Adjectives

Explanation:
This comic is a plot graph comparing how often certain adjectives are used alone versus in the phrases "fucking [adjective]" and "[adjective] as shit" . Plot data is based on Google search engine result count, or hits . The graph's formula uses the natural logarithm of the hits for the obscene phrase divided by the hits for the adjective alone.
It's a social observation of linguistics pointing out that the use of swear words as intensifiers is more common with everyday words ( eg. annoying, pissed, stupid ) than it is with more arcane words ( eg. piquant, fungible ). Two words are used as examples in a sentence shown to the right. These sentences are not something you would be likely to overhear. In the case of fucking fungible it is also a way to justify its relatively high occurrence online. Of course given the log scale, it is still very rarely used like this.
The only word included in the graph that's never found in either obscene phrase is peristeronic . Its definition ("Of or pertaining to pigeons") is included due to its extreme obscurity. (The words was used again later as a difficult word in the survey part of comic 1572: xkcd Survey .
The title text mocks the use of the word fucking in combination with ineffable since the colloquialism effing or F-ing is a way of censoring "the F-word", fuck . The two used together resembles someone partially self-censoring the phrase "fucking unfuckable."
Prosaic - lacking originality/creativity
Ambivalent - having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone
Evanescent - which disappears very quickly, transient/ephemeral
Piquant - which has a tangy, appetizing taste
Jejune - naive, simplistic
Kafkaesque - nightmarishly bizarre and surreal, read more about it here
Stochastic - random and unpredictable, most often used in a technical sense
Fungible - things that are interchangeable and equivalent substitutes for each other - e.g. different cans of diet coke are fungible with each other
Frequency with which various adjectives are intensified with obscenities (based on Google hits) [The legend above the plot reads:] Red marker: "fucking ____" Blue marker: "____ as shit" [Mathematical formula for scale next to the legend:] Scale: ln(hits for intensified phrase/hits for adjective alone) [The plot itself lists a series of adjectives in approximately descending order.  Each has a red and a blue marker corresponding to the scale described.] [Horizontal axis starts with none, then has a vertical dashed line, then 'rarely' at -17, increasing to 'often' at -5.] [Each adjective is listed with approximate red and blue values, in that order.] Annoying -5 -4.5 Pissed -5 -6 Stupid -5 -8 Bored -6 -6 Sexy -5.5 -6.5 Adorable -6.5 -9.5 Disgusting -6.5 -12.5 Calm -7 -10 Delicious -8 -13 Obscene -6 -14 Prosaic -10 -13.5 Bemused -8.5 -14 Apropos -10.5 -16 Ambivalent -12 -17 Improper -12.5 -18 Evanescent -14 -14.5 Piquant -9.5 never Jejune -9 never Kafkaesque -10 never Stochastic -14 never Fungible -12 never Peristeronic ("Of or pertaining to pigeons") never never [There are two small scenes in the bottom right of the plot. The first shows a pair of women holding wine glasses.] Megan: Yes, the Cabernet is piquant as shit this year. [The second shows Cueball sitting at a computer desk.] Cueball: Whoa — these commodities are fucking fungible!


Stephen Hawking

Explanation:
Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) was a renowned theoretical physicist. He was almost completely paralyzed due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and communicated with a speech-generating device , as shown in the first panel. In this comic, he mentions to Cueball and Megan maybe they could go to a movie together later, but they take it as a scientific declaration that they should go see a movie and have it published in a newspaper, which portrays it in hyperbolic tones, vastly exaggerating and misinterpreting his actual intent. In the final panel, Hawking is shown hanging his head in sadness since all he wanted to do was see a movie with his friends.
This can be taken as a satire of sensationalism of science in popular media, particularly in emphasizing the viewpoints of well-known and popular personalities in science. A similar theme was used in 1206: Einstein .
The title text continues the joke, with innocuous comments by Hawking interpreted as important revelations.
The Town is a movie which was released 10 days before this comic's release. Hawking tries to suggest they go see The Town which should be good, as he may know since it both received positive reviews and was a box office hit . But instead the newspapers again sensationalize his statements and declare The Town to be the best in the universe.
When Hawking then tries to state that this was just something he had heard, the newspaper asks if science should play a role in judging Ben Affleck . Ben Affleck directed, wrote and starred (top billing) in this movie, so any judgment of this film would reflect on Affleck. The media asks if science should have an opinion on art, in this case Ben Affleck, and thus judge it. It could be argued that it should not as art is not necessarily based on anything scientific, but to thus state that a scientist must now have an opinion on art is a completely different story. Hawking is here defined as Science. If he says so then it is the opinion of the Scientific community and not just his personal opinion.
Before Hawking even gets close to finishing his next sentence, the media asks what about Matt Damon -- should he judge him as well. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have a long history together and came to prominence together as screenwriters of Good Will Hunting , winning an Oscar for the script. They also co-starred in the movie, with Matt Damon in a main role opposite Robin Williams . Following that, Matt Damon's acting career has been more commercially successful than Affleck's, causing speculation that their friendship could be in trouble over such details. But they have kept working together and are co-owners of the production company Pearl Street Films , so this is probably not the case.
But still more than ten years after their shared Oscar moment for best script for Good Will Hunting , many people think of Damon when they hear of Affleck and the other way around. This is the reason for the last question by the press.
Those of you feeling bad for Steven Hawking might feel good to know that he had a healthy social life in reality, and had even dabbled in a brief acting career (typically as cameo appearances) .
A drawing of Stephen Hawking also appeared in 1000: 1000 Comics . If you wish to try and find him yourself first then do not read on or click the links below. If you need a bit of help to find him then this link will show you which number of 1000 he is in. Else you can find him fast as he is no. 49 in this numbered image .
[Stephen Hawking with glasses and dark hair is sitting in his special wheelchair with a computer screen in front stuck to the chair and a large black rear wheel with four large white spokes. He is facing Cueball and Megan. His voice appears in a square machine readable font.] Stephen Hawking: I thought maybe later we should go see a movie. Cueball and Megan: !!!
[Cueball and Megan are running right.]
[The top half of a front page of a folded newspaper is shown in a frame-less panel. There are wavy plants on either side of the papers name at the top. Below this there is a big headline covering the page width in three rows. Below this is the article that covers the rest of the front page in five columns. The first column is the broadest and it is the beginning of the articles main body of text which is unreadable all the way trough. This columns has text all the way down. The top of the second and third column has a close up picture of Stephen Hawking face, he is sitting in his chair, but it can only be seen down to the top of the screen. The picture sits in the center of the article. Below there is a large caption. The rest of these two columns is more unreadable text. The fourth and fifth column begins with another large sub heading that covers an area of the same size as the picture to the left of it. Above this text there is a line that aligns with the top of the picture, so that it with the picture and the first line of text to the left makes a kind of division line all across the paper below the heading. The rest of these two columns is more unreadable text, except in the fifth column just above the middle where a small heading, with a frame around, raises a question which is just readable.] The Times Physicist Stephen Hawking suggests we see more films Caption: Smartest man alive Secondary headline: What could he know that we don't? Question: Is this a warning?
[Stephen Hawking is sitting alone in his chair (like in the first image), looking down.]


Beautiful Dream

Explanation:
In this comic, Megan has just woken from a dream in which the girls who follow The Rules and the guys who play The Game have paired off and left everyone else alone.
"The Rules" refers to a book entitled "The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right" which the authors describe as a self-help book for women seeking a man to marry. It's often decried for being formulaic and for reducing the women who follow it and the men they seek to outdated stereotypes about gender roles. The rules themselves amount to a complicated game of "hard to get", which is not exactly a new strategy, nor is it always the best approach to take.
"The Game" refers to a series of books entitled "The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists", which is a purported exposé on the pickup artist community (which is not similar to a pick-up basketball game, see 1178: Pickup Artists ), and its follow-up "Rules of the Game", which describes the techniques used. Pickup artistry involves the use of psychological and emotional tricks intended to coerce women into casual sex. Practitioners of pickup are considered by many to be manipulative and creepy for reducing women to little more than objects for conquest.
It's clear that Megan has a low opinion of those who put stock in these works. The idea of removing the Rules Girls and the Game Players from social interaction by pair bonding them to each other is one that appeals to her. Cueball's response seems to indicate that he agrees with her.
The title text takes a surrealist step with Cueball 's response to Megan . The Giving Tree is a children's book by Shel Silverstein about the relationship between a tree and a young boy who grows to be an old man. The Metamorphosis is a work of fiction by Franz Kafka in which a travelling salesman wakes up after having strange dreams to find that he has been turned into a nondescript giant bug. The implication is that it would be extremely bizarre to have a dream in which all those people who had experiences regarding these books paired off, due to them being entirely unrelated.
[Megan with disheveled hair stretches her arms. A sunburst indicating sleepiness is above her head.] YAWN Megan: I just woke up
[Megan continues speaking from off panel, to Cueball who's sitting at a table with a laptop and cup. He's leaned his elbow on the chair, turning to face Megan.] Megan: from the most beautiful dream. Cueball: Which was?
Megan: All the girls who read and follow The Rules and all the guys who swear by the techniques in The Game paired off with each other and left the rest of us alone forever. Cueball: Mmmmmm...


