Datasets:

olivierdehaene

/

xkcd

like 8

AAAAAA

AAAAAA

https://www.xkcd.com/1001

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1001:_AAAAAA

[Cueball clinging onto bed sheets while being dragged away by centrifugal force.] Cueball: AAAAAAAA [Megan similarly clinging on.] Megan: AAAAAAAA [Overhead shot of both spinning around a plain white circle in a room with other accoutrements.] Both: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA [Cueball is sitting on a couch watching TV and Megan is standing behind the couch, with a frame overlapping the top of the panel containing a heading.] Heading: Earlier that day... Cueball: Haha, check it out–This guy's mansion has an actual rotating bed. Megan: You know, I bet it wouldn't be too hard to build one of those...

Megan and Cueball get the idea to build a rotating bed from a TV show like Cribs , which documents the decadent homes of the wealthy. Rotating beds are typically used for sexual activity and variety, but Cueball and Megan have made theirs rotate far too fast, like a merry-go-round , to be useful for this purpose. The last panel is a flashback to earlier that day, when they see a rotating bed on television. Megan comments that a rotating bed does not seem difficult to build. The title text implies that the high speed of rotation is not accidental as we may have assumed from the comic, but intentional, due to Megan and Cueball's erroneous belief that the rotation itself is supposed to turn them on, not the sexual activity they would engage in on the moving bed. A turning bed is also a pun with "turned-on." [Cueball clinging onto bed sheets while being dragged away by centrifugal force.] Cueball: AAAAAAAA [Megan similarly clinging on.] Megan: AAAAAAAA [Overhead shot of both spinning around a plain white circle in a room with other accoutrements.] Both: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA [Cueball is sitting on a couch watching TV and Megan is standing behind the couch, with a frame overlapping the top of the panel containing a heading.] Heading: Earlier that day... Cueball: Haha, check it out–This guy's mansion has an actual rotating bed. Megan: You know, I bet it wouldn't be too hard to build one of those...

Game AIs

Game AIs

https://www.xkcd.com/1002

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1002:_Game_AIs

[A diagram with a caption above the diagram. The left column describes various levels of skill for the most capable computers in decreasing performance against humans. The right side lists games in each particular section, in increasing game difficulty. There are labels denoting the hard and easy ends of the diagram.] Caption: Difficulty of Various Games for Computers Top of Diagram: Easy Solved Computers can play perfectly Solved for all possible positions Tic-tac-toe Nim Ghost (1989) Connect Four (1995) Solved for starting positions Gomoku Checkers (2007) Computers can beat top humans Scrabble CounterStrike Beer Pong (UIUC robot) Reversi Chess February 10, 1996: First win by computer against top human November 21, 2005: Last win by human against top computer Jeopardy Computers still lose to top humans (but focused R&D could change this) StarCraft Poker Arimaa Go Computers may never outplay humans Snakes and Ladders Mao Seven Minutes in Heaven Calvinball Bottom of Diagram: Hard

To understand the comic, you have to understand what the games are, so let's go (but first, the years in parenthesis in the comic are the year that the game was mastered by a computer): These games are considered "solved", meaning the ideal maneuver for each game state (Tic-Tac-Toe, Connect Four) or each of the limited starting positions (Checkers) has already been calculated. Computers aren't so much playing as they are recalculating the list of ideal maneuvers. The same could be said for the computer's human opponent, just at a slower pace. Black plays first, and players alternate in placing a stone of their color on an empty intersection. The winner is the first player to get an unbroken row of five stones horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The below games have not been "solved". Some of them may be solved some day, but the large number of possible moves has so far prevented this from being done. Others cannot be "solved" due to the influence of randomness or the existence of multiple "ideal" maneuvers for each position. That said, a computer's faster reaction time, higher degree of consistency in making the right decision, and reduced risk of user error make the computer objectively better than the human opponent in nearly all situations. Here's the video of the University of Illinois robot mentioned in the comic. The note mentions "the first game to be won by a chess-playing computer against a reigning world champion under normal chess tournament conditions", in the Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov match on February 10, 1996, and the Ponomariov vs Fritz game in the Man vs Machine World Team Championship on November 21, 2005, considered the "last win by a human against top computer". Ken Jennings, mentioned in the title text, is a famous Jeopardy champion who was beaten by Watson , an IBM computer. This was an exhibition match featuring Jennings, Brad Rutter, and Watson that took place in February 2011. The below games are incredibly difficult to "solve" due to the near-infinite number of possible positions. Computers built in the early 21st century would take years to calculate a single "ideal" move. Worse, the human opponent has the ability to "bluff"; that is, to make a bad move, thus baiting the computer into a trap. Complex algorithms have been devised to make moves in a reasonable timeframe, but so far they are all highly vulnerable to bluffing. As mentioned in the comic, focused research and development is working on refining these algorithms to play the games better. As the game is focused on human interaction, there's not a whole lot a modern computer can do in the closet. It would need some kind of robotic body in order to interact with its human partner, and emotion engines that could feel pleasure and displeasure in order to make decisions. The title text claims that Honda Motor Company has invented a " RealDoll " (sex toy shaped like a mannequin) with rudimentary Seven Minutes in Heaven capabilities, but they pale in comparison to a human's (specifically, Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings). And finally Calvinball is a game played by Calvin and Hobbes as a rebellion against organized team sports; according to Hobbes, "No sport is less organized than Calvinball!" Calvinball was first introduced to the readers at the end of a 1990 storyline involving Calvin reluctantly joining recess baseball. It quickly became a staple of the comic afterwards. The only hint at the true creation of the game ironically comes from the last Calvinball strip, in which a game of football quickly devolves into a game of Calvinball. Calvin remarks that "sooner or later, all our games turn into Calvinball," suggesting a similar scenario that directly led to the creation of the sport. Calvin and Hobbes usually play by themselves, although in one storyline Rosalyn (Calvin's baby-sitter) plays in return for Calvin doing his homework, and plays very well once she realizes that the rules are made up on the spot. The only consistent rules state that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice, and you need to wear a mask, no questions asked. Scoring is also arbitrary, with Hobbes at times reporting scores of "Q to 12" and "oogy to boogy." The only recognizable sports Calvinball resembles are the ones it emulates (i.e., a cross between croquet, polo, badminton, capture the flag, and volleyball.) Long story short, the game is a manifestation of pure chaos and the human imagination, far beyond the meager capabilities of silicon and circuitry, at least so far. The closest thing you could possibly get is having an AI automatically generate rules on the fly, similar to something like the currently-existent AI Dungeon or a similarly robust text algorithm; but even still, the computer would be unable to act upon these new rules in that state. [A diagram with a caption above the diagram. The left column describes various levels of skill for the most capable computers in decreasing performance against humans. The right side lists games in each particular section, in increasing game difficulty. There are labels denoting the hard and easy ends of the diagram.] Caption: Difficulty of Various Games for Computers Top of Diagram: Easy Solved Computers can play perfectly Solved for all possible positions Tic-tac-toe Nim Ghost (1989) Connect Four (1995) Solved for starting positions Gomoku Checkers (2007) Computers can beat top humans Scrabble CounterStrike Beer Pong (UIUC robot) Reversi Chess February 10, 1996: First win by computer against top human November 21, 2005: Last win by human against top computer Jeopardy Computers still lose to top humans (but focused R&D could change this) StarCraft Poker Arimaa Go Computers may never outplay humans Snakes and Ladders Mao Seven Minutes in Heaven Calvinball Bottom of Diagram: Hard

Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve

https://www.xkcd.com/1003

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1003:_Adam_and_Eve

[Adam, portrayed as Cueball, has his palms out.] Adam: It's Adam and Eve , not Abel and Eve!! [Caption below panel:] Adam was freaked out by what he'd just walked in on.

This comic is a take on the anti-homosexual refrain, used often at those sorts of rallies "It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve". This refrain is used to support the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman because in the Old Testament God created a man and a woman to start the human race. Adam and Eve are in the story in the Bible of the creation ( Book of Genesis ), and are the first pair of humans, created by God. Adam walks in on Eve having sexual relations with Abel , who is Adam's son, which turns the joke from a homosexual one into an incest one. In the title text, Adam continues that he would have preferred walking in on Abel and Steve. As well as probably no longer needing to be irked at the surprise involvement of his presumed spouse, and mother to his son, Adam seems not to have a homophobic prejudice (or less of one). Unlike those who use the contemporary version of the phrase. What's more, he doesn't personally dislike Steve in general and possibly considers him one of the better partners available at this time. [Adam, portrayed as Cueball, has his palms out.] Adam: It's Adam and Eve , not Abel and Eve!! [Caption below panel:] Adam was freaked out by what he'd just walked in on.

Batman

Batman

https://www.xkcd.com/1004

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1004:_Batman

[One panel, depicting three wavy circles. The one in the center is slightly larger, and the ones on either side are higher up. Their edges are touching.] [The left circle has Bruce Wayne in the foreground, with Alfred in the background.] Alfred: Know your limits, Master Wayne. Bruce: A man dressed like a bat has no limits. [The center circle has a close-up on Batman in his cowl.] Off-screen: What the hell are you? Batman: I'm a man dressed like a bat. [In the right circle is The Joker.] Off-screen: What do you propose? Joker: It"s simple — we kill a man dressed like a bat. [Caption below the panel:] My Hobby: Whenever anyone says "Batman," I mentally replace it with "a man dressed like a bat."

This comic is a reference to the comic book and movie character Batman , who is actually wealthy playboy Bruce Wayne, as we see on the left being referenced as "Master Wayne" by his butler Alfred. Batman, in contrast to Superman and other comic book heroes, has no superpowers. The name "Batman" suggests that he is a man who is part-bat, or has bat-like powers, but his only actual connection to bats is that he wears a bat-themed costume -- hence the description, "a man dressed like a bat." Thus, when Batman's connection to bats is made explicit, he loses a lot of his mystique. The stick figure representations of Batman and his nemesis, the Joker, are shown from three different movie scenes of the Dark Knight Trilogy, the most recent Batman films at the time of this comic. The middle scene comes from Batman Begins , whilst the two flanking scenes are from its sequel The Dark Knight . In each scene the name "Batman" is substituted with the accurate but embarrassing description "a man dressed like a bat." In this way, Randall is pointing out that Batman commands a lot of respect and fear considering that all he is is a man in a costume. Then in the title text, Randall expresses his fear that Christopher Nolan (the director/producer/writer of the latest Batman trilogy) was going to kill Batman off in the then-upcoming movie Dark Knight Rises . Of course, Randall substitutes for "Batman" as in the comic. This causes a grammatical ambiguity which Randall points out where the "dressed like a bat" could apply to the "man" or to Nolan. A similar ambiguity explicitly discussed in the title text of 1087: Cirith Ungol . There have been several comics using substitutions , but this may have been the first. [One panel, depicting three wavy circles. The one in the center is slightly larger, and the ones on either side are higher up. Their edges are touching.] [The left circle has Bruce Wayne in the foreground, with Alfred in the background.] Alfred: Know your limits, Master Wayne. Bruce: A man dressed like a bat has no limits. [The center circle has a close-up on Batman in his cowl.] Off-screen: What the hell are you? Batman: I'm a man dressed like a bat. [In the right circle is The Joker.] Off-screen: What do you propose? Joker: It"s simple — we kill a man dressed like a bat. [Caption below the panel:] My Hobby: Whenever anyone says "Batman," I mentally replace it with "a man dressed like a bat."

SOPA

SOPA

https://www.xkcd.com/1005

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1005:_SOPA

[A completely black panel with white text. all non-capital letter, in square brackets:] [don't censor the web.] [Hidden in the background, and only visible under certain conditions, is an inverted Black Hat (i.e. white), with the text from above still visible written across his forehead. Above him is the first line of text, and then he speaks the next line:] A message from sysadmins everywhere: Black Hat: Seriously, don't screw with DNS. If you break this internet, we are not making you a new one. [Below the black panel is a visible message from Randall written normally black on white in xkcd style.] I make my living drawing xkcd, which wouldn't have been possible if people hadn't been able to freely share my comics with each other all over the internet. As a copyright holder and small business owner, I oppose SOPA and PIPA. [Randall Munroe's signature, with a little drawing of Cueball on one of the tails. Below that a last message.] Randall Munroe See the links below to learn more. Learn more: EFF : One-page guide to SOPA ( archived ) reddit : A technical overview of the SOPA and PIPA bills ( archived ) DYN : How these bills would break DNS ( archived ) EFF : Free speech on the web ( archived ) Act : Contact information for US elected officials ( archived )

SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act and PIPA, the Protect IP Act , were a pair of controversial bills being considered by the United States government in late 2011 and early 2012. The bills contained the ability for the US government to deny American internet users access to certain sites at a judge's request. These would be activated if the government could prove to a court that a site was primarily used to harbor illegally distributed copyrighted goods, such as video games, music, and TV shows. Many people considered this to be censorship and were concerned that this could instead be used by larger corporations to squelch smaller competing sites who may not have the resources to challenge a "take-down notice" in court, should judges continually agree with the larger corporation. As the bills gained infamy online, many popular websites and web comics participated in a mass protest on January 18, 2012, to announce their displeasure with the bill in an attempt to convince the House of Representatives to reverse their judgement, which had at the time been considered likely to pass if drafted. This was xkcd's participation in the protest. Randall discusses below the black panel that if he was having better copyright protection with these new acts then he would never have gotten this popular since his fans would not have been allowed to distribute the comic gaining him new followers. In typical xkcd fashion, this comic contains several layers of depth that may not be immediately obvious to the casual observer. In this instance, the apparently solid-black region contains a hidden image revealed with simple brightness+contrast manipulation (or simply loading the image into Microsoft Paint and using the fill tool), with Black Hat saying "A message from sysadmins everywhere: Seriously, don't screw with DNS. If you break this internet, we are not making you a new one." This stems from the fact that sites could be ordered taken down by allowing manipulation of the DNS itself, effectively making a site completely disappear from the web. This court-enforced DNS manipulation was considered by many technical professionals to damage the underlying structure of the internet, as well as potentially criminalizing recent work to improve its security. The title text referred to a common theme across protesting sites: a blackout of the internet . Sites such as Google changed to a black background, while Wikipedia prevented access by linking their sites to a black page with white text explaining their participation. On the day of the protest, xkcd was similarly "blacked out," with all comics redirecting to this one. The humor is that Randall has jokingly misinterpreted this "blackout" to mean that he should instead protest by "getting totally blacked out " – i.e. by drinking so much alcohol that he gets drunk , passes out , and wakes up the next day having no memory of his actions or experiences during his drunkenness; despite Randall's good intentions, this would probably not help the protest against SOPA/PIPA. After the protest, the bills were postponed from being drafted on January 20, 2012. [A completely black panel with white text. all non-capital letter, in square brackets:] [don't censor the web.] [Hidden in the background, and only visible under certain conditions, is an inverted Black Hat (i.e. white), with the text from above still visible written across his forehead. Above him is the first line of text, and then he speaks the next line:] A message from sysadmins everywhere: Black Hat: Seriously, don't screw with DNS. If you break this internet, we are not making you a new one. [Below the black panel is a visible message from Randall written normally black on white in xkcd style.] I make my living drawing xkcd, which wouldn't have been possible if people hadn't been able to freely share my comics with each other all over the internet. As a copyright holder and small business owner, I oppose SOPA and PIPA. [Randall Munroe's signature, with a little drawing of Cueball on one of the tails. Below that a last message.] Randall Munroe See the links below to learn more. Learn more: EFF : One-page guide to SOPA ( archived ) reddit : A technical overview of the SOPA and PIPA bills ( archived ) DYN : How these bills would break DNS ( archived ) EFF : Free speech on the web ( archived ) Act : Contact information for US elected officials ( archived )

Sloppier Than Fiction

Sloppier Than Fiction

https://www.xkcd.com/1006

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1006:_Sloppier_Than_Fiction

[A douchebag with a goatee and a bad haircut talks to Cueball while holding a drink.] Goatee Guy: Even though it technically wasn't cheating, she dumped me anyway! So I tell Bret, and he's like "She sounds just like my crazy ex." And I was like, "dude, what was her name?" and it was the same girl. Goatee Guy: I swear, if they made my life into a movie, no one would believe it. Cueball: Yeah, though mostly because of the poorly-written dialogue and unlikeable main character.

This comic is basically Cueball stuck in a conversation with Goatee Guy, presumably at a bar or party as Goatee Guy is carrying a drink. From Cueball's reaction it's clear he thinks Goatee Guy is a terrible person, a judgment that Goatee's story seems to verify. In it, he complains about being dumped by his ex-girlfriend for an act that he describes as "not technically cheating." Whatever he did, his description makes it clear that it was close enough to cheating to make any technical distinctions meaningless, and that he is selfishly looking for loopholes to justify his bad behavior. He also describes his ex as "crazy," even though her reaction to his bad behavior seems perfectly reasonable. The point of his story is that his friend Bret says Goatee's ex resembles a "crazy ex" of his own, and it turns out they are talking about the same girl. This coincidence strikes Goatee as so unlikely that audiences would find it implausible in a fictional setting. This is a variation on the adage "truth is stranger than fiction", which means that sometimes real life can lead to some unexpected ups and downs that would not even make sense in a fictional representation in a book or a movie. Cueball, however, counters that if Goatee's life was a movie, audiences would reject it for different reasons: "poorly-written dialogue and unlikeable main character." By this he is referring to Goatee's boorish behavior in his story, the equally boorish manner of speaking, and his incorrect belief that his story is all that noteworthy or implausible in the first place (it's a mild coincidence at best, and hardly "stranger than fiction"). In the title text, Roger Ebert was a famous American movie critic , who could be quite caustic when reviewing a movie he disliked. "Directionless" and "unwatchable," along with Cueball's initial complaints of "poorly-written dialogue and unlikeable main character," are common criticisms of bad movies, but have entirely different and much more personally cutting connotations when applied to a human being. [A douchebag with a goatee and a bad haircut talks to Cueball while holding a drink.] Goatee Guy: Even though it technically wasn't cheating, she dumped me anyway! So I tell Bret, and he's like "She sounds just like my crazy ex." And I was like, "dude, what was her name?" and it was the same girl. Goatee Guy: I swear, if they made my life into a movie, no one would believe it. Cueball: Yeah, though mostly because of the poorly-written dialogue and unlikeable main character.

Sustainable

Sustainable

https://www.xkcd.com/1007

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1007:_Sustainable

[A large two-axis scatterplot graph with a caption below. The y-axis displays percentages on a logarithmic scale from 0.000001% to 1,000%, and is labeled "Frequency of use of the word "sustainable" in US English text, as a percentage of all words, by year. Source: Google NGrams." The x-axis displays years from 1950 to 2140, and is labeled "Year". Plotted data points show a high linear correlation (effectively exponential due to being a log scale), ranging from approximately 0.000005% in 1960 to approximately 0.003% in 2012. A linear trend line is drawn through the data points, and is extrapolated to the end of the graph. Four points on this trend line are marked and labled:] (2012, ~0.003%): Present Day (2036, ~0.03%): 2036: "Sustainable" occurs an average of once per page (2061, ~0.5%): 2061: "Sustainable" occurs an average of once per sentence (2109, 100%): 2109: All sentences are just the word "sustainable" over and over. [The trend line continues past the year 2109, exceeding 100% and breaking up into question marks.] [Caption below the panel:] The word "sustainable" is unsustainable.

