xkcd Phone 5

Explanation:
This is the fifth entry in the ongoing xkcd Phone series , and once again, the comic plays with many standard tech buzzwords, and horribly misuses all of them, to create a phone that sounds impressive but self-evidently isn't to even the most ignorant customer. The previous comic in the series 1707: xkcd Phone 4 was released almost 8 months before this one and the next 1889: xkcd Phone 6 was released 7 months later.
The slogan beneath the phone, "We're trying to catch up to Apple but refuse to skip numbers", is a reference to inconsistent product numbering, such as Samsung releasing the Note 7 after the Note 5 , likely in an attempt to catch up to the numbering of either the iPhone or Galaxy S series, both of which were already at 7. Similarly, there was also no official iPhone 2 . But there is an xkcd Phone 2 available. The trademark sign behind the word "numbers" possibly indicates a reference to the Apple spreadsheet app with the same name.
This phone seems to have a curved display. But the edges are curved down and not up, as they are on other curved phones.
The title text that says that the phone will be returned to you by the toll operators is a reference to E-ZPass partnership feature; see explanation in the table regarding that feature.
Hook shot
In The Legend of Zelda the Hookshot is a recurring weapon/tool.  It is a machine consisting of a chain and hook. When used, the chain extends and sends the hook which is attached to it. It is used to bring items to Link or bring Link closer to a goal ( Link is the name shared by the main protagonists, each possessing the Spirit of the Hero). Likely a reference to new video game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild , which was released a week prior to this comic (ironically, that game does not feature the Hookshot).
In the comic the hook shot is shown as a small port upon the phone's top; the hook itself is not visible, suggesting it is contained in the device until use. Most Hookshots in the game series are large enough to be grasped in or encompass the hand, with the hook being large and extending out of the tool even without use. The size of the port and absence of the hook before use implies a very small hook and a very thin chain, making it impractical for use in either of the tool's functions.
Bluetooth speaker
Bluetooth speakers are often used to play audio from a smartphone wirelessly, usually with more volume and better quality than the phone's small built-in speaker can provide. Embedding a bluetooth speaker into the phone would allow the phone to play audio from outside sources through its built-in speaker, which could be useful if no better speakers were available but would generally be avoided given the previously noted limitations of phone speakers. This is perhaps a jab at the current trend of playing music or Internet content audibly in public through the tiny, tinny speaker embedded in most phones. The Bluetooth speaker is located in the normal place for a phone's speaker.
Stained-glass display
Stained glass is colored glass, traditionally used for decorative windows in buildings most often churches. It is generally much thicker and because of the color much less transparent, especially for some colors, than the glass types normally used for touch-screens, making the phone difficult to use as it would remove some of the colors shown on the screen below the glass. A typical feature noticed about the glass for real phones would be its strength, as in work phones for construction workers.
Gallium chassis remains solid up to 85°F
Many high-end electronic devices have chassis made of alloys of light metals such as magnesium or titanium rather than steel or plastic . Besides being lightweight and of superior quality and durability than ordinary sheet steel or cheap plastic, these are often perceived as bragging points by the users, boasting about 'rare' metal chassis.
Gallium , however, is an uncommon metal with a very low melting point of 85 °F (or 29.8 °C), making it one of only four pure metals (along with mercury , rubidium and caesium ) that can be liquid around room temperature. Because the melting point is lower than the average human body temperature of 98.6 °F (37 °C) a gallium smartphone chassis would melt in the user's bare hand, assuming it hadn't already done so due to heat produced by its internal components. Even if the electronics had good heat management, cooling in smartphones is normally accomplished by distributing heat to the case, not exhausting it.
A similar real advertisement regarding the chassis would be that it was waterproof down to some depth (say, 85 feet or 25 meters). See also the feature below regarding this.
Soundproof
A Soundproof chassis could result in the unwanted effect that the speakers and microphone may not work as no sound may enter or leave the phones chassis. A more likely feature would be waterproof (see above point).
Can feel pain
Possibly a reference to intelligent personal assistants like Siri , Cortana or Alexa gaining consciousness (see 1807: Listening for the latter). Such artificial intelligence references is a recurring subject on xkcd.
This could mean that either the phone feels pain for damages inflicted upon it or it feels the user's pain level (regarding either physical and/or emotional pain).  The meaning would quickly become apparent for the user if the chassis melts on contact with exposed skin leaving the phone with "open wounds".
This could be seen as a similar feature of the first xkcd phone, 1363: xkcd Phone , where the title text notices (among many other things) that the phone will drown if submerged in water. A similar thing is also mentioned for 1549: XKCD Phone 3 . That phone is waterproof but can drown . Since this phone is soundproof but not waterproof, per the two points above, the drowning issue may still be relevant. The second phone, 1465: xkcd Phone 2 , cries when lost a similar display of emotions/feelings. That phone also mentions waterproofing, but here it is only the interior, and although it is washable, it is only a one-time feature (like the fold-ability of this one; see two points below). Finally it also 1707: xkcd Phone 4 mentions that it is waterproof, but not between 30-50 m down...
E-ZPass partnership Phone can be dropped into coin basket to pay tolls
E-ZPass is an electronic toll collection system. The vehicle drives through the toll lane without stopping, and sensors detect the pass and deduct the appropriate amount from the user's account. The phone's integration with E-ZPass is absurd since the phone needs to be dropped into a coin basket to work. Not only would you have to stop in order to throw the phone into the coin basket, which defies the idea of E-ZPass, but you would also lose your phone.
In the title text , however, it says that the phone will be retrieved by the toll operators and returned by mail within 4–6 weeks. So this slightly mitigates the problem of losing the phone, but there would be about a month where the phone could not be used.
Foldable (once)
Almost anything long and slim can be "folded" by simply snapping it in half. But as it says, this can only be done once, because the phone cannot be unsnapped and will not work any more once it has been folded.
This is a reference to the rumors of the new Samsung Galaxy X that is really foldable like a piece of rubber. See this video .
It could also refer to the fact that a version of iPhone had a weak spot that lead it to easily folding and breaking. And it could be a reference to flip phones .
Screen transfers images to skin
Transferring images to the skin sounds like either real tattoos or the water tattoos used by children or other kinds of temporary tattoos . Likely it should be understood that it would be possible to transfer the image displayed on the screen to your skin, hopefully when activating the feature rather than by accident, and, preferably, also not permanently. This may also be a reference to the experimental Cicret Bracelet's ability to project images onto your arm: [1]
Retina storage
This is a play on the name of Apple's prized " Retina Display ". The joke may be in reference to Apple's possession of a trademark for the word "retina" in regards to computer equipment, which is made to seem absurd by the unusual use. It is not made clear whose retinas are meant to be stored. It could also be a reference to retinally implanted computers. The retina storage is a slot at the bottom of the phone right of the charging port.
Background task automatically catches and eats Pokémon
A reference to Pokémon Go , an augmented reality game where the goal is to go to specific locations and play a mini-game in order to catch virtual creatures called Pokémon (see 1705: Pokémon Go ). This phone apparently catches Pokémon automatically, similar to the external device Pokémon Go Plus . However, this feature also eats them, which is something that is not part of the game and wouldn't be desirable, as it is about collection and storing as many different Pokémon as possible. It could be a coincidence, but it seems funny that the label for this background feature is the only one that points at the back of the phone.
Supercuts partnership Trims hair fed into charging port
Supercuts is an American hair salon chain that provides hair cuts and styling.  The implication here is that the user can get a haircut by Supercuts by sticking hair into the charging slot. This is not only impractical and would only work for hair long enough to be fed into the port, but it would most likely result in a bad haircut. Also the slot would soon be filled with hair. The charging slot is otherwise placed in the normal spot and looks like a regular charging port.
This feature could actually be quite dangerous if the hair is not removed from the charging slot afterwards because the hair could melt or catch fire inside the phone.
Squelch knob
Squelch is a feature of radios (CB, ham, scanner, etc) which quiets background noise when no usable signal is present.  It cuts off audio completely when only noise is present.  As different environments can have differing levels of background noise, an adjusment such as a knob is required to set the level at which the squelch circuit deactivates and lets audio through ("opening" or "breaking" the squelch). This feature already exists in audio call software but hardwiring it to a knob on the outside of the phone is probably excessive. For a smartphone, perhaps this knob could control the "signal-to-noise" ratio of your Facebook feed or other social media platforms. It takes the place of the headphone jack, replacing the normal hole with a small knob.
IBM buckling-spring Home button
IBM buckling-spring keyboards are favorites of geeks for the feeling of quality and auditory feedback (keys click loudly when pressed) they provide. Real smartphones' home buttons, typically located exactly as in this image, provide little to no such satisfaction when pressed.
Cot-caught merger switch
This is a reference to the cot–caught merger , a linguistic change happening among English speakers, particularly in some parts of North America and the British Isles, which causes caught (previously pronounced "kawt") to be pronounced the same as cot (pronounced "kot"). The switch is clearly visible on the side of the phone. A real feature physically similar to this is the slide switch on the iPhone and iPad, allowing the user to (un)lock the orientation of the screen or to (un)mute the device.
60x optical zoom camera
A powerful optical zoom lens is usually a desirable feature for cameras. However, as shown in the comic, it results in very bulky lens. If 60× zoom should be achieved the lens needs to be as big as shown on the backside of the phone, and the whole idea of being able to carry the smartphone easily in a pocket would be defied.
For that reason, such lenses are never used in smartphones, although rarely some devices, like the Samsung Galaxy Camera , use a smaller lens with a similar design. But this is no longer a smartphone.
This feature would seem to be a jab at the variety of add-on devices, including close-up lenses, handles, and external flashes, that are currently in use to enhance the phone's ability to function like a camera (and the selfie stick ).
Some phones might instead mention their digital zoom level instead. But that is not a popular feature among photo enthusiasts, as digital zooming gains no additional optical resolution. Users would actually be better off using the maximum optical zoom, and then enlarging their images with photo-editing software, which might offer better, but slower, algorithms (e.g. linear resampling versus Lanczos resampling ). Likewise, (mobile phone) cameras are often advertised with their high number of megapixels , while retaining their small image sensor size . As each individual sensor gets less light, it creates more image noise .
Randall has made several comics about cameras before; see for instance 1719: Superzoom and other comics linked via this.
Contrast the EasyMacro band - 4x zoom with little appreciable thickness.
Assuming 60x is referring to the base focal length of the iPhone and that the xkcd Phone 5 has the same dimensions as the iPhone 7 Plus then in 35mm format this lens would be 30-1800mm f/0.4-f/24. This is a completely infeasible (but not physically impossible) lens in 35mm format, but similar small format lenses (albeit with more reasonable aperture ranges) do exist in mass production, for example the Nikon P900.
LORAN navigation
LORAN (Long Range Navigation) was a precursor to modern GPS navigation, using land-based transmitters. Once developed for sea shipping, it is accurate to about 300 meters (1,000 feet). The joke, of course, is that all modern smartphones have integrated GPS navigation which is far more accurate. Due to the much lower frequencies involved, reception of LORAN signals though is much better in areas with obstructed view of the sky. However LORAN has been decommissioned more or less completely since before 2000.
Incidentally, some receivers of the Decca Navigator System (which operates on a similar principle as LORAN) featured moving map displays, something we associate with modern GPS devices.
28-factor authentication
An authentication factor is a way of proving one's identity. There are 3 generally recognized forms : something you know, something you have, and something you are. It can be a password, a fingerprint, a physical key, etc.... Secure applications may include two or more factors; a common example is the "PIN and chip" system used with credit cards, where you need both the card and secret code to authorize a transaction. Many online services now provide two-factor authentication to protect against password-based attacks. 28-factor authentication would likely be very secure in theory but also so impractical that it would be unusable. The user will need to prove their identity 28 different ways which would be so time consuming that would outweigh the convenience of a smart phone. A 2-factor smoke detector was soon after mentioned in one of the tips in 1820: Security Advice .
[An image of a smartphone with a common optical camera lens attached on its back is shown. Over the entire length the case is slightly rounded. There are several features visible as bottom like features at the top and bottom of the front as well a microphone like slit at the top. A sliding switch is visible on the side, and at the bottom there is a knob, a connector port and a small slit. Clockwise starting from the top left all the labels read:] Hook shot Bluetooth speaker Stained-glass display Gallium chassis remains solid up to 85°F Soundproof Can feel pain E-ZPass partnership: Phone can be dropped into coin basket to pay tolls Foldable (once) Screen transfers images to skin Retina storage Background task automatically catches and eats Pokémon Supercuts partnership: Trims hair fed into charging port Squelch knob IBM buckling-spring home button Cot-caught merger switch 60x optical zoom camera LORAN navigation 28-factor authentication
[Below the phone:] Introducing The xkcd Phone 5 We're trying to catch up to Apple but refuse to skip numbers ®TM