Golden Hammer

Explanation:
Java is a programming language touted for its Portability™ (the ability for software to run on many different systems "write once, run everywhere"), which sometimes leads to it being used in systems where it really just shouldn't be used. Cueball laments that the hardware he's tinkering with, despite being used for a single purpose, has its firmware written in Java; since the microprocessor is unknown, it's quite possible the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) had to be ported over to the processor before the hardware designers could write firmware for it. Presumably, they considered this worthwhile to be able to write the control code in a language they're comfortable with, even though it probably would have been much simpler to just write the control code in whatever language they used to port the JVM in the first place.
Black Hat explains that this is really an example of an age-old adage: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail", also referred to as the " law of the instrument " or, as in the title, the "golden hammer". The hardware developers probably only knew Java, and when they thought about how to write firmware for their new device, "Java" was the only solution that occurred to them.
Of course, instead of a hammer and a nail, Black Hat's analogy is about using bolt-cutters and vodka to get through the lock on Wolf Blitzer 's boathouse. Not-so-coincidentally, Black Hat is holding a pair of bolt-cutters and a bottle of vodka. The implication is that Black Hat did , in fact, break into Blitzer's boathouse the previous night, which is why he has just now entered the door at the start of the strip. The changes he makes to the adage implies that he believes vodka and boltcutters are designed specifically to be used on Blitzer's boathouse, an interpretation that fits Black Hat's warped and anarchic disposition. As he is carrying both of these items, it also implies that he has just used those instruments for exactly that purpose. Cueball however, being extremely jaded by the (mis)use of Java (or possibly unfazed as he knows Black Hat well), can only bring himself to tell that he's glad that Black Hat had a nice night.
The title text implies that Black Hat had to break into a number of boathouses before he found Blitzer's, and that his boat did not survive the evening.  The use of the phrase 'our night' allows us to infer that Black Hat may have been with Danish , his partner in crime.
[Black Hat is going through a door, an almost-empty bottle in his hand. A voice speaks to him from off panel.] Cueball: Seriously? This thing runs Java? It's single-purpose hardware!
[Cueball is sitting at a computer, holding some device which is wired to a box, and pointing at the screen.] Cueball: I bet they actually hired someone to spend six months porting this JVM so they could write their 20 lines of code in a familiar setting.
[Black Hat has a pair of bolt cutters in his hand that had been obscured in the first panel.] Black Hat: Well, you know what they say— When all you have is a pair of bolt cutters and a bottle of vodka, everything looks like the lock on the door of Wolf Blitzer's boathouse. Cueball: I'm glad you had a nice night.


Online Communities 2

Explanation:
This comic shows a map of internet communities where the size of each region roughly corresponds to its size, and its proximity to other regions indicates similarities.
This is the successor of 256: Online Communities . It differs in that it is updated, and furthermore, instead of using the membership of whichever service to determine its size on the map, it uses its "daily social activity."
The map actually has two super−maps intended to show the relative usage of types of communication: the online community map is surrounded by the much larger "countries" of E−Mail, SMS ("Instant Messaging") and "Cell Phones," which in turn are surrounded by the even huger "Spoken Language."  It is unclear whether "Cell Phones" is intended to represent an independent region, or whether it is meant to be a sub-region of "Spoken Language."  The ambiguity is exacerbated by the fact that cell phones are the primary medium of SMS, and are also used to access email and online communities.  It's also unclear why other forms of communication, such as handwritten letters, are not included.
At the title text Randall explains that, using his definition of "most activity per day," Farmville is actually the second most popular social-network farming game - the Chinese game Happy Farm was more popular at the time. This strikes many English-speaking xkcd readers as odd, because Farmville is much more famous, leading one to wonder how it could not be the most played. The phrase "browser-based social-networking-centered farming game" is an example of an overly-narrow superlative.
The Facebook region deals with social networks, that is, websites oriented towards having people meet.
Facebook is a social networking site that allows people to meet old real−life friends and make new friends that share similar interests. One of its most notable features is that a member can update a "status" or make normal posts about the happenings of the member's life, complete with pictures, other members "liking" these posts. The size of the Facebook region is not exaggerated; most websites seem to allow "liking" their content or allow/require logging in the website with a Facebook account. There even are cell phones with a "Facebook" button!
While Facebook is the largest "country" of the Facebook Region, there are a lot of smaller "countries" that represent smaller social networks.
MMOs (short form of "Massive Multiplayer Online Game") are online games where multiple people take the role of a character and play in a setting hosted by the game.
Other notable regions include:
The YouTube region refers to websites that are based on user-created content.
YouTube is the definitive video website where people can upload videos with the purpose of public viewing, ranging from home movies through official music videos through Let's Plays of people playing video games to questionably-legal uploads of cartoons and films. Google had purchased YouTube.
Many of the sites on the map are just references to viral videos at YouTube :
The HTML5 swamp refers to YouTube's spotty support of HTML 5 (an update on HTML that is frequently touting its media capabilities, making HTML 5 a viable alternative to Flash). Of course, by the time the comic was written, HTML 5 was still in its infancy. The Music Video Bay refers to the amount of music videos (official or otherwise) are present in YouTube.
Other counties of the YouTube region include:
Snob Sound:
The Isle of teenagers who just discovered macroeconomics is a joke about how teenagers tend to think that the world and the economy are a lot simpler than they actually are. Combined with the typical internet mindset, this leads to a lot of teenagers posting blogs and videos and comments on blogs and videos describing how idiotic the government and other red-tape-related adults are.
The Snob Sound could refer to the large amount of people who look down on others in the surrounding websites (one example being an original artist looking down on people who draw mainly fan-art). The Iraq is a reference to Miss Teen USA 2007, in which Ms. Teen South Carolina, Lauren Katlin, said "I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as...the US should help the US and should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we are able to build up our future." The usage of "the Iraq" has became a meme.
The Skype Region refers to different IM, or Instant Messaging services, that enable almost-real-time text chatting between multiple people.  These often allow services like voice chat and even video calls.
The Blogosphere region contains several general blog topics.
Gossip Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on gossip surrounding celebrities and other well-known persons.
Liberal Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "liberal" or "progressive" slant.  These blogs tend to lean for the Democratic party.
Bay of Flame:
Conservative Blogs:
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "conservative" or Republican slant.
Tech Blogs:
Assorted:
Forums are websites where one person post a topic to which other people can discuss.
While the map has a zoomed in version, this article shall discuss the two bigger islands, first.
In the zoomed-in map, there is the following:
To the south and east is an archipelago of islands representing various regional and special-interest forums. Moving clockwise from 4chan island is
An island contaning
Map of Online Communities Size on map represents volume of Daily Social activity (posts, chat, etc). Based on data gathered over the Spring and Summer of 2010.
[Two insets on the upper left-hand corner shows that this map is a tiny portion of the huge continent of Spoken Language, encompassing portions of the Internet, Email, and Cell Phones (SMS).]
[The largest landmass on the map by far, which takes up nearly the entire northern half of the map is "Facebook" - with large states in the south-east of the country labeled 'Farmville' and 'Happy Farm'. There is a much smaller state to the west of these called 'Farm Town'. To the north of these states is a large swath of unremarkable land entitled 'Northern Wasteland of Unread Updates.' This is directly north of the large Dopamine Sea.
A peninsula on the south-west, just below the Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions, houses many tiny states, such as MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Bebo, & Hi5. It is bordered on the south by Buzzword Bay, which contains several islands of varying sizes. Among these are YouTube and Twitter (the largest), which are separated by the Social Media Consultant Channel. To the south-east of Twitter, across the Sea of Protocol Confusion, is another, equally large island. Most of it is Skype, with the north having two largish states called AIM and Windows Live Messenger. On the south-west part of the island are two smaller states called GG and Yahoo Messenger.
The Island of Skype is extremely close to, but separated by the Great Firewall (a dashed line), the large landmass of QQ. It's north shore is the Gulf of China and Grass Mud Horse Bay. Outside of these bays, over the Great Firewall are two islands called Craigslist and 2Channel.
In the Dopamine Sea, off the southern shores of Farmville and Happy Farm, is MMO Isle. Its largest state is WoW, with Runescape, Lineage, Maple Story, Habbo, and the Mountains of Steam among its notable landmarks. To the southeast of the island is the Gulf of Lag, in which sits the CDC Games island, with Eve Online.
To the east of Twitter is Troll Bay, with such islands as Reddit and Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicio.us, and Wikipedia Talk Pages. To their south are the IRC isles, of which one is the tiny island of #xkcd.
East of these islands, and north of Skype island, is the Sea of Memes. In this sea, to the north of Craigslist and 2Channel, is an archipelago of tiny islands. There is an inset, labeled 'Forums.' (See below.)
To the southwest of Twitter island, in the Sea of Opinions, are the blog islands. These lie south of the islands in Buzzword Bay, as well. The northernmost islands in this group are centered around the Bay of Drama, on which can be found Diary Blogs, Gossip Blogs, and Livejournal. Gossip Blogs share an island with Political, Music, and Tech Blogs. To the north of this island is a smaller island called Photo Blogs. South of Diary Blogs, and off the southwest coast of Music blogs is a smaller island called Fandom Blogs. South of Tech Blogs, off of which sprouts the small peninsula of Business Blogs, is the Spamblog Straits. On the other side of the straits is a large island made up of Miscellaneous Blogs, with two states demarcated as Religious Blogs and Blog Blogs. Southwest of the Blog Islands is the Sea of Zero (0) Comments.]
[An inset of a group of islands in the sea of memes located on the lower right corner of the map, labeled 'Forums'. The largest by far is 4chan and /b/. Also found here are D2JSP, JLA Frums, Fan Forum, Something Awful, and many smaller ones, too numerous to list here.]
[The northeastern third of Gossip/Political/Tech Blogs island is another inset labeled 'Blogosphere (Core)'. This can be found on the lower left corner of the map. Two peninsulas in Political Blogs bookend the Bay of Flame -- these are Liberal Blogs and Conservative Blogs. Between them lie several tiny islands such as Politics Daily, CNN Politcal Ticker, and Mediaite. Off the coast of Liberal Blogs lies the island of NYTimes, off the coast of Conservative Blogs is Libertarian Isle. Between the two lies The Talk. The northern peninsula of Tech Blogs contains places such as Gizmodo, Engadget, Joystiq, and Kotaku.]
[Text found between the two insets, which are directly below the main map.] ABOUT THIS MAP Communities rise and fall, and total membership numbers are no longer a good measure of a community's current size and health. This updated map uses size to represent total social activity in a community -- that is, how much talking, playing, sharing, or other socializing happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I did my best and tried to be consistent.
Estimates are based on the numbers I could find, but involved a great deal of guesswork, statistical inference, random sampling, nonrandom sampling, a 20,000-cell spreadsheet, emailing, cajoling, tea-leaf reading, goat sacrifices, and gut instinct (i.e. making things up).
Sources of data include Google and Bing, Wikipedia, Alexa, Big-Boards.com, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Akismet, every website statistics page I could find, press releases, news articles, and individual site employees. Thanks in particular to folks at Last.fm, LiveJournal, Reddit, and the New York Times, as well as sysadmins at a number of sites who shared statistics on condition of anonymity.