This is a simple scatterplot showing how often the word "sustainable" has been used in English texts in the US each year. As can be seen, the y-axis is given a logarithmic scale, meaning that the apparently linear trend is actually exponential. Randall humorously attempts to extend the graph to the point the frequency exceeds 100% about a century from now, which is obviously impossible (hence the quip that the word's usage is itself "unsustainable"). The use of the word "sustainable" has been increasing as people become more aware of the steadily increasing use of nonrenewable resources and need to ensure that the Earth's resources do not become totally exhausted, through sustainable development. Sustainable development refers to the practice of using resources that simultaneously aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present time, but also for generations to come. As Randall somewhat depressingly mentions in the title text, the ~100 years that it will supposedly take for the word "sustainable" to become unsustainable is actually a lot longer than most of our nonrenewable resources will last on the Earth. The idea that all of the Earth's coal, oil, natural gas, etc. that has built up over the past millions of years may be completely gone within the century is unsettling. More realistically, the actual use of "sustainable" is likely to be logistic rather than exponential growth. A logistic curve describes a trend that at first behaves exponentially, but then tapers off and reaches a cap. This is demonstrated by the Google ngrams graph of word usage for "sustainable" . Logistic growth is commonly used to model data that naturally increases exponentially but has a limiting factor, which in this case is the meaningfulness of text consisting entirely or mostly of a single word. This comic was used in the 2018 book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker as it discusses the concept of sustainable energy. Extrapolation of data has also appeared in the following comics 605: Extrapolating , 1204: Detail and 1281: Minifigs . And yes, "sustainable" has appeared in every paragraph so far. [A large two-axis scatterplot graph with a caption below. The y-axis displays percentages on a logarithmic scale from 0.000001% to 1,000%, and is labeled "Frequency of use of the word "sustainable" in US English text, as a percentage of all words, by year. Source: Google NGrams." The x-axis displays years from 1950 to 2140, and is labeled "Year". Plotted data points show a high linear correlation (effectively exponential due to being a log scale), ranging from approximately 0.000005% in 1960 to approximately 0.003% in 2012. A linear trend line is drawn through the data points, and is extrapolated to the end of the graph. Four points on this trend line are marked and labled:] (2012, ~0.003%): Present Day (2036, ~0.03%): 2036: "Sustainable" occurs an average of once per page (2061, ~0.5%): 2061: "Sustainable" occurs an average of once per sentence (2109, 100%): 2109: All sentences are just the word "sustainable" over and over. [The trend line continues past the year 2109, exceeding 100% and breaking up into question marks.] [Caption below the panel:] The word "sustainable" is unsustainable.

Suckville

Suckville

https://www.xkcd.com/1008

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1008:_Suckville

[Megan is kneeling on the floor, playing a card game.] Megan: Hah! Megan: Welcome to Suckville–population: You . [In a frame-less panel, Cueball is sitting on the floor opposite her, also playing the game.] Cueball: Why are you using 2000 census data? Cueball: That's an old figure. [Megan turns around from the game to look at her laptop, which is sitting on the floor behind her.] Megan: I couldn't find Suckville in the 2010 census. Cueball: Huh? It's right there in SF-1 table P1. Megan: Oh. So it is. [Megan turns back to Cueball, who is looking at his cards.] Megan: Well, then. Megan: Welcome to Suckville–population: 83. Cueball: Much better.

Megan and Cueball are playing a card game (probably Dominion ) and Megan whips a common insult, a play on the word "suck" that adds a typical city name suffix to the end of it. Other variations are: "Losertown", "Lameville", etc. The phrase is originally based on the ubiquitous signage you see along American roads that say "Welcome to Town X — Population Y". Then, since Cueball one-ups Megan by indicating there is a city by that name, she can only resign herself to the fact that her smack talk did not work. Since Cueball knows where Suckville can be found in the census data, it's likely that he has received this insult in the past (maybe even from Megan) and searched through the census data to prepare a comeback for this time. The title text informs the reader that Suckville is classified as part of the Detroit area despite not being located there. Detroit, of course, is the quintessential example of a city so run down, it might as well really be named "Suckville", or include a district of that name. In fact, the city only recently (2013) declared itself bankrupt. (Fun fact: looking in the US Census Suckville is "corrected" to Saukville, Wisconsin , which is indeed not particularly close to Detroit, Michigan . However the population of Saukville in the 2010 census is given as 4451 for the village, and 1755 for the surrounding town municipality.) [Megan is kneeling on the floor, playing a card game.] Megan: Hah! Megan: Welcome to Suckville–population: You . [In a frame-less panel, Cueball is sitting on the floor opposite her, also playing the game.] Cueball: Why are you using 2000 census data? Cueball: That's an old figure. [Megan turns around from the game to look at her laptop, which is sitting on the floor behind her.] Megan: I couldn't find Suckville in the 2010 census. Cueball: Huh? It's right there in SF-1 table P1. Megan: Oh. So it is. [Megan turns back to Cueball, who is looking at his cards.] Megan: Well, then. Megan: Welcome to Suckville–population: 83. Cueball: Much better.

Sigh

Sigh

https://www.xkcd.com/1009

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1009:_Sigh

[Cueball is standing behind Megan, who's sitting and watching TV.] Cueball: Hey, is that Downtown Abbey ? What town is it in the downtown of, anyway? Megan: *siiiiiiigh* Cueball: — girl look at that body. [Caption below the panel:] We should thank LMFAO for giving us such a great way to respond to exasperated sighs.

Cueball is mispronouncing the name of the British TV show, also available in the US, Downton Abbey . Mispronouncing the title as DownTOWN Abbey causes Megan to sigh because it is such a common and stupid mistake to fans of the show. Mispronouncing the title changes the meaning from being about the eponymous Yorkshire Country Estate (pronounced doun -tuhn ab -ee /ˌdaʊntən ˈæbi/) to being about a monastery in the midst of a large city (incorrectly pronounced doun-toun ab -ee /ˈdaʊnˌtaʊn ˈæbi/). In the UK the CBD, the Central Business District (the big middly bit), is simply called the "city centre". LMFAO is a ubiquitous group in the US on radio, TV and even strange commercials with rodents riding in cars with their song, Party Rock Anthem . However, this comic is a reference to another one of their songs, "Sexy And I Know It." The relevant lyrics are: sigh … girl look at that body sigh … girl look at that body sigh … girl look at that body ah-ah, I work out! The title text is referring to the multiple uses of that lyric throughout the song, creating a steady rhythm. [Cueball is standing behind Megan, who's sitting and watching TV.] Cueball: Hey, is that Downtown Abbey ? What town is it in the downtown of, anyway? Megan: *siiiiiiigh* Cueball: — girl look at that body. [Caption below the panel:] We should thank LMFAO for giving us such a great way to respond to exasperated sighs.

Etymology-Man

Etymology-Man

https://www.xkcd.com/1010

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1010:_Etymology-Man

[Cueball and Ponytail are facing each other, with wavy lines around them to indicate they are experiencing the shaking of an earthquake.] Cueball: Earthquake! Ponytail: We should get to a higher ground - There could be a tidal wave. [A frame-less panel with Cueball and Ponytail, with Cueball taking a pedantic pose and raising a finger.] Cueball: You mean a tsunami. "Tidal wave" means a wave caused by tides. [A crash is heard, followed by Etymology-Man flying in while wearing a cape.] Etymology-man: You know, that doesn't add up. Cueball and Ponytail: Etymology-man! [Etymology-man takes a pedantic pose.] Etymology-man: What does "tidal wave" mean? There are waves caused by tides, but they're "tidal bores", and they're not cataclysmic. It can refer to the daily tide cycle, but that's obviously not what people mean when they say "a tidal wave hit". It's been obvious for centuries that these waves come from quakes. So why "tidal"? [Panel zooms in on Etymology-man.] Etymology-man: Remember that until 2004, there weren't any clear photos or videos of tsunamis. Some modern writers even described them rearing up and breaking like surfing waves [sic] Of course, in 2004 and 2011, it was made clear to everyone that a tsunami is more like a rapid, turbulent, inrushing tide - exactly what historical accounts describe. [Water begins to rush in. Etymology-man keeps his pedantic pose.] Etymology-man: Maybe those writing about Lisbon in 1755 used "tidal wave" not out of scientific confusion, but because it described the wave's form — a description lost in our rush to expunge "tidal wave" from English. [The water is now waist-deep. Etymology-man continues to drone on, but the others start to panic.] Etymology-man: "Tsunami" is now the standard, and I'm not trying to change that. But let's be a tad less giddy about correcting "tidal wave" - especially when "tsunami" just means "harbor wave", which is hardly...

This became the first comic in a two comic series about the Etymology-Man . The second following two comics later in 1012: Wrong Superhero . This comic is a take on the traditional appearance of a super hero when a disaster strikes. In this case, Etymology-Man arrives, who apparently has the power of Etymology — the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. As Etymology-Man is explaining the history of the words " tsunami " and "tidal wave", the water starts rising around them. As the waters continue to rise, he continues to only explain the words, rather than attempting to save them as a superhero should. The comic is a dig at academics who prefer to talk about issues when taking action is more appropriate. Also, the title text is a play on how useless Aquaman is (perceived to be) compared to other superheroes, as his powers — breathing underwater, speed swimming, and communicating with sea life — are very difficult for writers to make relevant. Indeed, in the case of a flood, Aquaman and his aquatic allies would be able to assist with evacuations. The irony of the situation comes from the fact that Etymology-Man also has the power of flight and could in fact save Cueball and Ponytail if he was not so busy talking about the origin of the word "tidal wave". Inexplicable is the fact that Cueball and Ponytail both know exactly who this "superhero" is, and ergo presumably realize that what he is telling them is useless, but they don't even attempt to get to safety. There are few possible explanations for this: perhaps they are simply accepting their fate instead of trying to escape, or even that learning cool word facts takes precendence over saving their own lives, or they have been distracted by Etymology-Man's lecture and were caught by surprise by the fast tidal wave. [Cueball and Ponytail are facing each other, with wavy lines around them to indicate they are experiencing the shaking of an earthquake.] Cueball: Earthquake! Ponytail: We should get to a higher ground - There could be a tidal wave. [A frame-less panel with Cueball and Ponytail, with Cueball taking a pedantic pose and raising a finger.] Cueball: You mean a tsunami. "Tidal wave" means a wave caused by tides. [A crash is heard, followed by Etymology-Man flying in while wearing a cape.] Etymology-man: You know, that doesn't add up. Cueball and Ponytail: Etymology-man! [Etymology-man takes a pedantic pose.] Etymology-man: What does "tidal wave" mean? There are waves caused by tides, but they're "tidal bores", and they're not cataclysmic. It can refer to the daily tide cycle, but that's obviously not what people mean when they say "a tidal wave hit". It's been obvious for centuries that these waves come from quakes. So why "tidal"? [Panel zooms in on Etymology-man.] Etymology-man: Remember that until 2004, there weren't any clear photos or videos of tsunamis. Some modern writers even described them rearing up and breaking like surfing waves [sic] Of course, in 2004 and 2011, it was made clear to everyone that a tsunami is more like a rapid, turbulent, inrushing tide - exactly what historical accounts describe. [Water begins to rush in. Etymology-man keeps his pedantic pose.] Etymology-man: Maybe those writing about Lisbon in 1755 used "tidal wave" not out of scientific confusion, but because it described the wave's form — a description lost in our rush to expunge "tidal wave" from English. [The water is now waist-deep. Etymology-man continues to drone on, but the others start to panic.] Etymology-man: "Tsunami" is now the standard, and I'm not trying to change that. But let's be a tad less giddy about correcting "tidal wave" - especially when "tsunami" just means "harbor wave", which is hardly...

Baby Names

Baby Names

https://www.xkcd.com/1011

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1011:_Baby_Names

[Cueball sits at a desk, thinking with his hand on his chin, his other hand holding a pen over a piece of paper. Megan stands behind him, looking over his shoulder, also with her hand on her chin.] [Above the drawing is the list they are writing by hand.] Names for daughter Ponzi Eeemily Fire Fire Chipotla Astamouthe Eggsperm [sound of record scratch] Parsley Hot'n'Juicy Ann Ovari Friendly Sean (pronounced "seen") Joyst

This comic is a list of comically terrible baby names invented by Randall. It may relate to his other comics about why he shouldn't be allowed to have access to babies. This is a list of the names with a short description: A further analysis of baby names is presented by Randall in the Blag post " The Baby Name Wizard ". Renesmee (from the title text) is the name of Renesmee Cullen , who is the baby born in the book and movie Breaking Dawn to parents Edward and Bella. Edward and Bella get "Renesmee" from an amalgamation of the names of Bella's mother, Renée, and Edward's adoptive mother, Esme. Randall 's point is that all those names are terrible, but (arguably) not nearly as terrible as the name Renesmee. [Cueball sits at a desk, thinking with his hand on his chin, his other hand holding a pen over a piece of paper. Megan stands behind him, looking over his shoulder, also with her hand on her chin.] [Above the drawing is the list they are writing by hand.] Names for daughter Ponzi Eeemily Fire Fire Chipotla Astamouthe Eggsperm [sound of record scratch] Parsley Hot'n'Juicy Ann Ovari Friendly Sean (pronounced "seen") Joyst

Wrong Superhero

Wrong Superhero

https://www.xkcd.com/1012

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1012:_Wrong_Superhero

[A giant praying mantis attacks a team of scientists, along with its legion of smaller-but-still-unusually-large mantises. Two of the scientists fight back, with a gun and a baseball bat respectively, while a third is in the mantis' clutches, held aloft by his foot, his goggles falling off his face. Bullets whiz by the giant mantis' head and a fourth scientist hides behind a desk, on which rests a microscope and an Erlenmeyer flask. A man in a cape approaches the hiding scientist.] Etymology-man: Ah, no—you wanted ENTO mology-Man, spelled with an "N". See, it's from the Greek entomon , meaning "insect," which is itself the neuter form of entomos , meaning "segmented" or... BLAM BLAM BLAM

This is the second of the two comics in the series about the Etymology-Man . The first came two comics before with 1010: Etymology-Man . The superhero, Etymology-Man, returns. And just like in his first appearance, Etymology-Man is explaining the origination of words instead of actually helping. Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. In this comic, a group of scientists is in a lab, fighting off a giant mantis and some smaller, but still larger than normal praying mantises. One Cueball is firing a gun and Ponytail is brandishing a baseball bat, while the giant mantis grabs one Cueball by the leg, dangling him upside down. Behind the table, another Cueball is listening to Etymology Man speak. The joke here is that the scientists called the wrong hero for help. They want Entomology-Man because they are fighting a giant praying mantis and an army of smaller praying mantises (which are nonetheless much larger than a typical praying mantis - compared to the size of the people in this comic the smaller mantises appear to be 8-12 inches long). Entomology is the study of insects. Instead of calling Entomology-Man, who could probably help with fighting off the mantises, they have accidentally called Etymology-Man, due to the similarities in their names. Etymology-Man can only explain the origin of words, making him useless in this current situation. In the title text, we find out the scientists accidentally call another superhero focused on the story of Adam and Eve in the Biblical book of Genesis. This is probably Etiology -Man (the study of causation and attribution), but might be Ontology -Man (the study of being and existence), Ethology -Man (the study of human character, with a focus on its formation and evolution), or (as a pun) Adam-ology-Man. Or perhaps Anthropology -Man or Anthropogeny -Man. [A giant praying mantis attacks a team of scientists, along with its legion of smaller-but-still-unusually-large mantises. Two of the scientists fight back, with a gun and a baseball bat respectively, while a third is in the mantis' clutches, held aloft by his foot, his goggles falling off his face. Bullets whiz by the giant mantis' head and a fourth scientist hides behind a desk, on which rests a microscope and an Erlenmeyer flask. A man in a cape approaches the hiding scientist.] Etymology-man: Ah, no—you wanted ENTO mology-Man, spelled with an "N". See, it's from the Greek entomon , meaning "insect," which is itself the neuter form of entomos , meaning "segmented" or... BLAM BLAM BLAM

Wake Up Sheeple

Wake Up Sheeple

https://www.xkcd.com/1013

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1013:_Wake_Up_Sheeple

[Cueball yells into a megaphone.] Cueball: Your government has turned against you! Corporations control your every thought! Cueball: Open your eyes! [Zoomed in to Head-on view of Cueball.] Cueball: Wake up, sheeple! Wake up, sheeple! Cueball: WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!! [In a frame-less panel, Cueball takes the megaphone away from his mouth.] RUMBLE [A half-sheep half-man creature rises through the cracking earth, holding aloft a gnarled staff.] B-A-A-A-A-A... [Close-up on the sheep-man's eye.] Sheep-Man: TEN THOUSAND YEARS WE SLUMBERED... NOW WE RIIIIIIIISE BAAAAAA [A clearly upset Megan goes up to Cueball, hands held out in front of her plaintively.] Megan: OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD WHY DID YOU DO THAT?! Cueball: What? But I didn't— Out-of-frame #1: He awoke the Sheeple! Out-of-frame #2: Heaven forgive us! Out-of-frame #3: All is lost!

Cueball is going through the traditional street-protester refrain about the government having control over our lives and shouts " wake up , sheeple!" through a megaphone. Sheeple is a portmanteau of sheep and people used as a derisive term to describe people who thoughtlessly wander through their daily lives going exactly where they are "herded" by the powers that be. However, in this comic, the Sheeple are humanoid sheep-men who have slumbered beneath the Earth for ten thousand years, and whom Cueball has inadvertently awoken with his repeated mantra (much as in 555: Two Mirrors ). The Sheeple appear to be some kind of eldritch abomination who will destroy the human race, and judging from Megan's reaction and the off-panel voices, Cueball seems to be the only one previously unaware of their existence. The title text says the humans will be led "like lambs to the slaughter" which is a phrase that appears many times in older texts, the Bible as an example. The phrase means that someone or something would be led to its destruction without it thinking to escape from the disaster. The Sheeple are likely to take it amiss, because it indicates the uncaring frequency with which humans kill juvenile sheep. See more Sheeple-related comics at Category:Sheeple . [Cueball yells into a megaphone.] Cueball: Your government has turned against you! Corporations control your every thought! Cueball: Open your eyes! [Zoomed in to Head-on view of Cueball.] Cueball: Wake up, sheeple! Wake up, sheeple! Cueball: WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!! [In a frame-less panel, Cueball takes the megaphone away from his mouth.] RUMBLE [A half-sheep half-man creature rises through the cracking earth, holding aloft a gnarled staff.] B-A-A-A-A-A... [Close-up on the sheep-man's eye.] Sheep-Man: TEN THOUSAND YEARS WE SLUMBERED... NOW WE RIIIIIIIISE BAAAAAA [A clearly upset Megan goes up to Cueball, hands held out in front of her plaintively.] Megan: OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD WHY DID YOU DO THAT?! Cueball: What? But I didn't— Out-of-frame #1: He awoke the Sheeple! Out-of-frame #2: Heaven forgive us! Out-of-frame #3: All is lost!