Chat Systems

Explanation:
The comic consists of an Euler diagram showing a wide variety of chat systems and their intersections. (Euler diagrams should not be confused with Venn diagrams , see more on this here ). The comic demonstrates the complexity that can be involved in modern communications: simply remembering how to get in touch with someone can be a challenge.
Below is a table with explanation for all 24 mentioned chat systems and below that a list of each system's intersections with the other systems. Several of the systems are already considered old, like The "chat" tab in an old Google Doc , but some people keep using them, which is part of the joke. There only seems to be one "chat" system which could in no way be said to be an on-line chat system, and that is the Wall (bathroom) at the bottom, which refers to how people writes notes on public bathroom walls, making it an extra joke and possibly a reference to 229: Graffiti .
In the title text, Randall explains how he is one of the only few Instagram users to use the UNIX 'talk' gateway (an old peer-to-peer chat system whereby users logged into the same UNIX system could privately communicate with each other in a full-screen interface.) But he doesn't tell how he had enhanced this old fashioned software.
Note that this is similar to the earlier 949: File Transfer .
The 24 chat systems with the number of stick figures inside are listed. Notice there are only 23 real systems, as one of the systems is a bathroom wall.
[An Euler diagram with many circle like drawings for various chat systems is shown. Some circles overlapping others in complicated ways, others are single circles with no connections, but most are embedded into others. Inside the circles mainly the standard sticky figures like Cueball, Megan, Ponytail and Hairy are shown but there are also a few others.]
[The list of items and its intersections from left top to right bottom is:] Skype - none, Email Email - none, Skype, SMS, Slack, Hangouts, IRC, ICQ, iMessage, Signal, WhatsApp, Zephyr, FB Messenger, Instagram DM, BBM, Telegram, Twitter DM SMS - none, Email, Slack, Hangouts, IRC, Snapchat, iMessage, Signal, WeChat, WhatsApp, Zephyr, FB Messenger, Instagram DM, Peach, BBM, Twitter DM AIM - none Slack - Email, SMS, Hangouts, IRC, Signal Hangouts - Email, SMS, Slack, IRC, Signal IRC - Email, SMS, Slack, Hangouts, Signal Snapchat - SMS ICQ - Email iMessage - Email, SMS, Signal, FB Messenger Signal - Email, SMS, Slack, Hangouts, IRC, iMessage, Zephyr, Instagram DM WeChat - SMS WhatsApp - Email, SMS Zephyr - Email, SMS, Signal FB Messenger - Email, SMS, iMessage Instagram DM - Email, SMS, Signal Peach - SMS BBM - Email, SMS Telegram - none, Email Twitter DM - none, Email, SMS The "chat" tab in an old Google Doc - none Apache Request Log - none Wall (Unix) - none Wall (bathroom) - none
[Caption below the panel:] I have a hard time keeping track of which contacts use which chat systems.


Best-Tasting Colors

Explanation:
In this comic, Randall rates colors based on tastiness of various flavors, which makes it very similar to 388: Fuck Grapefruit .  The colors are sorted in descending order (from most tasty to least tasty) by the midpoint of their overall taste range.
Within each color, several individual items are placed at points marked by dots along a tastiness scale, with nine ticks ranging from bad (1) to good (9). For example, within the pink color band at the very top, watermelon is only rated 6/9 — much less tasty than cotton candy, which is almost at 9/9, making it the very best tasting flavor in the chart. Interestingly, watermelon is mentioned twice, as it is also listed under green. Usually people do not eat the green part of a watermelon, so it is strange that Randall has rated both types at almost the same level of tastiness. It could be that he sees the green watermelon as green, but also sees the pink fruit inside, so it is actually the pink fruit that is rated for both colors, or the chart is a rating of candy (such as jellybean or popsicle) flavors, as it is not uncommon for both green and pink to represent watermelon in those situations.
For pink, blue and white there are one, two and three regions, respectively labeled with "???". It is not clear what the purpose of these is. Perhaps they indicate regions in which Randall is unable to think of any examples, and is inviting the reader to speculate. For instance, are there any pink-colored foods more tasty than watermelon (6/9) but less tasty than cotton candy (8.5/9)? It could also be that he thinks there must be other interesting foods with this color, which could seem to be the case for white and blue, where there are a group of question marks above the most tasty labeled flavor blue raspberries and vanilla for white.  The latter is yet a joke, as vanilla is black, but is often used in white food such as vanilla ice, which he may have been thinking off, or just again messes with his readers.
The question marks thus imply an arbitrary tastiness assigned to a color that is not derived from an actual data point, however. For instance, the only blue datapoint is "blue raspberry", assigned a ranking of 5.5. But the range assigned to blue as a whole is 4 to 8. The regions on either side of the blue raspberry dot are labeled with ???.
There are a few exceptions with chocolate the most obvious as Randall makes a wide range for chocolate for brown, ranging from 2.5-9.5 out of 9. And the arrows here ends in single question marks indicating that the range could be even longer. In the title text he acknowledges the fact chocolate is its own thing and that regarding its taste reasonable people may differ in opinion.
The region for chocolate could not go further down because below the section for chocolate for brown food, there is another range with some other brown food items that Randall really does not like, caramel and especially coffee at 1.5/9. It may seem that Randall has never grown up to drink the drinks that society often dictates that you should drink. Not drinking Coffee (or hating it when you do) can be a problem with all the coffee breaks and meetings held over coffee etc. And as Randall has shown in 1534: Beer he also doesn't like beer...
Although it is not so clear as with chocolate pistachio is also split up with three lines indicating a range on the green from about 5 to 7 without any assigned point to their taste. And finally popcorn at 1.5/9 simply falls below the otherwise already low and slim rating range for yellow foods (2.5-3.5) with only lemon at 3/9 included. Many people love popcorn, but not especially for the corns actual taste, which is non existing if not for the adding of salt or sugar or other additives.
The worst taste by far to Randall, though, is licorice, and black food has a very small range from almost below 1 to less than 1.5. In USA it seems few people like licorice (although as most of the other mentioned food items, it may come in a wide variety of flavors and strengths). But in for instance northern Europe (Scandinavia) many people love it. See more explanations for all the mentioned flavors in the table below. It also seems that Randall's taste has changed over the nine years since the grapefruit comic.
In the title text, Randall asserts that his rankings of colors and flavors are indisputable (with the exception of chocolate). This together with rather obscure flavors included ("blue raspberry", "creamsicle") rather than more obvious choices, such as banana for yellow and carrot for orange could be a jab at the reception of his first food ranking comic, 388: Fuck Grapefruit which ranked fruits based on their tastiness and ease of consumption. Randall claims that it is the most controversial piece he has ever published. So all this is maybe just a way to generate even more controversy about this comic, and based on the discussion below he may have succeeded.
In 882: Significant researchers were studying the effect of eating 20 differently colored types of jelly beans (and all colors here are included except white).
[Caption above the chart:] Best-Tasting Colors
[Below the caption there is a scale with two large ticks (with labels written above) at either end and seven smaller ticks in between for nine ticks in total. The labels:] Bad Good
[Below the scale to the left is a numbered list of ten colors. Black double arrows goes under the scale. On the arrows there are labeled points, but there is also questions marks and other exceptions where text is not pointing to a point. Labels appear both above and below the arrows, but here the text is listed as it appears on the scale from left (bad) to right (good):] 1. Pink - Watermelon, ???, Cotton candy 2. Red - Raspberry, Cherry, Strawberry 3. Blue - ???, Blue raspberry, ??? 4. Green - Lime, Mint, Pistachio??, Watermelon, Green apple 5. White - ???, White chocolate, ???, Vanilla, ??? 6. Brown - Coffee, Caramel ? [However you feel about chocolate] ? 7. Orange - Orange, Creamsicle 8. Yellow - Popcorn?!, Lemon 9. Purple - Grape 10. Black - Licorice