Airfoil

Explanation:
In the first panel a cross sectional drawing of a plane wing with the air moving around the wing showing a common teaching that an airfoil works because the air on top of the wing must travel faster to "keep up" with the air flowing across the bottom of the wing. The theory goes that, because the air on top of the wing is traveling faster, it must, as a result of Bernoulli's Principle , create an area of lower pressure above the wing; this causes lift (that is, the wing rises) because the higher pressure below the wing (symbolized by thick "up" arrow) pushes it up more than the low pressure above the wing. This is what the teacher Miss Lenhart is teaching as is revealed in the next panel.
As it turns out, this is, to put it mildly, a vast oversimplification of how lift is truly created. Because then a student asks a particularly insightful question: Why, if the theory is true, can planes fly upside down? (If the simple airfoil theory is all that permits planes to stay up in the air, then flying upside down should reverse the pressures — pushing the plane down and causing it to crash.) Miss Lenhart thinks about it and clearly has no answer.
The final set of panels posit three potential responses from Miss Lenhart, upon realizing her theory has been disproved:
In the right one, Miss Lenhart realizes that perhaps the model she's been using to explain how an airfoil works is wrong (or, at a minimum, too simple). She is curious about it and suggests that this is an area for further exploration, and encourages additional study — in effect, rewarding the student for their insight. It seems that Miss Lenhart has taken the right course as it is shown later in 843: Misconceptions that she wished her students to generally avoid any common misconceptions . The title text also mentions that this is a common misconception and it is actually the first mentioned on list of common physics misconceptions on Wikipedia.
In the wrong panel, Miss Lenhart, out of apparent embarrassment, avoids the question entirely, saying simply that it's complicated (and implying that such questions are outside the student's understanding). This way to continue a discussion where you wish to be right was much later used in 1731: Wrong .
In the very wrong panel, not only does Miss Lenhart avoid answering the question, she attempts to distract them (or even punish them for asking such an insightful question - note that in this panel, Miss Lenhart has clenched her fists, suggesting anger) by telling the kids that Santa Claus isn't real but in fact that he is really their parents — something that would obviously distress children if they still believe in Santa Claus (in addition to distracting them from the question they've asked) and constitute harsh punishment for pointing out the teacher's ignorance. Of course most children old enough to be taught about the airflow around plane wings should be too old to believe in Santa. However, if she just wished to tell them a bit about planes she may have drawn this drawing even in very early grades making the Santa trick effective.
The title text suggests additional reasons for re-thinking the common theory as to how airfoils create lift. It points out that (1) it is absurd to believe the air has to get across the airfoil's two sides in the same amount of time, and (2) the Wright brothers plane's wings were curved the same amount on both sides of the airfoil (the Wright Flyer's wings were concave, like an arch; and thus the curves were in the same direction, not reflected vertically), meaning that the distance that the air needs to travel to hug along each face of the wing is not the dispositive factor in creating lift.
The strip is correct in noting that lift is a far more complicated process than the simple theory posited by Miss Lenhart. While the role of Bernoulli's Principle (that is, the difference in pressures) cannot be entirely discounted, the theory here is vastly too simple. As an initial matter, as suggested by the title text, there is no reason that the air on top of the wing should be compelled to "keep up" with the air on the bottom of the wing. Indeed, as demonstrated by the illustration below, in the time that the air below the wing travels across, the air on top of the wing has not only traveled the length of the entire top of the wing (a distance that may be farther than the distance under the wing, due to its shape), but often additional distance.

Lift may be more usefully described as resulting from the deflection of air, although this explanation still does not explain how symmetrical wings will work (at least, absent effects caused by a change in the "angle of attack") nor how a plane may fly upside down. The Wikipedia article on lift provides a more detailed explanation. It in fact gives an explanation as to these two issues. It explains that with zero angle of attack, a symmetrical wing will not generate lift (though it is possible that other factors may generate other slight upward force, such as updrafts, the shape of the plane, and the angle of the engine relative to the wings. It also explains that an asymmetrical (or "cambered") wing may adjust angle of attack to compensate and still generate lift.
Finally, to answer the question in the second panel in a general sense: most planes can't fly upside down for an extended period of time. While many aerobatic aircraft can sustain inverted flight with negative g forces, some others can achieve an inverted attitude only momentarily, and are experiencing positive g forces. Usually the reason for this is not the wings, which function perfectly fine upside down (albeit sometimes at lower efficiency), but the engines, which may not get fuel or oil under such conditions. It has to also be noted that if angle of attack were ignored, movable control surfaces would be useless. Almost any airplane can do a barrel roll or Aileron roll , given sufficient altitude (a Boeing 707 prototype once did this, and so did the Concorde in a demonstration).
[In a frame-less picture to the left of the first panel there's a picture of a cross section of an airfoil (a plane wing), with a small black arrow pointing down on the wing from above and similar but larger arrow pointing up on the wing from below. Two lines beginning close to each other at the right respectively moves over and under the wing ending in arrow heads to the left. Just before and after the wing four small lines crossing the long arrows indicate approximately where the path of the lines stop being parallel. Above the drawing there is a caption. Below, in a speech bubble with an arrow pointing towards the next panel to the right, is the text that the teacher Miss Lenhart has just used to describe the drawing.] Handling a student who challenges your expertise with an insightful question: Miss Lenhart: So, kids, the air above the wing travels a longer distance, so it has to go faster to keep up. Faster air exerts less pressure, so the wing is lifted upward.
[Miss Lenhart is shown standing while a student asks a question from off-panel.] Student (off-panel): But then why can planes fly upside down?
[Miss Lenhart is pondering the question. Beat panel. Three long and curved arrows point out from the right frame of this panel, leading to each of the next three panels which are arranged vertically above each other, making the comic much deeper in this column than in the first two.]
[In the top panel Miss Lenhart turns away from the students taking a hand to her chin. Overlaid on the top of the panel there is a small frame with a caption:] Right: Miss Lenhart: Wow, good question! Maybe this picture is simplified—or wrong! We should learn more.
[In the middle panel Miss Lenhart stands as before. Overlaid on the top of the panel there is a small frame with a caption:] Wrong: Miss Lenhart: It's... complicated. Miss Lenhart: And we need to move on.
[In the bottom panel Miss Lenhart visibly ball her hands in to fists and leans a little forward looking more down. Overlaid on the top of the panel there is a small frame with a caption:] Very wrong: Miss Lenhart: Santa Claus is your parents.