Car Problems

Car Problems

https://www.xkcd.com/1014

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1014:_Car_Problems

[Megan stands in front of a projection on a screen and points with a stick to the picture shown of a blue car with yellow head lights standing on a gray road with green grass behind. She has an audience consisting of Cueball standing in front of Black Hat who is sitting and leaning back in a chair and Danish standing behind him.] Megan: Attention, please. Megan: This is a photo of my car as of two weeks ago. [Zoom in on Megan only, still in front of the screen, but pointing on a new projection of the same car engulfed in red and yellow flames, with lots of black smoke above the flames.] Megan: And this is my car as I found it this morning. Megan: Can anyone tell me what's wrong with this picture? [Zoom in on her audience who all ponders, Cueball with a hand on his chin, Black Hat sitting up straight and Danish scratching the back of her head.] [Zoom out to all four in a frame-less panel, seen from the side so the screen with the color picture is seen almost from the side. It is possible to see that there is colors on the screen but not what the picture looks like. All three respond to Megan, who is standing with her pointer down; Cueball now has his hands down, Black Hat still sits straight, and Danish now has a hand to her chin.] Cueball: The white balance, for one. Danish: Focus is a bit too close. Black Hat: The chromatic aberration suggests you bought your camera because it had "The most megapixels". [Zoom in on Megan only, who violently swishes her pointing stick up towards the screen behind her (off panel). The other three are outside the panel to the right, and two of them makes comments. It is not possible to say which of the three speaks.] Megan: The car is on fire! Off panel voice 1: Maybe you should use the insurance money to get a better camera. Off panel voice 2: Yeah.

Megan's car appears to have combusted at some point while she left it unattended. Suspecting her friends and acquaintances Cueball , Black Hat and Danish of perhaps having something to do with it, she gathers them in front of a couch and draws attention to the fact that something is just a little bit wrong with the two juxtaposed images she shows them. When she asks What is wrong with this picture , they all three take this question literally and start critiquing the picture quality, and not the subject, feigning complete ignorance about the car being on fire. When Megan exasperatedly tells them what is wrong with the picture —that her car is on fire!— they continue to act evasive by telling her that she should buy a better camera. But at least here they acknowledges that the car is on fire, as they suggest she uses the insurance money (from the car) to buy this better camera. The title text and the dialogue suggest that Megan's friends aren't being evasive to avoid telling her the truth, they are just doing exactly what they were told. They patiently and correctly describe what is wrong with the picture. If Megan had wanted to know what was wrong with her car, then she should have asked that directly. Her friends are just being friendly when they offer to help her create the scene [again] so that she can shoot the picture correctly. And the "again" proves that they did set the car on fire, and they are not trying to deny this. But for sure they are messing with her, both by setting her car on fire, deliberately understanding her question in another way than she intended, and then even suggesting that they will set her new car on fire as well. As for the particular details of the digital photography terms mentioned: While this comic focuses on misunderstandings by people viewing pictures this could be also a reference to the battery fire in a stored, damaged Chevrolet Volt automobile. During a side-impact safety test, which the car passed with a five star rating at Popular Mechanics , its high voltage battery pack was damaged. Part of the test procedure includes rolling the vehicle over after the impact to check for leaking fluids; during the rollover check, the vehicle electronics were flooded with coolant. The damaged vehicle was then put into storage where its high voltage battery remained energized; three weeks later the battery spontaneously caught fire, potentially due to corrosion, and destroyed the car. GM subsequently made design changes to address the causes of the fire. Megan's car also caught fire in 1693: Oxidation , but this time she knew for sure who did it, so no direct relation to this comic, except the poor luck Megan has with her cars. [Megan stands in front of a projection on a screen and points with a stick to the picture shown of a blue car with yellow head lights standing on a gray road with green grass behind. She has an audience consisting of Cueball standing in front of Black Hat who is sitting and leaning back in a chair and Danish standing behind him.] Megan: Attention, please. Megan: This is a photo of my car as of two weeks ago. [Zoom in on Megan only, still in front of the screen, but pointing on a new projection of the same car engulfed in red and yellow flames, with lots of black smoke above the flames.] Megan: And this is my car as I found it this morning. Megan: Can anyone tell me what's wrong with this picture? [Zoom in on her audience who all ponders, Cueball with a hand on his chin, Black Hat sitting up straight and Danish scratching the back of her head.] [Zoom out to all four in a frame-less panel, seen from the side so the screen with the color picture is seen almost from the side. It is possible to see that there is colors on the screen but not what the picture looks like. All three respond to Megan, who is standing with her pointer down; Cueball now has his hands down, Black Hat still sits straight, and Danish now has a hand to her chin.] Cueball: The white balance, for one. Danish: Focus is a bit too close. Black Hat: The chromatic aberration suggests you bought your camera because it had "The most megapixels". [Zoom in on Megan only, who violently swishes her pointing stick up towards the screen behind her (off panel). The other three are outside the panel to the right, and two of them makes comments. It is not possible to say which of the three speaks.] Megan: The car is on fire! Off panel voice 1: Maybe you should use the insurance money to get a better camera. Off panel voice 2: Yeah.

Kerning

Kerning

https://www.xkcd.com/1015

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1015:_Kerning

[There is a poorly-kerned sign on the side of a building. Two Cueball-like guys are standing in front of it. The first guy has his hands in fists up in front of him and a black cloud over his head.] C I T Y O F F I C E S First guy: Argh! Second guy: What? [Caption below the frame:] If you really hate someone, teach them to recognize bad kerning.

In typography, kerning refers to the spacing between consecutive letters in printed material or the process of adjusting said spacing. Bad kerning is thus text that has so much space between letters of one word that it appears to be two words, or by including so little space between letters that they run together. A common kerning issue is an "r" and an "n" together looking like an "m". (This latter case has resulted in the slang term " keming " for this type of kerning.) Extreme behavior of bad kerning can lead to humorous or inappropriate text. Proper kerning is more difficult than it sounds. If one were to imagine each letter as existing inside a rectangle, "A" and "V", for example, happen to be negatives of one another space-wise, and as a result if an "A" was simply set alongside a "V" (or vice versa) where the rectangles do not overlap, the spacing would end up looking unusually large. Thus, "AV" and "VA" sequences have to be specially programmed to overlap slightly. Kerning has been an issue in typography since the early era of printing presses and movable type but has taken on new challenges with digital printing. Typical non-designers using basic word processing software don't pay much attention to kerning. A good graphic designer, however, can compensate for bad kerning by individually adjusting the spacing between problem letters. People who specialize in graphic design or layout (and, thus, who are exposed to digital text on a regular basis) can become hyper-sensitive to bad kerning, seeing it in signs or other printed materials prepared by people without such sensitivity to bad kerning. In the comic, the kerning in the sign is badly done: the spacing between C and I (in "City"), between C and E (in "Offices"), and even slightly between F and I (also in "Offices") is inconsistent. The space between the C and E is almost as wide as the space between the words. One character is clearly frustrated while the other character doesn't notice the problem at all. The comic explains that once a person learns what good kerning is, they will get irritated by shoddy kerning in the future. And since it is very irritating to be annoyed every time this happens, Randall suggest that you teach this to someone you really hate. Unfortunately, the comic itself has also taught us to be annoyed. Th a nks, R an da ll. Kerning was mentioned in the title text of 590: Papyrus , a comic about the font Papyrus. This is a comic in the " My Hobby " series, and the suggestion of teaching someone about kerning to annoy them sounds like it could become a new hobby for Randall. Incidentally, Google Search features an Easter egg regarding this very topic: searching for the word " kerning " causes every instance of that word to be badly overspaced. On the other hand, searching for " keming " will cause every instance to be even more badly underspaced. The title text is written by Randall explaining that as he was writing this comic about kerning, he was very self-conscious of his own handwriting. The act of thinking about kerning (and likely, the act of drawing an example of such bad kerning) made him aware of it in his own writing, and in fact, he kerns the caption oddly, with, for example, the T in "them" hanging over the top of the H, but this is a common quirk of his. He probably hates the person who made him aware of this, although it gave him this idea for a comic (that if he is correct, will make a lot of people hate him now). This aspect suggests a parallel with 972: November , which also suggests the idea of annoying a person by calling their attention to something which usually does not merit it. [There is a poorly-kerned sign on the side of a building. Two Cueball-like guys are standing in front of it. The first guy has his hands in fists up in front of him and a black cloud over his head.] C I T Y O F F I C E S First guy: Argh! Second guy: What? [Caption below the frame:] If you really hate someone, teach them to recognize bad kerning.

Valentine Dilemma

Valentine Dilemma

https://www.xkcd.com/1016

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1016:_Valentine_Dilemma

[Cueball standing with hand on chin.] Cueball: Flowers seem so... trite. Something homemade? Easy to look halfhearted. [A frame-less panel of Megan sitting at a computer, also with hand on chin.] Megan: Valentine's day is a corporate construct. Megan: But hard to opt out of. Megan: I don't want to be a corporate tool or an inconsiderate jerk. [Cueball pacing.] Cueball: How do I fight cliché? I could get her a gift on a different day. Cueball: But what am I proving? [Megan leaning back with stapler in hand.] Megan: It's such a contrived ritual. But maybe rituals are necessary social glue. [Zoomed in on Cueball panicking.] Cueball: Forty presents. No, none! No, give her five items and then steal two from her. Cueball: OK, breathe. Keep it together. [Zoomed in on Megan sweating, still holding the stapler.] Megan: And what if he gets me something and I don't reciprocate? Megan: Prisoners dilemma! Megan: AAAAAAAAAA!! [Cueball and Megan talking. Cueball is holding a basket and a jar of hammers. Megan's hand is stapled to her face.] Cueball: I got you Easter candy and a jar of hammers. Megan: I panicked and stapled my hand to my face. Cueball: We overthought this. Megan: Yes.

Both Megan and Cueball are agonizing over what to get each other for Valentine's Day. Both of them seem to consider the holiday unnecessary and artificial, but worry that failure to celebrate it might upset their romantic partner. Because they're considering this separately, neither seems to realize that the other has a similar response. This results in both panicking and doing weird things. At the heart of the way they are acting is the prisoner's dilemma . This is a canonical example of a game analyzed in game theory , which shows why two individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interest to do so. Wikipedia has a great example of prisoner's dilemma, which illustrates it very well: Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of communicating with the other. The prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge, but they have enough to convict both on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent. The offer is: If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves two years in prison If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve three years in prison (and vice versa) If A and B both remain silent, both of them will only serve one year in prison (on the lesser charge). In this way, both Cueball and Megan are kept separate, each not knowing what the other is going to do for Valentine's Day, in what the comic title terms the Valentine Dilemma. Both do weird things for Valentine's Day, which ends up being the perfect result to the Valentine Dilemma, as both end up with the same level of weirdness and don't go for the grand gesture. The title text combines the two dilemma scenarios in an absurd juxtaposition, with the reader ("you") choosing from the Valentine's Day gift-no gift dilemma and the other person choosing to betray the reader in an armed-robbery case (which might be why they are testifying against you in the first place). The Prisoner's Dilemma has been referenced before, in 696: Strip Games . [Cueball standing with hand on chin.] Cueball: Flowers seem so... trite. Something homemade? Easy to look halfhearted. [A frame-less panel of Megan sitting at a computer, also with hand on chin.] Megan: Valentine's day is a corporate construct. Megan: But hard to opt out of. Megan: I don't want to be a corporate tool or an inconsiderate jerk. [Cueball pacing.] Cueball: How do I fight cliché? I could get her a gift on a different day. Cueball: But what am I proving? [Megan leaning back with stapler in hand.] Megan: It's such a contrived ritual. But maybe rituals are necessary social glue. [Zoomed in on Cueball panicking.] Cueball: Forty presents. No, none! No, give her five items and then steal two from her. Cueball: OK, breathe. Keep it together. [Zoomed in on Megan sweating, still holding the stapler.] Megan: And what if he gets me something and I don't reciprocate? Megan: Prisoners dilemma! Megan: AAAAAAAAAA!! [Cueball and Megan talking. Cueball is holding a basket and a jar of hammers. Megan's hand is stapled to her face.] Cueball: I got you Easter candy and a jar of hammers. Megan: I panicked and stapled my hand to my face. Cueball: We overthought this. Megan: Yes.

Backward in Time

Backward in Time

https://www.xkcd.com/1017

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1017:_Backward_in_Time

When I have a boring task to get through — a three-hour lecture, a giant file download, or a long term point goal in fitocracy — I use this formula to convert the percentage completed (p) into a date: T=(Current Date) - (e^(20.3444*p^3+3) - e^3) years When the task is 0% done, it gives today's date, and as I make progress, I move further and further back in time (inverse given in lighter colors) Inverse: p = sqrt((ln(T+e^3)-3)/20.3444) [Line Graph explaining the correlation between completion percentages and temporal deltas. 0% = now (Date of comic is 2012-02-14T00:00-0500, approx. 1329195600 UNIX) 10% = September 2011 20% = 2008 30% = 1997 40% = 1958 50% = 1776 60% = 405 AD 70% = 22,000 years ago 80% = 671,000 years ago 90% = 55 million years ago 100% = 13.8 billion years ago ] It moves slowly through the first few years, then steadily accelerates. I tuned the formula so the time spent in each part of the past is loosely proportional to how well I know it. This means I hit familiar landmarks with each bit of progress, giving me a satisfying sense of movement. [The following are panels detailing completion percentages, correlated time periods, and notable events from this time period.] 7.308% December 18, 2011 Around this time: Kim Jong-Il dies. US leaves Iraq. 31.12% February 1995 Around this time: Windows 95 debuts. OJ found not guilty. 47.91% 1844 Around this time: Rubber vulcanized, bicycle invented, wrench patented. 70.33% 24,000 years ago Around this time: Caves painted, ceramic art made. Neanderthals extinct. 90.42% 68 million years ago Around this time: First flowering plants. Chicxulub impact kills off most dinosaurs. 100% 13.76 billion years ago Around this time: Universe begins. First stars ignite. Download complete. [Cueball watches a download progress on a laptop in amazement and happiness. Megan stands nearby and looks at Cueball with a bemused posture.] Cueball: Swoosh! Watching all that time blur past is such a rush! Megan: So...you've tried to make an extreme sport out of... waiting . Cueball: Swoosh!

Cueball / Randall creates this formula which helps him wait for long stretches of time which goes increasingly faster into the past as more time goes by, which gives him the effect of looking like the time goes by quickly. Which assists in the waiting process. As far as the actual math is concerned, the formula is an exponential function (i.e. the variable appears in the exponent). The effect that the function grows faster and faster as p grows, is due to T(p) being exponential. More precisely, when you repeatedly add some constant to the exponent, you will repeatedly multiply some (other) constant with the value of the function. Compare how "slow" a value grows by adding even high values (1, 1001, 2001, 3001, 4001, 5001…) and how fast it grows by multiplying even low values (1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000, 100000…) Now, the function has to be adjusted so that, as Randall put it, "the time spent in each part of the past is loosely proportional to how well I know it." The most important adjustment is putting p to the power of three. That lowers the amount added to the exponent for low values (0.1³=0.001, 0.2³=0.008, i.e. only 7/1000 have been added for 10% workflow) and increases the amount for high values (0.8³=0.512, 0.9³=0.729, i.e. more than 1/5 has been added for 10% workflow). That means the recent past will pass even slower and the historic past even faster than it already does by choosing an exponential function. The remaining adjustments are technical. The coefficient in front of p³ adjusts the constant by which the result will be multiplied while adding some constant to p, while it also roughly ensures that p=1 yields the lifetime of the universe. The 3 added to the product in the exponent further adjusts the actual values of the power without touching the slope (the multiplicative constant). In the parentheses, e³ is subtracted to put the time to 0 when p=0. Otherwise the function would start approx. 20 yrs and 1 month ago. For bigger p, this offset does not matter much. Imagine subtracting 20 yrs from the lifetime of the universe! Finally, the result is subtracted from the current date for aesthetical reasons. The formula could tell you "20 yrs ago", or it could read "February 1992". Randall decided the latter would be better. There is actually a mathematical error in this comic; the inverse function in grey writing off at the bottom right of the main formula involves a square root, when the actual inverse of Randall's main function would involve a cube root. In addition, this function does not contain the current date, meaning that T, in the inverse, refers to how long ago a point in time was, rather than the point in time itself. When the T in the inverse is 20, it means that the date referenced by T is 20 years ago. The punchline "Swoosh!" is about how fast the last few percents of Cueball's download happen in "such a rush". For most humans waiting for a download to complete tends to become really boring and progress would instead seem to get slower and slower. (Also, the workout website, Fitocracy has been mentioned previously in xkcd.) Note that as of the time that this page was last cached, the comic was uploaded at 14.278499285807% progress. When I have a boring task to get through — a three-hour lecture, a giant file download, or a long term point goal in fitocracy — I use this formula to convert the percentage completed (p) into a date: T=(Current Date) - (e^(20.3444*p^3+3) - e^3) years When the task is 0% done, it gives today's date, and as I make progress, I move further and further back in time (inverse given in lighter colors) Inverse: p = sqrt((ln(T+e^3)-3)/20.3444) [Line Graph explaining the correlation between completion percentages and temporal deltas. 0% = now (Date of comic is 2012-02-14T00:00-0500, approx. 1329195600 UNIX) 10% = September 2011 20% = 2008 30% = 1997 40% = 1958 50% = 1776 60% = 405 AD 70% = 22,000 years ago 80% = 671,000 years ago 90% = 55 million years ago 100% = 13.8 billion years ago ] It moves slowly through the first few years, then steadily accelerates. I tuned the formula so the time spent in each part of the past is loosely proportional to how well I know it. This means I hit familiar landmarks with each bit of progress, giving me a satisfying sense of movement. [The following are panels detailing completion percentages, correlated time periods, and notable events from this time period.] 7.308% December 18, 2011 Around this time: Kim Jong-Il dies. US leaves Iraq. 31.12% February 1995 Around this time: Windows 95 debuts. OJ found not guilty. 47.91% 1844 Around this time: Rubber vulcanized, bicycle invented, wrench patented. 70.33% 24,000 years ago Around this time: Caves painted, ceramic art made. Neanderthals extinct. 90.42% 68 million years ago Around this time: First flowering plants. Chicxulub impact kills off most dinosaurs. 100% 13.76 billion years ago Around this time: Universe begins. First stars ignite. Download complete. [Cueball watches a download progress on a laptop in amazement and happiness. Megan stands nearby and looks at Cueball with a bemused posture.] Cueball: Swoosh! Watching all that time blur past is such a rush! Megan: So...you've tried to make an extreme sport out of... waiting . Cueball: Swoosh!