Onboarding

Explanation:
This is another one of Beret Guy's mysterious businesses , in which he shows new employee Ponytail around the building in which the company resides. The process of showing a new employee around the business and starting to get them introduced to people and systems and procedures is often referred to as " onboarding " - hence the title of the comic.
The first panel starts out as a typical welcoming of the new employee to a small indie business. Very quickly, however, Beret Guy's explanation jumps to an existential viewpoint. Very rarely do conversations or introductions involve discussing the eventual fate of our bodies, and certainly not in a professional light as in this comic. Beret Guy, however, has no problem with discussing death and decay as just part of his business. This seemingly contradicts the title text in 1493: Meeting , where it is claimed that employees of the company can not physically die. However, this could be a new company he has started since then. Alternatively, this is a literal statement, perhaps related to the cursed Wi-Fi mentioned later in the comic.
In the second panel, Beret Guy shows Ponytail the free bikeshare system this business apparently has in place. Bikesharing is a system in which many users share one or more bikes among themselves. Typically the bikes belong to some of the members of the group who are allowing them to be used by other members who may not have one, but Beret Guy calmly remarks that this system will only exist "until whoever owns those bikes finds out", implying that they were not donated or shared by any member of the group, but are being used without permission or the knowledge of the true owner of the bikes. This is, thus, not actually a bikeshare, and would be more properly described as theft.
In the third panel, Beret Guy shows Ponytail that the laserjet is over there and the printer is over there, thus indicating that  the laserjet is not a printer. This is a bit disconcerting, since the HP LaserJet is in fact a common brand of laser printer , suggesting that his laserjet may be some rather more exotic device, such as a laser-propelled jet aircraft . In any case, however, the printer is not available, as it's been printing an infinite-scroll web page since 2013.
An infinite-scrolling web page is a web page that, as the name implies, seems to have no end. This style of webpage typically has no definite pages or sections, but instead continues to feed data to the screen as the user scrolls. In reality, trying to print one of these would only print the current section the user was viewing, and even if it was somehow able to infinitely print, the operator could theoretically cancel the operation at any time. Presumably, this continuous printing serves some useful purpose, e.g. prints latest news, because someone would have to be refilling the paper for the printer to have kept running this long; it would have run out of paper long ago otherwise.  Mistaken print jobs are sometimes notoriously difficult to stop due to many levels of buffering (application, printer driver, OS spooler, print server, printer device) and lapses in job control software.
Infinite scrolling (in the sense of an annoying UI design style for browsing large but finite documents) was previously covered in 1309: Infinite Scrolling . A similar separation of the phrase "laserjet printer" has been explored in 1681: Laser Products .
In the fourth panel, Beret Guy makes three more remarks.
Restrooms are all-digital—no pipes. While many technology standards nowadays are entirely digital, one's restroom is one of the things that most definitely should not be. A restroom without pipes would have no way to bring water in and transfer wastes away, and would most certainly be at the very least an unpleasant encounter. (It's implied that the waste is being transferred digitally, although this is obviously impossible .) This could also be a pun joking with the fact that a common (in the past and reappearing recently) technology in sound amplifiers is the use of tubes, but nowadays most sound amplifiers are all-digital. So a "latest technology" restroom cannot have pipes (synonym of tubes) and has to be all-digital.
The Wi-Fi is very fast, but cursed. Fast Wi-Fi is certainly desirable, but in this case, he claims it is also cursed. Whether the curse is a side-effect of the fast Wi-Fi or totally unrelated is left unsaid, as well as what the curse is. This could possibly be a joke relating to American slang: all technology can behave inexplicably from time to time, and Wi-Fi is notorious for randomly losing connection -- this is often exaggerated and called "cursed". Knowing Beret Guy, though, it's probably literal , perhaps purchased from one of the " mysterious shops that sell you magical items, and then it turns out they're cursed" .
Our server room is carbon-neutral but produces bismuth constantly. Normally, carbon-neutral would mean that it is designed to be environmentally friendly by reducing and offsetting its carbon emissions enough that it has no net effect on the environment. The term is a little bit confusing because the meaning is of course carbon-dioxide-neutral. But while carbon is not a common material used in servers, bismuth is used as lead replacement in some solders . While this replacement is often used because of the toxicity of lead , in this case it refers to an IBM mainframe computer where the Bi 58 Sn 42 alloy is used because of its low temperature soldering characteristics. So producing bismuth would destroy all the electric connections in the server. An alternative explanation is a compact nuclear reactor in the server room which can both make the server room carbon-neutral and leak bismuth (by creating it in the reactor).
In the last two panels, Beret Guy explains that Ponytail will be working on the infrastructure, which is apparently maintained by Lin-Manuel Miranda . He is among other things a songwriter but certainly not an engineer or anyone qualified to be responsible for an entire infrastructure. Ponytail knows about his songs and thus surprised asks if he is also an engineer. (This echoes 1665: City Talk Pages , which includes a train station designed by Andrew Lloyd Webber , a composer best known for writing The Phantom of the Opera ).
It is worth noting that Beret Guy actually acknowledges the mistake here, claiming the mistake "cost a fortune." This is unusual for Beret Guy, as he has of yet failed to acknowledge or recognize the oddity of every other aspect of his mysterious business, many of which are certainly stranger than this. However, he doesn't seem to mind this at all and does not wish to fire him. Instead he plans on fixing the mistake by hiring a real network engineer, Ponytail, to do the work alongside Miranda. Because, as Beret Guy continues to explain, the bright side of having Lin-Manuel Miranda in his business overshadows the lost fortune. Apparently Lin-Manuel Miranda is really nice and he makes karaoke nights fun, a clear reference to his engaging stage presence and vocal skills.
Off screen, Lin-Manuel Miranda is heard singing " How Far I'll Go ", which is a song that he composed for the Disney movie Moana . It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song in the 2017 show just a few weeks prior to this comic.
The title text mentions the potential dangers of having your server room constantly produce bismuth, but only as a prelude to a bismuth/business pun. Because of the earlier carbon reference, it could also be a parallel to the difficulty in convincing businesses to become more energy efficient and reduce greenhouse gas emissions despite the urgency, as Randall has often referred to in xkcd with 1732: Earth Temperature Timeline .
[Beret Guy shakes hands with Ponytail in front of a building while he points at the two large double doors under an unreadable sign.] Beret Guy: Hi! Welcome to the team! Beret Guy: We do business here and we'll turn into dirt later.
[Beret Guy and Ponytail walk by three bikes.] Beret Guy: This is our main campus. Beret Guy: We have a free bikeshare system, at least until whoever owns those bikes finds out.
[Beret Guy points forward as they walk on.] Beret Guy: The LaserJet is over there, and the printer is over there. Beret Guy: You can't use it right now; it's been printing an infinite-scroll webpage since 2013.
[Zoom in on their heads.] Beret Guy: Restrooms are all-digital - no pipes. Beret Guy: The WiFi is very fast, but cursed. Beret Guy: Our server room is carbon-neutral but produces bismuth constantly.
[Beret Guy has turned towards an off-panel Ponytail holding a hand out towards her.] Beret Guy: You'll be working on our infrastructure, which is currently maintained by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
[Zoom out to both facing each other. From the right singing is heard from off-panel, as indicated with two musical notes.] Ponytail: ...The songwriter? Is he also an engineer? Beret Guy: Nope, huge misunderstanding on our part. Cost a fortune. But he's really nice and it makes karaoke nights fun. Lin-Manuel Miranda (off-panel): How far I'll gooo