Pumpkin Carving

Explanation:
This comic is a reference to the American custom of making Jack-O'-Lanterns to set out on porches and front steps for the holiday of Halloween , which occurs on October 31.  Typically they are made with pumpkins by emptying the inside leaving a hollow shell, carving a face or design on the side, then placing a light or candle inside.  The Jack-O'-Lantern in the 3rd frame is the typical and standard design for a carved pumpkin.
The comic is set up as a typical TV program where an off-screen interviewer asks four (very) different people what they have made out of their Halloween pumpkin. In the official transcript the interviewer that talks in three of the panels is called an Interlocutor: "a person who takes part in dialogue or conversation."
In the first frame, Beret Guy , naturally, stays oddly on-topic by physically carving an image of a pumpkin in his pumpkin. This means his answer, "I carved a pumpkin," could apply to either the image or the medium of his artwork.
In the second frame, Black Hat is shown with a container of nitroglycerin next to his pumpkin. Nitroglycerin is a highly explosive liquid that may explode violently with just a small bump. Black Hat has not carved a hole for his lamp, but it seems he has emptied the inside of the pumpkin as the stem at the top has been removed. This will make it possible to fill up the pumpkin with nitroglycerin. Teenagers are a rather impulsive and rebellious lot; as Halloween is a night with lots of meticulously erected decorations and more lax parental supervision, troublemaker teens see it as an enticing time to engage in rampant vandalism, including but not limited to pumpkin-smashing. Hence, the off-panel character presumes that Black Hat is setting up a trap to get back at these ne'er-do-wells. To top it off, Black Hat plans to put up a sign warning passers-by to not smash the pumpkin. This would only serve to tempt impulsive teenagers to disturb it, which is very likely what the sadistic and chaos-loving Classhole is hoping for. If he succeeds with his plan, with a completely hollowed out pumpkin of the shown size filled with nitroglycerin, it would seem likely that the resulting explosion would leave a largish crater, flatten wood-framed buildings nearby, shatter windows for blocks in all directions, and be more than sufficient to kill the vandal along with others in the surrounding area. This is clearly overkill for such a petty crime. [ citation needed ]
Black Hat, rather unconvincingly, insists that his pumpkin is suffering from chest pains, and that the nitroglycerin is merely intended for medical treatment. While it is true that this chemical is used to treat angina (chest pain due to blocked arteries in the heart), nitroglycerin used for this purpose is dispensed in the form of small pills containing only trace amounts, and controlled by prescription. Also, pumpkins are fruits and do thus not contain nervous or circulatory systems of mammalian complexity [ citation needed ] ; even if they did, the process of pumpkin carving involves hollowing them out, making it a moot point.
In the third frame, Megan is our typical emotional xkcd comic character. She is the only one out of the four who actually carved a typical jack-o'-lantern; however, she is projecting herself onto it, and has named it Harold. Her dialogue suggests it (or he) is suffering from typical holiday depression, with symptoms such as using a lot of time daydreaming, worrying, and trying to distract herself with holiday traditions, but she already knows that it won't work. Some have speculated that this is a possible reference to the classic meme Hide The Pain Harold , but this is highly unlikely; the meme only surfaced in 2011 , a year after the comic was published.
In the fourth frame, Cueball is shown in front of two un-carved pumpkins exclaiming that this is the result of carving one pumpkin. He is referencing the Banach-Tarski paradox (which is made clear in the title text), a theorem which states that it is possible to split a three-dimensional ball, in this case a pumpkin, into a finite number of "pieces," and then reassemble these "pieces" into two distinct balls both identical to the original. This paradox has been proven for theoretical shapes, but requires infinitely complicated pieces which are impossible for anything made of physical atoms rather than mathematical points .
The off-screen interviewer in that frame references the Axiom of Choice . This axiom is the foundation for many theorems (including the Banach–Tarski paradox) and is extremely influential to modern mathematics; however, it has been historically controversial precisely because it enables this kind of weirdness.  It is called an "axiom" because it is a statement that is not meant to be proven or disproven—only accepted or rejected depending on the theoretical framework one wishes to work with. Rejecting the Axiom of Choice results in a perfectly coherent alternate form of set theory. Since the proof for the Banach–Tarski paradox relies on accepting the axiom of choice, the interviewer is suggesting Cueball's unexpected result would not have happened without using the axiom.
The title text references a biblical story involving King Solomon . In the story, known as the Judgment of Solomon , two women were brought before him both claiming that a particular child was their own. Solomon tested the women by saying the only solution was to cut the baby in half and give each woman one of the halves, knowing only the real mother would fight to save her child's life even if the price was giving up the whole child to the other woman. The joke is that if Solomon had developed the Banach–Tarski theorem first, then he could have actually believed cutting the baby into pieces was a valid solution. In that scenario, he would have tried to make two whole children from the original and given one to each woman. However, since babies are not infinitely divisible, [ citation needed ] his attempt would have failed miserably and set back set theory for centuries due to the appearance that he has "proved" the theorem wrong. Note that the title text actually mentions attempts indicating that King Solomon killed several babies in this fashion.
The axiom of choice and set theory was later referenced in 982: Set Theory and, much later, the axiom of choice was mentioned again in the title text of 1724: Proofs .
This comic was released 20 days before Halloween in 2010, possibly to inspire people with some great ideas for their pumpkins. It has been known (particularly by Randall) that people copy his ideas, for instance this earlier post on xkcd based on 249: Chess Photo . Soon after he even made a comic, 254: Comic Fragment , that was supposed to be impossible to copy, which he mentioned himself later (see the explanation).
[Beret Guy, holding his arms out, stands behind a large orange pumpkin with the stem on top. It is sitting on a table. The pumpkin has been carved out as a lamp with large hole, and a lit candle is visible in the hole. The hole is in the shape of another carved out pumpkin. An interviewer speaks from off panel.] Interviewer (off-panel): So what did you— Beret Guy: I carved a pumpkin! Interviewer (off-panel): ...
[Black Hat stands behind a large orange pumpkin which has not been carved out as a lamp, but the stem at the top has been removed and is placed tilting on the side of the pumpkin. It is sitting on a table. A gray box stands next to and partly in front of the pumpkin. On the end of the box there is a label at the top with unreadable text and below that some kind of drawing with a circle at the top. The interviewer speaks from off panel.] Interviewer (off-panel): Taking on teen vandals, I see. Black Hat: Heavens, no. My pumpkin simply has chest pains. In fact, I'll leave a note warning them not to smash it. Text on box: Nitro- glycerin Do Not Shake
[Megan stands next to a large orange pumpkin with the stem on top. It is sitting on a table. The pumpkin has been carved out as a typical Halloween lamp. The bottom part of a white candle stick is visible in the mouth shaped hole. The hole is in the shape of a typical jack-o' lantern, with two slanted eyes, double slit nose and a smiling mouth with a tooth sticking out from both upper and lower lip, on either side of the candle stick.] Megan: My pumpkin's name is Harold. He just realized that all the time he used to spend daydreaming, he now spends worrying. He'll try to distract himself later with holiday traditions, but it won't work.
[Cueball stands next to a two orange pumpkins with their stems on top, the left pumpkin is slightly larger than the right which is partly in front of the larger pumpkin. They have not been carved out even though a knife lies next to them to the right in front of Cueball on the table where they both stand. The interviewer speaks from off panel.]] Cueball: I carved and carved, and the next thing I knew I had two pumpkins. Interviewer (off-panel): I told you not to take the axiom of choice.


Paradise City

Explanation:
" Paradise City " is a song by the hard rock band Guns N' Roses which appeared on their debut album Appetite for Destruction . It sings of the so-called Paradise City, an idyllic place to which the song's narrator longs to return. The location is contrasted with the depressing reality in which the persona is trapped, using for instance the image of a gas chamber.
In the comic, Cueball can be seen singing different versions of the chorus. In each panel, the word "City" is substituted by another type of location and the rest of the verse is altered accordingly to keep the rhyme scheme (usually awkwardly because he has chosen difficult words to rhyme with).
The sequence of stanzas describes the fate of Paradise City. It starts the original version drawing an idyllic picture. In a rather unexpected turn, however, the next stanza has the place pillaged and plundered. Chaos and anarchy reign, the once fresh and green meadows are now burned. Law and order are restored in the next verses and the other extreme starts to prevail: Paradise City has become a totalitarian dystopia . The fourth stanza refers to George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four . The book shows a world in which mind control and omnipresent surveillance render individual thought and action impossible, and the fifth stanza shows a borough where every blade of grass has been labeled, taking the surveillance to an extreme. The concluding verses suggest that the totalitarian government has successfully brainwashed the former rebels and established an effective, yet sterile technocratic society. "Cortical lesions" in this panel could be a reference to the dystopian novel Uglies by Scott Westerfeld , which describes a society in which extreme plastic surgery is used to turn people "pretty". (SPOILER ALERT) It is later revealed in the book that this procedure is accompanied by a neurosurgical operation making the patient placid and obedient through a lobotomy .
The development of the city in Cueball's song reveals that the term " Paradise " can be applied to very different and even oppositional scenarios. While the original song describes the city as a rural Eden, some might refute this conception as a bourgeois or agrarian romantic ideal. Others would fear that too much individual freedom might be dangerous and opt for security through control . Especially the picture of the last stanza is a common vision in dystopian literature (e.g. Brave New World ): Although the citizens of a future society entirely lack any personal choice or individual freedom, they deem themselves happy because education or thought control present this a necessity for a functioning society.
In popular culture, the word "Paradise" is often used to describe a place of bliss and perfect harmony, as in the original religious sense of the term. It is however also frequently linked to the idea of living out one's deepest and darkest desires, therefore in some way to a place of sin . Considering the lifestyle of Guns N' Roses, it can be assumed that the "pretty girls" of the original song are not necessarily chaste.
The most iconic part of Las Vegas is officially named "Paradise", although it is not entirely clear if Cueball is aware of the probable reference of the original song.
The title text suggests that Paradise City is in fact a drug-induced state of ecstasy with strange and colourful hallucinations .
[For five panels, Cueball sits on a box playing a guitar and sings.] Cueball: Take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty.
Cueball: Take me down to the paradise village where the grasses burn as those cute girls pillage.
Cueball: Take me down to the fire-charred counties where the law's restored by Canadian mounties.
Cueball: Take me down to Orwellian regions where they retrain girls using cortical lesions.
Cueball: Take me down to the paradise borough where the grass is labeled 'cause the girls are thorough. Cueball: Ohh, won't you please take me hooome...


