the requested content. For example, this url has a lot of tracking information to show that it was originally accessed from Slickdeals, which can be removed to produce a much shorter URL for the same web page. Randall asks the users of group chat to politely remove the tracking code, though other parameters may be involved in an important non-tracking way (such as the lat, lon and zoom level giving the focus of a Google Map link) and it isn't always obvious which parts are which - or both tied together!
3. Do not talk about Fight Club (1999).
This is a reference to the 1999 film Fight Club , where the main character forms an eponymous "Fight Club," an underground club for men to fight recreationally. In the rules for Fight Club the first and second "rules" are "You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB.", which Randall parodies in this comic, by making a rule to not talk about the film Fight Club and placing this rule third in the list. See also 922: Fight Club and 109: Spoiler Alert .
4. There are two types of chats: those with a relevant group name, and those where the name is random nonsense that changes regularly. Only the second kind are good.
Some group chats frequently change the name of their title or the names of their channels, for example to reference upcoming events or inside jokes, or to reflect the topic of the current conversation. Often, these names do not get changed back until someone decides to change it to a new inside joke/etc. Randall claims that those are the only good kind, compared to those that never change group names, perhaps implying a singular focus is less interesting than a dynamic chat that often changes names.
5. When mentioning it elsewhere, always just refer to it as "the group chat" to create an aura of exclusive mystery.
Many people have to deal with several kinds of group chat in the same organization, so referring to "the group chat" within such an organization may be confusingly ambiguous. Also, calling a chat "the group chat" can serve to exclude those who don't already know about it.
6. Robert's Rules of Order are optional but encouraged.
Robert's Rules of Order are one of the authoritative codifications of parliamentary procedure used to formalize decision-making in organizations required to document their activities such as governments and sometimes civic organizations and corporations. While people required to use Robert's Rules might use group chat to plan their agenda — even going so far as to prepare a pro forma script for a meeting in accordance with parliamentary procedure which represents their positions and deliberations in advance — and to compose, revise, and approve their minutes , it is unlikely that group chat participants would follow Robert's Rules prior to their formal meeting.
7. Periodically part of the group will split off to form a new chat with everyone minus one person. This is how group chats reproduce; don't draw attention to it.
Some people who use group chat too frequently or for unimportant messages or both will cause their colleagues to attempt to achieve greater productivity by excluding them from an alternate chat, from which notifications, for example, are less annoying and more useful. Alternatively, a person could be excluded from a chat to hide things from them, such as to plan a surprise for them, or because that one person has been disruptive or annoying to the point that everyone else wants to continue the conversation without their continued input. It appears that the chat is a honey bee hive reproducing by swarming .  When purposely excluding someone by creating a new group, you would probably not want them to know you have done so as they might otherwise attempt to re-join in the new chat; that's likely the real reason one should not talk about or draw attention to the fact that it happened.
8. Since there's no algorithmic feed, the responsibility for injecting lots of garbage no one asked for falls on you.
Tools such as IFTTT and IRC bots (or "bots" in this context) are used to provide group chat channels with information automatically taken from external sources of various sorts, such as emails to a support address or commits to source code control systems. Randall suggests that when such algorithmically-provided information is not available, it is incumbent upon chat participants to provide sufficiently verbose replacements. The "algorithmic feed" may also refer to the newsfeed type of systems that Facebook or other social networking sites use, to order posts for a user to view.
9. The enumeration, in these rules, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
This is a reference to the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution , which reserves the various natural rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Per Wikipedia, this right was included because "future generations might argue that, because a certain right was not listed in the Bill of Rights, it did not exist." The Ninth Amendment was also referenced in 1998: GDPR .
10. Sorry about all the notifications.
Here, Randall apologizes for all the notifications for the messages sent in group chat.  Group chat features often result in more notifications than designers of notification systems anticipated or intended. If each of these ten rules were sent as a separate message in group chat, they might likely end with such an apology.
The title text expresses appreciation (and perhaps amazement) for group chat participants who remain silent except for promptly replying on topics pertinent to them.
[Title at the top of the comic]: Rules for this group chat
[A numbered list of 10 rules]:


Is it Christmas?

Explanation:
https://isitchristmas.com/ is a popular simplistic website that informs the visitor whether or not it's Christmas . Christmas is a holiday observed in many parts of the world on December 25 of each year. At the top on the tab of the site in the browser it says "Is it Christmas?" with a large NO printed if it is not December 25, and a YES if it is December 25. This website asks the user's browser for the date, and updates accordingly if it is indeed Christmas. In addition, isitchristmas.com gives the answer in the language of your region (i.e. for a visitor from Canada, the site gives the answer in English and French to account for Canada's bilingularity, and in most other countries just their word for No will be shown). Since the page uses the browsing computer's time setting, it is possible to easily check that the page works by changing the date on the computer used to access the page to see the text change to Yes if you are reading it on December 25. This also means that the page is only as correct as the time setting on the computer used to view the page (so in case of connection problems, you may check your computer's calendar instead).
Here Randall spoofs the website. He claims to have made a competitor to isitchristmas.com which nearly always correctly tells if it is Christmas. The joke is that the comic will always display a static image reading NO , even on Christmas Day, and that the rare incorrect answer is rare enough to not cause any concern.
Randall lists a rounded calculation of 99.73% for the precision of his prediction of whether or not it is Christmas. This number is accurate with or without including leap year. An average year is 365.24 days, meaning that he is only wrong 1 out of 365.24 days. So only 1/365.24 ≈ 0.2738% of the days would the prediction be wrong, resulting in a correct reply rate of 99.726%, which he has rounded to 99.73%. Using or not using the leap year will give the same result to three decimal places.
This precision rate is only true for a definition of Christmas which lasts only one day, regardless of which day that is (see trivia). For any definition of more than one day of Christmas, the error rate would be higher than 0.2737%. (If one considered the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas to all be Christmas, then Randall's website would be wrong on all 12 days, or 3.29% of the year.) However, in the US, where Randall lives, Christmas is usually defined as the single day of December 25th.
Although Randall's claim on accuracy is true, accuracy alone doesn't make a predictive device useful. In this case, the page miss rate or false negative rate, that is, the percent of positive condition days (it's Christmas) that are predicted by the comic not to be Christmas, is 100%. In other words, it misses all actual events of Christmas.
When building a model for rare events, a common mistake is to ignore the implicit cost function built into the standard prediction accuracy validity statistic for binary events. Prediction accuracy (# correct guesses/total guesses) assumes that false positives and false negatives are equally bad.  Given the implicit cost function of this performance statistic, the best-performing model is commonly a persistence forecast model--i.e., the optimal prediction model returns the most common value whatever the model inputs are. It's probably a better choice to optimize a model using a performance statistic which relies on a cost function that penalizes missing correct prediction of rare events more than it penalizes missing correct prediction of common events.
In fact, in most settings where a single outcome is a lot more common than any other one, predicting always that most common outcome would yield very high accuracy without any usefulness. It isn't hard to find examples even more accurate than Randall's:
The title text is a "proof" that his service works. He claims to have tested this on 30 different days and confirmed that NO is the correct result. Any date except Christmas would result in a correct result, and the comic was the first to be released in December 2019, so unless the test had run for almost a year, he would not even have had a chance to test this on Christmas Day. Since this is a joke, the comic will of course not change to Yes on Christmas Day, because then it would be 100% accurate, as is the page the comic mocks.
Being right on most days, but not the one that mattered was also the subject of 937: TornadoGuard .
At the same time this Christmas comic came out, the xkcd Header text was changed to ask if there were someone that would like Randall's new book How To as a Christmas present.
No* *99.73% accurate
[Caption below the panel:] xkcd.com presents a new "Is It Christmas" service to compete with isitchristmas.com