Good Cop, Dadaist Cop

Good Cop, Dadaist Cop

https://www.xkcd.com/1018

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1018:_Good_Cop,_Dadaist_Cop

[Two police officers, a bald male and a Ponytail, both wearing peaked caps with white emblems, are standing in front of a window in a wall, with an electric socket in the bottom right corner. They look through the window into an interrogation chamber holding the handcuffed suspect Hairy, who is sitting on a chair. A lamp with the bulb beneath the shade hangs over Hairy. The lamp is lit as shown by lines indicating the lamp shines light.] Male officer: All right, let's try Good Cop, Dadaist Cop. [The male police officer is seated in front of Hairy on another chair holding a hand with palm up in front of him. Hairy has his cuffed hands in his lap and his hair is in disarray.] Male officer: Look, you're a good guy. We can work this out. Hey, lemme get us some coffee. [In a slim frame-less panel the male officer leaves and Ponytail enters carrying a rolled up paper in her hand.] [Ponytail walks in holding the folded out paper out in one hand while pointing at it with the other hand. It is a document of indeterminate contents, but there are both text and figures on it. She threatens Hairy who pulls his leg up under him and hold his cuffed hand up in front of him leaning back away from her while three drops of sweat fly of the top of his head.] Ponytail: See this? It's Mark Zuckerberg's mortgage. Ponytail: So why is it written in Church Latin? [Ponytail physically rattles Hairy's head holding it in both hands, lines around his heads and below her elbow show the movement. Hairy has his hands straight in front of him.] Ponytail: WHY ARE MY BONES SO SMALL? Hairy: What's WRONG with you?! Ponytail: What's wrong with ART?

This comic is a play on the well known Good Cop/Bad Cop (where one interrogator is nice and friendly and the other is mean and intimidating) police interrogation strategy and the artistic movement Dadaism . Dadaism is an artistic movement which by its definition is irrational. The movement embraces the free flow of unreasoned thought and prizes nonsense and rejection of established norms. As such, the entire concept of "Good Cop, Dadaist Cop" could be considered a dadaist concept in itself. "Good Cop/Bad Cop" is a psychological tactic that may be employed during joint questioning or interrogation. The interrogators isolate the suspect, then one of the interrogators acts aggressively and threatens the suspect (the "bad cop") and the other acts friendly and helpful in comparison, offering the suspect reassurance and protection from the bad cop if they co-operate (the "good cop"). If successful, it deceives the suspect into believing they must choose to trust one of the interrogators and the suspect chooses to co-operate with the good cop, or merely complies out of fear of the bad cop. The comic starts with the "Good Cop", the male police officer, and the "Dadaist Cop", Ponytail , working out their plan to interrogate the suspect, Hairy . After the Good Cop makes a few statements, intended to build trust with Hairy, and leaves to get coffee, Ponytail enters the interrogation and starts asking Hairy absurd questions. Hairy quickly becomes agitated, and questions what is wrong with Ponytail. Ponytail responds "What's wrong with ART?", which could suggest she believes the interrogation is artwork and should not be questioned. On the other hand, actual responses would break the Dadaism pattern. Good Cop/Bad Cop hinges on the suspect's fear and distrust of the intentions of the bad cop; thankfully for the police, Ponytail's "Dadaist Cop" seems to be a successful Bad Cop too, judging by the suspect's fear of her irrational, unpredictable, and potential crazy behavior (not to mention loud and aggressive mannerisms). The title text builds on the joke as by asking a suspect to give the whereabouts of the money in a dadaist manner, which would be completely useless in finding it. Such a statement could be used as a confession though. [Two police officers, a bald male and a Ponytail, both wearing peaked caps with white emblems, are standing in front of a window in a wall, with an electric socket in the bottom right corner. They look through the window into an interrogation chamber holding the handcuffed suspect Hairy, who is sitting on a chair. A lamp with the bulb beneath the shade hangs over Hairy. The lamp is lit as shown by lines indicating the lamp shines light.] Male officer: All right, let's try Good Cop, Dadaist Cop. [The male police officer is seated in front of Hairy on another chair holding a hand with palm up in front of him. Hairy has his cuffed hands in his lap and his hair is in disarray.] Male officer: Look, you're a good guy. We can work this out. Hey, lemme get us some coffee. [In a slim frame-less panel the male officer leaves and Ponytail enters carrying a rolled up paper in her hand.] [Ponytail walks in holding the folded out paper out in one hand while pointing at it with the other hand. It is a document of indeterminate contents, but there are both text and figures on it. She threatens Hairy who pulls his leg up under him and hold his cuffed hand up in front of him leaning back away from her while three drops of sweat fly of the top of his head.] Ponytail: See this? It's Mark Zuckerberg's mortgage. Ponytail: So why is it written in Church Latin? [Ponytail physically rattles Hairy's head holding it in both hands, lines around his heads and below her elbow show the movement. Hairy has his hands straight in front of him.] Ponytail: WHY ARE MY BONES SO SMALL? Hairy: What's WRONG with you?! Ponytail: What's wrong with ART?

First Post

First Post

https://www.xkcd.com/1019

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1019:_First_Post

[Single panel showing a bar graph with two gray vertical bars, a dollar amount above each bar, the vertical axis on the left side with tick marks every $250,000, and the horizontal axis at the bottom with a descriptive label below each bar under the axis. The first bar is much taller than the second.] [First bar:] Amount: $1,500,000 Label: Cost to buy an ad on every story on a major news site every day until the election [Second bar:] Amount: $200,000 Label: Cost to pay five college students $20/hour to camp the site 24/7 and post the first few comments the moment a story goes up, giving you the last word in every article and creating an impression of peer consensus [Caption below the panel:] The problem with posting comments in the order they're submitted

Many news websites allow users to post comments on an article. The intention is that users can debate the stance(s) or implication(s) made by the article. On most sites, comments are displayed in chronological order. This puts the oldest comments at the top and newest at the bottom. There are many pitfalls to allowing comments, but this comic refers to one in particular: most users are too busy to read more than just the top few comments. Therefore, if you were able to control the content of those comments, your opinions would be the ones that the majority of users read. If you pay people to do nothing but read the site, you ensure that they will be the first ones to see the article and that their comments (that you pay them to write) will be at the top of the page. In this scenario, the comments being posted appear to convey a particular political belief. The advantage of this is, according to Randall , that it would be much cheaper to employ a college student to perform that task than pay a website for an advertisement. Also, the fact that it is a comment posted by another reader would make it seem as though the opinion was coming from the general population and not a politician or company, as an advertisement would imply. And $20/hour was (and as of this writing still is) significantly higher than the minimum wage , so you'd have no trouble finding willing participants among college students (who are often broke). This comic is a continuation of 937: TornadoGuard which stated "the problem with star ratings". Apparently, every possible comment ordering policy has its own problems. The title text refers to systems like Reddit's conversation threading which allow users to vote comments up or down and to sort them by the resulting "karma score" (total up-votes minus total down-votes). The same problem persists to some extent: after a few comments are posted and some votes are cast, the handful of comments having received the highest scores among the first dozen of so will receive far better chances at being seen and voted on than comments posted later, and will solidify their places in a positive feedback loop. In this way, a few persistent voices can still dominate the discussion, contrary to the claim in the title text, thus creating irony. The comic's title refers to a once-common form of online posturing where the first user to see the article will comment "First post" or even just "First". The intent is that everyone else see that they were there first and, therefore, must be somehow better than you. This is referred to in both 269: TCMP and 1258: First . Since this comic's publication several news sites have elected to remove all comments, in part to prevent a few voices dominating the conversation . [Single panel showing a bar graph with two gray vertical bars, a dollar amount above each bar, the vertical axis on the left side with tick marks every $250,000, and the horizontal axis at the bottom with a descriptive label below each bar under the axis. The first bar is much taller than the second.] [First bar:] Amount: $1,500,000 Label: Cost to buy an ad on every story on a major news site every day until the election [Second bar:] Amount: $200,000 Label: Cost to pay five college students $20/hour to camp the site 24/7 and post the first few comments the moment a story goes up, giving you the last word in every article and creating an impression of peer consensus [Caption below the panel:] The problem with posting comments in the order they're submitted

Orion Nebula

Orion Nebula

https://www.xkcd.com/1020

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1020:_Orion_Nebula

[Cueball stands behind a lectern decorated with the initials of the International Astronomical Union. There is a banner above him that also says 'International Astronomical Union,' decorated with small stars.] Cueball: Welcome to IAU Symposium #279. [Side view of Cueball standing on a podium behind the lectern] Cueball: We are no strangers to controversy, and we will not shy away from the tough issues. Cueball: Which brings us to the subject at hand: [A projection of the Orion constellation appears behind Cueball with a white arrow superimposed on the image pointing at the area between Orion's legs. Symposium attendees are off-screen to the bottom and right of the panel.] Cueball: It's time to talk about the fact that Orion clearly has a dong. Attendee #1 (off-screen): It's hard to miss. Attendee #2 (off-screen): We could keep telling people it's a sword. Attendee #3 (off-screen): C'mon, no one's buying that anymore.

The Orion nebula is a diffuse nebula situated south of the three stars that compose Orion's Belt in the Orion constellation . In terms of the comic, it is the middle "star" in the sword/dong of Orion. Dong is an American slang word for penis. The star appears fuzzy to sharp-eyed observers, and the nebulosity is obvious through binoculars or a small telescope. When the speaker says "We are no strangers to controversy" he is probably referring to Pluto 's demotion from planet to a dwarf planet / plutoid . It could also be a reference to Rick Astley's song "Never gonna give you up", the original line is "We're no strangers to love". The title text is a quip about how small and off-kilter the hips are in Orion the constellation compared to the rest of its body. [Cueball stands behind a lectern decorated with the initials of the International Astronomical Union. There is a banner above him that also says 'International Astronomical Union,' decorated with small stars.] Cueball: Welcome to IAU Symposium #279. [Side view of Cueball standing on a podium behind the lectern] Cueball: We are no strangers to controversy, and we will not shy away from the tough issues. Cueball: Which brings us to the subject at hand: [A projection of the Orion constellation appears behind Cueball with a white arrow superimposed on the image pointing at the area between Orion's legs. Symposium attendees are off-screen to the bottom and right of the panel.] Cueball: It's time to talk about the fact that Orion clearly has a dong. Attendee #1 (off-screen): It's hard to miss. Attendee #2 (off-screen): We could keep telling people it's a sword. Attendee #3 (off-screen): C'mon, no one's buying that anymore.

Business Plan

Business Plan

https://www.xkcd.com/1021

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1021:_Business_Plan

[6 small panels extend across the width of the comic...] [Beret Guy stands on a shoreline and takes in the environment in silent contemplation.] [In a frame-less panel, Beret Guy heads off with an idea fresh in his head.] [Beret Guy saunters back with a jar, some bread, and a signboard.] [Beret Guy tears the bread off into pieces.] [Beret Guy sets up the signboard, with its contents yet to be revealed.] [Beret Guy heads off and waits for the plan to unfold.] [A large full-width panel below the first 6 small panels shows the same beach, this time with Megan and Cueball standing in front of and reading the sign. Cueball scratches his head. The bread has attracted quite a few gulls. There is a label on the jar.] Jar label: $ Sign: Gulls for sale

This one has the art and feel of very early xkcd comics, even when those stick figures did not appear by that time. Beret Guy has developed (or spontaneously implemented) a "business plan" whereby he lures seagulls to an area of a beach utilizing breadcrumbs. Once the gulls converge on the area, he sets up a sign reading "GULLS FOR SALE" with a jar for money. Though Beret Guy probably expects to profit, the confused reactions of other people in the last panel indicate nobody is buying, and the limited number of gulls, four, is low enough that their sale might not even finance the breadcrumbs. In real life, there is no market for seagulls, nor will there ever be in the foreseeable future. [ citation needed ] The title text is a reference to the phrase " Elevator pitch ", which is also similar to "investor pitch". The point of an elevator pitch is to have a synopsis of your idea that you are capable of delivering on a moment's notice in the time it takes to ride the elevator, about 30 seconds. This way, when you get that once-in-a-career opportunity to pitch your plan to the one person who can make it happen because you just happened to catch the same elevator, you are ready. The reason the elevator pitch is so simplistic is because the same sort of person that would think selling seagulls is a viable business model is likely the same sort of person to make a childish elevator pitch. This also pokes fun at the idea of people sweating over their pitch with such seriousness, when Beret Guy's pitch is literally a childish exclamation. Wheeee! [6 small panels extend across the width of the comic...] [Beret Guy stands on a shoreline and takes in the environment in silent contemplation.] [In a frame-less panel, Beret Guy heads off with an idea fresh in his head.] [Beret Guy saunters back with a jar, some bread, and a signboard.] [Beret Guy tears the bread off into pieces.] [Beret Guy sets up the signboard, with its contents yet to be revealed.] [Beret Guy heads off and waits for the plan to unfold.] [A large full-width panel below the first 6 small panels shows the same beach, this time with Megan and Cueball standing in front of and reading the sign. Cueball scratches his head. The bread has attracted quite a few gulls. There is a label on the jar.] Jar label: $ Sign: Gulls for sale

So It Has Come To This

So It Has Come To This

https://www.xkcd.com/1022

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1022:_So_It_Has_Come_To_This

[Megan holds up an open and empty bag with the white silhouette of a cat's face on it. Cueball looks down at the bag.] Megan: We ran out of cat food. Cueball: So Cueball: It has come to this. [Caption below the panel:] Protip: If you're not sure what to say, try "So it has come to this" – it creates instant dramatic tension and is a valid observation in literally any situation. Other comics which advocate using catch-all phrases as standard responses for any comment: The phrase "So it has come to this" is also said in: 225: Open Source .

The line "it has come to this" is usually seen on the verge of the climactic confrontation between the villain and their arch rival, or when one character has to unleash their utmost ability etc. Despite its dramatic tone, however, the statement is a content-free tautology, true in all possible scenarios in which time progresses in a forward direction. Accordingly, Cueball is saying it when Megan tells him that they have run out of cat food, a relatively trivial problem that could be solved with a quick trip to the grocery store. The title text is a follow-up on the comic dialogue. When Megan replies in confusion, "Come to what?" Cueball then uses another instantly-dramatic phrase that keeps his words ambiguous, only leaving her in the dark. The phrase, "You. Me. This moment." is used when brevity is key, and no information should be leaked to anybody listening. Those conversing then continue the important discussion elsewhere, allowing them to speak more openly. [Megan holds up an open and empty bag with the white silhouette of a cat's face on it. Cueball looks down at the bag.] Megan: We ran out of cat food. Cueball: So Cueball: It has come to this. [Caption below the panel:] Protip: If you're not sure what to say, try "So it has come to this" – it creates instant dramatic tension and is a valid observation in literally any situation. Other comics which advocate using catch-all phrases as standard responses for any comment: The phrase "So it has come to this" is also said in: 225: Open Source .

Late-Night PBS

Late-Night PBS

https://www.xkcd.com/1023

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1023:_Late-Night_PBS

[Megan with disheveled hair is rubbing sleep out of her eyes and talking to Cueball.] Megan: Have you ever watched PBS late at night? Megan: I fell asleep after Downton and woke up at like 3 AM. [The next panel is split in two. The upper portion, which is not in a frame, continues Megan's dialogue, while the lower part, in a frame, shows a drunk game-show host (indicated with two small bobbles and a third exploding next to his head). He has stubble and only little hair on his head. He is holding a bottle in one hand and the other hand is up over a TV monitor showing a black field filled with crosses, presumably graves, going out to the far off horizon. In front of him are three kids, who are contestants in the game. They stand behind three lecterns to the left. The first kid is a boy with thin black hair, who has turned away from the monitor. The middle kid is a girl with blonde hair in a ponytail who looks at the host, and the last kid looks like Cueball and he looks down at his lectern.] Megan (off-panel): Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego was back on, except the host hadn't aged well and he'd clearly been drinking. Megan (off-panel): Every question took them to some horrible place like Mogadishu or the Cambodian killing fields. [In a room with tiles on the floor, a bookshelf full of books has been moved away from the wall revealing that is was a door to be opened with a hidden room behind it. Megan continues to speak, her text is above the shelf but inside the frame this time.] Megan (off-panel): The kids were freaked out, but they kept playing. Eventually they were told they'd found Carmen Sandiego hiding behind a bookshelf in a Dutch apartment. [Megan has stopped rubbing her eyes but still talks to Cueball.] Megan: The Chief appeared and asked "Are you proud of what you've become?" Megan: Then Rockapella walked out and just glared at the kids until they started crying. Cueball: I, uh, don't remember the old show being that dark. Megan: Maybe we were too young to pick up on it.