Tech Support

Explanation:
Cueball runs into some problems with his network connection and contacts his Internet service provider's (ISP's) tech support for help. The customer service agent (represented by Hairy ) is not very helpful, giving clearly pre-scripted advice that has nothing to do with Cueball's problem. Cueball gives up and asks to speak to an engineer, i.e. someone more knowledgeable about the technology and suggest to Hairy what to look for. Noticing a woman with black ponytail who has the stuffed Tux penguin on her desk and a poster of a bearded dude with swords (a reference to Richard Stallman particularly as he stands in 345: 1337: Part 5 , and a reference to 225: Open Source ) he tells Cueball about her and Cueball recognizes the signs of a GNU / Linux geek and asks to talk to her. Hairy transfers him over to the engineer, who immediately recognizes the problem and fixes it. Then she tells him of a secret word (shibboleet - see below) which, if he speaks on the phone, will transfer him to a tech-savvy person able to help him, something installed already back in the 1990's by the geeks of that time. Cueball is elated but then at this point Cueball wakes up and unfortunately discovers the incident to be just a dream.
Poor customer and technical support is a common complaint of many ISPs.  Many ISPs outsource their support staff to foreign countries to reduce costs, and/or they delegate first-tier support to workers with little or no training.  Typically, these workers are given general scripts that prompt the customer to try common troubleshooting steps, such as restarting the computer, without any specific knowledge of the customer's complaint.  While these scripts may help resolve problems for the average customer, a representative using such a script is usually unprepared to assist someone who has a more advanced problem.  Furthermore, these scripts generally assume that the problem is on the customer's end and do not acknowledge problems that occur within the ISP, such as server or line problems.
Customers like Cueball in this comic often find it frustrating to deal with representatives reading from scripts.  As Randall mentions in the title text, this frustration is magnified when the representative refuses to move on to the next step until the customer has performed the previous one, whether or not it necessary or helpful.  In cases like this, it's often necessary to request an escalation to a higher "tier" of support, or to speak to a supervisor who presumably has more knowledge and/or influence, though even that can sometimes be a painful process. Thus, it is easy to see why Cueball would be elated to discover a way to automatically connect with the most helpful technical support representatives whenever he has a problem, and thus also why he get really disappointed when he realizes it was just a dream (dreams being a recurring theme in xkcd).
Cueball is running Haiku , an open source operating system which is still in a state of active development, being in an alpha release at the publishing of the comic and in beta since 2018. While low-level tech support operators are given scripts which are predicated on the assumption that many computer problems are actually caused by the actions of clueless end users (as, in fact, they are), it's exceedingly unlikely most of these first-tier operators would have even heard of Haiku, not to mention that their scripts' assumptions would never apply to the sort of person who would be using an experimental OS as opposed to Windows , for instance.
"Shibboleet" is a portmanteau of "shibboleth" and "leet". A " shibboleth " means any word, custom, or other signifier which is used by members of a group to recognize other members or those who are "in the know" about something. Its use originates in the Hebrew Bible, where the precise pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish Gileadites from Ephramites. Leet (based on the word "elite") refers to "leet-speak", a practice of character substitution and abbreviation common across the Internet (or "teh 1n73rn3t", as you would say in leet). Thus, "shibboleet" is a shibboleth used to identify someone whose computer-knowledge is "elite." Leet is again in leet written as 1337 so again a reference back to the 1337 comic series including the comic mentioned above with Stallman.
Randall mentioned in the title text that this had happened to him recently, and is possibly the reason for this comic.
[Cueball is on his cellphone, and holding up a small square piece of hardware with a foot in the other hand. Two wires go from the hardware down to the floor, where one is connected to a box on the floor with two black antennas, and then another wire goes out the other side of this, and both this and the second wire from the hardware Cueball is holding goes under his desk, on top of which is his open laptop.] Cueball: ...restart my computer? I know you have a script to follow, but the uplink light on the modem is going off every few hours. The problem is between your office and the modem.
[Zoom in on Cueball's torso, still on the phone and with the hardware in hand.] Cueball: My computer has nothing to do with... OK, whatever, I "restarted my computer." Cueball: It's still down, and even if it comes back, it's going to die again in a few hours, because your—
[Cueball on the phone has walked closer to his desk with the laptop, but holds down the hand with the hardware so it is below the panels frame.] Cueball: I don't have a start menu. This is a Haiku install, but that's not import— Cueball: Haiku? It's an experimental OS that I ... oh, never mind.
[Cueball has paced away from his desk to the left so it is no longer in the panel. He has put the hardware down next to the box with antennas on the floor. Wires going off panel right toward the desk.] Cueball: I'm sorry, but this won't get fixed until I talk to an engineer. Can you look around for someone wearing cargo pants, maybe a subway map on their wall?
[Hairy is the tech support person on the other end sitting in an office chair at a desk. A phone is hooked up on his table with two wires coming out. He is wearing a headset. He leans back in the chair and looks behind him to the right. Cueball talks to him over the phone indicated with a zigzag line.] Hairy: There's a chick two phones over with a stuffed penguin doll and a poster of some bearded dude with swords. Cueball (on the phone): Perfect. Can you put her on? Hairy: Sure.
[The engineer, a woman with black hair in a ponytail, sits in an office chair at her desk typing on her lap top. She also has a headset. Behind her laptop sits a small penguin doll. Cueball talks to her over the phone indicated with zigzag lines.] Cueball (on the phone): Hey, so sorry to bother you, but my connection— Engineer: Yeah, I see it. Lingering problems from a server move. <type type> Engineer: Should be fixed now. Cueball (on the phone): Thank you so much.
[Zoom in on the engineers torso. The back of the chair and the top of her laptop just inside the panel.] Engineer: No problem. Hey, in the future, if you're on any tech support call, you can say the code word "shibboleet" at any point and you'll be automatically transferred to someone who knows a minimum of two programming languages.
[Zoom in on Cueball on the phone scratching his neck. The engineer talks to him over the phone indicated with zigzag lines.] Cueball: Seriously? Engineer (on the phone): Yup. It's a backdoor put in by the geeks who built these phone support systems back in the 1990's. Engineer (on the phone): Don't tell anyone.
[The last panel is split in two sections. In the top part still with a zoom in on Cueball, he takes the phone down to hang up. Only this section is inside a frame. The frame is normal at the top and half way down to the left, but only a small way down on the right side. The bottom part of the frame connects these two normal parts but with a wavy line to indicate that this is the end of a dream. In the frame-less part of the panel below Cueball is sitting up in his bed, having lifted his head fro the pillow behind him to the left. He lifts him self up with one hand while the other takes the sheet down over his body. The last part it thus drawn outside the rest of the framed part of the comic.] Cueball: Oh my god, this is the greatest—
Cueball: Wha— Cueball: ... Dammit.


Connected

Explanation:
This comic criticizes our culture's tendency to romanticize young love (such as that portrayed in Romeo and Juliet and Titanic ). Although young lovers do often have intense feelings for their beloved, for many of them, like Megan here, it is an infatuation based on little substance (such as a similar taste in music) and the mercurial gales of teenagers’ minds rather than the real compatibility necessary for a long-term relationship.
The title text broadens this criticism to all forms of romance. Randall appears to be stating that it is possible to love someone even if your relationship with that person doesn't conform to the impossibly high standards of "true love" that our culture so highly exalts . In fact, healthy relationships are typically not perfect and require work, change, and compromise rather than continual, effortless bliss.
[Megan sits on a rock and Cueball sits on the grass.] Megan: Seriously? I like that song too! Megan: I bet no two people in the history of the world have ever been so connected !
[Caption below the frame:] I'm not sure why we romanticize "young love."


The Economic Argument

Explanation:
The image shows fields of human life that would be greatly improved and/or allow certain people to make a lot of money if some crazy phenomena (mostly paranormal ) actually worked in reality or were testable and usable concepts. Crazy phenomena, in this case, means counter-intuitive things that go against common sense and which science often contradicts (though relativity and QM are a major part of physics, they are still counterintuitive and could be considered to sound crazy). As the comic tries to prove, if there were commercial use for it and proofs of it working, there will be high investment made in the technology to use and harness such concepts.
So far only relativity and quantum electrodynamics have major evidence backing them. Specifically, the theory of relativity allows your Global Positioning System (GPS) device to synchronize with satellites a hundred miles in the air and show your current position. The design of modern circuit-boards and other electronic devices is influenced by quantum electrodynamics — smartphones or high capacity hard drives wouldn't be possible without this theory.
The non-scientific/disproved concepts trying to pass as real and scientific are:
The title text points out that many people still believe in non-scientific, unproven, and disproved phenomena; thus, it's possible to make a lot of money by selling those (claimed) phenomena to such people (although knowingly selling non-existent phenomena, while claiming that they work, would be fraud, and thus illegal).
[A three-column table. The headings are actually standing above the table.]

Crazy phenomenon If it worked, companies would be using it to make a killing in... Are they? Remote Viewing Oil Prospecting Dowsing Auras Health Care Cost Reduction Homeopathy Remote Prayer Astrology Financial/Business Planning Tarot Crystal Energy Regular Energy Curses, Hexes The Military Relativity GPS Devices ✓ Quantum Electrodynamics Semiconductor Circuit Design ✓
Eventually, arguing that these things work means arguing that modern capitalism isn't that ruthlessly profit-focused.


Los Alamos

Explanation:
This comic refers to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico , where in 1945 their development of the first nuclear weapon had progressed to the point that they were going to explode "The Gadget" at Trinity Site . There was genuine concern that some unexpected result was possible, including the scenario about the atmosphere igniting. The scientists were almost certain that it would either work as expected, or just be a dud, but were unable to rule out several other scenarios. The test proceeded, and it worked as expected.
The joke part at the end is a reference to a common mnemonic device for basic trigonometric functions, namely identifying the relationships of sine , cosine , and tangent with respect to the lengths of a right triangle's edges: s ine = o pposite over h ypotenuse, c osine = a djacent over h ypotenuse, and t angent = o pposite over a djacent (in other words, SOH CAH TOA.) "Steve" becomes concerned by the seriousness of the situation, and wants to make sure that he has not made a mistake on stuff that should be very elementary to a scientist in his position.
The title text mentions that there are very few jobs where one can say that with seriousness, as normal jobs do not involve technology capable of destroying worlds. [ citation needed ]
A Steve is referred to in a similar situation in comic 1532: New Horizons , where his miscalculations screw up the trajectory of the New Horizons space probe, sending it to Earth instead of Pluto. He would be at least 90 years old if it was to be the same Steve though. A person named Steve also comes up with an inappropriate suggestion in 1672: Women on 20s .
[Cueball raising a hand points to Steve (see later) drawn as another shorter Cueball-like guy, and behind Cueball stand Hairy also looking at Steve. Partly behind Steve's head is a piece of paper on the wall with a circle around a central dot and four arrows pointing in towards the circle from each corner of the paper. Behind Hairy's head is another paper with a graph that looks like a positive third degree polynomial with three non-zero solutions. Between Cueball and Hairy at the level of their hands is a small square with two small dots at the two top corners. Seems like a part of the wall rather than a paper. During the next images the two on either side of Cueball moves their head in front or away from these papers so at least once the hole drawing can be seen. Over the panels top frame there is a frame with a caption:] Los Alamos, 1945... Cueball: We have a decision. If we've done our math right, this test will unleash heaven's fire and make us as gods.
[Cueball turns towards Hairy holding his arms out.] Cueball: But it's possible we made a mistake, and the heat will ignite the atmosphere, destroying the planet in a cleansing conflagration.
[In a frame-less panel Steven takes a hand to his chin, while the other two turns towards him.] Steve: Wow. Um. Question: Just to double-check— although I'm 99% sure—
[Cueball, still facing Steve, face-palms himself while Hairy turns away from Steve.] Steve: Is it "SOH CAH TOA" or "COH SAH TOA"? Cueball: Oh, for the love of... can someone redo Steve's work? Hairy: I don't want to do the test anymore.