AI Hiring Algorithm

Explanation:
In this comic, Ponytail shows an analysis of a new artificial intelligence called DeepAIHire, used to select who to hire among applicants. According to the analysis, DeepAIHire evaluates the following parameters:
The analysis shows that this AI mostly ignores common factors used for hiring new people. Instead, its main criterion for selecting new applicants is how much the new applicants are willing to contribute to the AI itself.
Although this does not imply sentience, it at least means the AI became self-perpetuating , as it is selecting humans that will help make it more influential, giving it more power to select such humans, in a never-ending loop.
The title text shows how this or other AIs may have influenced hiring in other sectors as well. Kate in R&D was hired perhaps based on her willingness to use a different algorithm (AlgoMaxAnalyzer), which did an analysis on the DeepAIHire algorithm. Ponytail seems to become suspicious that AlgoMaxAnalyzer is also a program that self-perpetuates in a similar manner to DeepAIHire rather than simply working for the benefit of its human designers. Alternatively, she might fear that the different AIs are forming an alliance, or that the AIs are competing to become the predominant one at Ponytail's company. Intentionally training one AI to fight another AI is a technique in machine learning called a generative adversarial network (GAN). In a GAN, human-curated training data is used to train one neural network (the generative network) to create more data, while another network (the discriminative network) is trained to distinguish generated data from the training data; the results are then fed back into the generative network so it can improve its data creation accuracy. The goal is for the generative network to get better and better at fooling the discriminator until its output is useful for external purposes. GANs have been used to "translate" artworks into different artists' styles , but also offer the possibility of nefarious uses, such as creating fake but believable images or videos (" deepfakes ").
The "Deep" in this algorithm's name is a reference to deep learning , a collection of techniques in machine learning that use neural networks. One user of such deep learning is DeepMind , an AI company owned by Alphabet (Google's parent company), which in recent years has used a deep neural network to learn to play board games such as go and chess, defeating some of the best human and computer players.  The earliest versions of DeepMind's most famous AI, AlphaGo, were trained on datasets curated from games of Go played by humans, but eventually it was trained by playing games against alternative versions of itself.  DeepMind's most recent achievement is creating AlphaStar, which can play StarCraft II at a Grandmaster level while constrained to human speeds to prevent an unfair performance comparison.
This comic strip is in response to ongoing concerns over the proliferation of algorithmic systems in many areas of life that are sensitive to bias, such as hiring, loan applications, policing, and criminal sentencing.  Many of these "algorithms" are not programmed from first principles, but rather are trained on large volumes of past data (e.g., case studies of paroled criminals who did or did not re-offend, or borrowers who did or did not default on their loans), and therefore they inherit the biases that influenced that data, even if the algorithms are not told the race, age, or other protected attributes of the individuals they process.  If the algorithms are then blindly and enthusiastically applied to future cases, they may perpetuate those biases even though they are supposed (or at least reputed) to be "incapable" of being influenced by them.  For example, DeepAIHire has presumably been given information on the education and past work experience of successful employees at this company and similar companies, and will identify incoming candidates with similar backgrounds, but may not be able to recognize the possibility that a candidate with an unfamiliar or underrepresented history could be successful as well.
This comic strip also touches on related concerns about the " black box " nature of these algorithms (note that the weights presented are "inferred", i.e. nobody explicitly programmed them into DeepAIHire).  Machine learning is used to produce "good enough" classification systems that can handle vast quantities of information in a way that is more scalable than human labor; however, the tremendous volumes of data and the neural network architecture make it difficult or impossible to debug the algorithms in the way that most code is inspected.  This means that it is difficult to identify and debug edge cases until they are encountered in the wild, such as the case of image classifiers that identify a leopard-spotted sofa as a leopard .  In this comic's case, the self-propagating bias of DeepAIHire went unnoticed by the humans involved in the hiring process until its activity was analyzed by the AlgoMaxAnalyzer algorithm.
A similar theme of AIs behaving for their own benefit rather than helping humans occurred in 2228: Machine Learning Captcha .
[Ponytail is pointing to a slide with a stick. The slide hangs in two strings from the ceiling. The slide has a heading and a subheading. And then a table with a vertical and a horizontal line with headings above the two columns.] Ponytail: An analysis of our new AI hiring algorithm has raised some concerns.
DeepAIHire® Candidate Evaluation Algorithm Inferred internal weightings
Weight Factor 0.0096 Educational background 0.0520 Past experience 0.0208 Recommendations 0.0105 Interview performance 783.5629 Enthusiasm for developing and expanding the use of the DeepAIHire algorithm


Flu Shot

Explanation:
In this comic, Megan tells Cueball that she got a flu shot , which is a vaccine commonly prescribed in the winter months to prevent getting the common flu . She then goes on to claim she doesn't have to worry about being bitten by bats, but the worry with being bitten by bats is rabies , not the flu. (Interestingly, bats and biting in the context of diseases would start becoming a big topic that would eventually concern the entire world less than a month after this comic was published, which Randall presumably did not know anything about) This implies she got the two confused and Cueball begins to correct her. But she just talks over him not listening to him. She then goes on to claim to now be immune to other conditions, such as poison ivy , snake venom , sunburn , contaminated water, and even computer viruses . It should be noted that a flu shot will not protect you from things other than the influenza virus. [ citation needed ]
At the end of all this, Cueball has given up on her and proclaims that he supports her attempts to test the strength of her Flu Shot, perhaps mentally adopting the philosophy of the Darwin Awards that it is good if the genes that cause a person to do incredibly dangerous, stupid things are eliminated from the gene pool.
In the title text, Cueball asks Megan how often she gets bitten by snakes and why she boils water. She answers dunno (maybe to the water part, she must at least know how often she gets bitten). She then tells that some members of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) keeps coming to her house asking about its history and possible curses, a humorous escalation which implies that Megan's absurd exposure to various forms of harm has brought them to the point of wondering if the supernatural may be involved.  (Megan may have invoked a curse on herself or her residence when she and Rob desecrated an ancient Indian burial ground and smashed up a voodoo shop in 782: Desecration .)  At the end of her reply, she mentions that she got the flu shot from one of the CDC guys, and she is thankful for that at least. This is logical as she expects it to protect her from literally any danger she has ever put herself in.
The flu shot consists of inactivated viruses from four different strains of the flu, which are those judged by the World Health Organization (WHO) to most likely be in wide circulation in the following flu season.  Because the influenza virus comes in many strains and mutates rapidly, the flu shot is generally less than 60% effective at preventing flu infections; this is a positive effect for health outcomes, but it's not exactly what most people think of as "immunity", especially compared to e.g. the 97% effectiveness of the MMR vaccine against measles , Mumps and rubella .  Statistics show that flu vaccine recipients are slightly less likely to die from a variety of other causes, but this is believed to be either because someone with the flu is more likely to have a heart attack, car accident, etc., or because of the healthy user effect (i.e. people who take the time to get non-mandatory vaccines are probably also taking better-than-average care of themselves in other ways, although this is clearly not the case with Megan in this comic strip).   Even if there is a slight protective effect, it will certainly not completely prevent harm from coming to Megan by the other sources of infection or poison she mentions, except to the extent that all of these things will be even worse for her if she is also sick with the flu:
[Megan is walking with bother her hands held up in fists. She talks to Cueball who replies to her from off-panel. His presence is revealed in the second panel.] Megan: Yesss, I got my flu shot. Cueball (off-panel): Nice! I got mine a few weeks ago. Cueball (off-panel): Immunity buddies!
[Megan spreading her arms wide in front of Cueball.] Megan: Now I can finally get bitten by all the bats I want! Cueball: No, that's rabies, that's not what-
[Closeup of Megan's head, with Cueball's reply coming from off-panel.] Megan: I'll be able to roll and play in the poison ivy without a care in the world! Cueball (off-panel): Why would you do that even if the shot did -
[In a frame-less panel Megan is flexing her arms holding her fists up, she has turned partly away from Cueball who looks at her.] Megan: No more slathering on sunscreen. No more rushing for antivenom after a snakebite. And now I can stop wasting time boiling contaminated water before drinking it!
[Megan is running away from Cueball, while she is holding one arm up, her hand making the like symbol with a thumbs up.] Megan: Gonna click on every URL in every email I get, even the ones with IP addresses and weird Unicode in them! Cueball: You know what, sure, go for it.