Vomiting Emoji

Explanation:
This comic relates to the recent Emoji v5.0 proposal for Unicode 10.0 which includes a vomiting emoji . Cueball initially states that the newly proposed emoji look good, until Megan points out the existence of the vomiting emoji.  While Cueball finds this distasteful, Megan rather seems to like it, going as far as suggesting rather than a single emoji, it should be possible to have a whole array of vomiting emojis by combining the vomiting action with other existing emojis.
Note: Some of the emojis below may not display correctly if your browser or operating system doesn't implement the latest Unicode standard.
Unicode is the computing industry standard for representing text. More recent additions have included emoji characters, such as grinning face (😁) or hands clapping (👏).  Each Unicode character is assigned a numerical code, usually written in hexadecimal notation.  For example, the grinning face emoji is assigned the code U+1F601, and the clap symbol is assigned U+1F44F.  Unicode also supports "combining modifiers" which allow, among other uses, placing accents on letters, adding decorations to other emojis, or changing the colors of flags or skin tones.  For example, letters such as A, O, or n together with a combining tilde (U+303) modifier result in those letters having a tilde glyph on top (Ã, Õ, ñ), and various emojis for people, such as 👨 or 👩, together with the medium-dark skin tone modifier (U+1F3FE), results in those same people with altered skin color (👨🏾, 👩🏾).
Along the same lines, Megan's proposal is to assign the code U+1F93F to be a combining modifier indicating vomiting.  Under this proposal, it would theoretically be possible to combine a vomiting modifier with any emoji to produce a vomiting version of that emoji.  Six examples are given in the last panel, with each being progressively more nonsensical.  The title text continues this and gives another example of a ridiculous combination.
The examples given in the comic are:
Most of these Emoji could be seen as related to the political situation in the USA at the moment, see more here .
Assigning Unicode characters to emojis has been controversial historically due to the fact that Unicode was created as a standard for text.  Emojis, which are essentially drawings of people or objects, aren't typically perceived as parts of text, and so leads some to object to co-opting the standard for non-text things.  Using combining modifiers to further expand emojis is also seen as an abuse of the original purpose of modifier characters.  As an alternative, emoji zero-width joiner sequences are in use, where an emoji is encoded as a series of simpler emoji and zero-width joiners.  In practice, this would probably be how the above characters would be implemented, instead of with a combining modifier.  Jokes that make fun of Unicode, involving emojis that shouldn't exist or inappropriate combinations thereof, are fairly common on the Internet.
In the title text of 1726: Unicode , Randall mentioned the proposed " brontosaurus " emoji in Unicode. And shortly before that Megan talked in similarly drawn emojis in 1709: Inflection . In general emoji has become a recurrent topic on xkcd.
[Cueball, looking at his smartphone, approaches Megan who is sitting in an office chair at a desk working on her laptop. Next to Megan's reply is a large yellow faced emjoi with closed eyes and a large open mouth from where a thick green stream of vomit is gushing out. ] Cueball: The proposed emoji for Unicode 10.0 look good. Megan: Hmm. Megan: "U+1F92E Face with open mouth vomiting"
[Cueball is holding his phone down looking at Megan's screen.] Cueball: Eww. Megan: Really, "vomiting" should be a combining modifier, so you can use it to make a vomiting version of any emoji. Cueball: Umm. Megan: I'm gonna write up a proposal.
[Megan's proposal with six examples of vomiting emoji. All six are colorful also apart from the green stream of vomit gushing out of mouth or holes when there is no mouth. Above the list is Megan's suggested title for the modifier, and the title for each emoji is next to them in the list. The cowboy is like the original version but with a hat. The Statue of Liberty is blue and bends forward to vomit. The gray dove has lost its green olive branch, now above its head. The yellow moon is in first quarter and has a face. The red and blue rocket has fire out the rear and the vomit out an open hatch. The yellow hand has a big hole in its center.] U+1F93F Vomiting modifier U+1F920 U+1F93F Vomiting cowboy U+1F5FD U+1F93F Vomiting Statue of Liberty U+1F54A U+1F93F Vomiting dove U+1F31B U+1F93F Vomiting moon U+1F680 U+1F93F Vomiting rocket ship U+270B U+1F93F Vomiting hand
Two years after this comic was published, in 2019, Unicode added U+1F93F in Unicode 12.0 and Emoji 12.0, but instead used the code for a diving mask emoji .


Color Pattern

Explanation:
The comic references moiré patterns in a parody of the song “ That's Amore ” made famous by Dean Martin in 1953 . (See trivia for pronunciation).
In mathematics, physics, and art, moiré patterns or moiré fringes are a kind of aliasing -- large scale interference patterns that can be produced when an opaque ruled pattern with transparent gaps is overlaid on another similar pattern. For the moiré interference pattern to appear, the two patterns must not be completely identical in that they must be displaced, rotated, etc., or have different but similar pitch. Moiré patterns appear in many different situations. In printing, the printed pattern of dots can negatively interfere with the image. In television and digital photography, a pattern on an object being photographed can interfere with the shape of the light sensors to generate unwanted artifacts .
In digital photography or videography, moiré patterns occur when the pattern of pixels on the image sensor are not 100% identically aligned with patterns on the subject being photographed.  Photographs of a digital screen taken with a digital camera often exhibit moiré patterns, since it is very difficult to align the camera sensor's grid with the screen's pixel grid perfectly.  This is the problem Cueball ran into, where the photo he just took of his computer screen is covered in weird rainbow patterns (the color patterns from the title).  It is possible to reduce this effect by changing the distance and angle between the camera and the screen.  There can also be bands of uneven brightness on digital photos or videos of electronic displays, those are caused by scan lines and are different from the moiré patterns described in this comic.
Megan responds to Cueball's complaint with a song that explains moiré patterns. Her song is a parody of the song That's Amore , where "Amore" means "love" in Italian. The pun is that "That's a Moiré" and "That's Amore" are phonetically quite similar . The title text continues the song with a second verse, again with musical notes indicating that it should be sung. More information on when moiré patterns occur is given here, indicating that the space between the grid lines should be small and the two grids should be almost identical, for the maximum moiré effect. This verse, however, could also work if a moiré was changed to amore , as two people squeezed tight together, and without much difference between them could lead to a romantic relationship.
Randall was not the first to spoof this song using "a moiré" instead of "Amore". His two verse version, two verses from the original song, and other prior versions can be found below .
It is the second time that Randall has changed the lyrics to "That’s Amore", although the first time, in 321: Thighs , he only changed eye to thigh in the original versions first verse.
It turns out that Randall was not the first to spot the possibility of changing the lyrics from "That’s Amore" to "That's a Moiré." Verses are shown below as follows: the lyrics first to the original song, then to Randall's song from this comic, and below that other songs (with citations).
The two first verse in the original song :
When a moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie That's amore
When the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine That's amore
The entire version of Megan's ( Randall's ) song is:
When a grid's misaligned with another behind That's a moiré...
When the spacing is tight And the difference is slight That's a moiré
A similar song based on the same pun was made by Craig Swanson in 1993 and can be found on his web comic Perspicuity in this comic: That's a Moiré . His song text was:
When new lines hit your eyes From two screens when they ply That's a Moire!
Jamie Zawinski and Michael Bayne wrote a similar verse for the Moiré screensaver they made in 1997 (search for that's to find it on the linked page):
When the lines on the screen Make more lines in between, That's a moiré!
[Cueball holds up his smartphone in front of his laptop which stands in front of him on a desk. Megan is sitting in an armchair reading, facing away from Cueball. She is singing her reply, as indicated with four double musical notes around her two lines of text.] Cueball: I took a picture of my computer screen—why is the photo covered in these weird rainbow patterns? Megan: When a grid's misaligned with another behind Megan: That's a moiré...


Flag

Explanation:
Presumably Randall was hired by a committee to propose a new flag for an unspecified country. His process of editing the flag involved taking a screenshot of his design to export it, a mistake that went unnoticed by anyone until the flag was officially implemented.
Once the problem was pointed out, the design committee placed the blame on Randall, but could not immediately undo their decision until new suggestions had been submitted and a new committee could agree on another design. Thus the country is now stuck with this design, making it the only country with such a bar in the flag.
The title text mentions a compromise bill that will change the flag. This implies that the flag was approved with the status bar included. Apparently, there is some controversy about removing the status bar from the flag, as the compromise bill proposes keeping the status bar and changing the displayed percentage of the battery from 39% to 100%. This may be wordplay on the term "charge" as used in vexillology , where it refers to a figure appearing on the background of the flag. It may also be a reference to 1373: Screenshot .
The bar in notification bar , is a vexillological descriptor, as in the " Stars and Bars ," a term used for the first flag of the Confederate States of America , not to be confused with the counting technique.
Flags are often minimalist and involve geometric shapes and solid colors. A notification bar at the top of the flag would clash with these design elements and look unprofessional. [ citation needed ] The flag in the comic is otherwise well-designed, conforming with a principle of heraldry and vexillology known as the rule of tincture : the "metals" consist of white/silver and yellow/gold, while the "colours" consist of red, blue, green, black, and purple; anything in the "metal" category should only be placed upon a background of the "colour" category and vice versa.
The elements of the flag's intended design—the colors red, white, and blue; the use of stripes; and the star emblems—are the same that are used in the American flag the Stars and Stripes .
The elements of this flag are, however, also present in several other existing flags, like those derived from Union Jack , the flag of the United Kingdom , and like the flags of Australia and New Zealand . They are also in the flags of North Korea , Liberia , and Malaysia . The flags from USA, Australia, Liberia and Chile have white stars , and those of USA and Liberia have white bars as well.
The low battery status might imply that the country is low on resources. It thus seems like people have taken the reference to modern times smartphones to their hearts and actually wish to have this very modern design.
But if they indeed continue with this idea, thinking that their country would look better with a full battery charge, they might also consider changing the 3G connection to the newer 4G or 5G version, according to what was available at that time in that location, and giving the phone a full signal (5/5 instead of only 3/5 dots). And maybe also choose a time that would mean something rather than 5:48 PM. For instance noon/midnight, or 8:00.
The reason such a status bar could be missed in the first place could be that most people today look at pictures on their smartphones all the time, and thus their own phone's status bar is indirectly included at the top of all the pictures they see. People thus do not notice these status bars any longer as they are always there and clearly not important for the picture. Randall has mentioned before, in 1373: Screenshot , that he cannot take smartphone screenshots seriously if the battery of the device is low, as he cannot focus on the content, becoming afraid his own device is running out of power—a problem that only occurs if he sees it on his smartphone, as he then becomes concerned that it is his phone that is about to run out of charge. But in this status bar, there is still 39%, enough not to cause immediate concern. His fear of losing his on-line connection like this was the joke in the comic 1802: Phone released about a month before this one.
Since Randall was asked to create this flag, it seems most likely that he would have to be a citizen of this new country. It could thus indicate that a group of states has broken free from the United States to form their own smaller union of three states, one for each star. With the current political situation in the states after Donald Trump’s inauguration there has been some talk about states leaving the USA, and Randall has clearly been against the election of Trump, see 1756: I'm With Her . His choice of comic subjects seems to have been affected by the election result. Since Randall lives in Massachusetts , it could be this and two other nearby states that have formed their own new union of states, maybe the other two small states Connecticut and Rhode Island .
[A three-colored flag is shown, divided in vertical thirds. The left and rightmost parts of the flag are dark blue, and the center is red and each section has a large white star in its center. Neighboring thirds are separated by a thinner white vertical stripe. At the top of the flag, there is an off-white status bar like one found at the top of an iOS smart device. On the left it is displaying the strength of the connection (3/5 dots), in the center it is displaying the time and on the right there are three small icons the last is the battery charge:] 3G 5:48 PM 39%
[Below the panel there are two captions] The design committee fired me once they realized that my editing process involved a screenshot, but it was too late. Until they change it, our new country has the only national flag to include a phone notification bar.