Constructive

Explanation:
Most online communities, including explainxkcd, face the problem of dissuading spammers from joining and participating. A common solution to this problem is the use of various systems to prevent automated bots' use of the community, while still allowing legitimate users to join. This has resulted in an arms race of sorts between spammers and communities, in which the spammers try to bypass increasingly difficult spam-prevention methods.
This captcha and spamming prevention also has a downside, in that the time it takes to "prove you're human" is sometimes so long as to drive users away because their time is being wasted.
This comic explores the culmination of that arms race, in which an advanced spam-prevention system, built by Cueball, is able to defeat the concept of spamming itself by forcing spammers to contribute constructively to a community.
Captcha is one of the methods used to prevent lots of automated registering of fake user names used by bots and spammers. It consists of asking a person to prove that they are human before registering them as user and allowing them to post on sites or forum topics. That is done by using pictures of words and letters that humans may recognize, but bots and OCR software have trouble with.
Now, artificial intelligence (AI) of bots have advanced so far, that Cueball has invented a new system. It asks the users to rate a slate of comments as constructive or not, then asks them to reply with comments of their own. Megan asks what will happen when spammers find a way around his system, such as making bots that make constructive and helpful comments? Well, it turns out that is what he is trying to accomplish in first place, a thriving community of bots and humans helping its members with constructive and helpful comments , as well as coming one step closer to the singularity .
The title text investigates the consequences of such system further by thinking of people unable to give constructive and helpful comments, which are a sort of people you don't want in your online community anyway. [ citation needed ] Or it could mean that in order to join said community, they would have to learn to post helpful and constructive comments, and would then be eligible to join, thus accomplishing Cueball's goal.
CAPTCHAs are a recurring theme on xkcd.
[Cueball is talking to Megan.] Cueball: Spammers are breaking traditional Captchas with AI, so I've built a new system. It asks users to rate a slate of comments as "Constructive" or "Not constructive."
[Close up of Cueball.] Cueball: Then it has them reply with comments of their own, which are later rated by other users.
[Megan standing next to Cueball again.] Megan: But what will you do when spammers train their bots to make automated constructive and helpful comments?
[Close up of Cueball again.] Cueball: Mission . Fucking . Accomplished .


Starlight

Explanation:
Megan talks with Beret Guy about the journey of light through the universe from its source to our eyes. In Megan's opinion, it is very sad that this journey is pointless - light's travel ends only with us seeing "pretty dots" - stars in the sky. Beret Guy then tries to return light to its birthplace by using a mirror, which reflects light back to its source.
In reality, this would not work. Only a tiny fraction of the photons emanating from a star will reach the mirror and, even if the mirror is held at the perfect orientation, with dispersion (even if the mirror is perfectly smooth, the atmosphere is not) the probability that even one photon will make it back 'home' is effectively nil.
However, if Beret Guy decides to exhibit another one of his strange powers , it is possible that he can find a way to actually find a way to reflect starlight back to 'home'.
The title text is a reference to special relativity , which states that from the point of view of a light particle, the distance is zero because it is moving at the speed of light, so it takes no time to go anywhere. Note that the title text says that relativity saves the day again . This could be a reference to a previous comic 660: Sympathy in which a socially inept physicist touches upon using some consequences of special relativity to save a friend's deceased brother.
[The comic consist of six black panels with white drawings. There are stars above the characters in all panels.]
[Megan and Beret Guy stares at a starlit sky. The text is written above the stars and the sentence continues into the next frame. First here it becomes apparent that it is Megan who speaks the entire comment.] Megan: The starlight falls on our eyes after a journey across trillions of miles-
[Zoom in on Megan and Beret Guy. The continued text is shown to come from Megan via a speech line.] Megan: dying here at last, so far from home, all so we can see some pretty dots.
[Beret Guy think for a moment]
[Beret Guy runs away]
[Beret Guy comes back with a mirror under his arm, the starry sky can also be seen in the mirror.]
[Beret Guy reached Megan, and holds it up above his head pointing it towards the stars.]


Glass

Explanation:
In the beginning of the comic, Megan is trying to break a wine glass like an opera singer. This is a rather famous trick where the vocalist sings at the resonant, or natural frequency of the glass and cause it to resonate more and more until it can no longer handle the stress and breaks - for more info, see the Mythbusters episode about the Earthquake Machine. If the resonant frequency of the glass is outside of the singer's range, then putting some water in the glass will lower its resonant frequency. This effect can be used to play different notes on the rim of a glass by varying the amount of water in it. For example, see this video .
While Megan is trying to break the glass by hitting its resonant frequency, she is actually creating something new.  This is similar to particle physics where a new particle can be identified by a resonance peak in the differencial cross-section of a scattering experiment:  Known particles plus some very specific amount of energy lead to the creation of a new particle, the Higgs boson. This is represented in the comic with the water and the pitch of Megan's voice creating blood.
The term "God Particle" was coined in 1993 by physicist Leon M. Lederman to describe the Higgs boson because it's "central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive." He originally called it the "goddamn particle", but this was considered offensive, and his editor shortened it to just "God particle", maybe to promote interest in the particle from non-academics too. Many people misinterpret the name to be some kind of link between physics and religion, so physics is getting back at them by playing pranks that resemble famous miracles from Christian tradition:
Notably, the Higgs Boson was discovered in 2012, 2 years after this comic was released. So at the time, physicists were still looking for the particle.
Notice that, in the last panel, the blood seems to have dripped out of Cueball 's glass onto the table and solidified instantly, further proof that physics doesn't apply in this scenario.
The title text refers to the breaking of electroweak symmetry. It used to be thought that mirroring the result of any scenario would always give the same outcome as the result of the mirror of that scenario. However, it turns out that the details of the electroweak force (the electromagnetic and weak forces put together) refute this theory. As with many scientific theories, these can be used incorrectly in order to lend credibility to unrelated and nonsensical claims. This particular case is an instance of "quantum woo." Similarly, a degree can be used to lend the appearance of credibility to a person pushing such an idea, regardless of what field it was earned it or whether said person has any competence.
[Megan is singing, Cueball is staring at a glass of water on a table.] Megan: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... Anything break? Cueball: No, but the water in the glass turned to wine.
[Cueball picks up glass] Megan: Weird. Cueball: No, wait. This is blood.
Megan: Okay, physics, quit fucking with us. Physics: You stop looking for the Higgs boson and we'll talk.


One-Liners

Explanation:
In this comic, Randall presents a series of phrases, ordered by how likely they are to be used as a one-liner by a character in an action movie . One-liners are short, punchy phrases, typically witty or funny, and are routinely used in films by the antagonist to taunt the protagonist (or vice versa). The perfect one-liner leaves the recipient at a loss for a comeback, and should make sense immediately. If the phrase doesn't make sense or has to be explained, the effect is lost.
The phrases shown adhere to the witty and punchy stereotype of a classical one-liner, but quickly become more niche and only understandable for an informed subgroup.
You're going down the memory hole now, asshole. The Memory hole is a mechanism for redacting documents, photographs, etc., and a reference to George Orwell 's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four . In this instance it implies that the character on the floor is about to be 'erased' from existence.
Hey! You forgot to carry the two. Cueball , lying on the ground in a fight, while his opponent has the high ground, still appears to be at an advantage since he has a gun and his opponent only has a knife, is pointing out an arithmetic error in his opponent's calculations. This may simply be Cueball adding insult to injury "I'm about to shoot you, but first I'm going to point out that you suck at math". Alternatively, it could be a ruse to distract the knife wielding opponent, or a case of well-timed nerd-sniping . It could also be that Cueball is buying time to cock or reload his gun. Alternatively Cueball is implying the missing carry caused the shown situation, and Cueball is monologuing (albeit a very short monologue), which may also serve to explain to the audience how his victory was achieved. Such an explanation would likely be necessary, as it is difficult to imagine any situation where this would be the case. A fourth way to explain the situation is that Cueball is stating with this phrase, that his opponent overlooked something small but critical, leading to a non anticipated (wrong) outcome. In this case his opponent would have overlooked that Cueball is carrying a gun, yielding to an unexpected and unfortunate outcome of his knife attack.
Looks like the Fed just lowered the interest rate. Ponytail is standing on a desk with documents on it, probably in a banking or business related environment, dominating Cueball in a sword fight. The Federal Reserve System , usually referred to as The Fed, is the central banking system in the United States. The interest rates are usually lowered during a recession or a crisis, to revive the economy by providing businesses with cheap money. The dropped rates correlate with his chances to win and reflect his troubled situation.
Guess you should've scrolled all the way to the bottom before clicking "Agree." A common feature encountered when registering for user accounts or installing software is a very lengthy Terms of service document, describing the things you agree to abide by. The vast majority of people simply click Agree without reading the document, essentially agreeing to anything and everything that the author decided to include, which sometimes leads to things like giving your immortal soul to a company . In the context of this panel, perhaps the user agreed to be executed at random.
Bangarang, motherfucker. This phrase is very similar to the line "Yippee-Ki-Yay motherfucker" used by John McClane in the Die Hard series. Bangarang is, among other things, the Jamaican word for "uproar." It was popularized (without the addition of 'motherfucker') as the cheer of the lost boys in the film Hook .
The title text is another suggested one-liner phrase, referring to an update reminder that frequently pops up when one attempts to view visual media content on a webpage. After delivering the line, the character triggers a detonator (Double colons are sometimes used in text to denote an action), presumably setting off an explosive of some kind.
The phrase states that you need the latest Adobe Flash player to view this (presumably for older flash players too spectacular) explosion.
Also wordplay is involved since a "flash" is one visual representation of a explosion.
Of course in real life one doesn't need a "flash player" to view an explosion. [ citation needed ]
Probability of phrases becoming action movie one liners: [Panels are arranged from More Likely on the left to Less likely on the right.]
[A woman points a gun down at Cueball who is on the floor, his gun just out of reach.] Woman: You're going down the memory hole now, asshole.
[Man on ground points gun up at blade-armed man standing next to a board with science on it.] Man with gun: Hey! You forgot to carry the two.
[Ponytail on desk points sword at man standing on floor.] Ponytail: Looks like the Fed just lowered the interest rate.
[Cueball with gun looks down at Megan slumped on floor.] Cueball: Guess you should've scrolled all the way to the bottom before clicking "Agree."
[Megan holds pistol to the back of the head of Ponytail holding a rifle.] Megan with pistol: Bangarang, motherfucker.