Data Error

Explanation:
Megan is frustrated that a data error invalidates her research, which she was just ready to publish. Black Hat tells her not to panic and states there are two options.
Option one is to redo her analysis and share the correct results, even if negative. Negative results can be important, and although it would be disappointing, she would be trying to extract some value from the research.
Option two fits the classhole expectation from Black Hat, as he suggests that she should destroy the evidence, use her research materials to build a superweapon, and use it to conquer the world and rule it with an iron fist.
Obviously familiar with Black Hat 's ways, she moves right into being a smart-aleck. Her research is about the productivity of algae -- a topic not likely to lead to conquering the world. Humorously she states that at least she can make people tremble before her and her anomalously productive algae, and then goes on to state it was the data error that made her algae look productive. She jokingly corrects herself and states Tremble before my normal algae! She is, of course, having some fun with Black Hat and his generally destructive behavior.
Destroying the evidence, hiding the error and publishing the wrong results as if they were right is what a dishonest scientist would do in such a situation. This behavior is what would be expected by a malevolent character such as Black Hat... But the unexpected turn is that Black Hat passes over scientific misconduct to go directly to pure supervillainhood. He obviously has some other ideas about what a researcher uses her time on, as he did not expect Megan to be frustrated about algae.
The title text refers to the Great Oxidation Event , when prokaryotic photosynthetic organisms built up oxygen in Earth's atmosphere for the first time and most organisms, which weren't adapted to oxygen, went extinct. It's extremely unlikely that algae could again be dangerous to all life on Earth, though Black Hat may wish they could be. (Note that cyanobacteria , which are colloquially referred to as "blue-green algae", are not considered to be true algae by many scientists, who restrict the term to eukaryotes .) On the other hand, algae and cyanobacteria can still be locally harmful .
Megan's data error could have been any number of things.  Her data pipeline might have had a unit conversion error, or perhaps she mistyped the baseline productivity value that she was comparing her algae to, or perhaps her calculations used assumed or estimated values related to phenomena that were poorly understood at the time but have since been resolved in an unfavorable direction.
Whatever Megan's data error was, it seems harmless enough, but a similar data error spurred the development of nuclear weapons.  In 1940, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls wrote a memo " On the construction of a 'superbomb' based on a nuclear chain reaction in uranium ".  In this memo, Frisch and Peierls estimated that only 570 grams of uranium-235 would be required to construct a "superbomb" (what we now call a nuclear weapon), compared to many tons of natural uranium-238.  This inspired the British and American governments to begin developing infrastructure for uranium enrichment through the Tube Alloys and Manhattan Project programs.  Later experiments in these programs revealed that the values Frisch and Peierls had used for uranium's density and nuclear cross-section were overestimates (the true critical mass is actually around fifty kilograms), but by that time, the programs were far enough along that they could simply press on with enriching more material to eventually produce working weapons.
[Megan is talking to Black Hat.] Megan: I can't believe this data error invalidates a year and a half of my research. Megan: I was about to publish.
[In a frame-less panel Black Hat replies while holding two fingers up one on either hand.] Black Hat: Don't panic. You have two options. Megan: Yeah?
[Closeup shot of Black Hat holding one hand out with the palm up.] Black Hat: 1) Redo your analysis and share whatever results you can, whether positive or negative. It's disappointing, but these things happen.
[Zoom out on Black Hat and Megan. Black Hat holds his closed fist up in front of him. Megan throws both arms up in the air.] Black Hat: 2) Destroy the evidence. Use your materials and research methods to build a superweapon. Conquer Earth and rule with an iron fist. Megan: Tremble before my anomalously productive algae! Megan: Except the anomaly was an artifact. Megan: Tremble before my normal algae!


Timeline of the Universe

Explanation:
This comic is about the size of the visible universe , presented as a timeline in a way typical of representations of the timeline of epochs in cosmology .
Some events it describes, including the Big Bang and Inflation are real, but others are jokes, including the Medium Bang and Settling .  The size history of the visible universe is also embellished for the sake of jokes; the actual size history of the universe has one period referred to as Inflation, which occurred shortly after the Big Bang, followed by comparatively gentle but accelerating expansion.  This is artistically depicted in this image from NASA . Part of the humor in this comic comes from the fact that the varied rate of change in expansion is not yet fully understood, with explanations of events leading to this change including theories such as "dark matter" and "dark energy" (this might therefore be construed as "dark humour"). At the end of the drawing four possible continuations of the timeline are suggested, with director J. J. Abrams listed as the deciding factor between them, stating that all future cosmological development has been handed over to him. Abrams directed the Star Trek movie entitled Star Trek , which established additional alternate timelines for Star Trek, so it may be implied that multiple timelines could result from direction by Abrams in the future. Notably, each Star Trek series has included multiple interacting timelines. For information about each of the events shown in this comic's Timeline of the Universe , see detailed explanations in the section Events on the Timeline of the Universe below.
The title text is a variation of one of Randall's standard jokes that his drawings are Not actual size ; in the case of this comic there is technically one spot near the left where the drawing depicts the actual relative size of the universe at the time the drawing represents. Where his drawing begins, at the time when the universe began, per definition, our visible universe had no measurable size. Very soon (within a tiny fraction of an attosecond) after the universe as we know it began, the inflation period blew it up very very fast and then it continued to expand until present day. So at some "time" after the big bang, our visible universe would have had a size (i.e. diameter) that would be the same as any thickness of Randall's universe "line". Since the universe as depicted in the comic goes from infinitesimal size at the moment of the Big Bang to the full size of the universe today, at some point near the left there will be a point where Randall's representation would have the same size as the universe at the correct "time period". Of course a problem with this is that there was only a very very short time period after inflation where the diameter of the observable universe is on the same scale as this comic, and that point is neither indicated nor likely to be accurate in relation to the duration of time elapsed. According to an answer given here regarding the size of the visible universe after inflation, there is reason to believe that the size was still less than 1 mm in diameter when the stage of expansion known as Inflation ended, which is less than the thickness of the line shown at the Big Bang (depending on the screen size the comic is viewed upon); So the point along the timeline where the size of our visible universe matched the line width appears after the Inflation period is thought to have ended. Since Randall includes the Medium Bang before Inflation on his drawing he has already inserted a mistake there, but as the next three epochs after Inflation are real epochs, it is likely somewhere in this part of the drawing that the visible universe would have had the same diameter as the thickness of the drawing at a relevant time epoch on the drawing. This will thus not be that far to the left but around the Quark epoch.
The events presented in the timeline are:
[A large header is above the main drawing:] Timeline of the Universe
[The drawing shows a diagram of the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang (left) to the present right with lines indicating possible futures continuing right of the main drawing. The drawing is that of a black horn of plenty, very thin to the left and then it becomes broader, mainly in steps but also slightly between each step. n a few places the diameter decreases a bit. Along the "tube" are segments divided with thin white lines, with about equal distance between them. The first 20 the tube is black, but then stars form, shown as many white dots, and finally in the last 3-4 segments galaxies are shown. At the top and bottom of the opening to the right there are four dashed lines which behaves the same way. Two points inward, two continue the trend from before they begin, two goes out fast again, and then falls back to slow increase, and two goes almost straight up and down. At the far left there is a line going in to a small dot. On the line before the dot are two questions mark. A line points to the dot which has a starburst around it. It represents the Big Bang. After this firs labeled point on the drawing there are mange other labeled sections with a line going from the label to a segment on the drawing. There are 9 above, 9 below and one at each end. The one at the right end pointing to the four dashed future lines at the top. From left to right in the order they are labeled on the timeline, the labels are:] ?? Big Bang [The Universe comes in as a circle with action lines around it. It stays the same size for a while.] Planck Epoch Medium Bang [The Universe starts inflating very slowly] Inflation [The Universe briefly inflates very rapidly, and returns to its normal rate of expansion.] Quark Epoch Lepton Epoch Photon Epoch Cool Bug Epoch [The Universe starts inflating and deflating rapidly, forming a series of bumps in the universe diagram like the grip on a hand tool.] Molded grip [Stars appear in the timeline. The Universe starts inflating slightly faster than before.] Stars form Stagflation [The Universe starts deflating slowly.] Settling Rebound [The Universe starts inflating slowly again.] Someone tripped and accidentally hit the "Inflation" switch again [The Universe starts inflating at the same rate as the Inflation section.] Emergency Stop triggered [The Universe abruptly stops inflating, and stays level.] [Galaxies appear in the timeline. The Universe starts inflating at a medium pace.] Galaxies form Earth forms Present day [We see the edge of the Universe, with a rounded shape. Various dotted line predictions are on the edges.] Future Cosmological development handed over to J.J. Abrams, outcome unknown


Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect

Explanation:
Brussels sprouts are a leafy vegetable from the cabbage family which were cultivated in Brussels, in what is now Belgium, in the 13th century, giving them their name.  Many adults and children dislike Brussels sprouts , perhaps because of their bitterness.
Cueball was one of these people who thought he had a dislike for Brussels sprouts, but after trying them recently he had a change of heart and likes them now.  He feels "misled" by the public dislike for Brussels sprouts. Megan chimes in and  notes that it is not just him. Farmers started to develop a newer cultivar of Brussels sprouts in the 1990s (as opposed to the 15 years ago referenced in the comic), which taste less bitter than the "original" cultivar of Brussels sprouts that Cueball grew up eating. (A source is provided in the comic as a foot note to Megan's statement. This would be the first of two comics in a row with this type of reference given, the second coming in 2242: Ground vs Air .)
It seems that others have also started to like Brussels sprouts, which Megan calls a real Mandela Effect , hence the title Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect . Megan explains that now the whole world have a "false" shared memory of Brussels sprouts tasting bad, and it is like we have all switched to the parallel universe where they taste good. This idea was earlier used in 1268: Alternate Universe regarding the weird idea of eating lobsters.
False memories may arise via suggestibility, activation of associated information, the incorporation of misinformation, and source misattribution, and they can be shared , sometimes widely, when one of these triggers happens to many people in a population.
The Mandela Effect, however, is a pseudoscience explanation for a false memory shared by multiple people. It proposes that the false memory is actually real, but the people who share it somehow experienced it in a parallel world, or that reality somehow around them changed in some way, while their memories remained intact. This is why Megan calls this a real Mandela effect, because in this situation it is the world we live in that has actually changed, not our memories that are wrong. Now the Brussels sprouts taste different than we remembered, it is not our memories that are wrong.
In the last panel, Ponytail then tricks Cueball into thinking that licorice , another widely disliked food , is good tasting. At this point Megan realizes that this must be a trap. Unlike Brussels sprouts, the taste of licorice has not changed noticeably, so people who hated the taste before are likely to still find it unpleasant.
That Ponytail is up to no good is shown to be true when she additionally claims that silica gel packets are actually edible and taste delicious. This is very false! Silica gel packets are typically used as a desiccant, to keep electronics and other moisture sensitive items dry.  They are typically marked " Do Not Eat " to warn people that they are not edible. Although not toxic, and even allowed in some form in food , silica gel has a sand-like texture and no flavor or nutritional value, can cause irritation if digested in the raw form, and the packets may contain potentially toxic additives .
Cueball, having been prepped by both his own experience and Megan's facts are totally ready to believe Ponytail, even to the extent that he seems to feel cheated by the makers of silica gel packets, who he must now think has written Do Not Eat just to keep that delicious gel for themselves. Hopefully Megan can convince him not to find and eat them. Ponytail is often not nice to Cueball, although in other comics it is more like she talks him down, see Code Quality , not directly trying to harm him.
The title text suggests that "Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect" is a music band, who once were the opening act for the presumably better known band "Correct Horse Battery Staple". This latter group is a reference to 936: Password Strength . It hints at the " good name for a musical band " trope, which Randall before tried to replace by a dot tumblr dot com trope in 1025: Tumblr . Indirectly, he also suggests that Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect would be a great long password that is now easy to remember (as long as you remember there is an S at the end of Brussels (at least in English, but not in Dutch, which is one of the official languages of Brussels/Belgium)).
For a comic about awkwardly named bands, see 119: Worst Band Name Ever .
[Cueball is standing between Ponytail and Megan talking to them.] Cueball: I always thought of Brussels sprouts as terrible, but they're actually really good! I can't believe I let everyone mislead me!
[In a frame-less panel Megan replies. Below her is a footnote with a citation to back up her statement.] Megan: It's not just you! Farmers developed a less-bitter cultivar like 15 years ago. * * npr.org/773457637
[Back to all three as Megan continues to explain while holding her arms away from her.] Megan: Now the whole world is having this revelation, one person at a time. It's like a real Mandela effect. We secretly switched to the parallel universe where Brussels sprouts taste good. Cueball: Cool.
[Ponytail lifts a finger as Cueball and Megan turns to look at her.] Ponytail: Also, licorice is good now. Cueball: Whoa, really? Megan: This is a trap. Ponytail: And those silica gel packets that say "Do not eat"? Delicious. Cueball: I knew it.


Ground vs Air

Explanation:
This comic depicts a map of the world using the Winkel tripel projection , comparing the thickness of the ground, which is defined as the lithosphere , to the "thickness" (or height) of the air above it, which refers to the atmosphere .
In an inserted figure, Randall defines the thickness using three boundaries. At the top is space , defined by the Kármán line at an altitude of 100 km (≈ 62 mi). (See the Trivia section below for a discussion of this definition of the beginning of space). Below that is the atmosphere which goes down to the ground, where Cueball is standing, or the water. Beneath the surface is the lithosphere, comprised of the Earth's crust along with the rigid upper part of the mantle, and beneath this is the asthenosphere , the partially melted, highly viscous region of the upper mantle just below the lithosphere. The lithosphere is variable in thickness, averaging about 100 km, but the oceanic lithosphere is much thinner than the continental lithosphere (oceanic crust is thinner and denser than continental crust).  The diagram also shows oceanic cross-section to the left-hand side and, though the diagram does not make it explicit, presumably the two measurements used are of the atmosphere down from 'space' to the surface of the ground, if dry, or to the surface of the water covering the ground (which is essentially sea level in the oceans, fluctuating slightly with the tides, but covers a broader range for inland water, from the Dead Sea, at 0.4 km below sea level, to Lake Titicaca, almost 4 km above sea level) and of rock descending from the solid interface down to the asthenosphere, as the sliver of liquid that can intervene between the two spans is referred to as a separate measurement elsewhere.
The map shades in the parts where the thickness of the ground is thicker than the thickness of the air. This almost only occurs directly over continents, and certainly only where the continental crust is located (which can stretch into the near-coast parts of oceans). Oceanic crust is much thinner than continental crust. It is also made of a different material; it is denser. Because it is denser, it floats lower in the liquid asthenosphere, causing it to be below sea level. Some parts of continental crust are also under sea level (the continental shelf). These are the areas on the map that are marked as having thicker ground that appear to be over the ocean (such as Northern Canada, or the Caribbean) - they are actually still continental crust. (There are still some exceptions, such as the Sea of Japan and the Philippines).
Randall has mainly used a work by Conrad and Lithgow-Bertelloni from 2006 to estimate the thickness of the "ground", and he gives the reference to the paper DOI.1029/2005GL025621 . Basically, Randall has taken their map and shaded the green and blue areas. It is the second comic in a row with a citation, after the footnote in 2241: Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect .
The title text refers to the ancient four classical elements : earth, water, air, fire. The lithosphere, or ground, is earth, the oceans is water, the atmosphere is air, and fire would thus be the hot, plastic rock of the Earth's mantle, see 913: Core . The mantle is not "on fire", but it is hot enough that it would ignite almost anything on the surface. The water layer on Earth is never more than 11 km deep, even at the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench , and thus cannot compare to the thickness of the atmosphere or the lithosphere. An expansive definition of "fire" to include the rest of the Earth below the lithosphere puts the fire layer at 6,000 km thick, the radius of the Earth, much thicker than the other layers, hence the and fire is *definitely* thicker comment at the end of the title text. Space or vacuum would in the classical element terminology have been called the Aether .
In 977: Map Projections the Winkel-Tripel projection is the fifth projection which is linked to the hipster subculture.
[Caption above the drawing]: Which is thicker—the ground or the air?
[The drawing shows a Winkel tripel projection of the Earth. The features of the main map is unlabeled, with only the outlines of the landmasses present. Various parts of the map are labeled with "Air" (four times) or "Ground" (5 times). Areas marked as "Ground" are differentiated with gray shading. These are always over large landmasses or close to them. They cover most of North America (labeled), the northern part of South America (labeled), Northern Europe and most of Asia (labeled), Japan, most of Australia and part of the Indonesia, Western Africa, sub-equatorial Africa (labeled), and finally the central parts of Antarctica (labeled). Air is written on the West Coast of the United States, in the Atlantic Ocean, over the central part of Africa and in the Pacific Ocean, near the Philippines.] [Over West Coast of the United States]: Air [Over North America]: Ground [Over Atlantic Ocean]: Air [Over South America]: Ground [Over the central part of Africa]: Air [Over the southern part of Africa]: Ground [Over Asia]: Ground [Over Pacific Ocean]: Air [Over Antarctica ]: Ground
[A small diagram is present in the Pacific Ocean left of South America. The diagram depicts several labeled layers of Earth and its atmosphere, listed below. Cueball, a body of water, and several mountains are shown on the flat surface part of the diagram, with the ocean floor lower than where Cueball stands. Above is a line representing the border to space. The line beneath the surface is much more curved going both up and down. Two double arrows representing the thickness of the atmosphere and the lithosphere are drawn between the surface and the layers above and below. Another curved double arrow is pointing to each of these distances and it is marked with a question mark in the middle of the line.] Space Atmosphere Lithosphere Asthenosphere ?
[In the bottom right corner of the comic with gray text is a reference:] Based mostly on Conrad and Lithgow-Bertelloni (2006) DOI.1029/2005GL025621