This comic examines the way the world seems different for adults today compared with how we remember it as a child, due to complex subtext or naïvety, to a humorous extreme, and with a specific reference to television programs for children. PBS is a US public television network known for highbrow and educational programming, and shows a high proportion of BBC programming. The show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego was a light-hearted educational game show that ran from 1991 to 1995. In the show players followed geography-based clues to find out where a master criminal, Carmen Sandiego, was going, and catch her. After catching (or failing to catch) Carmen Sandiego, a character called The Chief would congratulate or encourage the players. Rockapella was an a cappella band featured on the show that gave clues, punctuated the show with humor, and closed the show. Megan recounts her surprise as to the nature of programming on late night PBS to Cueball . She claims to have fallen asleep after watching Downton Abbey and woken up to see that Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego is still making new episodes, but is significantly darker than she remembers it. The host has aged poorly (the show would have been off the air for 20 years) and developed a drinking problem; the locations the child contestants visit are traumatizing; and the children are clearly freaked out. In the end they find Carmen Sandiego hiding behind a Dutch bookcase, an allusion to The Diary of Anne Frank , thus implying that instead of aiding legitimate law enforcement in finding thieves they have been aiding the Nazis in their search for Jews (and others) to murder. The Chief admonishes the children for their actions and Rockapella glares at the children disapprovingly until the children break down in tears. After Megan concludes her story, Cueball remarks that he did not remember the show being that dark. In response Megan replies that as kids, they may not have been able to understand the darker subtext of the show. It is true that some programs intended for children often have subtle themes for adults who may be watching the show with their children that the children do not usually remember or pick up on. The joke is that although young viewers may not be able to pick up on everything, they would certainly have noticed if the show was as dark as Megan described. [ citation needed ] The title text describes the next program, an episode of The Joy of Painting , in which a depressingly weary painter paints unhappy trees. This contrasts with the usual mood of the show where Bob Ross was upbeat and the components of his paintings were described as "happy little" objects. Megan then postulates that either people are breaking into the television station to produce horrible programming, or she is experiencing hallucinations due to her sleep aid Ambien . This gives hallucination as an alternate explanation for the main comic. Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego was originally an educational video game released in 1985. Carmen Sandiego was a mysterious character that the player tracked around the globe, attempting to find clues as to where she was heading to next. The game helped players learn geography and facts about the world while having fun. The video game inspired the TV show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? . The show was split into three rounds. In the first round, there were three child contestants, called “gumshoes” on the show, who scored points for every question they answered correctly. The top two scoring gumshoes moved onto the next round, where they had to play a game based on the card game Concentration , in which they had to find the thief, warrant, and loot in the correct order. Whichever gumshoe did so captured the thief, saved the loot, and moved onto the next round, where they had a chance to catch Carmen Sandiego herself. Success was not always guaranteed in this round, as contestants had to plant flags correct on seven different countries in a continent within a very short time. If successful, they captured Carmen and won the grand prize (a trip to a place of their choosing in the continental US). If not, Carmen would escape and the contestant would win a lesser prize (such as a computer). The role of The Chief was played by Lynne Thigpen . She explained the mission to the contestants, and gave some clues to the thief's last whereabouts. When the mission was over The Chief would appear and congratulate them if successful or console them if Carmen got away. The host of the TV show was an actor named Greg Lee . His role was to ask the contestants questions, provide clues, and tell them which flags to plant on the map in the final round, as well as engage with The Chief and Rockapella to keep the show moving. Rockapella was an a cappella group (a group that sings without any instruments), which sang the theme song to Where in The World Is Carmen Sandiego. Rockapella also acted as a "house band", singing songs while the contestants transitioned between events, providing clues, and playing pranks on the host along with other gags. At the end of each show, the host and the episode's winning contestant would shout "Do it, Rockapella!" at which point the band would sing the show's theme song. The locations the contestants visit in the episode depicted in this comic seem to require traveling backwards in time (1993 for the Battle of Mogadishu, 1975-1979 for the Cambodian killing fields, and 1944 for the arrest of Anne Frank). Episodes of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego did not deal with this, but its successor, Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? , did. [Megan with disheveled hair is rubbing sleep out of her eyes and talking to Cueball.] Megan: Have you ever watched PBS late at night? Megan: I fell asleep after Downton and woke up at like 3 AM. [The next panel is split in two. The upper portion, which is not in a frame, continues Megan's dialogue, while the lower part, in a frame, shows a drunk game-show host (indicated with two small bobbles and a third exploding next to his head). He has stubble and only little hair on his head. He is holding a bottle in one hand and the other hand is up over a TV monitor showing a black field filled with crosses, presumably graves, going out to the far off horizon. In front of him are three kids, who are contestants in the game. They stand behind three lecterns to the left. The first kid is a boy with thin black hair, who has turned away from the monitor. The middle kid is a girl with blonde hair in a ponytail who looks at the host, and the last kid looks like Cueball and he looks down at his lectern.] Megan (off-panel): Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego was back on, except the host hadn't aged well and he'd clearly been drinking. Megan (off-panel): Every question took them to some horrible place like Mogadishu or the Cambodian killing fields. [In a room with tiles on the floor, a bookshelf full of books has been moved away from the wall revealing that is was a door to be opened with a hidden room behind it. Megan continues to speak, her text is above the shelf but inside the frame this time.] Megan (off-panel): The kids were freaked out, but they kept playing. Eventually they were told they'd found Carmen Sandiego hiding behind a bookshelf in a Dutch apartment. [Megan has stopped rubbing her eyes but still talks to Cueball.] Megan: The Chief appeared and asked "Are you proud of what you've become?" Megan: Then Rockapella walked out and just glared at the kids until they started crying. Cueball: I, uh, don't remember the old show being that dark. Megan: Maybe we were too young to pick up on it.

Error Code

Error Code

https://www.xkcd.com/1024

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1024:_Error_Code

[A guy sits at a computer, while a friend takes a book off a shelf behind him.] Computer guy: "Error -41"? That's helpful. It doesn't even say which program it's from! Friend: -41? I'll look it up... [In a frame-less panel, the friend looks at the book.] Friend: It says -41 is: "Sit by a lake." [The two walk.] [The two sit down.] [A large, in-color painting of a lake with pond lilies.] [The two are still sitting.] Computer guy: I don't know where you got that book, but I like it. Friend: Hasn't been wrong yet. It is possible Randall wanted comic number 1024 to be about computers because 1024 is a significant number in computer systems: it is exactly 2 10 , and as such is sometimes used instead of 1000 as the power constant for file sizes for the sake of easier binary arithmetic. This was referenced in 1000: 1000 Comics . A book suggesting a more or less unrelated solution which is accepted anyway is also pulled from a shelf in 330 .

Complex computer programs often incorporate a numbering system for errors that are anticipated might occur. This way, the code can be referenced to tech support so that there is some feedback from the program as to what is wrong (akin to a car dashboard with multiple lights telling you if you have a battery problem or an engine problem or a cooling problem, etc.) Most people have seen at least one error code in their life. Perhaps the most famous error code is seen in web browsers, 404 (not found). Another common code is 403 (forbidden). The guy at the computer gets the error "-41", but cannot tell even what program it comes from. So, the other guy decides to look up the code in a book apparently called Error Codes . The book then indicates to go to a lake instead of how to resolve the computer problem. Which seems like a great solution because it would be very relaxing! The panel with the image of the lake is fairly rare as far as xkcd comics go, in that it is approaching a more realistic style. The beep codes referenced in the title text refers to the error codes produced by motherboards. Because the motherboard is sort of the "heart" of the computer, the designers apparently did not want to rely on any form of error display that might be compromised by the error itself (i.e. a visual display). Instead, motherboards typically have a code consisting of beeps from the system "PC" speaker which is expected to work without error in most situations, as it's wired directly to the motherboard. In a sort of morse-code -type system, certain lengths and numbers of beeps refer to different errors like memory problems, video card problems, etc. The one quick beep that occurs on boot sequences is the POST (Power On Self-Test) beep, which detects vital parts of the system, like motherboard, memory, monitor, etc. The beep indicates that everything necessary to boot is present. Anyone who has built a few computers is probably familiar with less happy beep sequences. [A guy sits at a computer, while a friend takes a book off a shelf behind him.] Computer guy: "Error -41"? That's helpful. It doesn't even say which program it's from! Friend: -41? I'll look it up... [In a frame-less panel, the friend looks at the book.] Friend: It says -41 is: "Sit by a lake." [The two walk.] [The two sit down.] [A large, in-color painting of a lake with pond lilies.] [The two are still sitting.] Computer guy: I don't know where you got that book, but I like it. Friend: Hasn't been wrong yet. It is possible Randall wanted comic number 1024 to be about computers because 1024 is a significant number in computer systems: it is exactly 2 10 , and as such is sometimes used instead of 1000 as the power constant for file sizes for the sake of easier binary arithmetic. This was referenced in 1000: 1000 Comics . A book suggesting a more or less unrelated solution which is accepted anyway is also pulled from a shelf in 330 .

Tumblr

Tumblr

https://www.xkcd.com/1025

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1025:_Tumblr

[Megan and Cueball are talking.] Megan: You know those weird noises from my attic? Megan: Turns out some raccoons got in and were operating this, like, raccoon sex dungeon. Cueball: ...dot tumblr dot com. [Caption below the panel:] For me, "...Dot tumblr dot com" has been gradually replacing "...would be a good name for a band." Raccoons also feature in a disgusting situation in 1565: Back Seat .

Tumblr is a microblogging service, which has become a home for lots of animated gifs and other internet memes , as well as other assorted novelties. The phrase that Cueball used to use when he heard a random phrase was "would be a good name for a band." With the advent of Tumblr, his go-to response has shifted because of the proliferation of Tumblr blogs with strange names such as "pissvortex", "hardpee", "iguanamouth", and "internetslug". In the title text he muses on the fact that Dot Tumblr Dot Com would be an awful band name. There could be several reasons for this, but he mentions that it would be hard to direct fans to the band's website. As an example, someone who hears "www.thedottumblrdotcom.com" might instead write it out as "www.the.tumblr.com.com" since '.' is often pronounced as "dot." [ citation needed ] If the band's website was hosted on Tumblr, then their website would be "dottumblrdotcom.tumblr.com", but could be heard as ".tumblr.com.tumblr.com". [Megan and Cueball are talking.] Megan: You know those weird noises from my attic? Megan: Turns out some raccoons got in and were operating this, like, raccoon sex dungeon. Cueball: ...dot tumblr dot com. [Caption below the panel:] For me, "...Dot tumblr dot com" has been gradually replacing "...would be a good name for a band." Raccoons also feature in a disgusting situation in 1565: Back Seat .

Compare and Contrast

Compare and Contrast

https://www.xkcd.com/1026

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1026:_Compare_and_Contrast

[A checklist comparing "thee" to "a summer's day" for a number of properties, displayed as separate rows in a table with 3 columns. The properties are shown in the first column with no header label, and the second and third columns have a header label of "Thee" and "A Summer's Day" with a checkmark in one or both columns for each row.] [Row 1] Property: Fair, Temperate Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 2] Property: Hot, Sticky Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 3] Property: Short Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Not Checked [Row 4] Property: Harbinger of Hurricane Season Thee: Not Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 5] Property: Required for a Good Beach Party Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 6] Property: Major Cause of Heat Stroke in the Elderly Thee: Not Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 7] Property: Linked to Higher Rates of Juvenile Delinquency Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 8] Property: Sometimes Too Stifling Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 9] Property: Arrested for Releasing Snakes in Library Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Not Checked [Row 10] Property: Difficult to Focus on Work While I'm In Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked

A reference to the most well-known sonnet in the English-speaking world: William Shakespeare's " Sonnet 18 ", the first line of which is: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?". In this comic Randall sets about this in a typically goal-oriented chart, as opposed to the rather more romantic poetry of the Bard. "Thee" is a form of the archaic second-person singular pronoun "thou". In Shakespeare's day, English had more second-person pronouns in common use, thou/thee (informal/singular), and you (formal/plural). This is similar to second-person pronouns in many modern European languages, such as French. Wikipedia has a nice chart for all of English's personal pronouns, current and archaic. For both the chart and the original sonnet, whether or not the work is autobiographical is unknown. Also unknown is the identity of the person whom each work refers to. It is believed that Sonnet 18 is addressed to a young man . The lines are: The title text is a reference to Ron Paul , a 2012 Republican candidate for President who was on top in the Republican Primary against a few other challengers for the nomination. Ron Paul was frequently represented on the internet using similar language to the title text (with Paul offering an alternative to typical Republican and Democratic candidates). Paul was seen by many as an alternative because of his Libertarian views. [A checklist comparing "thee" to "a summer's day" for a number of properties, displayed as separate rows in a table with 3 columns. The properties are shown in the first column with no header label, and the second and third columns have a header label of "Thee" and "A Summer's Day" with a checkmark in one or both columns for each row.] [Row 1] Property: Fair, Temperate Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 2] Property: Hot, Sticky Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 3] Property: Short Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Not Checked [Row 4] Property: Harbinger of Hurricane Season Thee: Not Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 5] Property: Required for a Good Beach Party Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 6] Property: Major Cause of Heat Stroke in the Elderly Thee: Not Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 7] Property: Linked to Higher Rates of Juvenile Delinquency Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 8] Property: Sometimes Too Stifling Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked [Row 9] Property: Arrested for Releasing Snakes in Library Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Not Checked [Row 10] Property: Difficult to Focus on Work While I'm In Thee: Checked A Summer's Day: Checked

Pickup Artist

Pickup Artist

https://www.xkcd.com/1027

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1027:_Pickup_Artist

[Hairy and Cueball sitting at a table.] Hairy: I've been learning tricks from pickup artist forums. Cueball: Pickup artists are dehumanizing creeps who see relationships as adversarial and women as sex toys. [Close-up of Hairy's head, with a faint outline of Black hat and Danish sitting at a table in the background.] Hairy: No, it's just a bunch of tips! Like negging : you belittle chicks to undermine their self-confidence so they'll be more vulnerable and seek your approval. [Close-up of Cueball's head.] Cueball: Just talk to them like a fucking human being. Hairy: Nah, that's a sucker's game. Hairy: Ok— wish me luck! [Small frame across top of panel reads Meanwhile... and Danish is sitting at a table with Black hat standing next to the table holding a bowling ball under his arm.] Black Hat: I'm going to the bathroom to roll a bowling ball down under the line of stalls. Danish: Cool. [Close up of Cueball's head, with Hairy approaching Danish's table in the background.] Cueball: Oh no. [Hairy and Danish at a table. Hairy is standing up and leaning on the table.] Hairy: You look like you're on a diet. That's great! Hairy: How's the fruit plate? [Close-up of Danish's head.] Danish: Ooh- are we negging? Danish: Let me try! [Close-up of Danish's head, with her hand raised.] Danish: You look like you're going to spend your life having one epiphany after another, always thinking you've finally figured out what's holding you back, and how you can finally be productive and creative and turn your life around. Danish: But nothing will ever change. That cycle of mediocrity isn't due to some obstacle. It's who you are . Danish: The thing standing in the way of your dreams Danish: is that the person having them is you . [Hairy and Danish at a table. Hairy is standing up.] Danish: Ok, your turn! Ooh, try insulting my hair! Hairy: I think I need to go home and think about my life. Danish: It won't help.

Hairy and Cueball are sitting at a table with drinks. Hairy tells Cueball that he's learned some pickup artist tricks. Cueball is appalled, declaring that pickup artists are "dehumanizing creeps". Hairy argues that he's simply learning new tactics such as " negging " (undercutting the target's self-esteem so that she'll feel vulnerable and crave approval), evidently oblivious to the fact that he's proving Cueball's point. Rejecting Cueball's advice to simply talk to women "like a fucking human being", Hairy sets off to try out the technique. Meanwhile, Black Hat and Danish are sitting at another table. Black Hat leaves to roll a bowling ball through the restroom stalls to smash the feet of anyone there using them. In North America, public restrooms usually have a 1-foot (30 cm) gap between the floor and the bottom of the stall dividers. As people sit down to use a stall most of the time, their feet would be vulnerable to being hit in sequence. Perhaps Black Hat is going for a 'strike'. Hairy approaches Danish, while Cueball looks on and says "oh no" — seemingly recognizing Danish and anticipating the disaster Hairy is walking into, or perhaps simply not wanting Hairy to use his tricks on anyone. Hairy makes an attempt at "negging" by suggesting that Danish's fruit plate reflects a need to lose weight. Danish, naturally being a master at psychological manipulation, immediately realizes his game, and crushes him utterly by taking another shot in the psychological dark — telling him that he's trapped in an endless cycle of failure because he's ultimately a mediocre person and will never do anything of value with his life. Demoralized, Hairy declares that he needs to go home and think about his life; Danish tells him, "It won't help.” (This may be a reference to the "deathsticks" scene in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones .) Of course, once Black Hat discovers his shenanigans, Hairy might not have much more life to rethink. The title text refers to Michael Jordan , a very popular and accomplished basketball player who played for the Chicago Bulls and the Washington Wizards . His name is often used as a noun to denote that someone is the best in their field, which is later used in 1120: Blurring the Line . The pick up subject and Hairy returned in 1178: Pickup Artists , where he tries to improve his skills (which he must have felt he needed after this experience), by hanging out with other pickup artists, thus the plural version of the comic title. This comic is one of a small set of comics with the same or almost the same title as another comic (only plural form of artist the difference). [Hairy and Cueball sitting at a table.] Hairy: I've been learning tricks from pickup artist forums. Cueball: Pickup artists are dehumanizing creeps who see relationships as adversarial and women as sex toys. [Close-up of Hairy's head, with a faint outline of Black hat and Danish sitting at a table in the background.] Hairy: No, it's just a bunch of tips! Like negging : you belittle chicks to undermine their self-confidence so they'll be more vulnerable and seek your approval. [Close-up of Cueball's head.] Cueball: Just talk to them like a fucking human being. Hairy: Nah, that's a sucker's game. Hairy: Ok— wish me luck! [Small frame across top of panel reads Meanwhile... and Danish is sitting at a table with Black hat standing next to the table holding a bowling ball under his arm.] Black Hat: I'm going to the bathroom to roll a bowling ball down under the line of stalls. Danish: Cool. [Close up of Cueball's head, with Hairy approaching Danish's table in the background.] Cueball: Oh no. [Hairy and Danish at a table. Hairy is standing up and leaning on the table.] Hairy: You look like you're on a diet. That's great! Hairy: How's the fruit plate? [Close-up of Danish's head.] Danish: Ooh- are we negging? Danish: Let me try! [Close-up of Danish's head, with her hand raised.] Danish: You look like you're going to spend your life having one epiphany after another, always thinking you've finally figured out what's holding you back, and how you can finally be productive and creative and turn your life around. Danish: But nothing will ever change. That cycle of mediocrity isn't due to some obstacle. It's who you are . Danish: The thing standing in the way of your dreams Danish: is that the person having them is you . [Hairy and Danish at a table. Hairy is standing up.] Danish: Ok, your turn! Ooh, try insulting my hair! Hairy: I think I need to go home and think about my life. Danish: It won't help.

Communication

Communication

https://www.xkcd.com/1028

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1028:_Communication

[White Hat looks down at a large gap in the walkway; a thought bubble with a warning symbol and an image of the gap appears above his head.] [White Hat walks to the right, away from the gap, and encounters Hairy, to which he speaks (in iconographic speech bubble form) while pointing toward the gap, attempting to inform him about the gap. A thought bubble appears above Hairy's head with an image of White Hat pointing.] [White Hat continues, waving his arms, still talking about the gap. Hairy's thought bubble continues to contain images of White Hat, now gesturing frantically.] [Hairy shrugs in a nonplussed manner, and White Hat leaves off the right side of the frame. Both have thought bubbles displaying the other's reaction.] [White Hat continues to the right and comes across Megan. He tells her about the reaction of Hairy (still all in iconographic form); she simultaneously tries to tell him about a gap and gestures off to the right of the frame.] [White Hat and Megan both leave the frame. Megan exits left thinking of White Hat's reactions; White Hat exits to the right while thinking about both Hairy and Megan's reactions.] [Megan (still thinking about White Hat) encounters Hairy (who is also still thinking about White Hat).] [Megan and Hairy talk about White Hat.] [Megan and Hairy (now without his hair) continue talking about White Hat as they exit the frame to the left.] [A commotion is heard from the left.] Explosion to the left: !!! ** !! [Megan and Hairy (still without his hair) have fallen into the gap in the walkway. A commotion is then also heard from the right.] Explosion to the right: !!! ** * [White Hat has fallen into another gap.] [Beret Guy looks down at a large gap in the walkway; a thought bubble with a warning symbol and an image of the gap appears above his head.] [Beret Guy runs off the frame to the right.] [Beret Guy meets Cueball and reaches out to him. He tells him (still in iconographic form) that Cueball should take Beret Guy's hand. Cueball has a thought bubble of Beret Guy with his arm stretched out.] [Beret Guy takes Cueball's hand and leads him along to the left. Cueball's thought bubble has two question marks around Beret Guy.] Cueball: ? ? [Beret Guy leads Cueball to the gap and points it out to him.] [Beret Guy and Cueball walk away from the gap to the right, now both thinking about the gap with a warning symbol above it.] Randall made a mistake in this comic: Hairy seems to "lose" his hair in the last two frames where he is together with Megan (#9 and #11), but it's still the same person. The Cueball that appears in the last four frames represents another person. This is clearly evidenced by Randall's transcript of the comic .