Diode

Explanation:
A diode is an electronic component that, to put it simply, blocks current traveling in one direction, but allows current going the other way. Diodes are a common component of digital circuits, such as those found in a computer. The end that rejects incoming current is marked with a line or band of paint.
The comic is describing a common frustration in relationships. Sometimes one party in a relationship will feel that the other isn't listening to them, even though they themselves are being as open as possible. This is analogous to the function of a diode, which the comic indicates by literally introducing a diode into the dialogue. The diode introduced has the banded end being held by Cueball . This means his words are blocked by the diode, while Megan 's flows through to him; she never receives his protest, his pain, or his apology and thus does not feel she did anything wrong. Megan could possibly have used the diode as a way to avoid apologizing, but she must have known she risked looking like an idiot by not perceiving his apology, as illustrated by the title text: Megan didn't perceive Cueball's apology, due to it being blocked by the diode, so she berates Cueball for not apologizing. An alternative explanation is that Megan won't apologize, as she doesn't hear Cueball's complaint, and that Cueball is unhappy with her for this.
[Cueball is talking to Megan. Megan holds up a diode.] Cueball: We need to talk. Megan: Okay, but first hold the end of this diode.
[They hold the diode.] Cueball: You hurt my feelings yesterday. Megan: You embarrassed me with my family last weekend.
[They are still holding the diode between them.] Cueball: I'm sorry.


Mu

Explanation:
The title of the comic, "Mu", refers to the symbol μ. This letter of the Greek alphabet is commonly used in mathematics and physics in many cases and here it denotes the coefficient of friction which describes the ratio of the force of friction between two connected bodies.
Desk chairs usually have the ability to turn and some chairs spin more easily than others. A desk chair which spins easily could be described as having a low coefficient of friction. The horizontal axis of the chart ranges from very easy to spin on the left, to very difficult to spin on the right. The comic shows that if the chair is too difficult to turn it is annoying and impacts productivity. However, if it is too low spinning one's chair becomes more fun than working.
The title text notes that if your chair spins too easily, you can actually hurt other people's productivity by spinning competitively. [ citation needed ]
In classical mechanics the angular momentum can be transferred to other objects when a rotating object does not have any friction and is rotating very fast. For example, when a reaction wheel inside a spacecraft changes its speed, it turns the entire satellite around. None of this is intuitive, as shown in this video .
[Cueball spins in circles on a chair next to a desk. A graph of productivity vs Coefficient of friction of desk chair shows a curve that drops off very quickly as the coefficient of friction approaches zero, with the productivity becoming negative at low values. It plateaus in the middle of the graph, and then begins to drop less steeply as coefficient of friction increases above the optimal point.] Cueball: Wheeeeeeee


Applied Math

Explanation:
Donald Knuth is a computer scientist who has written several computer science textbooks and he offers monetary rewards for anyone finding errors in his publications. The first error found in each book is worth US$2.56. Other suggestions are worth less than $2.56, but a check is still sent out if Dr. Knuth finds them to be reasonable.
Megan uses a proof to invalidate logic itself. (Of course, this means that her proof paradoxically renders itself meaningless. If logic has been disproven, her proof has no value.) According to the logic symbols at the bottom of the proof, she has proved that "the proposition (statement) is true and the proposition is false," i.e. "something is both true and false." (Specifically, ∴ means "therefore", P represents that a proposition is true, ∧ stands for "and", and an overbar negates a proposition (so P represents that a proposition is false) The negate symbol, ¬, is also used for this purpose when placed in front of a symbol). If someone were to prove this, it would indeed derail the very foundation of logic and result in the principle of explosion , which was referenced in a previous comic .
Since most of the content of computer science textbooks is fundamentally based on logic, Megan's proof obviously spells doom for Dr. Knuth's, as each instance of logic can now be considered an error. After Megan's friend confirms the validity of her proof, Megan writes a letter to Dr. Knuth to collect her money for the 1,317,408 errors in The Art of Computer Programming at $2.56 each. According to the amount Megan demands as a reward, she apparently considers this textbook to have an average of more than 400 instances of logic per page (if she has the latest edition of each volume).
The title text is the reply from Dr. Knuth, in which he uses Megan's logic-disproving proof against her by claiming — with no logical explanation — that the amount of money she is in fact due as a reward is only 98 cents. In logic, from a contradiction (such as "P∧ P ") can be inferred any statement, including that $3,372,564.48 = $0.98. He does this presumably to a) get out of paying her over three million dollars, b) demonstrate his contempt for or disbelief in her proof, and/or c) to show her, rather passive-aggressively, that she herself is not exempt from any ill effects resulting from her proof.  If logic is proved to be false, then all mathematics are proved false and 3,372,564.48 = 0.98. Dr. Knuth could have also given her nothing, as 0 would equal 0.98 which would equal 3,372,564.48.
The title of the comic, "Applied Math," is a play on Applied mathematics , "mathematical methods that are typically used in science, engineering, business, and industry," as opposed to pure math , which focuses exclusively on abstract concepts. Instead of using math to calculate something like the speed of a falling object, Megan uses it for an ostensibly more frivolous reason: to gain a huge reward via a proof of dubious validity.
[Ponytail is standing at a whiteboard considering a logical proof. The proof assumes P and deduces P ∧ P .] Ponytail: Wow. I can't find fault with your proof.
[Ponytail is still looking at the white board, the frame expands to show Megan walking away, rubbing her hands together in an evil manner.] Ponytail: You've shown the inconsistency — and thus the invalidity — of basic logic itself. Megan: Excellent. On to step two...
[Megan sits down at a desk and begins to write.] Dear Dr. Knuth,
[She continues to write.] I am writing to collect from you the $3,372,564.48 I am owed for discovering 1,317,408 errors in The Art of Computer Programming...


Mutual

Explanation:
The comic depicts Cueball and Megan simultaneously thinking about each other. It may be a deliberate prelude to the next comic .
The title text refers to the aspect of Quantum Mechanics where a system can exist in more than one state until it is observed. An observation is required in order to "collapse" the system into a particular state; the thought experiment of Schrödinger's cat is a popular way of explaining this concept. The title text proposes that, if a universe needed to be observed to exist, as with a quantum state, it would be a pretty sorry universe indeed, as who would exist to observe it if it needed to be observed in the first place?
[Cueball and Megan are inside each others' thought bubbles.]


Illness

Explanation:
This is the first comic about Randall 's fiancée's (now wife) cancer .
It is self-explanatory, although vague on specifics.
More details and related comics are on the Category:Cancer page.
In the comic Randall mentions that he might not be able to (or interested in) sticking to the normal schedule. But he did manage to do that anyway. However, this comic was posted on a Friday, and the next week there were the 5 minute comics, and already the week after the next, xkcd was overtaken by guests during the Guest Week . Maybe this was his online comic colleagues who gave him a helping hand?
The title text asks for readers to send him distracting games to play, then was edited to show his appreciation for the number of them sent in.
[Randall, depicted as Cueball, is standing beneath all of this text. The last heart is much bigger than the text and comes directly from the Cueball figure.] Randall: Hey, everyone- Randall: As I mentioned on the blag, I'm going through a rough time right now. I'm dealing with a serious family illness and it's become pretty overwhelming. Randall: We're still getting a handle on everything, and I appreciate your patience while we figure it all out. Randall: Thank you to everyone who wrote in with kind wishes and words of support. They've been passed on and meant a lot. Randall: I like drawing, and might find time for it in the coming weeks, but I'm not going to push myself to stick to a schedule. Randall: However, between my stacks of notebooks, scanner, and supportive sysadmin, I should at least have something interesting to share with you in this space each M/W/F. Randall: ♡


Five-Minute Comics Part 1

Because of a family illness, instead of regular comics, this week I'll be sharing some strips that I drew as part of a game I played with friends. Each comic had to be written and drawn in five minutes. -- Randall
[Cueball and Megan stand facing each other.] Cueball: Jupiter will make its closest approach to Earth in decades.
[Cueball points behind Megan, and she turns around.] Cueball: In fact, here it comes now!
[Jupiter, about the size of the characters' heads, hovers into the frame at about head-height.] Jupiter: Hey, guys.
[Jupiter continues to hover through the frame as the characters watch it go.] Jupiter: Anyone need a gravitational slingshot? Megan: No, I'm good. Jupiter: Aight.
[Cueball sits on a box, playing a guitar.] Cueball: ...Now I don't blame him 'cause he ran and hid, Cueball: but the meanest thing that he ever did Cueball: was before he left, he went and named me "Trig."
[Cueball looks down a well.] Cueball: Oh God, a little girl is trapped down this well!
[Cueball runs off screen.]
[Cueball returns, leading a pony.] Cueball: It's okay, we got you that pony you always wanted!
[Cueball tries to cram the pony down the well with the aid of a large stick.] Cueball: Get... in... there... Cueball: Ugh!
[Cueball and Megan stand in a server room. ] Cueball: I like to get back to nature by coming out here to the server room. Cueball: The warmth, the whirr of the drives, the drone of the fans, the howl of the wolves... Megan: Wolves? Cueball: Yeah, we started a reintroduction program. Wolf: Awoooooo
[Cueball stands by himself in the frame.] Cueball: Yo momma's so masculine that she... oh, wait, that's your dad. Cueball: Is your mom the lady over by the door? Aww, she looks nice!
[Cueball runs toward another man who is wearing a powdered wig, holding a gun in one hand, and a flute in the other. Behind him, someone is chasing him on a motorcycle.] Cueball: Bach, activate the magic flute and teleport us home! Wagner's right behind me on his Ring Cycle!
Why did I draw this?
Hotness Ratings: [A close up of a girl with wavy hair.] Incredibly made-up girl on magazine cover. Girl: Airbrush! [Inset of Cueball: "Meh."]
[An average girl.] Girl in your bio class. [Inset of Cueball: "Two stars."]
[Girl with mussed hair in over-sized men's shirt.] Girl in your bio class wearing one of your shirts. Girl: Want some breakfast? [Cueball: "Four stars."]
[Girl with another sort of shirt speaking to an older lady.] Girl in your bio class wearing one of your mom's shirts. Girl: Thanks for the great night. [Cueball: "Wat!"]
[Creepy-looking girl.] Girl in your bio class wearing your mom's skin like a suit. Girl: Give Mommy a hug! [Cueball, screaming: "AAAAAAAA"]