Mispronunciation

Explanation:
This comic is a meta-joke where Cueball explains to White Hat which words he often spells or pronounces incorrectly. Ironically, those words happen to be words whose definitions mean "to spell incorrectly" and "being pronounced incorrectly".  While describing the words he says he has trouble with, he manages to use the same words correctly in sentences both inside quotation marks (to refer to the word itself) and outside (to describe the action corresponding to those words).
The word misspell is misspelled quite often (although not in this comic!). Misspell is quite commonly misspelled as mispell or miss-spell . Some might argue that misspelled is the one word which should always be misspelled intentionally and written mispelled , so that its orthography reflects its meaning. ("If it isn't mispelled, then it isn't mispelled !")
The word mispronunciation is often misspelled and mispronounced like "mispronounciation", with the middle part like "noun" instead of "nun".  This is made even more confusing by the fact that the related word, "pronounce", does in fact have "noun" in the middle.
The punchline comes when Cueball tells that the epitome of mispronunciation is the way Cueball pronounces epitome . This is also metahumor, as epitome refers to a very good or perfect example. Thus Cueball shows the epitome of mispronunciation when he incorrectly pronounces epitome .
The title text explains Cueball's mispronunciation of epitome. It is supposed to be pronounced in four syllables, /əˈpɪtəmi/ (uh-PIH-tuh-mee), starting with a schwa , then emphasis on the second syllable pronounced like "pit", and a long E on the fourth syllable pronounced like "me". Instead, he pronounces it /ˈɛpɪtoʊm/ (EPPY-tome), with emphasis on the first part pronounced like the beginning of "epic", and a silent E on the second part pronounced like "tome". The mispronounced version is what a person unfamiliar with the word might reasonably guess, given other words with similar spelling like "epicenter", "epitaph", and "episode".
EpiPen , a trademark for a type of epinephrine autoinjector (i.e. adrenaline), is brought up to further illustrate the inconsistency between spelling and pronunciation.  This time the word is supposed to be pronounced with an emphasized "EPPY", but he (intentionally?) mispronounces it like "uh-PIE", possibly to match other proper nouns such as Epirus and Epione .
[White Hat and Cueball are walking.] Cueball: I sometimes misspell "misspell" and "mispronunciation," and I mispronounce "mispronunciation," Cueball: But the epitome of mispronunciation is probably the way I pronounce "epitome."


Incognito Mode

Explanation:
A woman (maybe a different version of Blondie , or Rachel from Animorphs) warns Cueball about not browsing for more than two hours in incognito mode as he might get stuck there forever.
Incognito mode/private mode is a feature in a web browser that automatically clears any cookies and web history when the browser window is closed, but does not shield you from censorship, malware, or tracking . One could become metaphorically "trapped" in this mode if they don't want to lose this data (for example if they've found a useful page which they want to refer back to, or if they're on a website like YouTube which uses cookies to provide recommended videos and they're finding the recommendations interesting), meaning that they can never close the browser again. Presumably this is more likely to happen after a longer browsing session. The only option to keep browsing data when the incognito/private session is closed is to bookmark or write down the URLs of interesting pages; there is no way to keep the cookies, so things such as recommended YouTube videos from within the incognito browsing session will inevitably be lost when it is closed.
As a side note, desktop users can use a browser extension to export the list of open tabs, but mobile browsers usually can not. However, mobile browsers might deny basic features such as saving pages and screenshots in incognito mode, making it unattractive to use. And currently, there is no way to back up cookies from incognito mode on either browser type.
Animorphs is a book series by K. A. Applegate featuring several teenagers who have a special power: they can morph into various animals whose DNA they have absorbed through alien technology. However, if they stay morphed for over two hours, they will get stuck in that form until they die (this is presumably where the "two hours" in the comic comes from).
In this comic Randall pokes fun at this by relating it to surfing in incognito mode/privacy mode in a browser. As explained above, staying for too long in incognito mode may cause the user to become "stuck" in this mode until something causes the browser to close, such as the browser/computer crashing or a power failure. This is analogous to the Animorphs who become stuck in animal form if they spend too long in that form.
An alternative interpretation revolves around the use of incognito/private browsing modes when the user is paranoid. They may use this mode if, for example, they don't want the risk of anyone else discovering what they've been doing online, and they find it safer to simply use incognito mode rather than manually deleting the relevant cookies and browsing history afterwards. If they use this mode a lot, the sense of paranoia that initially led them to use incognito mode can reinforce itself, and over time they may become uncomfortable browsing outside of incognito mode. This is another way in which one may become "trapped" in incognito mode after extended use.
The caption explains that tech tips from Animorphs are the worst, i.e. the woman is an Animorph, and this was not good advice. [ citation needed ]
The title text continues the idea that an Animorph tech support team would be the worst possible explaining that their solutions are always the same. And then it gives an example which references a common occurrence in the Animorphs book series wherein the protagonists uses their ability to morph into animals to infiltrate enemy strongholds. In the example it is an update for Apple's OS X (a popular commercial operating system), that broke something. The solution is to infiltrate Apple by morphing apples. Morphing into fruits is nonsensical within the rules for morphing, put forth in the books, since the children can only turn into animals and not into fruits like apples. It would also be very ineffective, since fruits can't move on their own. Plus, Apple Inc. has little to do with actual apples, so this is not a good form to infiltrate their headquarters (morphing into bugs or even Apple's employees would be more effective, and is allowed by books' rules). Randall is not the first to propose morphing into vegetables as an Animorph's parody .
Animorphs has been referenced before, first only in the title texts of 1187: Aspect Ratio and 1360: Old Files , and then later in the main comic in 1380: Manual for Civilization , with the books being the actual manual...
[A woman with long blonde hair (maybe a version of Blondie) holds both arms up as she addresses Cueball who is sitting in an office chair working on his laptop.] Woman: ...But remember—if you browse in incognito mode for more than two hours, you'll be trapped there forever!
[Caption below the panel:] Animorphs tech tips