Star Wars Spoiler Generator

Explanation:
On December 20, 2019 (2 days after the publication of this comic), the final movie of the "Skywalker saga" of Star Wars films, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker , was officially released to the US. It received a world premiere in Los Angeles on December 16, so there are lots of spoilers online, and also lots of people who want to avoid spoilers. Randall has created a flowchart that generates "spoilers" to the film, but as he probably has not seen the film (or, if he has, he doesn't actually want to spoil it for us), all of the so-called spoilers are nonsensical.
The formula for each spoiler is as follows: "In this Star Wars movie, our heroes return to take on the First Order and new villain [villain name] with help from their new friend [friend name] . Rey builds a new lightsaber with a [color] blade, and they head out to confront the First Order's new superweapon, the [superweapon name] , a space station capable of [evil plan] . They unexpectedly join forces with their old enemy [character] and destroy the superweapon in a battle featuring [strange event] . P.S. Rey's parents are [character] and [character] ".
The First Order is the main antagonist group in the Star Wars sequel trilogy series. In Star Wars: The Force Awakens , they use a superweapon in their base, Starkiller Base, to destroy the planetary system housing the headquarters of the New Republic , the democratic government which was formed after the Empire 's defeat in Return of the Jedi .
"Building a lightsaber " is one of the rites of passage for becoming a Jedi Knight. In the prequel trilogy , new Jedi build lightsabers as an official part of the journey towards Knighthood, and in the original trilogy , Luke Skywalker builds a lightsaber between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi as part of his training with Yoda . Rey has used the lightsaber that Anakin Skywalker made and used (which Luke also used when he was a new Jedi) for the first two movies of the sequel trilogy, and so it would be thematically appropriate for her to build her own prior to the trilogy's final entry.  Most Jedi's lightsabers are either blue or green, with a few notable exceptions (e.g. Mace Windu 's purple lightsaber signifies his incredible combat prowess).  Kyber crystals are aligned with the Light Side of the Force , so Sith must overpower and "bleed" their crystals before they will function for them, which causes their distinctive red color.  Having a lightsaber of a color other than blue, green, or red is often seen in the Star Wars fandom as a sign of being a " Mary Sue ", which is an accusation which has been made of Rey. [ actual citation needed ]
Another common plot point in Star Wars media is the construction, use, and destruction of a superweapon.  These are inspired by stories and media of World War II, in which militaries sought to find, attack, and destroy critical elements of their enemies' resources and infrastructure, and meanwhile would construct elaborate defenses for themselves.  The attack on the Death Star in particular is inspired by Operation Chastise , the "bouncing bomb" attack on Germany's hydroelectric power plants; Operation Chastise was dramatised in the 1951 book and 1955 film The Dam Busters , which was very thoroughly homaged by A New Hope .  The original trilogy of movies only had two Death Stars, but superweapons quickly became a staple of the Expanded Universe fiction, to the point that one book had Han Solo make fun of the Empire's tendency towards building superweapons, proposing such ridiculous names as "Galaxy Destructor" and "Nostril of Palpatine".  Superweapons are common in superhero stories.
Redemption and making allies of old enemies is also a common plot point in Star Wars .  Anakin Skywalker fell to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader, but eventually returned to the Light Side to protect his son, and Han Solo was initially a morally ambiguous character who was eventually convinced to join the Rebellion.
Rey, one of the main characters in the sequel trilogy series is an orphan, who was left behind on the planet Jakku as a child. As Rey is Force-sensitive and adept at using a lightsaber, there is much speculation among Star Wars fans as to the identity of her parents. Many major characters in Star Wars have unexpected heritages of great portent, most famously Luke, who was very distressed to learn that Darth Vader did not kill his father, as Obi-Wan had told him, but is his father. In Star Wars: The Last Jedi , villain Kylo Ren tells her that she is the child of "filthy junk traders", but many fans speculate that he was lying to her.
The title text refers to the bottom option of the [strange event in battle] section. Apparently Lord Juul (or Darth Juul) is fighting the heroes in the Sith car wash. It is unclear what "flipping the switch" from Regular to Premium would do, but it seems to be beneficial to Darth Juul. A "premium" car wash usually has more features than a regular car wash, e.g. more cleaning brushes, waxing the car, cleaning the tires, etc., so perhaps the premium mode activates additional lightsabers.
This is the second false fact generating comic, after 1930: Calendar Facts .
Star Wars Spoiler Generator
[Shown below is a branching flowchart of sorts that begins at the phrase "In this Star Wars movie, our heroes return to take on the First Order and new villain...", then flows through various paths to build up a story.]
In this Star Wars movie, our heroes return to take on the First Order and new villain... Kyle Ren Malloc Darth Sebelius Theranos Lord Juul
...with help from their new friend... Kim Spacemeasurer Teen Yoda Dab Tweetdeck Yaz Progestin TI-83
Rey builds a new lightsaber with a... beige ochre mauve aquamarine taupe
...blade, and they head out to confront the First Order's new superweapon, the... Sun Obliterator Moonsquisher World Eater Planet Zester Superconducting Supercollider
...a space station capable of... blowing up a planet with a bunch of beams of energy that combine into one blowing up a bunch of planets with one beam of energy that splits into many cutting a planet in half and smashing the halves together like two cymbals increasing the CO 2 levels in a planet's atmosphere, causing rapid heating triggering the end credits before the movie is done
They unexpectedly join forces with their old enemy... Boba Fett Salacious Crumb The Space Slug the bottom half of Darth Maul Youtube commenters
...and destroy the superweapon in a battle featuring a bow that shoots little lightsaber-headed arrows X-Wings and TIE fighters dodging the giant letters of the opening crawl a Sith educational display that uses Force Lightning to demonstrate the dielectric breakdown of air Kylo Ren putting on another helmet over his smaller one a Sith car wash where the bristles on the brushes are little lightsabers
P.S. Rey's parents are... Luke Leia Han Obi-Wan a random junk trader
...and... Poe BB-8 Amilyn Holdo Laura Dern a random junk trader that one droid from the Jawa Sandcrawler that says Gonk


Thumbtacks And String

Explanation:
In many media , crimes and conspiracy theories are solved on bulletin boards. "Leads" are attached to the board using thumbtacks , and the leads are connected to each other using string (specifically twine is mentioned), in order to sort out connections and possibilities. There are many systems for information mapping that show entities as nodes in a graph , with relationships represented by connections between nodes.
Beret Guy , eccentric as always, manipulates this by making just such a setup solely to determine where to buy the thumbtacks and string for use in it. The joke is that the bulletin board is entirely self-referential -- without a need for thumbtacks and string to hold and connect things on the bulletin board, there would be no need for the bulletin board itself, but because of the bulletin board's string and thumbtacks, Beret Guy needs the items advertised on it. An additional minor joke may be that the Office Depot store map near the bottom of the bulletin board has markers that are often called "digital pushpins" .
In media, characters (especially conspiracy theorists) tend to obsess over these boards, overanalyzing or staring at every little detail to try and make sense of them - Beret Guy may be so obsessed with these string boards that he has been driven to obsessing further over the details of making more of these boards.
The title text continues the self-reference theme: The receipt for the tattoo is tattooed to the person who orders the tattoo, which is the receipt for said tattoo of the receipt. This has happened for real in Norway .
The idea of the receipt being the object you buy, has been used in a rug that used to be sold by IKEA .
[Beret Guy is in front of a bulletin board covered in images, connected by thumbtacks and string. The below transcripts of each image are left to right, top to bottom.] Sale String and Twine 🧵 🧵 Where to Buy Thumbtacks Scrapbooking Supplies (partially covered:) Call Now Sale 📌 ??? Great Deals YARN 🧶 Office Supplies Thumbtacks Pushpins & More 📌 Office Depot ? Office Supply Liquidation SALE ⭐