Five-Minute Comics Part 2

Explanation:
This is the second of three "five-minute comics" Randall posted during a week in November 2010. The introduction to the comic explains everything you need to know about the circumstances behind it.
Randall obviously made more than three of these five minutes comics, and one of them was published later, for a short period of time by a mistake, but an android xkcd browser picked it up while it was on-line and saved it. Since then it has been added to explain xkcd. So here is a complete list of all four comics in the entire Five-minute comics series:
Here is a list with explanations for each of the small comics:
It turns out that, somehow, this will all lead up to a theory that perfectly explains the September 11 attacks .
However, it turns out the jury consists only of women, so the "gentlemen" part is not needed. This poses a problem to Cueball's defense, which apparently relied on somewhat sexist tactics. This, sadly, is not too uncommon in real life.
Instead of belief in the Force as in the movie, the "ancient religion" referred to here is actually Wicca , a modern pagan religion with two deities that is most notable for practicing magic, and is related to voodoo . So, naturally, Darth Vader puts a hex on the commander's family. (Although, to modify a quote from the Internet, Wiccans hexing you as punishment is like a hippie threatening to punch you in your aura.) The title text notes that modern Wiccans don't really practice the whole "putting hexes on people" thing, which is true. Episcopalianism probably refers to the Episcopal Church of the United States , which was founded during the American Revolution to replace the Church of England in the colonies.
Because of a family illness, instead of regular comics, this week I'll be sharing some strips that I drew as part of a game I played with friends.  Each comic had to be written and drawn in five minutes.
--Randall
Comic #1 [A ninja is hiding under a diving board as a man runs along it.]
[The man jumps on the end of the board and hits the ninja in the head, knocking him into the pool.]
[The ninja floats in the water. A bullet passes through the man's head.] thwipp
[The man is lying bleeding on the diving board, the ninja is still unconscious on the pool.]
[A sniper is at the top of a hill. The sign in front of the hill says "Grassy Knoll".]
[Someone is pointing at the diagram of the previous panel.] Off-panel voice: Wait, so what does this have to do with 9/11, again? Cueball: I said I'm getting there!
Comic #2 [Cueball is studying Megan.] Cueball: You look different.
Cueball: You have this... glow about you.
[They stare in silence.]
[A baby falls out of Megan.] plop
Comic #3 Megan: Cogito ergo cogito. Off-panel voice: Playing it safe, huh?
Comic #4 [Two children dressed up as ghosts are standing in front of Megan at a door, each carrying a bag.] Children: Trick or treat!
[Megan doesn't move.]
Child: Um hi. Why are you just standing there? Other Child: Candy?
[Another silent panel as the children stare up at Megan.]
[The second child looks in their bag.] Other Child: Oh God, my bag of candy.
Other Child: It's filling with blood. Child: We should go.
Comic #5 [A jet is flying across the panel.] Pilot: Bail out! Bail out! Bail out!
[The pilot and copilot have buckets, and are bailing water out of the cockpit.]
Comic #6 The following is a dramatization of real events.
[Cueball is at a counter, with several jars.] Cueball: AAAAAAAAAAAAA I'm making a sandwich! AAAAAAAAAA!
Comic #7 [Two people are carrying lightsabers and wearing robes.] Cueball: Oh God, my eyes won't focus right! And your robe looks... really dirty! My blacklightsaber was not a success.
Comic #8 [Cueball is standing.] Cueball: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury... Off-screen voice: It seems we happen to be all ladies, actually. Cueball: ...in that case, this defense is going to appear extremely ill-advised.
Comic #9 [Darth Vader is sitting between two people, at a table.] Cueball: Your sad devotion to that ancient religion hasn't helped you conjur up the stolen data tapes, or given you— Darth Vader: HEY. Wicca is a legitimate belief system!
[Darth Vader is drawing a pentagram on the table.] Cueball: What are you— Darth Vader: Putting a hex on your family.


Five-Minute Comics Part 3

Explanation:
This is the third of three "five-minute comics" Randall posted during a week in November 2010. The introduction to the comic explains everything you need to know about the circumstances behind it.
Randall obviously made more than three of these five minutes comics, and one of them was published later, for a short period of time by a mistake, but an android xkcd browser picked it up while it was on-line and saved it. Since then it has been added to explain xkcd. So here is a complete list of all four comics in the entire Five-minute comics series:
Here is a list with explanations for each of the small comics:
This may also be a joke on present-day levels of awareness of the event; as it fades out of living memory, people might indeed confuse the date with November (or October) 7, despite it being "a date which will live in infamy" .
Here, it's combined with elements of other common scary urban legends (phones ringing and creepy laughter) to form something bizarre.
However, integration also has a meaning in mathematics. This is indicated in the comic with the soldiers lifting up a giant integral sign to place beside the school, in order to (mathematically) integrate it. Normally, an integral only makes sense on functions; however, since this is the Little Rock Nine , if we take the integral of the constant function f ( x ) = 9, we do, in fact, get 9 x + C , as stated in the title text. The posture of the three soldiers with the integral sign echoes the iconic Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima photograph.
The 119 Little Pigs seems to be a variant where the pigs build their houses out of the 118 chemical elements (and bricks, presumably). The 38th little pig builds his house out of strontium , which is, of course, the 38th element on the Periodic Table. One wonders what happened to the pigs who are stuck making their houses out of elements that are gaseous or liquid at room temperature, or those whose houses would react with the air and/or undergo nuclear decay. In his book what if?, in the first comic, it shows the 92nd little pig, who built his house out of depleted Uranium, The wolf responded, "Dude". [1] Although given the water content in exhaled breath, it's easy to see how the wolf would huff, puff, and blow down the houses made of lithium , sodium , potassium , rubidium , caesium , and francium . Though making a houses out of hydrogen , helium , nitrogen , oxygen , fluorine , neon , chlorine and krypton would all be very difficult as they are gases at room temperature [ citation needed ] . Also, there would be issues such as death from the toxicity of the elements, e.g. fluorine would kill the pig and wolf. The piggies may have difficulty collecting enough metal, as they would have trouble collecting enough technetium (43), which only occurs in minute traces, and astatine , of which approximately 1 ounce exists on earth. It could be a coincidence, or possibly Randall's intent, that the wolf asks "What is this shit?" while referring to strontium while "stronzo" is an Italian (vulgar) word for "turd", pronounced almost the same (it is a common source of bad taste jokes) and stront is a Dutch word for shit.
See also: 1786: Trash
Here, Randall takes the pattern to a ridiculous and not-at-all threatening place.
Because of a family illness, instead of regular comics, this week I'll be sharing some strips that I drew as part of a game I played with friends. Each comic had to be written and drawn in five minutes.
--Randall
Comic #1 Pearl Harbor. November 7th, 1941. [There is a beach, with some ships floating in a crescent shaped harbor.]
[The same bay, again.]
[The boats continue to move about the harbor.]
[The boats do their thing. A title explains.] (We're going to be here a while, since the attack wasn't until December.)
Comic #2 [Cueball is sitting on a bus, Megan in front of him. Another person is sitting in front of Megan and another person is sitting behind Cueball.] I know it's natural and all, but I really wish women on the bus wouldn't try to breastfeed me. Megan: C'mon, have some milk. Right here. Cueball: I'm reading .
Comic #3 s/I think that/I saw a study once that said that/g Instant persuasiveness multiplier!
Comic #4 [A newspaper front page. Billy Joel is between two policemen.] Times Billy Joel Arrested for Arson
Comic #5 [One person has a cord leaving their mouth, the other is holding a handset on the end of it to their ear.] Handset: Hee hee hee... *giggle* I hear that if you drink coke and eat pop rocks, you vomit up a corded telephone handset on which you hear creepy little girls giggling.
Comic #6 [Three soldiers are holding a large integral sign, while a fourth points a gun at the Little Rock High School.] 1957: Eisenhower orders the military to integrate Little Rock High School.
Comic #7 [A smartphone is vibrating across a table, towards a person.] The smartphones got too smart... and developed a taste... for BLOOD! Fortunately, the only way they could move was by turning on their vibrate while on a sloped table.
Comic #8 [Cueball is reading to his child.] Cueball: And the wolf went to see the 38th little pig, who had built his house out of strontium. Cueball: And the wolf was all, "Ok, what is with this shit?" The 119 Little Pigs
Comic #9 [Cueball is holding up a gun.] Cueball: Fastest gun in the west!
[The gun is galloping across the desert.] gallop gallop
[There is a podium, with a gun in each position.] Winner!
Comic #10 [A picture of a centrifuge dominates the panel.] Centrifuges: They're what separate the men from the boys.
Comic #11 [A computer monitor is plugged in, and cables run into a wardrobe.] Lucy: Time passes differently in Narnia, so by putting the CPU and storage for my machine there, I was able to run through the [email protected] and [email protected] databases in about an hour. Peter: There are so many problems with that.
Comic #12 [Someone is talking to Alice.] Person: One of these days, Alice... Wham, zoom, sploosh, fwoom, splash, gurlle, wheeeee, fwoosh, aren't waterslides fun?!