Rayleigh Scattering

Explanation:
This comic suggests it is better to explain things in an easy-to-understand and intuitive manner, even if such explanations may not capture all of the scientific detail involved.  This is especially the case for children whose ability to grasp abstract physics has not yet fully developed.  Giving the most complete and physically accurate explanation would make the concepts much more elaborate than necessary, and would cause major confusion in inexperienced listeners.
The principle is demonstrated by the explanation on why the sky is blue .  The commonly given explanation for this is, as the comic title says, Rayleigh scattering .  However, in order to understand how Rayleigh scattering works to produce a blue color, one must go into quantum mechanics and deal with properties of molecules in air and their effects on different wavelengths of light.  Even then, one will also need to know about the inner workings of human visual perception to realize why the color we perceive isn't the wavelength that's being most strongly scattered (see 1145: Sky Color ).  The child is not likely to understand this kind of explanation.
On the other hand, a much simpler explanation, such as "because air is blue" — that is, air molecules reflect blue light, in the same way blue paint reflects blue light — also adequately explains the phenomenon, and is much more understandable to less physically inclined listeners. When Science Girl asks Blondie (possibly Miss Lenhart ) why the sky is blue, Megan walks in and starts to explain in a very scientific way involving quantum mechanics. This is criticized by Blondie, who then convinces her that the simpler explanation is sufficient, as there is a quantum mechanical explanation for every color, there is no need to elaborate on the sky's color any more than any other object's color.
Megan implicitly accepts this, but then in the final panel, Science Girl asks another common question - how do planes fly? Megan starts again to give the traditional answer (airflow causing lift ) but is interrupted by Blondie saying that it's because the wings of an airplane are full of small birds.  While this might not be as ridiculous as it first seems (the child might later learn that the "tiny birds" are actually air molecules, and "flapping wings" are actually pressure differentials), it is certainly over-simplified to a staggering extent.  Thus Megan and Blondie illustrate the two extremes of education philosophy: where one chooses to teach the complete truth with no regard for whether it's understandable, the other chooses to make up understandable explanations with no regard for whether it's true.  Arguably, neither approach is in the student's best interest and a balance needs to be achieved.
When Science Girl reacts like she believes Blondie's last comment about the planes, she could almost have been called April Fool. Although this comic was released one day too early for that, this was also the only year between April 1st of 2011 and April 1st of 2018 where no such comic was released. See more about this in the trivia section below.
The title text refers to another common question as for why leaves are green. This is commonly explained by the fact that they are filled with chlorophyll , a chemical used by plants for photosynthesis. Randall points out that it would be an equally valid question to ask why chlorophyll is green. This poses an interesting contrast to the answer to the question about the color of the sky, since even physicists are usually satisfied with the general explanation for leaves and don't feel the need to jump into describing quantum phenomena that cause chlorophyll to reflect green light.  Also, "Why does chlorophyll scatter green light" may be a great question because chlorophyll reflects, not scatters, light and this challenges Megan-types to coherently explain the difference before they go challenging little children with pedantry. Or because green light is less efficient during photosynthesis, and explaining that is similar to explaining Rayleigh Scattering.
What-if 141 also mentions the simpler explanation to the original question: Sunbeam has this relevant text: "Normal light interacts with the atmosphere through Rayleigh scattering. You may have heard of Rayleigh scattering as the answer to 'why is the sky blue.' This is sort of true, but honestly, a better answer to this question might be 'because air is blue.' Sure, it appears blue for a bunch of physics reasons, but everything appears the color it is for a bunch of physics reasons." There is also a footnote in that comment with an additional example: "When you ask, 'Why is the statue of liberty green?' the answer is something like, 'The outside of the statue is copper, so it used to be copper-colored. Over time, a layer of copper carbonate formed (through oxidation), and copper carbonate is green.' You don't say 'The statue is green because of frequency-specific absorption and scattering by surface molecules.' "
Randall himself has published Thing Explainer which gives simplified descriptions of complex scientific and technological objects.  Even in his book, some of the more advanced details have been simplified to a toy model (such as calling liquid oxygen "cold wet air" and a nuclear reactor "box of burning metal").
[Science Girl asks Blondie a question which she answers while lifting her arm towards Science Girl.] Science Girl: Why is the sky blue? Blondie: Because air is blue.
[Megan walks in from behind Science Girl.] Megan: No, the sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering– Blondie: Nah, it's because air is blue. Blue light bounces off it and hits our eyes. Same as why anything is any color.
[Zoom in on Blondie's face.] Blondie: It's why far-off mountains look blue – because of all the blue air in the way.
[Zoom out to Megan standing longer from Science Girl than Blondie who has thrown her arms out. Science Girl is facing directly out towards the reader.] Megan: There's a specific quantum mechanism by which– Blondie: Yeah but there's a physics mechanism for every color. You don't have to get all quantum right away.
[Frameless panel with Science Girl looking up at Blondie who stands holding her hands on her sides. Megan speaks from off-panel.] Megan (off-panel): ...OK, I guess. Blondie: Any other questions? Science Girl: How do planes stay up?
[Blondie holds a finger up in front of Science Girl while Megan now is the one to throw out her arms.] Megan: Well, the airflow– Blondie: Tiny birds in the wings. Thousands. Flapping hard. Science Girl: WOW! Megan: NO!


Sweet 16

Explanation:
March Madness , with its championship played on the day this comic was published, is a colloquial name for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament, which features 68 American college basketball teams in an elimination bracket. Due to the setup, the 16 teams that make it to the third round of the tournament (or fourth if counting the "First Four") are sometimes called the "Sweet 16", hence the title. Winning a third round game means that a team is part of the "Elite Eight," who can win to move on to the "Final Four," and then to the championship game, where a winner is crowned.
This is the second time Randall has made a bracket with strange opponents meeting each other in a bracket; the first was 1529: Bracket and brackets were mentioned a second time in 2131: Emojidome . References to basketball is a recurring subject on xkcd, as is Randall's lack of interest for sport in general .
In this comic, the bracket, see details below , of the final 16 is not filled in with actual college team names, but descriptions of the odd circumstances of each team. For example, the first team is "a school with a dog on their team", a reference to Air Bud . The team descriptions become increasingly bizarre, comprising varied sports and pop culture references and often building on and playing off of previous team descriptions.
The first four teams on the left are composed partially or completely of animals, which are most likely pets, but could be animals for assisting disabled persons, emotional support animals, police dogs, feral cats, etc. The next two teams consist of some form of baseball -basketball crossover. The bottom two teams on the left feature developers and players of NBA 2K17 , a basketball video game by 2K Games.
The first team on the right, the 1988 Los Angeles Lakers is an actual historical NBA team; though the particular team from 1988 would not exist today, it could be a team of the same players, who would now be in their mid-50s or 60s. They are paired against a team of four kindergartners and current Cleveland player Lebron James (born 1984), who was also a kindergartner in 1988. James was considered the best active NBA player as of 2017. Ironically, LeBron James has since become a Laker, as of the 2019-20 NBA season; he has become the first NBA player to win a championship in 3 different teams (having previously won titles with the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers).
The next two teams feature basketball- boxing crossovers. The bracket after that features teams on unconventional mobility aids, Segways and stilts .
The final two teams are Cinderella teams . A Cinderella story is when a weak team works hard to achieve success. The final team consists of players wearing glass slippers, often a part of the Cinderella fairy tale.
The title text explains what the heck Randall was doing to make this comic: Randall is incredibly out of touch with sports, or at least their traditions. During March Madness a popular pastime is to take a look at the starting bracket of all 68 teams and speculate who will win each round. This activity is sometimes associated with gambling, where the person with the most correct bracket could potentially win money. Randall, when handed a blank bracket, instead fills it with teams he wants to see play rather than who is actually in the tournament. A bracket is considered "busted" when a number of predicted teams lose earlier than expected. In this case, since Randall's Sweet 16 does not include any of the real teams participating in the tournament, his bracket is busted from the beginning.
As neither this comic from April 3rd or the previous comic, 1818: Rayleigh Scattering from March 31st was one of Randall's April fools' comics , this was the first year since 2010 with no April Fools' Day comic. See more on this in the Trivia section for the previous comic.
Two years later in 2019 the April Fools' comic 2131: Emojidome , was using such a bracket as above to match 512 emojis to find the best emoji. Same time of year, so probably again a reference to March Madness.
[The comic shows a direct elimination bracket (a single-elimination tournament): there is a single match played by every pair of teams, and the winners of those matches are paired up for the next round of matches, this continues until there are no more matches to be played. There are sixteen teams described here (hence the number in the title), eight on each side of the empty rectangle in the middle. Every two teams are connected, these connectors are then also connected, these connectors are yet again connected, and a final pair of connectors, after making one counter-clockwise right angle turn, end up in the top and bottom edges of the central rectangle. The bracket is empty, no results of any of the matches are indicated.]
[These are paired.] A school with a dog on their team A school whose team is entirely dogs [These are paired.] A dog team with one human A dog team with one cat [These are paired.] A baseball team playing basketball A basketball team with baseball gear [These are paired.] NBA2K17 top players NBA2K17 top developers [These are paired.] The 1988 Los Angeles lakers Four kindergarteners and Lebron James [These are paired.] Boxers playing basketball Basketball players in boxing gloves [These are paired.] A team playing on stilts A team playing on Segways [These are paired.] A bad team that would make a good Cinderella story A good team playing in glass slippers


Security Advice

Explanation:
The comic depicts a conversation between Cueball and Ponytail , discussing the fact that giving people security advice in the past has failed to improve their internet security, and in some cases even made things worse.  One such example is telling people to create complicated passwords containing numbers and symbols, which not only made the passwords harder to remember (leading people to create huge security risks by leaving post-it notes with their passwords on their computer monitor ), but did not actually make those passwords harder to crack (see 936: Password Strength ).
As a result, Cueball suggests using reverse psychology and give out bad advice instead, in hopes of achieving a positive effect. The last panel contains a list with 13 security tips, which are parodies of actual security tips. The title text is just one more tip. See table below for explanations for all 14 tips.
This comic is yet another tips comic .
[Cueball is listening to Ponytail who holds her hands out in front of her.] Ponytail: We've been trying for decades to give people good security advice. Ponytail: But in retrospect, lots of the tips actually made things worse.
[Cueball takes his hand to his chin as Ponytail takes her arms down.] Cueball: Maybe we should try to give bad advice? Ponytail: I guess it's worth a shot.
[Below these two panel is one large and long panel with a long list with 13 tips. The underlined heading and the bracket below it are centered above the bullet list below.] Security tips (Print out this list and keep it in your bank safe deposit box.)