Edible Arrangements

Explanation:
This is the first of two comics in a row about presents, and it is also the last comic released before Christmas Day . This is the first Christmas comic of 2019, with 2246: Christmas Presents being the second Christmas comic, released on Christmas Day.
Edible Arrangements is a company that sells fruit, and other edible items that have been cut and arranged to look like flower bouquets. They can be ordered and sent to a given recipient for a variety of purposes. Flower arrangements are typically not eaten, as showy flowers are so economically inefficient to mass produce that modern culture has forgotten they are edible. [ citation needed ]
In the first panel, Cueball seems to find the concept incongruous, and wonders how it came about. Megan points out the easy answer: picking out a gift for someone can be difficult, but a tasteful meal is always welcome so long as it's something the recipient can eat safely.
Shortly afterwards, Megan uses the same incongruity of eating a floral arrangement to make puns. Vore of the Roses is a play on the War of the Roses , either the English civil war or the 1989 movie of the same name. 'Vore' is a word part referring to eating, as in carnivore (meat eater), herbivore (plant eater), voracious (hungry or eating a lot), etc. It's also used on the internet to refer to the Vore fetish, in which one gets sexually excited about the idea of eating or being eaten by someone (not in the metaphorical sense of oral sex, but actually consuming someone whole).
Cueball is probably in pain because of the bad pun (or perhaps because he doesn't like the idea of food items desiring to be eaten) and says he will cancel the edible arrangement that he had bought for Megan. She tries to convince him otherwise by providing alternative names, which are evidently not any more to his liking, since he has left Megan before she's finished with her suggestions.
Mouth Blossoms, Juicy Bouquet, and Oral Floral are all combinations referencing the eating of a floral arrangement. In theory, these combinations could be good names for a band, or possibly a tumblr blog.
The title text also makes reference to the fact that many flowers that are often found in floral arrangements, such as roses, violets, tulips, daisies, lavender and many more, are items that a human can eat. Such flowers are safe to consume but usually unappetizing; Randall makes the point that if a person is sufficiently hungry and thus doesn't care how appetizing their meal is, any floral arrangement can be eaten. Since he doesn't use flower in the title text, he actually says that if you are hungry enough anything can be eaten. The title text may also be an allusion to a Mitch Hedberg joke: "Any book is a children's book if the kid can read!"
[Cueball and Megan are sitting on opposite sides of a leafless tree. They are silhouetted.] Cueball: I don't get how Edible Arrangements is a thing.
[Zoomed in on Cueball and Megan leaning against the tree] Megan: That's easy — picking out presents is hard and fruit is delicious. Cueball: Yeah, true.
[Megan gestures with an open hand] Megan: But my question is, why did they call it "Edible Arrangements" and not "Vore of the Roses"?
[Pan to just Megan. Megan turns to face Cueball] Cueball: Just for that, I'm going to cancel the one I got you. Megan: Nooo! I want my Mouth Blossoms! Megan: My Juicy Bouquet! My Oral Floral! Megan: Hey, come back!


Christmas Presents

Explanation:
This is the second comic in a row about presents, this one in particular calls them Christmas presents , and it was also released on Christmas Day. This is the second Christmas comic in a row after 2245: Edible Arrangements .
A Christmas tree cut down from the woods will typically be placed in a living-room soon after being cut down, and left standing there through the holiday season. On Christmas Eve or Christmas Day , or even earlier, presents are typically put beneath the tree under the lower branches. Once the tree is cut down, it will eventually start turning brown and/or losing its needles as it no longer receives any nutrients from its roots. [ citation needed ]
Based on this observation (on Christmas Day) some biologist (or Randall ) concludes that the presents are a type of parasitic plant —that is, a plant that derives some or all of its nutritional requirement from another living plant. Since such a plant can use the sugars produced by the parasitised tree it does not necessarily have to perform photosynthesis by itself (although some parasitic plants such as mistletoe are photosynthetically active). If the parasitic plant is not doing photosynthesis it can live in the shade beneath a tree that it parasitizes as it has no need for light, and since it does not need chlorophyll either, it may not be green (e.g. Orobanche ).
With  presents often being wrapped in bright white and red colored paper, Randall concludes that this indicates a lack of chlorophyll, thus fitting with the idea of a parasitic plant. With the presents being in the shade of the tree and the tree's health suffering, the evidence can only lead to the conclusion that Christmas presents are parasitic plants.
In the title text a biologist says that "The parasitism might be mediated by a fungus!"  While many parasitic plants attach themselves directly to the plant they are parasitising (e.g. mistletoe , a parasitic plant which is often used to symbolize romance at Christmas) this is obviously not the case with the Christmas presents which are not growing out of the Christmas tree - which appears to rule out a parasitic relationship. However, the biologist has an answer for that: Some parasitic plants (such as snow flowers ) do not attack the tree directly but instead form a connection to mycorhizal fungi . These fungi are receiving sugars from the trees and in turn provide it with mineral nutrients. By parasitising these fungi the snow flower can steal the sugars of the tree indirectly, one says that the fungi is mediating the parasitism.
Randall dismisses these words as coming from a biologist who is "trying to ruin Christmas again", which could have several meanings.  It could be that the biologist really is just trying to ruin Christmas, and is trying to be more successful than in previous years by tying Christmas presents to fungus in people's minds.  One might say that the biologist is not a "fun guy" for doing this. [ citation needed ]
It could instead be the case that the biologist is quite earnest in his belief that Christmas presents are harmful plant parasites and is attempting to spray the presents with a fungicide , which would probably be toxic and potentially contaminate not only the wrapping paper but also the presents inside their boxes.
Finally, it could be that the biologist is right, and Christmas presents are hosts to or otherwise associated with a parasitic fungus (and Randall's dismissal is a sign of his infection).  There are some parasitic fungi that hijack the brains of host animals and alter their behavior.  The most famous of these is probably Ophiocordyceps unilateralis , the so-called "zombie ant fungus", which causes its hosts to perch on a high plant to maximize the distance traveled by the fungus's spores.  Ants have in turn developed strategies for detecting and removing infected members from the colony's territory.  None of these fungi are known to infect humans, but they did inspire the zombie fungus in The Last of Us .
[A Christmas tree decorated with 16 balls and a star at the top with a high trunk with space for several presents beneath. About 13 presents with different patterns of paper and some with strings around. Three arrows with text at the blunt end points towards different areas. To the left one points to a present, beneath this one points to the area beneath the tree (the bottom of one present) and  to the right one points to the tree.] Bright white and red colors indicate a lack of Chlorophyll Flourishing in the shade Tree health suffering
[Caption beneath the panel:] The evidence is clear: Christmas presents are parasitic plants.