This comic is divided into two parts, the first two rows of panels and then the third one. The first part demonstrates a failed attempt at communication: The holes in the sidewalk are fairly deep, about one person deep; unaware and careless people don't notice them when they come upon them, which makes them symbolic of any problem or danger one can encounter in life, and could avoid if properly warned or careful. The second part demonstrates a much more successful attempt at communication: The title text references the requirement that "communication" is a two-sided process, and just because you think you have made your point clear this does not mean that you have "communicated" the information to them: if they failed to understand, then it may as well mean that you failed to communicate, and not necessarily that they are bad at listening. And if you always encounter this situation, then it is you who are confused about how communication works. See also 1984: Misinterpretation . [White Hat looks down at a large gap in the walkway; a thought bubble with a warning symbol and an image of the gap appears above his head.] [White Hat walks to the right, away from the gap, and encounters Hairy, to which he speaks (in iconographic speech bubble form) while pointing toward the gap, attempting to inform him about the gap. A thought bubble appears above Hairy's head with an image of White Hat pointing.] [White Hat continues, waving his arms, still talking about the gap. Hairy's thought bubble continues to contain images of White Hat, now gesturing frantically.] [Hairy shrugs in a nonplussed manner, and White Hat leaves off the right side of the frame. Both have thought bubbles displaying the other's reaction.] [White Hat continues to the right and comes across Megan. He tells her about the reaction of Hairy (still all in iconographic form); she simultaneously tries to tell him about a gap and gestures off to the right of the frame.] [White Hat and Megan both leave the frame. Megan exits left thinking of White Hat's reactions; White Hat exits to the right while thinking about both Hairy and Megan's reactions.] [Megan (still thinking about White Hat) encounters Hairy (who is also still thinking about White Hat).] [Megan and Hairy talk about White Hat.] [Megan and Hairy (now without his hair) continue talking about White Hat as they exit the frame to the left.] [A commotion is heard from the left.] Explosion to the left: !!! ** !! [Megan and Hairy (still without his hair) have fallen into the gap in the walkway. A commotion is then also heard from the right.] Explosion to the right: !!! ** * [White Hat has fallen into another gap.] [Beret Guy looks down at a large gap in the walkway; a thought bubble with a warning symbol and an image of the gap appears above his head.] [Beret Guy runs off the frame to the right.] [Beret Guy meets Cueball and reaches out to him. He tells him (still in iconographic form) that Cueball should take Beret Guy's hand. Cueball has a thought bubble of Beret Guy with his arm stretched out.] [Beret Guy takes Cueball's hand and leads him along to the left. Cueball's thought bubble has two question marks around Beret Guy.] Cueball: ? ? [Beret Guy leads Cueball to the gap and points it out to him.] [Beret Guy and Cueball walk away from the gap to the right, now both thinking about the gap with a warning symbol above it.] Randall made a mistake in this comic: Hairy seems to "lose" his hair in the last two frames where he is together with Megan (#9 and #11), but it's still the same person. The Cueball that appears in the last four frames represents another person. This is clearly evidenced by Randall's transcript of the comic .

Drawing Stars

Drawing Stars

https://www.xkcd.com/1029

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1029:_Drawing_Stars

HOW TO DRAW A STAR: [A slightly curved line is drawn, starting with a point near the top center of the panel, and going downward and to the left at approximately a 23-degree angle, with an arrow at the end.] [Another slightly curved line goes up and to the right, creating a 34-degree angle with the first line.] So far so good... [A third line goes up and to the left, creating a 58-degree angle with the last line. The drawing now sort of resembles a tent being blown over in the wind.] Steady as she goes... [The fourth line goes down and to the right, creating an approximately 47-degree angle with the last line, and our star is beginning to look a bit askew.] ...uh oh. Shitshitshit [The fifth line comes up at a 48-degree angle, completely missing the first point by a mile, and our star has failed spectacularly.] ABORT! ABORT!

Randall attempts to draw a five-pointed star ; the easiest way to do this free-hand is by drawing a pentagram , the simplest regular star figure in geometry. Once you've seen it done, you can usually draw a pentagram in one continuous motion. Simply put, Randall gets self-conscious and messes up. The title text explains the fact that a five-pointed star has all angles at 36 degrees which sums to 180, like a common triangle . So Randall converts to Judaism with its six pointed star symbol, which he hopes is easier to draw because it is composed of two equilateral triangles . This also suggests that he is converting from neopaganism [ actual citation needed ] just to have a religious star he can draw well. HOW TO DRAW A STAR: [A slightly curved line is drawn, starting with a point near the top center of the panel, and going downward and to the left at approximately a 23-degree angle, with an arrow at the end.] [Another slightly curved line goes up and to the right, creating a 34-degree angle with the first line.] So far so good... [A third line goes up and to the left, creating a 58-degree angle with the last line. The drawing now sort of resembles a tent being blown over in the wind.] Steady as she goes... [The fourth line goes down and to the right, creating an approximately 47-degree angle with the last line, and our star is beginning to look a bit askew.] ...uh oh. Shitshitshit [The fifth line comes up at a 48-degree angle, completely missing the first point by a mile, and our star has failed spectacularly.] ABORT! ABORT!

Keyed

Keyed

https://www.xkcd.com/1030

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1030:_Keyed

[Ponytail and Cueball are walking along.] Ponytail: I broke up with him yesterday. Cueball: That weird guy with the beret? Cueball: Did he take it okay? Ponytail: He seemed upset. He went out to my car— Cueball: Uh oh Ponytail: —and spent the whole night painting a really detailed key on the side. Cueball: ...Wait, what? [Image of Beret Guy painting a giant key on the side of a car.] Ponytail: Then he woke me up to ask what I thought of it. Ponytail: He looked really proud. [Beret Guy holding a paintbrush.] Cueball: I ... is he playing revenge mind games? Ponytail: I genuinely can't tell if he remembers that we broke up.

This comic is a take on one of the typical revenge tactics in dating and in life, which is one person "keying" the car of another. To "key" a car is to drag a key across the side of the car, sometimes multiple times, ruining the paint job. Instead, our friend Beret Guy painted a really detailed key on the side of Ponytail 's car in his version of "keying" a car. She broke up with him the day before, as she explains to Cueball , but Beret Guy is so strange that she now can't tell if it was revenge or even if he remembers that she broke up with him. The title text is a reference to the song Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood ; a revenge song in which Carrie Underwood imagines her boyfriend cheating and takes revenge on his prized truck. This explains why Beret Guy might also paint a key on Carrie Underwood's car specifically, but it just confuses the situation since it brings into doubt the theory of him "keying" her car out of revenge (there is no known reason or reference to a reason for Beret Guy to want revenge on Carrie Underwood in the xkcd continuity). The second part of the title text in which Beret Guy sent Ponytail a scone (Beret Guy really likes baked goods, so he would assume other people do too) further confuses the situation, causing Ponytail to completely give up on dating. Beret Guy and scones are also referenced in 452: Mission and in the title text of 677: Asshole . His love for bakeries was first mentioned in 434: xkcd Goes to the Airport . The song details Carrie Underwood imagining her boyfriend hanging out and flirting with a "bleach-blonde" girl, shooting pool, buying her a drink, dancing, and hoping to "get lucky" with her while she is vandalizing his customized four-wheel drive vehicle by scratching its side with a key, carving her name into its leather seats, smashing the headlights with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat and slashing all four tires in retaliation. She hopes that this will make him "think before he cheats" again. [Ponytail and Cueball are walking along.] Ponytail: I broke up with him yesterday. Cueball: That weird guy with the beret? Cueball: Did he take it okay? Ponytail: He seemed upset. He went out to my car— Cueball: Uh oh Ponytail: —and spent the whole night painting a really detailed key on the side. Cueball: ...Wait, what? [Image of Beret Guy painting a giant key on the side of a car.] Ponytail: Then he woke me up to ask what I thought of it. Ponytail: He looked really proud. [Beret Guy holding a paintbrush.] Cueball: I ... is he playing revenge mind games? Ponytail: I genuinely can't tell if he remembers that we broke up.

s/keyboard/leopard/

s/keyboard/leopard/

https://www.xkcd.com/1031

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1031:_s/keyboard/leopard/

[There are two browser windows open on a computer screen.] [The first browser window, taking up most of the screen, but partly blocked by the other window at the bottom, has a Wikipedia article open. The title of the page can be seen on the active tab.] Computer leopard - Wikip... [Next to the address bar are four add-ons and the toolbar icon. One of the add-ons is a letter:] R [To the left on the page are standard menus, with lots of unreadable text, except these words:] Help Go Search [The page is not at the top of the article, so the text begins mid sentence, the very top of the letters just cut of in the first visible sentence.] which range from pocket-sized leopards to large desktop leopards, the leopard remains the most common user input device. In addition to text entry, specialized leopards are used for computer gaming. While many computer interfaces rely on mice or touchscreens, UNIX-style command-line interfaces require users to interact with a leopard. [Below is the contents list - the text in the brackets can barely be read. And only the very top of the 2.3 line can be seen, and is thus only a qualified guess at what it was supposed to say, although it fits with the real wiki article.] Contents [hide] 1. History 2. Leopard types 2.1 Standard 2.2 Laptop-sized 2.3 Thumb-sized [To the right there is a picture of a keyboard. The picture text written below:] IBM Model M Leopard [The second browser window overlapping the first, at the level of the 2.3 menu point in the content menu, is a message board. The title of the page can be seen on the active tab:] Discuss - Leopard issu... [Next to the address bar are four add-ons and the toolbar icon. One of the add-ons is a letter:] R [In the window there is a list of topics next to icons of those starting the topic. The top post is just inside the frame, the icon cut of at the very top.] [Face of Cueball-like guy on white background:] Weird, my leopard just switched to Chinese. 3 days ago [Super close-up of the head of a person with dark hair on black background:] I work with one leopard on my desk and another in the leopard tray. 3 days ago [Full picture of a Cueball-like guy, with white background in the bottom half and dark in the upper half (which would conceal any hair on the persons head):] Ever cleaned a leopard? They're filthy . 2 days ago [Head of a cat on black background:] The iPhone virtual leopard is the fastest IMO. 19 hours ago [Head of a girl with long blond hair on white background:] I rarely email from my phone—I'm so slow when I'm not on a leopard. 11 hours ago [Head of Cueball-like guy. A line seems to be going our from his head, but it could just be one of the lines used to fill in the background:] My leopard died when I spilled tea on it :( 2 hours ago [Below the main panel of the comic is the following caption:] The Internet got 100 times better when, thanks to an extension with a typo'd regex, my browser started replacing the word "keyboard" with "leopard".

Randall's browser looks like Google Chrome , and he has installed at least four extensions on it, which explains the little symbols to the right of the address bar. Extensions are small programs that install into your Internet browser and change the Web pages as you view them. Some make pages easier to read, some remove ads (the third extension is AdBlock ) and so on. For the joke in this comic, an extension accidentally replaces the word " keyboard " with " leopard " in a regex (or regular expression ). In computing, a regular expression provides a concise and flexible means to "match" (specify and recognize) patterns in text, such as particular characters or words. The command to substitute/replace a string is "s", e.g. "s/old/new/g" replaces any occurrence of "old" with "new". The title therefore contains the command to change "keyboard" into "leopard". It's not clear what the extension Randall installed was actually supposed to do, but most extensions that revolve around text replacement are humorous in nature (such as Cloud to Butt , which replaces all instances of " the cloud " with "my butt"). The title text references the common IT phrase "Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair" or PEBKAC , which means that the problem is caused by the user, not by any failure of the computer. However, due to the substitution, it is now "Problem Exists Between Leopard And Chair". There has been several comics using substitutions , both before and after this one. [There are two browser windows open on a computer screen.] [The first browser window, taking up most of the screen, but partly blocked by the other window at the bottom, has a Wikipedia article open. The title of the page can be seen on the active tab.] Computer leopard - Wikip... [Next to the address bar are four add-ons and the toolbar icon. One of the add-ons is a letter:] R [To the left on the page are standard menus, with lots of unreadable text, except these words:] Help Go Search [The page is not at the top of the article, so the text begins mid sentence, the very top of the letters just cut of in the first visible sentence.] which range from pocket-sized leopards to large desktop leopards, the leopard remains the most common user input device. In addition to text entry, specialized leopards are used for computer gaming. While many computer interfaces rely on mice or touchscreens, UNIX-style command-line interfaces require users to interact with a leopard. [Below is the contents list - the text in the brackets can barely be read. And only the very top of the 2.3 line can be seen, and is thus only a qualified guess at what it was supposed to say, although it fits with the real wiki article.] Contents [hide] 1. History 2. Leopard types 2.1 Standard 2.2 Laptop-sized 2.3 Thumb-sized [To the right there is a picture of a keyboard. The picture text written below:] IBM Model M Leopard [The second browser window overlapping the first, at the level of the 2.3 menu point in the content menu, is a message board. The title of the page can be seen on the active tab:] Discuss - Leopard issu... [Next to the address bar are four add-ons and the toolbar icon. One of the add-ons is a letter:] R [In the window there is a list of topics next to icons of those starting the topic. The top post is just inside the frame, the icon cut of at the very top.] [Face of Cueball-like guy on white background:] Weird, my leopard just switched to Chinese. 3 days ago [Super close-up of the head of a person with dark hair on black background:] I work with one leopard on my desk and another in the leopard tray. 3 days ago [Full picture of a Cueball-like guy, with white background in the bottom half and dark in the upper half (which would conceal any hair on the persons head):] Ever cleaned a leopard? They're filthy . 2 days ago [Head of a cat on black background:] The iPhone virtual leopard is the fastest IMO. 19 hours ago [Head of a girl with long blond hair on white background:] I rarely email from my phone—I'm so slow when I'm not on a leopard. 11 hours ago [Head of Cueball-like guy. A line seems to be going our from his head, but it could just be one of the lines used to fill in the background:] My leopard died when I spilled tea on it :( 2 hours ago [Below the main panel of the comic is the following caption:] The Internet got 100 times better when, thanks to an extension with a typo'd regex, my browser started replacing the word "keyboard" with "leopard".

Networking

Networking

https://www.xkcd.com/1032

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1032:_Networking

[A man approaches Beret Guy at a party and they extend arms to shake hands. Beret Guy is holding a metal briefcase. Ponytail is a waitress in the background, carrying a tray with a wine glass on it.] Connr: I'm Connr Clark, CTO at Eusocial Media Ventures. Beret Guy: I'm a business professional! Earlier I photocopied a burrito! [Connr hands Beret Guy a business card. Beret Guy takes it and hands Connr another business card. Beret Guy has put his suitcase on the floor.] Connr: You should check us out! Here's my card. Beret Guy: Here's mine! Beret Guy: Networking! [Connr takes a closer look at the card, and Beret Guy holds up his case.] Connr: ...this just says "This is my business card!" Beret Guy: Do you like it? I have more in my handlebox. [Beret Guy puts his case on a table and opens it to reveal it is full of cash. Connr looks on in shock.] Connr: Uh, that's ok, I think I'll— Beret Guy: Here, have ten of them! Connr: —holy shit that thing is full of cash! [Connr raises his arms in excitement. Beret Guy turns to face him and chews on Connr's business card.] Connr: Where did you get that? Beret Guy: I am a business grown-up who makes business profits! Connr: That's like a quarter of a million dollars! Beret Guy: Yay! Business is fun! Beret Guy: Do you have more of your cards? They're delicious!

Networking, in business, is the act of expanding your group of contacts in order to help your career down the line. Here, in this comic, Beret Guy meets Chief Technology Officer (CTO, an executive-level position overseeing the development of new technologies) Connr Clark (perhaps a typo for "Connor" or perhaps a reference to common "Web 2.0" names like the businesses Flickr , Tumblr , etc.). Beret Guy is as strange as he usually is: he introduces himself as a "business professional" rather than as someone with any kind of specific job, and then goes on to mention that he photocopied a burrito, which he presumably believes is the sort of thing business professionals do. He also has a business card; usually, this would contain contact information, but his only says "This is my business card". He calls his briefcase, or suitcase, a "handlebox", and it is full of a quarter of a million dollars in cash. (The source of this money is not discussed in this comic, but in 1493: Meeting , Ponytail says it "keeps appearing, but we have no idea how or why.") Then Beret Guy proceeds to eat Connr's business card. Business cards are again mentioned in the title text of 2277: Business Greetings , also about one of Beret Guy's businesses. All of these things are not common behavior. [ citation needed ] "Networking" is often an over-hyped, empty affair. There are many networking meetings of every description going on every day everywhere, and most people trade cards and continue to not make money. So that's the joke – Beret Guy does the networking schtick , badly, and yet is somehow making huge amounts of money at it. The comic is also likely a joke on the idea that many people are excited about becoming a "business professional" who carries a briefcase, hands out business cards, and makes tons of money, without having an adequate plan for how to make those things happen, or possibly even knowing what their actual job would be. Beret Guy never says what he does, simply introducing himself as a "business professional," and explains his piles of cash with "I am a business grown-up who makes business profits!" In this world —and in people's dreams— when you "grow up" and start a business, money magically appears. Obviously, that's not how it works. [ citation needed ] The "Eusocial" in "Eusocial Media Ventures" is a reference to eusociality , the highest level of social cooperation found in the animal kingdom. Eusocial animals (termites being a common example) cooperate together to raise their young, have different generations living in the same colony, and have specialized individuals for reproductive and non-reproductive tasks. The title text is a pun on three common business buzzwords: agile, lean, and long-tail. An agile business is one that can change course quickly based on customer demands and the business environment. A lean business is one with minimal inventory or assets; nothing is idle or warehoused, so everything is in active use or on the move. Long-tail describes the strategy of offering a large number of unique items with relatively small quantities sold of each – usually in addition to selling fewer popular items in large quantities. Netflix is a popular example of long-tail because they have (almost) every movie imaginable, including rare titles that only a few people would be interested in. And of course, the pun here is one animal that is agile and lean with a long tail is a polecat . Furthermore, although "agile" and "lean" do mean a quick, nimble, and efficient business, they also refer to specific practices, as in agile software development , lean manufacturing and lean Six Sigma . Many people think these terms have devolved to overused jargon. While agile development is supposed to be a highly-structured method to get programmers to produce more working code quickly, when someone from the marketing department says " agile " it often means " We don't know what we're supposed to be producing, so we'll just chuck some stuff together, and keep those bits that the customer says he likes. We'll then do it all over again until we've got something that he'll pay for. " " Lean " is supposed to mean that a business keeps its costs as low as possible, employing one person to do marketing and PR, not really having a Human Resources department, etc. But, in practice, it often becomes " Keep as little stock as possible so that we don't have a lot of money tied up in it, and don't need a big warehouse; make stuff just before it is supposed to ship so that we don't have to store it either; make frequent prayers and virgin sacrifices to whatever gods we can find to ensure that nothing slips up anywhere along the line that our lawyers can't get us out of. " Obviously, Beret Guy's business plan, 1021: Business Plan , worked. See also 1117: My Sky . [A man approaches Beret Guy at a party and they extend arms to shake hands. Beret Guy is holding a metal briefcase. Ponytail is a waitress in the background, carrying a tray with a wine glass on it.] Connr: I'm Connr Clark, CTO at Eusocial Media Ventures. Beret Guy: I'm a business professional! Earlier I photocopied a burrito! [Connr hands Beret Guy a business card. Beret Guy takes it and hands Connr another business card. Beret Guy has put his suitcase on the floor.] Connr: You should check us out! Here's my card. Beret Guy: Here's mine! Beret Guy: Networking! [Connr takes a closer look at the card, and Beret Guy holds up his case.] Connr: ...this just says "This is my business card!" Beret Guy: Do you like it? I have more in my handlebox. [Beret Guy puts his case on a table and opens it to reveal it is full of cash. Connr looks on in shock.] Connr: Uh, that's ok, I think I'll— Beret Guy: Here, have ten of them! Connr: —holy shit that thing is full of cash! [Connr raises his arms in excitement. Beret Guy turns to face him and chews on Connr's business card.] Connr: Where did you get that? Beret Guy: I am a business grown-up who makes business profits! Connr: That's like a quarter of a million dollars! Beret Guy: Yay! Business is fun! Beret Guy: Do you have more of your cards? They're delicious!