Incinerator

Explanation:
Cueball and Ponytail have just finished installing an incinerator for some unspecified purpose at some establishment. Ponytail brings up the problem of having to get rid of the old incinerator, and Cueball begins to suggest using the new incinerator to incinerate the old one, but he is shut down by Ponytail off-panel. This makes him noticeably disappointed, probably because the idea of using an incinerator to destroy an incinerator is novel to him.
Throwing an incinerator inside another incinerator would probably break some kind of regulations or safety concerns, and since incinerators are meant to withstand their own high heat capacities it would be ineffective anyway.
The title text implies that this comic was inspired by recent events at Randall 's house: his trash can broke and he struggled with how to dispose of it. At least for Randall, there is something wrong with forcing anything to destroy something of its own kind -- in this case, throwing the old trash can in the new trash can. Since machines have no human emotion [ citation needed ] this would not cause any trauma for the machine , but the humans in charge might feel as if something is wrong, and Randall mentions having an existential crisis . This is because humans tend to project human qualities onto the machines they are working with ( anthropomorphization ), thus possibly framing the situation in the context of something like cannibalism or homicide.
Another way of taking it would be in the sense of "being replaceable". Many people live without wanting to think of what might happen to everything around them after they die, but in this title text one can start comparing the trash can to themselves — the same way the trash can turns into something to be disposed and replaced with a new one after it becomes useless, what about people then? What will happen to you when you grow older? Should you suddenly go sick and become useless? How about in your job, what would happen if someone more superior than you comes around and starts threatening your hard-earned position?
Yet another interpretation is that while disposing of the trash can, Randall realized that he was now in the same situation as the trash can itself. The trash can was a tool used by others, in order to dispose of trash. And yet, in time, the trash can itself became trash and had to be disposed of by Randall. Which makes one wonder if Randall is himself a tool created/used by others, who will one day dispose of Randall when he has outlived his usefulness, the same way that he disposed of the trash can when it outlived its usefulness. From this perspective, Randall is simply a more intelligent and autonomous trash-junking-tool, different in degrees but similar in nature to his own trash can.
Many people define themselves by the things they do and are capable of. The idea of losing those, and then being replaced for it, is a bitter pill that we will all have to swallow at some point. All things must come to end after all, including ourselves.
A more simple reason for this may be that for almost anything else you might pick up, having done so you now have the option to put it in the trash can. Picking up the trash can itself (perhaps just to work out if it is beyond use) simultaneously removes "the trash can you may opt to put something you hold in" from its usual point in your normally instintively simple mental mapping of the domestic universe.
Plus, actually throwing out a garbage can can be surprisingly difficult .
Another device to perform a meta-action was previously explored in 952: Stud Finder .
[Cueball and Ponytail stand next to an incinerator, with a combustion chamber and flue that rises up to the top of the frame.] Ponytail: Great, the new incinerator is installed. Now we just need to dispose of the old one.
[Ponytail walks out of the frame.]
[Cueball lowers his head, beat panel]
[Cueball raises his hand and begins to ask a question.] Cueball: Hey, could— Ponytail (off-panel): No. Cueball: Aww, maaan.


Existential Bug Reports

Explanation:
Megan is sitting at her desk, writing an error report. Her description of the issue is fairly standard, albeit somewhat vague: A recent software update has broken the support for hardware she needs for her job.  Most likely, she is saying that her OS is now reporting a piece of hardware is no longer supported.  This is self-evidently problematic for her, as described in her error report.
The humor in this strip comes from her own suggested workaround (a short-term method of working despite the problem), which is absurd as she proposes simply waiting for the Sun to consume the Earth when it turns into a red giant towards the end of its lifetime approximately 5 billion years from now.
While this would eliminate the issue, as both the hardware and software as well as Megan and her job would all cease to exist, this would not be helpful to Megan as it does not address the underlying problem of her being unable to work in the present. 5 billion years is also far in excess of the lifespan of humans [ citation needed ] and operating systems alike. Lastly, as it does not allow Megan to actually continue her work, it's not strictly speaking a workaround.
In the title text, Randall asks for a workaround from Megan's "workaround". He writes it down as another bug report, as though it were a software problem. The answer is that there is none . Randall in his crisis see no way to prevent Earth from being consumed by the Sun. However, one possible workaround could be evacuation of the Solar System, as if humanity still exists by the time the Earth's destruction occurs, we will likely have highly advanced technology. Maybe at that time it would even be possible to move the Earth , first further out to prevent both the engulfment and also the earlier evaporation of the oceans and later it could then be moved back in when the sun turns into a white dwarf .
Megan has previously expressed such existential problems in 220: Philosophy , where Randall presented a solution for it. Similar she was depressed in 1111: Premiere , where it was the boiling away of the oceans, mentioned above, that was her concern.
[Megan is sitting in an office chair at her desk typing on her laptop. Above her are two light-gray frames with text. Above each frame is a bold header:] Issue: Recent update broke support for hardware I need for my job.
Workaround: If we wait long enough, the Earth will eventually be consumed by the Sun.


Hottest Editors

Explanation:
The comic has a play on the word 'Editor'. The editors from 1995 to 2015 are software text editors, and the editor(s) from 2020 onward are genomic editing techniques that edit DNA .
Text editors are popular among programmers and computer scientists to edit machine-readable text, as well as other digital files.
Two of the earlier editors, Vim and Emacs , traditionally use the keyboard (rather than the mouse) to perform common actions (like scrolling, marking text, saving, and searching).
As Vim and Emacs use different keyboard commands in different styles, proficiency in one editor does not make it easy to use the other.
The " Editor wars " refers to Vim and Emacs users debating heavily over which of the two editors is the best (keyboard bindings is just one argument). This debate was previously mentioned in 378: Real Programmers .
More modern editors (including Notepad++ and Sublime Text) mainly use keyboard shortcuts that are global to the operating system, again different from Vim and Emacs.
Notepad++ is a popular text and source code editor, initially released in 2003 and available only for the Windows platform. Sublime Text is the current "most popular" text editor according to this comic; it was released in 2008. Sublime Text, Vim, and Emacs are cross-platform.
The 2020 editor ' CRISPR ' is not a text editor, but a technique used to edit DNA in a pre-existing genome. The technique has experienced a surge of recent attention in the media (beginning with the 2016 publication of "The Heroes of CRISPR" and litigation over the patent ownership), suggesting it may become the most popular "editor" in years to come. The joke lies in the comic intentionally not distinguishing between text/code editing and genome editing.
It may also suggest that we will not be editing digital plain-text files, but DNA in 2020, possibly due to very recent advances in DNA digital data storage .
Many pieces of software that contain editing functions (in text boxes, on command lines, etc.) offer Emacs and/or Vim keybindings: the keys will be (roughly) the same as in Emacs or in Vim, so that someone familiar with one of those editors can use the keyboard without learning something new.
The comic suggests that in 2025, the Vim key-bindings will be the most popular for editing genes using CRISPR.
This creates a comical effect: CRISPR is a technique that operates on genes and not on digital hardware, so it does not use a keyboard per se. Consequently, it is surprising that CRISPR would have key bindings. The comic also suggests that in 2025, Vim will make a comeback in DNA editing, thus having 'won' the battle with Emacs.
The title text says that Randall has been banned from the code base of Tesla , as he keeps sending pull requests (code changes) to steer a Tesla car using Vim keybindings. Not only does this seem implausible,  but it seems dangerous to steer a car with a (computer) keyboard. The arguably most important keybindings of a text editor are those to move the editing location (the cursor) around. Vim classically uses the h , j , k , and l keys for left , down , up , and right functions, although it also supports the arrow keys present on modern keyboards. To use these in a vehicular context, up and down would probably, as in many racing games, be mapped to acceleration and braking, respectively. One additional problem with using essentially binary inputs (key pressed or not) as a replacement for a car's steering wheel is achieving different degrees of direction change. Pressing, say, the h key could either cause the car to turn its wheels left by a pre-set, fixed amount, or it could turn them left the more the longer the key is held down. There has been a spoof based on the reverse principle, however.
[A short list with a heading above a line and below that a list of seven years increasing with 5 years intervals. After each year are gray lines that leads to the name of an editor, except for the first two years, where there is a two row square bracket around the first entry;] Hottest Editors -------------------- 1995-2000—[Emacs–Vim Editor war] 2005—Vim 2010—Notepad++ 2015—Sublime Text 2020—CRISPR 2025—CRISPR (Vim keybindings)


Identification Chart

Explanation:
Some aircraft are named after creatures of flight, including birds of prey , other birds, and insects. This comic spoofs an "identification guide" of bird silhouettes, each with the fuselage of an aircraft and the wings of the flying animal from which the aircraft gets its name. All are birds with the exception of the hornet which is an insect, see the table below for individual explanations.
This idea of having feathered wings on a plane is absurd, as bird wings (for birds that can fly) are made to support the lightweight structure of a bird. Supporting the metal parts of a plane along with its human pilot would be impossible. [ citation needed ]
General military training often includes aircraft identification. Silhouette charts are given to ground observers for memorization and reference so that friend or foe can be determined in the field. Conversely, many bird watching books will carry pictures of avian silhouettes from below, as often key details like tail and wing shape are the easiest way to determine the species of a high soaring bird, especially birds of prey. (Two comics later Cueball is out birdwatching with his friend in 1826: Birdwatching and could need such a chart, if he could spot any birds that is. A hawk, that is actually a drone, was spotted in 1910: Sky Spotters .)
The pseudo-confusion between birds and planes here could be a reference to the "It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman" quote often used in, naturally, Superman -related entertainment. A similar joke was used in 1792: Bird/Plane/Superman .
The comic highlights not only the various designs of aircraft tails, but also bird wings. Some wings are highly adapted for soaring (eagle), speed (falcon), as well as rapid acceleration and short flights (blackbird).
The title text is juxtaposing military air bases with breeding nests of the animals, both of which might earn a hostile response to approach at the wrong time, but in wildly different measure. Encroaching on breeding territory of some of the birds being referenced may result in getting dived at or chased, so the comparison invites the reader to imagine what might happen if the analogous creatures in the comic were defending their nest with aircraft ordnance. And if the birds were armed, with the missiles normally found on a military aircraft then imagine what would happen... This could also be a reference to the increasing hostility between US and Russia, as well as the generally more strained relationship US now has with many countries after the election of Donald Trump for president half a year before this comic was released. This is also the second comic to refer to the military in less than two months, the first being 1803: Location Reviews reviewing a Nuclear Launch Facility. Randall has seemed very worried in his comics since the election, see more regarding this here .
The idea of a bird with plane engines was first used in 1729: Migrating Geese , which also shows birds in silhouette. The third last bird in the right arm of the V-formation has twin engines.
[A silhouette identification guide chart shows eight silhouettes in two rows. The silhouettes are a combination of the fuselage of an aircraft and the wings of birds, or in the second case an insect. Below each silhouette is a label:] Osprey  Hornet  Falcon  Harrier Eagle  Kestrel  Hawk  Blackbird