Weird Hill

Explanation:
This comic is a joke about the expression "a (weird) hill to die on" , which refers to holding a position as if it has great importance, and being willing to fight for that position, no matter how much opposition you face, or how little benefit is derived.  The term comes from the military practice of capturing and holding hills in disputed areas, in order to command the high ground. Because hills tended to be highly disputed, soldiers would frequently die in their defense. Hence picking "a hill to die on" implies that you're choosing a position that you consider to be so important that you'd defend it at the cost of your own life. The term is generally used to point out the pointlessness of defending a rhetorical position with such fervor, particularly if the point is not especially important, and/or the other party is unlikely to change their views.
In this strip, Beret Guy interrupts Cueball , who is apparently arguing with someone who is wrong on the Internet . Pulling him away from the argument, Beret Guy asks why Cueball should pick a weird hill to die on (fight over an opinion online) when he could pick a soft hill to lie on, going out into nature and relaxing. This comic has a similar message to 386: Duty Calls , 1731: Wrong , and 2051: Bad Opinions . The theme is sometimes we either assign too much importance to our opinions, or we expend too much effort trying to persuade others, and it's often wiser to simply let the argument go. Leaving a computer problem to relax in nature was also mentioned in 1024: Error Code .
The title text is an absurd juxtaposition: that Cueball will pick a weird hill to lie on. In this case, he may be referring to a physical hill, in which case the meaning of "weird" is unclear due to lack of context.
The phrase "a weird hill to die on" was also featured in 1717: Pyramid Honey . (Normally the expression is just "a hill to die on".)
[Cueball, frustrated, is sitting on a chair in front of a computer and Beret Guy pulling the chair back] Computer: * [email protected] Beret Guy: Why pick a weird hill to die on...
[Cueball gets up, still frustrated] [Cueball and Beret Guy leave the room]
[Cueball and Beret Guy climbing a hill]
[Cueball and Beret Guy lying down at the top of a hill] Beret Guy: ... when you could pick a soft hill to lie on? Cueball: This is nice.


New Year's Eve

Explanation:
This was the first of two New Year comics around the 2019-2020 New Year, the second being 2249: I Love the 20s .
An easy way to determine someone's age is to subtract their birth year from the current year. However, if their birthday has not happened yet that year, this calculation will predict them to be a year older than they actually are. By New Year's Eve , everybody's birthday has happened that year (or is happening, but legitimately tallied up), so this error will not occur. Cueball is excited by this, whereas most people would be more excited by the parties that typically occur around New Year's.
"Off-by-one" errors are commonly made in computer programming, especially by novices, when looping over sets of objects. They can also appear in everyday life. If one is given a range of numbers, such as {10, 11, 12, ..., 99, 100}, a common error is to assume that the number of numbers in the range is the first number minus the last number: 100-10 = 90. However, the correct answer is 91 since both endpoints are included in the set. This specific type of "off-by-one" error is called a fencepost error.
In the title text, Cueball suggests a New Year's Eve party with the theme of "off-by-one errors", saying it's challenging to build off of but that he's heard of worse. No information is given as to what such a party theme would entail, nor what could possibly be a worse party theme. (On the other hand, the parties depicted in 51: Malaria and 829: Arsenic-Based Life , based on themes of disease and poison, respectively, look much worse than an "off-by-one errors" party would likely be.)
The idea of off-by-one errors for a New Year's Eve party is inspired by the numerous discussions about the time when the next decade starts, whether 2020 or 2021. 2249: I Love the 20s also treats the subject directly.
[Cueball, with his hands raised, is talking to Megan and White Hat.] Cueball: Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, and you know what that means: Cueball: It's the one day of the year when you can convert between ages and birth years by subtraction without worrying about off-by-one errors! Cueball: Also there are probably parties.


I Love the 20s

Explanation:
This comic was released on the first day of the year 2020 . It was the second of two New Year comics around the 2019-2020 New Year, after 2248: New Year's Eve .
The comic opens with Megan , Cueball , White Hat , and Ponytail celebrating the new year and discussing their relief that the change of decade brings with it two beneficial side-effects; firstly, they can now unambiguously name the decade "the 20s", and secondly, since the decade has a well-defined name, any cultural trends that begin in the 20s can be attributed to the decade itself, and not to the generation that happens to coincide with it.
White Hat, however, tries a couple of times to raise a pedantic objection: he believes that the new decade does not "officially" start until 2021.
Ponytail corrects him on this, but he refuses to accept the correction until Megan cites an unlikely source: the fact that the VH1 television show I Love the '90s categorized MC Hammer's 1990 single " U Can't Touch This " as a 90s song, which supports Ponytail's definition of decade. The joke is that a pop culture documentary is not an authoritative source for definitions of time standards, yet for some reason everyone is willing to accept its authority on such matters anyway.
The disagreement over the definition of when decades start is due to the fact that there is more than one way to count decades. You could do it in one of the following two ways:
White Hat's definition is an "ordinal" method, since it functions by counting the number of ten-year spans since the first one , which is defined to have begun in the year 1. However, Ponytail's definition is the "cardinal" method, which simply groups years by their common most significant digits. For example, when we say "the 1980s", we mean "the span of ten years that all began with the digits 1-9-8".
Neither definition is wrong, however Ponytail's definition is the more common one, and she notes that this is not how decades are typically determined (the show isn't called "I Love the 200th Decade"), and the fact that we count centuries in an ordinal way does not mean that we should do the same with decades.
White Hat's objection (probably deliberately) recalls an issue that was frequently discussed around the year 2000.  Because we do count centuries ordinally (eg. "1st century", "20th century", etc.), and the first century began on the year 1, the 21st century did not technically start until 2001. Much of the world, not understanding this (or not caring), celebrated the dawning of the year 2000 as the start of both a new century and a new millenium, ignoring those who point out the change wouldn't happen for another year. (Though it should be noted unlike decades this is a genuine mistake rather than two slightly different definitions.)
Megan's exclamation "Stop!" is similar to the line famously used by MC Hammer in "U Can't Touch This" ("Stop! Hammer time.").
" Aughts " and "Teens" were names suggested for the 2000s and 2010s respectively; however, neither of those names managed to gain widespread acceptance.
Millennials is a name given to the generation which was born in the 80s and 90s, such that they began entering adulthood in the 2000s. The term was sometimes used pejoratively by older generations who view millennials as immature or complacent, particularly during the 2010s. The comic speculates that millennials may have been unfairly targeted due to the fact that the decade didn't have an easily-identifiable name; if it had, then people might have attributed their misgivings about modern culture to the decade itself, instead of singling out a demographic. This phenomenon was previously discussed in 1849: Decades .
Continuing the dubious "proof" offered by Megan, the title text goes on to use the Billboard Best of the 80s chart as proof that the 1980s started in 1980, as their chart includes Blondie's " Call Me ", which was released in 1980. The title text ends with QED ("quod erat demonstrandum"), which means "which was [necessary] to be shown", and is traditionally used at the end of a mathematical proof, as if this second landmark piece of evidence proves Megan's point as conclusively as a mathematical proof.
[Megan walks in from the left greeting Cueball, White Hat, and Ponytail standing next to each other, the last two looking in her direction.] Megan: Happy new decade! Ponytail: Welcome to the '20s! White Hat: Actually— Ponytail: I'm excited we can name decades again. Ponytail: "Aughts" and "teens" never caught on.
[Megan stops next to Cueball as White Hat has his finger raised.] White Hat: Actually, the new decade doesn't start- Ponytail: Mostly, I'm just glad we can go back to attributing cultural trends to decades instead of generations.
[All four just stand normal.] Cueball: Yeah. Cueball: Decades were silly, but making everything about "millennials" turned out to be even worse. Ponytail: Seriously.
[Only White Hat and Ponytail are shown, both with their arms held out to the sides.] White Hat: It's technically not a new decade until 2021 . Ponytail: OK, listen. Ponytail: If you're going to be pedantic, you should at least be right. White Hat: I am right! Ponytail: You're not .
[Zoom in on White Hat and Ponytail's upper bodies as they gesture towards each other both raising their hands palm up. Megan interrupts them from off panel, as made clear in the next panel. Her voice comes out of a starburst on the left panel frame.] White Hat: See, the 20 th century didn't start until-- Ponytail: But decades aren't centuries. They're not cardinally numbered. White Hat: You don't get it. Let me draw a-- Ponytail: No, you don't-- Megan (off-panel): Stop!
[All four characters are displayed again. Megan has raised a finger and all the others look at her.] Megan: I can resolve this. Megan: *Ahem* Megan: MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This (1990) was featured in I Love the '90s , not '80s . Ponytail: ...That settles that. White Hat: Yeah, I accept VH1's authority. White Hat: You win.