Formal Logic

Formal Logic

https://www.xkcd.com/1033

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1033:_Formal_Logic

[The rear end of a car (with an unreadable license plate), with a bumper sticker above the tailpipe to the right:] Honk iff you love formal logic

This comic is a riff on bumper stickers that say "honk if you love ____". Here, the subject is formal logic , but the word "if" is replaced with a formal logic term " iff ," which means "if and only if". The term "If and only if" sets two separate requirements, both of which must be met. In this case, you must love formal logic in order to be allowed to honk, and you must honk if you love formal logic. (Conversely, someone who does not love formal logic is prohibited from honking, and someone who loves formal logic cannot refuse to honk.) The title text further elaborates on this, saying in essence: "Don't honk at me just because you're impatient that I stopped for a pedestrian." The joke is the contained self-reference: you have to love formal logic to take the sticker seriously and honk for exclusively that reason. The title text reveals the sticker is actually there to stop people from honking at him altogether, because Randall understandably hates it when he yields for pedestrians only to get honked at by some impatient driver behind him; the ONLY reason you're allowed to honk is to declare your love for formal logic. So by extension, if someone DOES honk while he is stopped for a pedestrian, he can simply enjoy the idea that the other driver loves formal logic rather than being impatient, transforming what might otherwise be an irritant into pleasure. [The rear end of a car (with an unreadable license plate), with a bumper sticker above the tailpipe to the right:] Honk iff you love formal logic

Share Buttons

Share Buttons

https://www.xkcd.com/1034

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1034:_Share_Buttons

[A series of article titles with four share buttons underneath each: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Google+] Breaking Into Stand-up Comedy FB: 3, Twitter: 1,781, Reddit: 2, G+: 0 How the Christian Right Threatens Wikipedia FB: 1, Twitter: 0, Reddit: 2,241, G+: 3 Boycott Facebook Today! FB: 248k, Twitter: 0, Reddit: 0, G+: 74 DIY: Installing a Custom ROM on a Realdoll FB: 0, Twitter: 0, Reddit: 0, G+: 2

This comic is a commentary on what sort of articles work best on different social networking services . From left to right the share buttons are: Facebook , Twitter , Reddit , and Google+ . The title text humorously combines appealing subjects for all four networks: [A series of article titles with four share buttons underneath each: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Google+] Breaking Into Stand-up Comedy FB: 3, Twitter: 1,781, Reddit: 2, G+: 0 How the Christian Right Threatens Wikipedia FB: 1, Twitter: 0, Reddit: 2,241, G+: 3 Boycott Facebook Today! FB: 248k, Twitter: 0, Reddit: 0, G+: 74 DIY: Installing a Custom ROM on a Realdoll FB: 0, Twitter: 0, Reddit: 0, G+: 2

Cadbury Eggs

Cadbury Eggs

https://www.xkcd.com/1035

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1035:_Cadbury_Eggs

[Two Cadbury eggs, one in the foil, the other out of the foil and broken open to reveal the gooey center.] A Cadbury egg has about 20g of sugar. (25g outside the US.) "One Cadbury Egg" is a nice unit of sugar content. [A can of soda with an equals sign and two eggs; a bottle of soda with an equals sign and three eggs.] One 12oz. can of soda has about two Cadbury eggs worth of sugar. One 20oz. bottle has three. [Two unwrapped Cadbury eggs, with an arrow indicating they should be placed in a glass of water.] One Cadbury egg is enough to make me feel kinda gross. Now when I see Coke or Snapple or Nestea or whatever, I imagine drinking a couple of dissolved Cadbury eggs. [Megan puts her hand to her chin in thought, Cueball has his arms out in exclamation.] Megan: Wow. Huh. So the takeaway is... I can eat Cadbury eggs by the handful all season and feel no worse about it than I do about soda? Cueball: That's not really— Megan: This is awesome! Cueball: *sigh*

Cadbury Eggs are a chocolate egg-shaped candy with a filling. They are supposed to replicate a real egg with a hard exterior and soft interior. However, unlike real eggs, the exterior is edible. [ citation needed ] In this comic, Cueball is trying to say that sodas have way too much sugar to even be appealing as beverages, because they contain as much sugar as 2 or 3 Cadbury Eggs, and one Cadbury Egg alone makes him feel gross. (A 12 oz can equals 355 mL, while a 20 oz bottle is about 590 mL.) However, Megan interprets this in precisely the opposite way to what Cueball intended. Instead of comparing soda to Cadbury Eggs, she compares Cadbury Eggs to soda. If a few Cadbury Eggs have the same amount of sugar as soda, Megan can eat as many as she wants year-round in place of soda, with no additional guilt. Cadbury Eggs are usually consumed around Easter — which is anywhere between March 22nd and May 7th, depending on whether one is consulting the Catholic or Orthodox calendar. The title text mentions the closure of the manufacture in New Zealand in 2009 and the change of the filling from runny to thick as a consequence. The joke here is the comparison to real eggs, which can be cooked scrambled , the new thick filling is not liquid enough to be cooked in a pan, as was the old runny filling. [Two Cadbury eggs, one in the foil, the other out of the foil and broken open to reveal the gooey center.] A Cadbury egg has about 20g of sugar. (25g outside the US.) "One Cadbury Egg" is a nice unit of sugar content. [A can of soda with an equals sign and two eggs; a bottle of soda with an equals sign and three eggs.] One 12oz. can of soda has about two Cadbury eggs worth of sugar. One 20oz. bottle has three. [Two unwrapped Cadbury eggs, with an arrow indicating they should be placed in a glass of water.] One Cadbury egg is enough to make me feel kinda gross. Now when I see Coke or Snapple or Nestea or whatever, I imagine drinking a couple of dissolved Cadbury eggs. [Megan puts her hand to her chin in thought, Cueball has his arms out in exclamation.] Megan: Wow. Huh. So the takeaway is... I can eat Cadbury eggs by the handful all season and feel no worse about it than I do about soda? Cueball: That's not really— Megan: This is awesome! Cueball: *sigh*

Reviews

Reviews

https://www.xkcd.com/1036

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1036:_Reviews

[Cueball and Megan stand in a store looking at a lamp that Cueball points at on a table in front of them. There is another table behind them with another lamp and next to it stands a box with a picture of yet a different type of lamp in the bottom right corner. Both lamps have a price tag dangling from their shade. Above them (and their spoken text) is a frame with a caption:] Shopping before online reviews: Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: And affordable. Cueball: Let's get it. Megan OK! [Exactly the same setting as above except now Megan holds up her smartphone in one hand looking down at it while typing on it with the other hand. Above them (and their spoken text) is a frame with a caption:] Shopping now: Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: It's got 1½ stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand. [To the left of Cueball there is another lamp on a table. But he is now looking at his smartphone instead. Megan has turned away from him but is also looking at her smartphones. There are no lamps next to her.] Cueball: This one has good reviews. Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf. Cueball: Eek. Cueball: What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus. [Cueball is holding his smartphone up in front of his face, Megan, looking at him, is holding her smartphone but has her arms down. There are no lamps shown.] Cueball: OK, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift. Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark.

Cueball and Megan are shown shopping for lamps. In the first part of the comic (only first frame) it is at a time before online reviews could be looked up on a smartphone. They spot a lamp they like, check the price and agree to buy, end of story. But the rest of the comic shows how difficult shopping has become after reviews have become easily accessible on smartphones while standing in the store. And now this takes up the final three panels, with the result that no lamps have been acquired and they decide to sit in the dark, using the claim that their living room looks fine in the dark to avoid buying a very expensive lamp which is the only one with perfect reviews (like 100% with 5 stars out of 5). When shopping for anything via reviews , whether it be electronics or even something as simple as lamps like the comic demonstrates, one negative review can spoil a lot of positive reviews. That hits home even more if the review is specific, because humans attach more weight to anecdotes and specific stories. This comic points out the absurdity of paying attention to those reviews, by making the negative review itself absurd (a lamp making your cats go deaf and interfering with your taste buds would imply, at the very least, anomalous radiation, and would not be on store shelves long before some kind of serious recall). The second part of the comic starts out normal. For the lamp Cueball think is pretty Megan finds lots of negative reviews which implies the product really isn't good after all, and it was even that specific brand of lamps in general that was to be avoided. But then this proceeds to get more and more absurd all the way to the title text. Cueball is for instance looking at a lamp that someone thinks looks like a uterus . As normal people do not really know what a uterus looks like, and if Cueball did not find this so himself, he should ignore one persons comment. On the other hand reading such a statement will maybe make you think of a uterus every time you see the lamp. So now it may be best not to buy it, but had he not read the comment it might have been a fine lamp for him. In the final frame Cueball has found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews, but her lamps are very expensive, the most cheap are starting at 1,300 francs. Swiss francs are the units of currency used in Switzerland . In 2012 when the comic was released a Swiss franc was worth a little more than one dollar ( 1.1$ to a Swiss Franc ) making the cheapest lamp go for not much less than US$1450. For comparison, US$15 can get one a decent lamp at IKEA. Furthermore the lampmaker lives in the Swiss Alps and can only be reached via a ski lift . This either indicated that transportation will be very expensive on top of the high starting price or it may even indicate that they will have to go to the lampmaker personally to either acquire a lamp or maybe just to check out that they really do not look like a uterus or other parts of the human reproductive system... The title text is presumably the review of an another lamp. When this reviewer plugged in this lamp, supposedly his dog went rigid, delivered a line of perfect Akkadian, and then was hurled sideways out the picture window. Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia . Even if the dog actually did speak a sentence of perfect Akkadian, the chance that the owner would be able to recognize it as such is negligible. The final joke is that the worst part of this lamp, was not the above mentioned crazy effects on the dog, but that the lamp had, completely normally, the switch on the cord, as opposed to having it on the body of the lamp. A production argument about where to place such a switch, leading to someone getting fired, was part of the joke in 1741: Work . [Cueball and Megan stand in a store looking at a lamp that Cueball points at on a table in front of them. There is another table behind them with another lamp and next to it stands a box with a picture of yet a different type of lamp in the bottom right corner. Both lamps have a price tag dangling from their shade. Above them (and their spoken text) is a frame with a caption:] Shopping before online reviews: Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: And affordable. Cueball: Let's get it. Megan OK! [Exactly the same setting as above except now Megan holds up her smartphone in one hand looking down at it while typing on it with the other hand. Above them (and their spoken text) is a frame with a caption:] Shopping now: Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: It's got 1½ stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand. [To the left of Cueball there is another lamp on a table. But he is now looking at his smartphone instead. Megan has turned away from him but is also looking at her smartphones. There are no lamps next to her.] Cueball: This one has good reviews. Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf. Cueball: Eek. Cueball: What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus. [Cueball is holding his smartphone up in front of his face, Megan, looking at him, is holding her smartphone but has her arms down. There are no lamps shown.] Cueball: OK, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift. Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark.

Umwelt

Umwelt

https://www.xkcd.com/1037

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1037:_Umwelt

[Note to courageous readers- The transcript has been reordered in the order in which the comics appear in the picture and appropriate names have been given.] The Void [An epic void with a bright light shining right on you.] Aurora [Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.] Cueball: Apparently there's a solar flare that's causing some Great Aurorae. CBC says they may even be visible here! Wanna drive out to see? Megan: Hockey's on. Cueball: Ok. Later. [An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.] Megan: See anything? Cueball: No, just clouds. Megan: Not surprised. Aurora-US [Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.] Cueball: Apparently there's a solar storm causing northern lights over Canada. CNN say they might even be visible {Options: "As Far South As Us", "Here in Boston", "Maine", "Ohio", "Oregon", "New York"}! Wanna drive out to see? Megan: It's cold out. Cueball: Ok. Later. [An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.] Megan: See anything? Cueball: No, just clouds. Megan: Not surprised. Snake [Two people standing next to each other. Megan is holding the head end of a snake. Depending on the width of your browser, the snake is: three frames, the third of which has a little bit of a bump; the first frame has a human-size bump, the second has a third person looking at the snake, and the third has the snake going though two Portals; a squirrel and the human-size bump in the first frame, a ring next to the third person in the second frame, and Beret Guy riding the snake in front of the portal; or The squirrel, a fourth person within the snake being coiled, and the human bump in the first frame, the ring, a fifth person in love, and the third person in the second frame, Beret Guy and the portal in the third frame, and the same two people in the fourth frame.] Megan: I found a snake, but then I forgot to stop. Black hat [Two people sitting at a desk. One is Black Hat. The other is an analyst. Black Hat has a number of terminals attached to his head.] Analyst: You come across a tortoise in the desert. You flip it over. It struggles to right itself. You watch. You're not helping. Why is that? Black Hat: It knows what it did. [View of the entire scene, with said turtle off in the distance on its back and trying to right itself.] Too quiet [A group of four scale down a wall into a field in the middle of the night. They walk off single-file.] Person 1: It's quiet. Person 3: Yeah - *Too* quiet. [A Velociraptor is off in the distance, following the group.] Person 4: Yeah - too *too* quiet. Person 2: Yeah - 2quiet2furious. Person 1: Fuck off, Steve. Pond [A landscape showing a pond, some reeds, and a set of mountains off in the distance.] Galaxies [A trio of galaxies.] Galaxy 1: He's not looking! Galaxy 3: Let's get him! [Lines draw in illustrating the eye-line of one of a pair of people.] Cueball: So he said he didn't get the text, but c'mon, he *never* misses texts. Right? ..hello? Megan: I'm just staring at your head freaked out by the fact that there are millions of galaxies *directly behind it*. xkcd Gold [Cueball holding bat.] Cueball: Sorry, but this comic [Cueball starts to wind up.] Cueball: requires [Cueball prepares to strike with bat.] Cueball: XKCD [Cueball swings at a beehive.] GOLD [Penis Bees fly out of the beehive.] Yo mamma [Cueball yells at a friend.] Cueball: Oh yeah? Well you mama's so cynical , her only dog ballast is a leash ! (This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid dogs can hover, so it requires them to wear weights at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop buying dog weights.) Reddit Five seconds ago: [You sitting in front of a desk, reading a reddit thread.] You: Oh, hey, reddit has a link to some XKCD april fools comic. Now: [An image of the xkcd comic page.] Five seconds from now: You: ..hey 30 seconds from now: [DANCE PARTY!] Buns and Hot dogs Cueball: What I wanna know is why do hot dogs come in packages of six while buns come in these huge sacks of ash and blood from which "Ave Maria" is faintly audible? [Chanting sacks of gore in the background.] Twitter [A Twitter account page with the following: Many tweets, fewer following, even fewer followers, A bunch of assholes in the suggested follow box, trending topics partitioned into: Word Games, Misogyny, and Bieber, stuff your eyes automatically ignore, A really pleasant blue. and the timeline: Something about a podcast, Someone confused because the description doesn't match the link, The link you clicked on to get to this comic, Rob Delaney, Passive Aggression, and horse ebooks.] Wikipedia [There's no comic here because instead of drawing one, I spent the last hour reading every news story cited in the Wikipedia article on The Mile High Club.] Google Chrome [A Chrome plugin error page.] Chrome: This plugin requires Sergey Brin's permission to run. Please wait while he is woken. Chrome/Firefox [Two people; Cueball is sitting at a desk in front of a laptop.] Cueball: Man, chrome's hardware acceleration really sucks. Ponytail: Oh - Theres' a great add-on that fixes it. Cueball: Oh? What's it called? Ponytail: "Firefox". Google Chrome-2 [A Chrome plugin error page with the characteristic jigsaw piece.] Chrome: Chrome is looking for this piece. Have you seen it? Chrome thinks it links up with a corner. Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing [Firefox error page.] Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing. You know how I'm not supposed to peek at your browsing in private mode? Firefox.. is sorry. Firefox will not blame you if you [Button with text.] Click here to report this incident. Internet Explorer [IE error page.] IE: Error: Internet Explorer has given up. Maxthon Cueball: Maxthon? Hey, 2005 called. Didn't say anything. All I could hear was sobbing. This is getting harder. Anyway, yeah, Maxthon's still cool! Didn't know it was still around! Netscape Navigator [Two different versions exist: one with Cueball talking and one with Megan with tentacle arms talking.] Person: Netscape Navigator? Hey, the nineties called - drunk as usual. I hung up without saying anything. This is getting harder. Anyway - it's cool that you'e got netscape running. Rockmelt [Cueball running to laptop.] I ran to Rockmelt to hide my face [Cueball sitting at laptop.] But Rockmelt cried out - [Laptop shouting.] NO HIDING PLACE [zoom out.] NO HIDING PLACE DOWN HERE Google Chrome-3 [A chrome plugin error page.] Chrome: There does not exist --nor could there ever exist-- a plugin capable of displaying this content. Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google - Chrome [Chrome error page.] Chrome: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization. Microsoft/Amazon - Firefox [Firefox error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization. Microsoft/The Times [Error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/The Times is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization. Corporate - Generic [Error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, we work as a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization. Military [Person looking at two browser windows.] Cueball: I know y'all know what you're doing. But if you're on a military machine and you're supposed to be watching for missiles or something, I hope you're keeping an eye on that in the background while you're reading comics. Also: Thanks. T-Mobile [Error page.] Data Error: T-Mobile was unable to establish a connection Verizon [Error page] Error: You have exceeded your Verizon monthly bandwidth cap. Mobile web browsing has been disabled. France [Two people; one of which is browsing using a laptop.] Cueball: Hey, you're French, right? Ever see what happens when you type "French Military Victories" into Google? French person: Does it take you to an article on Napoleon? French person: ..no? Strange, given how he kicked everyone's asses up and down Europe for over a decade. [Beat frame.] Cueball: Touche. French person: You know, that'd sound smarter if you didn't pronounce it like it rhymes with "douche". Germany [Cueball dropping food from an unorthodox high perch.] June 1948: In response to the Soviet blockade of East Germany, the western allies construct the Berlin Chairlift. Cueball on chairlift: Food! Israel [Person on phone.] Person (Translation from Hebrew): Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused. Carnot Cycle [Ponytail on a motorcycle with a heat-entropy graph on the side.] Ponytail: Check out my new Carnot Cycle! Cueball: Neat - how fast does it go? Ponytail: Depends how cold it is outside. Great Britain [Illustration of the Atlantic ocean.] American person: Sorry I don't have a comic poking fun at the UK here. I only had time to get to the most important US states. British person: Hey - At least we have free health care and real ale. Earthquake-Blizzard [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it.. [EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco. Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Boston", "Chicago", "Dallas", "Georgia", "Halifax", "Illinois", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Missouri", "the Northeast", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", 'Pennsylvania", "Philadelphia", "Texas", "Toronto", "Tennessee", "New York", "Wisconsin"}! That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ... Six Months Later.. [Both people are trudging through a massive blizzard.] Danish: In pictures, snow always looked so nice and sof - AAAA! MY NECK! How do people live here?! Cueball: Come on - it's only three more miles. Earthquake-Tornado [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it.. [EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco. Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Dallas", "Illinois", "The Midwest", "Missouri", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", "Tennessee", "Texas"}! Cueball: That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ... Six Months Later.. [Both people are in a shelter in a prairie with a rapidly-approaching tornado.] Danish: AAAA CLOSE THE SHELTER DOOR! Cueball: Say the magic words... Danish: THIS PLACE IS THE WORST! Cueball: Thank you. Earthquake-Hurricane [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it.. [EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco. Cueball: But this is {Options: "D.C", "Florida", "Houston", "Miami", "New Jersey", "North Carolina", "South Carolina", "Virgina"}! That was huge! Cueball: That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ... Six Months Later.. [Both are in the middle of a hurricane. Danish is grabbing onto a signpost to avoid being swept away.] Danish: AAAAA WHAT THE SHIIIIT! Cueball: Calm down - this is barely a category 2. Lake Diver Killer [TV Field Reporter in front of a cordoned-off lake.] Reporter: Police divers searching the bay say they have recovered the body of another victim of the "Lake Diver Killer." Reporter: During the search, three more divers were reported missing. Washington [The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.] In this Marble Prison As in the nightmares of the nation they tried to devour The nanobots that constituted Abraham Lincoln Are entombed forever. Alaska [A person with a gun chasing a helicopter on the back of a wolf in a snowy Alaskan field.] Some people hunt wolves from helicopters. I hunt helicopters from a wolf. Life in lab [Newspaper headline.] Scientists/UMass Amherst students/RIT students create life in lab [Caption under picture of scientists.] "The trick was fuckin'" American Revolution Robot Paul Revere: Remember: Zero if by land, One if by sea. MIT [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich! [Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.] [The gears turn..] Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: I see their admission standards have been slipping. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four. MIT Course 15c [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich! [Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.] [The gears turn..] Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: I *knew* we shouldn't have picked course 15s. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four. Smith/Wellesley [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of Smith/Wellesley students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich! [Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.] [The gears turn..] Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: We should've gone with Wellesley/Smith. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four. CNU [Person unsuspectingly strolls under a giant box trap controlled by a Trible.] I worry that CNU only invited me back as a ruse because they realized I never turned in my final paper and want my diploma back. But if it turns out it's for real, I'll see you Wednesday at the Ferguson! Dana Farber [Cueball, pointing towards head.] Cueball: Check it out - In support of people going through chemo, I shaved my head. Lots of love to everyone reading this at Dana Farber. Cancer sucks. If you are new to DFCI, there's a great little garden on the third floor of the yawkey if you need somewhere quiet to just sit for a little bit and breathe. Reviews Shopping before online reviews: [Cueball and Megan stand in a store. Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. There is another lamp on the table behind them.] Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: And affordable. Cueball: Let's get it. Megan Ok! Shopping now: [Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. Megan looks at her phone.] Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: It's got 1 1/2 stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand. [Cueball and Megan are now both looking at their phones.] Cueball: This one has good reviews. Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf. Cueball: Eek. What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus. [Cueball is still looking at his phone, Megan has hers at her side.] Cueball: Ok, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift. Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark. [[Two people...]] ((..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all this)) [[Two people standing next to each other. One is holding the head end of a snake...