7 Eleven

Explanation:
This comic pokes fun at the idiosyncrasies of time keeping.  Since units of time are intimately tied to a planet's rotation, and planets rotate at different rates, time keeping doesn't always follow a simple pattern.
Many stores advertise being open 24/7, which means that they're open all day, every day. Many locations of the convenience store chain 7-Eleven are now "open 24 hours", again meaning they are always open (despite historically being open only from 7 AM to 11 PM local time, hence its name).
The main joke in the comic refers to the fact that a day on Mars (the time it takes for Mars to make a full rotation on its own axis) is about 24 hours and 37 minutes.  If a 7-11 store is open for literally 24 hours per Mars day, then it would actually be closed for around 37 minutes each day.  NASA, for its Mars missions, uses a "Mars-hour" that is one twenty-fourth of a Martian day; had the sign implicitly referred to 24 Mars-hours then the store would be open for the entire Mars day.
The duration for the Martian day used by Randall is the Martian sidereal day (how long it takes the non-Sun stars to get to the same position in the sky) of 24 hours, 37 minutes, and 22.663 seconds. However, Mars exploration missions use the Martian solar day (how long it takes the Sun to get to the same position in the sky) or sol of 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. Thus in practice, the 7-11 store would be closed for 39 minutes daily instead of 37 minutes. Likewise, Earth time usually refers to solar days; a typical (mean) sidereal Earth day is 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.0916 seconds long.
The first part of the title text refers to daylight saving time (DST), where clocks are changed on predefined days of the year in order to maximize use of available sunlight.  In the United States, most places set clocks forward by one hour on the second Sunday of March, resulting in a 23-hour day, and back again on the first Sunday of November, resulting in a 25-hour day.  Thus technically, even a 7-11 in the US would not truly be open "24 hours" every day.  Arizona and Hawaii are called out as exceptions because they do not observe daylight saving time (except on the Navajo reservation in Arizona). Randall has made fun of DST several times before , and once again he shows his disdain for DST by saying that in the U.S., only 24-hour stores within the two states not using DST are honest. This comic came out over a month after DST began in the US.
The second part of the title text refers to leap seconds , which may be added or subtracted to the end of June or December in order to synchronize time with Earth's actual rotation.  Months with a leap second will see its last day being one second longer than 24 hours.  Since leap seconds apply to all Earth-based clocks, any store on Earth would not technically be open for exactly 24 hours on such days. Leap seconds have been referred to before in the title text of 1514: PermaCal .
[A person in a spacesuit is trying in vain to open the door to a convenience store, rattling the handle. Behind him stands a tall post with a big 7-eleven logo at the top and the opening hours on a bar below the logo.] Sign: 7-Eleven Bar: Open 24 hours Door: Rattle rattle
[Caption below the panel:] I'm glad they finally opened a 7-Eleven here on Mars, but it's annoying how it closes for 37 minutes every day.


Birdwatching

Explanation:
In this comic Cueball and Knit Cap are out birdwatching (hence the title). Birdwatching is an activity to observe birds. Usually this is done at a distance, as birds are flying in the air, and are far away. It is thus helpful to use binoculars .
Knit Cap uses binoculars and manages to spot a hawk a mile up. Cueball, however, has brought his camera, probably his superzoom camera from 1719: Superzoom . (He uses that again already two comics later in 1828: ISS Solar Transit ). It is very difficult to find anything in such a camera, especially if held in one's hand (as opposed to on a tripod) and zoomed in. Maybe Cueball is with his trained friend, out birdwatching for the first time. Cueball is frustrated and comments on the difficulty and is amazed Knit Cap can spot birds over such distances.
Frustrated with his camera, Cueball comes up with a solution, which is to use a vacuum cleaner , specifically a shop vac , to pull the birds in closer so he won't need the superzoom camera to see them. This is physically impossible with such a small device. Even if the shop vac created a perfect vacuum, it can only pull out air at the speed of sound, which amounts to approximately 1 cubic meter per second considering the apparent size of the hose. This is not enough to create a significant amount of wind or affect the atmosphere. (He might've borrowed it from Beret Guy who has many strange powers that also extends to improving vacuum cleaners, which Cueball knows about as seen in 1486: Vacuum ).
Cueball's shop vac bird collector is similar in concept to vacuum-based insect collectors used by entomologists . Cueball evidently thinks that a similar concept will work to easily collect birds.
The title text refers to park rangers , who are officials in charge of protecting the natural elements (i.e. plants, animals, etc.) in many parks and would certainly object to birds being forced to coalesce via an extremely powerful vacuum. If such a vacuum were created and used for this purpose, it probably would pose a threat to the safety of birds. Cueball says he has solved this problem by placing a perforated screen in front. In doing so, he can safely attract the birds without trapping them inside the vacuum. He implies that this should remove the danger to the birds, which is not the case. While the birds can no longer enter the vacuum itself, having a large number of birds pulled into a (presumably small) screen would probably fare poorly for the birds, so Cueball's solution is rather poor.
When out birdwatching it is a great idea to have a silhouette chart to be able to recognize the birds by the shadow they make against the sky. Two comics before this one Randall made a comic with just such a chart, 1824: Identification Chart , although that was for combinations of birds and planes...
[Cueball and Knit Cap with a knit cap are standing together looking up in the sky. Cueball holds a camera with a large lens down in front of him, and his friend holds binoculars down in front of him.] Cueball: Birdwatching is hard. Cueball: They're all way too small and far away.
[In a frame-less panel they both raise their tool eyepieces to their eyes.] Cueball: That hawk is over a mile up! How did you even spot it?
[Both lower their eyepiece again. The friend still looks up while Cueball looks down on his camera which he holds up in front of him. A black squiggly line above his head indicates that he is fuming over his camera's abilities.]
[Cueball now has a vacuum cleaner with a big body and a large hose which he is pointing towards the sky, as air is visibly sucked in to the hose and the vacuum cleaner is making a very loud noise which extends beyond the frame of the panel.Cueball is holding one hand on the vacuum cleaner which has a label with its brand on it. Cueball's camera lies on the ground in front of the vacuum cleaner. The friend looks back at Cueball.] Vacuum cleaner: Whrrrrr Label: Shop Vac


Survivorship Bias

Explanation:
This comic is a parody of entrepreneurial speeches. Entrepreneurial speeches are talks, such as graduation commencements or motivational speeches. The idea behind graduation commencements is that the entrepreneur, having accumulated wisdom and experience in the process of becoming successful, will share his insights and experience to the students, in the hope that they learn lessons that will help them achieve success as well. Companies hire motivational speakers to motivate employees to work hard.
A common theme in these talks is that the entrepreneur succeeded by persisting through hardship, sometimes despite other people telling them they would be better off giving up. They advise students to do the same, and to keep pursuing their dreams even through subsequent failure. While this isn't necessarily bad business advice, this can give students a biased vision of reality, and lead them to imagine that they will succeed as long as they keep trying.
This comic makes a joke about survivorship bias, hence the title. Survivorship bias , or survival bias, is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways. The survivors may be actual people, as in a medical study, or could be companies or research subjects or applicants for a job, or anything that must make it past some selection process to be considered further. They may also have "survived" on only some of their attempts.
In this comic Hairy is giving a talk encouraging people to "never stop buying lottery tickets". This is an unwise investment plan, because the chances of winning the lottery are mathematically very low and the total payout is usually less than the total ticket sales, meaning the expected return from buying a lottery ticket is ( almost ) always negative. Survivorship bias applies in this situation since people who eventually win (and, presumably, win more than they've spent on lottery tickets in the time that it took them to win) are much more likely to give inspirational speeches than someone who never won or didn't win enough to make the "investment" worthwhile.
The obvious bad strategy (keep buying lottery tickets) is a metaphor for strategies that successful entrepreneurs recommend (keep persisting and putting money into your start-up); these strategies may be bad on average, but people who pursued them and succeeded are much more likely to be invited and give speeches than people who pursued them and went bankrupt (or people who pursued safer strategies and kept their money), making it appear to students that taking high risks and persisting in the face of expensive failure is the optimal strategy.  And those who have done both, are more likely to speak about the successes than the failures and bankruptcies.
Randall says in the caption below the panel that people should be informed about survivorship bias before hearing inspirational talks from successful people.
The title text says "They say you can't argue with results, but what kind of defeatist attitude is that?  If you stick with it, you can argue with ANYTHING."  In the comic, the speaker's "result" was winning the lottery.  Pointing out the survivorship bias is Randall effectively arguing with results, by pointing out that they were obtained randomly, and that it ignores all the other people who may have (foolishly) followed this same process, but never won the lottery.  Taken a step further, one could use the survivorship bias to argue against the results of any process, be it research (Any given research process is bound to produce SOME good results, and since those are the only ones published, it is difficult to determine if the research process itself contributed to the good results), business decisions (Some businesses fail, and others succeed, but since only the successful ones stick around, it can be difficult to determine WHY they failed or succeeded), etc..
[Hairy, holding an arm out towards an unseen crowd, is standing on a podium with five large bags around him, each having a dollar sign on it.] Hairy: Never stop buying lottery tickets, no matter what anyone tells you. Hairy: I failed again and again, but I never gave up. I took extra jobs and poured the money into tickets. Hairy: And here I am, proof that if you put in the time, it pays off!
[Caption below the panel:] Every inspirational speech by someone successful should have to start with a disclaimer about survivorship bias.