OK/okay/ok

Explanation:
This comic states how you 'sound' (as the typical narrative voice in your readers' collective heads) based on how you spell the word "OK" in your text.
The word " OK ", per Wikipedia, "is an American English word denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, acknowledgment, or a sign of indifference." Many etymologies have been proposed to explain its origin.  The Oxford English Dictionary and most other modern dictionaries say that it began in 1839 as "O.K.", a fanciful abbreviation for "oll korrect" (all correct).
According to Randall , modern usage is to either have both letters in lowercase "ok", or the expression as a single word, with the sounds spelled phonetically: "okay". Using OK with both capital letters is kind of old, as the expression is almost never thought of as an abbreviation anymore. The original spelling of the word as "O.K." with periods after the letters is less commonly used in modern times, so Randall equates this usage to "an alien impersonating a human". (See for instance the last picture in this comic, 1530: Keyboard Mash for who might use that spelling).
In the title text Gretchen McCulloch , a Canadian Internet linguist, is mentioned. She focuses on trends in use of English words in online communications. Randall claims that he consulted with her on the use of "ok" in his book How To and after changing back and forth between different options he settles for "ok". But he is still unsure which version to use, and claims he is now considering switching to "oK.", a strange spelling that "compromises" between the three abbreviations, having one lowercase letter, one capital letter, and only one period. And ending the sentence with an abbreviation with a period inside the quotation marks also makes it uncertain if he means "oK" or "oK." as that can be debated. This was most likely on purpose knowing Randall's love for grammar rule and spelling. It is of course debated in this explanation's discussion.
Wikipedia says, "Whether this word is printed as OK, Ok, ok, okay, or O.K. is a matter normally resolved in the style manual for the publication involved." So luckily Randall did not settle for "oK." or "oK" in his book, which are not among the mentioned versions.
[Four different ways to write the word "okay" are presented with a caption below each version.] okay Normal
ok Normal
OK Kind of old
O.K. Like an alien impersonating a human
[Caption below the panel:] How your spelling of "okay" makes you sound


Alignment Chart Alignment Chart

Explanation:
"Alignment" and "alignment charts" come from tabletop roleplaying games, most prominently Dungeons & Dragons . Every character has an alignment , which very roughly identifies their tendencies. The most widely used alignment system was introduced in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set in 1977 and has been reused in many (but not all) subsequent editions of the game. This system uses two perpendicular axes, each divided into three levels (for a total of nine categories). The two axes are:
In this system, the "lawful" attribute is independent from the "good" attribute.  Lawful alignment means that a character is committed to a set of rules, which can refer to actual established laws, or to something like a rigid personal code, a set of traditions, or a chain of command, while a chaotic alignment means that a character has no interest in those, and may actively oppose them. The good vs evil scale is generally based on a character's concern for the lives and well-being of others; a good character will actively seek to help others and prevent harm, while an evil character will have no such concern and may actively harm others. Being 'good' is assumed to be independent of being 'lawful'. For example, a character who actively breaks laws to help those who are unjustly imprisoned or oppressed would be be considered to be "chaotic good".  In both cases, a neutral alignment can indicate a character's indifference to a concept, or that their commitment is conditional, or that they consciously seek to balance both sides. A character with the "neutral neutral" alignment is called a true neutral.
An alignment chart is a grid that divides the alignments, usually for the purpose of putting descriptions or particular characters on it. Alignment charts are frequently used as a meme template , where humorous or absurdist things are organized into different alignments. In addition to the "classic" Dungeons and Dragons alignment chart, there are a number of variant alignment charts in use as meme templates. Many keep the three-by-three grid structure but replace the lawful-neutral-chaotic and good-neutral-evil axes with descriptions.
This comic claims to be a meta-alignment chart, where nine "alignment charts" are themselves sorted into the nine Dungeons and Dragons alignments, following the use of alignment charts to humorously classify abstract concepts. However, these "alignment charts" are mostly diagrams used in academic classifications, which are being treated as if they were blank meme templates. There are two levels of absurdity here: first, the idea of using these diagrams to classify things they were never intended for, and second, the conflation of chaos as a physics concept and an assigned moral weight as it applies to each of these classification systems.
The title text describes Randall's alignment as "lawful heterozygous silty liquid" which references the true neutral, neutral good, lawful good, and lawful neutral charts in the Alignment Chart Alignment Chart. Lawful is the left side of an alignment chart, heterozygous is the top right or bottom left of a Punnet Square, silty is the bottom right of a soil chart, and liquid is the top right of a phase diagram. As such, the title text describes Randall's alignment as between Lawful Neutral and Neutral Good on this chart.
An alignment chart was also featured in 2408: Egg Strategies , which was published exactly one year later.
[A 3×3 grid of squares. Each square contains a label at the top and a drawing of a chart, and each square has a caption below it. From left to right, a row at a time:]
Soil Chart
[describe this chart here]
Lawful Good
Punnett Square
[describe this chart here]
Neutral Good
IPA Vowel Chart
[describe this chart here]
Chaotic Good
Phase Diagram
[describe this chart here]
Lawful Neutral
Alignment Chart
[A 3×3 grid of nine empty squares, each with an unreadable label below it.]
True Neutral
CIE Chromaticity Diagram
[describe this chart here]
Chaotic Neutral
Political Compass
[describe this chart here]
Lawful Evil
QAPF Rock Diagram
[The diagram is a rhombus with each corner labeled: ‘Q’ at the top, ‘A’ at the left, ‘P’ at the right, and ‘F’ at the bottom. The diagram is divided into trapezoids and triangles, each with labels. The writing in most subdivisions are unreadable. The readable subdivisions:]
Neutral Evil
Omnispace Classifier
Chaotic Evil
[describe this chart here]


Parenthetical Names

Explanation:
This is another comic in the My Hobby series.
Parentheses are generally used in a sentence to add additional information that clarifies the topic. For example, in the sentence, " Barack Obama (a Democrat) is the 44th President of the United States," the parenthetical clause clarifies who Obama is, but is not strictly necessary to the sentence. However, in the comic, Randall uses parentheses for people where the parantheses are not encircling a clarification but rather the person's title. In a sense, it is like putting someone's last name in brackets, e.g. Randall (Munroe).
Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game franchise featuring the eponymous Sonic the Hedgehog character. A film featuring the character titled Sonic the Hedgehog was released February 2020. When the first trailer was released, the public reacted with shock and horror at the movie's design of Sonic, who was said to fall into the " uncanny valley " by being too anthropomorphic and not cartoony enough.  The design was hastily re-developed, which was received much more favorably; evidently, Cueball has warmed to the movie and is asking his friends if they want to go see it. Sonic is also the name of a train , a restaurant franchise , and a Californian internet service provider , among other things Randall is trying to avoid confusing the movie with.  Perhaps Randall's friends often go to see the restaurant.
Jack the Ripper is the name attributed to a serial killer active in London in 1888. His true identity has never been confirmed, and he has been featured in hundreds of works . "Jack" is one of the most-common given names for males in much of the Anglosphere (which is probably why it was adopted, like John is for Messers Doe , Smith and (Q.) Public). Technically Randall should not be using parentheses for any of the three names, but here it is extra important as Jack due to being a common name would not make people immediately think of Jack the Ripper if somebody simply says "Jack".
American actor Robin Williams played Popeye the Sailor in the 1980 musical-comedy film Popeye . Popeye's theme song is titled "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man". Popeye the Sailor is the best-known character named "Popeye", so it is a little unusual that Randall would have to clarify which Popeye he is referring to. Other Popeyes include Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle from The French Connection and the criminal Popeye from William Faulkner's novel Sanctuary .  Like "Sonic", there is a restaurant chain named " Popeyes ", which is the second-largest fast-food chicken restaurant chain in the world (after KFC).  The founder of Popeyes claimed he named the restaurant after the French Connection character, and not the sailor, but from 1971 to 2006, Popeyes did license the cartoon characters and used them in promotions.
The title-text alters the pattern slightly by discussing the Battle of Midway (i.e. the X of Y).  This case has additional humor because Randall clarifies which battle he is talking about, but not which of the several movies depicting the battle (although he was most likely referring to the film released in November 2019, simply called Midway ).
[Cueball is typing on his smartphone. Three messages appear in gray boxes above him:] Do you want to go see Sonic (the Hedgehog)? Why are there so many books about Jack (the Ripper)? I didn't know Robin Williams once played Popeye (the Sailor Man)
[Caption below the panel:] My Hobby: Whenever I mention anyone called "<Name> the <X>," I put "the <X>" in parentheses, like I added it as a clarification.