This was the third April fools' comic released by Randall . The previous fools comic was 880: Headache from Friday April 1st 2011. The next was 1193: Externalities released on Monday April 1st 2013. This comic was released on April 1 even though that was a Sunday (only the third comic to be released on a Sunday). But it was only due to the April Fool joke, as it did replace the comic that would have been scheduled for Monday, April 2nd. The next comic, 1038: Fountain , was first released on Wednesday, April 4th. This was the first that could be different for different readers. An Umwelt , as the title text explains, is the idea that one's entire way of thinking is dependent on their surroundings. Thus, this April Fools comic changes based on the browser, location, or referrer. Thus, what the viewer is viewing the comic on, where they live, or where they came from determines which comic they actually see. As a result, there are actually multiple comics that went up on April Fools' Day, although only one is seen. (The term 'Umwelt,' as mentioned in the comic, refers to the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok) Information about how the wide variety of data was collected and credit for the viewers who contributed can be found here . If the device or browser you are using does not support Javascript, you will simply see a static image of a white swirl on a dark background. Possible reference to The Ring ( http://imgur.com/wlGmm ), as though to suggest that using an alternative browser is dismal and horrific. Davean (xkcd's sysadmin): "[This] comic isn't available everywhere and it can come up i[n] some situation[s] only for recognized browsers." Browser: Alternative Browser One could interpret that since Megan didn't go out and therefore missed seeing the Aurora (northern lights), Cueball in his knit cap lied about it. That way, she wouldn't have felt sad that she missed out. Another interpretation could be that he decides that since she did not even bother to go outside to see such a spectacular sight he will not tell her about it. And yet another could be that he did not think it was interesting. Cueball could possibly also be red-green colorblind, seeing the green aurorae as grey "clouds". This would serve as an example for the theme of the comic, as a non-colorblind person and a colorblind person seeing the same color would perceive it differently, one seeing it as its true color, and the other seeing it without the shade of color they cannot see. If this is the case, then it would be a reference to umwelt, as Cueball would be living in a world where the auroras do not reach his location. In real life, aurorae are usually seen as grey/white clouds to the naked eye, as our eyes cannot perceive the "greener" colors as well in the dark. This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes. Locations: Canada, Boston, Maine, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Minnesota, Norway, Denmark, France, Rhode Island (not sure if mobile only or not.) (also in Virginia, but using Ohio in the first panel) (also in Maryland, but using Canada in the first panel) In 1302: Year in Review a possibly different Megan has a completely different approach to the chance of seeing northern lights, as that was the only event she was looking forward to in 2013, and it failed. If this is the same Megan, perhaps she learned that there actually were northern lights in her area from another source, and so desperately wanted to have another chance to see them. Full size The joke here is the extreme length of snakes. The world's longest snake is the python, the longest ever being 33 feet or approx. 10 meters. The blue and orange circles refer to the hit game Portal . There is also a reference to the book "The Little Prince" in the second panel, where there is a large bulge in the snake that looks like an elephant. The Little Prince starts out by mentioning a drawing that the author made when he was six that showed an elephant inside a snake. Also, the number and content of the panels changes depending on the size of your browser window. This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes. Specific AltText for this image: Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit -from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your browser window size. Location: Texas (on Chrome Version 33.0.1750.154 m), New Jersey, California (on Chrome Version 39.0.2171.95), Maryland, Massachusetts (Safari for iOS, Chrome version 49.0.2623.112), Connecticut (Safari for iOS, Chrome Version 73.0.3683.103, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge), Virginia (on Chrome), Michigan (Firefox v46.0.1), Penang (Chrome Version 65.0.3325.162). Full size Cueball as an analyst attempts to psychoanalyze Black Hat's classhole tendencies. Cueball's quote and the whole setup is a direct reference to the movie Blade Runner (1982) and Black Hat is taking the Voight-Kampff test which is used to identify replicants from real humans. Black Hat's reason for not helping the tortoise is that it knows what it did and thus in Black Hat's world view it deserves being turned over. The final part of the joke is that when zooming out it turns out that there is a tortoise behind Black Hat and he has actually already turned it over for what it did. Location: Seems to appear mostly in "other countries" — those without location-specific comics. Full size A reference to Jurassic Park which has been constantly referred to before in this comic. Also referencing the film 2 Fast 2 Furious , an entertaining, yet intellectually unprovoking sequel in a popular film franchise, which is aimed at teenagers and young adults, prompting the blunt response from the stickman. The fact that Steve would use such a cliché noughties movie term in such an intense moment, and the subsequent curse, is the joke in this comic. Location: short version — iPhone 5c Safari browser in Texas, iPhone 5 Chrome Browser in Minnesota, long version - Google Chrome browser in Indiana, Windows 8 Laptop Two different versions showed, the narrower version for mobile devices. Location: The Netherlands and various other countries. Full size Megan is distracted from her conversation with Cueball by realizing that the space behind his head, from her vantage point, contains millions of galaxies. This is similar to an incredible photograph taken by the Hubble Telescope, in which a tiny dark area of space in fact contained numerous galaxies. The title text is an imaginative leap from this scenario: that the galaxies would be up to no good once Cueball is turned away from them. This is presumably a reference to Boo , an enemy from certain Mario games who moves toward Mario only when Mario is facing away from Boo. This comic was only reported once... the intended environmental context is a mystery. Location: unknown This is probably a reference to the 4chan Gold Account, an implementation on 4chan that does not actually exist, and is usually used to trick newcomers into revealing their credit card numbers. The joke is that "Gold Account" users can supposedly block other users from viewing images they have posted. The fifth panel is probably a reference to Beecock, a notorious set of shocker images. 4chan's moderators have been known to give out "beecock bans" or "/z/ bans" to particularly annoying users, which redirect the user to a page containing beecock and the text "OH NO THE BOARD IS GONE". Referrer: 4chan Possible reference to Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s " Harrison Bergeron ." The joke is that people's different experiences shape how they perceive the world in that the people who live in this world would perceive the joke as funny, while people in our world would not get it. This is the idea of umwelt mentioned at the top of the context where different individuals perceive the world differently. Refer: Facebook Reference to referencing, because Reddit, as a referring site, likes references to its referencing in its references. This comic also features recursive imagery similar to Self Description where the third panel embeds the entire comic within itself. One of the browser tabs visible in the center panel is Elk on Wikipedia. Referrer: Reddit This is a reference to the question "Why do hot dogs come in packages of 6 while buns come in packages of 8?" Another, more sexual reference to this question can be found in 1641: Hot Dogs . Referrer: SomethingAwful, Questionable Content, & MetaFilter A summary of the "content" typically found on Twitter. In the tweet feed, there are three tweets about some podcast on the top, followed by the tweet containing link they clicked on to get to the comic, tweets about Rob Delaney, unspecified passive-aggressive tweets, and a tweet from Horse Ebooks retweeted by one of the users the reader follows. On the left, the topmost dialog, with profile information, shows that the user has posted 1,302 tweets, but only follows 171 people and has even fewer followers, at a measly 48. This is marked with a sad face, implying that the user wants more followers. Below that is the "who to follow" dialog, which is written up as consisting of "assholes". Below that is the "trending tags" dialog for the United States. It is full of tags about word games, tags about misogyny, and tags about Justin Bieber. Below that is an unidentified dialog full of "stuff your eyes automatically ignore". And finally, on the bottom is the background colour, which is "a really pleasant blue". Referrer: Twitter The term Mile High Club (or MHC) is a slang term applied collectively to individuals who have had sexual intercourse while on board an aircraft. Randall says that reading the news articles on it has distracted him from making that comic. Two different versions shown, the narrower version (the single panel with all the text) for mobile devices. Referrer: Wikipedia Sergey Brin (born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the most profitable Internet companies. As of 2013, his personal wealth was estimated to be $24.4 billion. Randall makes the joke that as the founder of Google, Brin's permission would be needed to use Google Chrome. Because there are millions of people who use Google, it is likely that at least some of the time Brin would be asleep, thus he would need to be woken. Browser: Chrome Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android and iOS, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Cueball is complaining about Google Chrome , to which Ponytail replies that there is an add-on that fixes what he is complaining about. When questioned, she replies that the add-on is Firefox, which isn't an add-on at all and is instead a different browser. Browser: Chrome This panel references Google Chrome's error screen, which shows a puzzle piece. The comic humorously implies that Chrome is looking for that piece. When completing jigsaw puzzles, a common strategy is to figure out where the pieces must be from their geometry rather than from the picture they create. In this case, the text suggests that Chrome believes the puzzle piece connects to the pieces which form one of the corners of the puzzle, which may seem impossible because any piece that links up to a corner would usually have at least one flat edge, which this piece has none. However, more complicated puzzles have complex shapes and are not always simply approximate squares with tabs and blanks. Browser: Chrome or silk on desktop view Another reference to crashing web browsers. Firefox shows the history when it crashes. Browser: Firefox (Incognito only?) Yet another reference to crashing web browsers Browser: Internet Explorer Browser: Maxthon Netscape Navigator was a web browser popular in the 1990s. Browser: Netscape Rockmelt is a social-media-based browser. Reference to the gospel song "There's no hiding place down here" by The Carter Family , later covered by Stephen Stills. I run to the rock just to hide my face And the rocks cried out, no hiding place There's no hiding place down here It may additionally be a reference to the Babylon 5 episode "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place," which featured the song. Browser: Rockmelt When the Google Chrome web browser does not have the required software (called a plug-in) to display a web page's content, it displays a puzzle piece icon and an error message. In this case, Chrome informs the user that the content is impossible to display. Browser: Plugin (?) Disabled, Safari Desktop These error messages appear if the user is on a network owned by one of the corporations noted. The error message includes a warning against speaking on the company's behalf. ISP: Corporate networks of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NY Times Cueball assumes that anyone using a military network has an important job like watching for incoming missiles. He includes a thank-you to the user for their military service. ISP: Military networks Reference to T-Mobile's distinguishing feature (at the time it was written) of weaker coverage, in relation to other major providers. ISP: T-Mobile Reference to Verizon and AT&T's scandals/controversy regarding implementation of bandwidth caps. ISP: Verizon and AT&T A common joke about France is that the nation does not win wars. This originated from France's annexation by Germany during World War II, and America's late entry into the war, which is sometimes portrayed humorously as a case of America 'saving' Europe, in this joke particularly France (the role of the French resistance is usually not mentioned), leading to a common American joke at the expense of France's military prowess [1] [2] [3] . When France did not form part of the coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003, aligning with the many countries that condemned U.S. action, the joke was revived. A Google search of "French Military Victories" + 'I'm feeling lucky' used to direct to "did you mean: french military defeats" (due to a Google bomb ). Cueball is trying to show this to his friend, who is French. However, his joke backfires, as his friend immediately points out that the stereotype of France not having military victories is undercut by the fact that one of the most innovative military commanders in history, Napoleon, was French by citizenship (though Italian/Corsican by culture, as the French annexed Corsica a few months before his birth to an Italian noble family), and in fact conquered much of Europe. Following the theme of umwelt, the comic highlights the two characters' differing perspectives: The American thinks that France is a military failure, while the Frenchman thinks of Napoleon. The last line of the comic further implies that Cueball is not as smart as he thinks he is in regards to anything French, as he mispronounces the French loan word " touché ". Locations: France & Quebec This comic references the Berlin Airlift , a relief measure for citizens in West Berlin (surrounded by East Germany) instituted by the Western Allies after World War II. In reality, the Western Allies flew a grand total of 500,000 tons of food over the Soviet blockade in planes. Randall puts a twist on this event by making it more fun: dropping supplies from a grand chairlift. The play on words is that "chairlift" rhymes with "airlift" and thus makes an easy substitution. The chair force is also a name that other service branches use to make fun of the air force. Location: Germany Translation: Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused. A reference to the multiple use of the word Jewish to denote both a religious group and a nationality/ethnicity , as well as the stereotype of Jews holding low opinions of interfaith marriage. A side note: Randall accidentally drew an apostrophe instead of the similar-looking Hebrew letter י everywhere that letter should appear. Location: Israel A pun on "cycle"; a " Carnot cycle " is a thermodynamic cycle (e.g. refrigeration). Its efficiency depends on the temperature of the hot and cold 'reservoirs' in which it is operating. The icon on the side of the motorcycle resembles a graph of the Carnot cycle. Location: Japan He worded this as though to imply that the UK is a state of the U.S., and an unimportant one at that, which pokes fun at the UK, creating a paradox (sort of). Location: UK This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or blizzards are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The Californian perceives a mild earthquake and a severe blizzard, while the Northeasterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild blizzard. For each location this displayed in, the state name was substituted in the third panel. Locations: Alabama, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Georgia, Halifax, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, the Northeast, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Texas, Toronto, Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or tornadoes are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The California perceives a mild earthquake and a severe tornado, while the Midwesterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild tornado. For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel. Locations: Alabama, Dallas, Illinois, Georgia, The Midwest, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Tennessee, Texas (and Virginia, but it used Ohio in the third panel) Tornadoes are a recurring subject on xkcd. The picture used in 1754: Tornado Safety Tips very reminiscent of the one from this version of Umwelt. This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or hurricanes are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The Californian perceives a mild earthquake and a severe hurricane, while the Easterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild hurricane. For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel. Locations: D.C, Florida, Georgia, Houston, Miami, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia This comic shows a news reporter standing in front of a lake. She is reporting on a serial killer who targets divers. As more divers are sent in to investigate and/or search for bodies, more divers go missing, the implication being that they were also murdered. The more likely reason is the lake itself is dangerous for diving, and the divers probably drowned from natural hazards (undercurrents, entanglement, running out of oxygen in tanks, etc.) instead of a malicious assailant. Also, this is a sort of loop, where each time a diver gets killed, the investigative team goes and investigates, causing more divers to get killed, causing more deaths, and so on. Location: Bay Areas, Metro Detroit, Vermont showed an image specifically referencing Lake Champlain Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States of America, was not an entity composed wholly of nanobots that attempted to consume the entire nation to then be imprisoned within the Lincoln Memorial. [ citation needed ] Locations: Illinois & Washington, D.C. In Alaska, governments and individuals have shot wolves en masse from helicopters in an attempt to artificially inflate populations of game, such as moose and caribou, to make hunting them easier. This is opposed by many, as the game populations are not endangered (thus, this threatens ecological balance); wolves are a small threat to livestock in North America; most of the wolf body —including meat and bones— goes wasted as they are sought mainly for their pelts. Location: Alaska Creating new life has long been a well understood process, in a lab or otherwise. This comic is likely a reference to the title text of 983: Privacy Location: Various Specific versions appeared for RIT and UMass Amherst Combination of the legend of Paul Revere and a computer bit that differentiates between two situations by indicating a zero or a one. Location: Boston All four colleges in this series are in Massachusetts and, being similar, in pairs, rival each other to some extent (Harvard-MIT, and Smith-Wellesley). The comic contains a reference to the MIT Blackjack Team , which entered popular culture via the film 21 , and a possible reference to Orwell's book '1984' and/or popular homage to it via Star Trek : "There are four lights." [4] Bonus: The thought-gears in panel 3 are spinning against each other. Location: Harvard Location: MIT "Course 15s" at MIT are the business major students, often mocked for taking a less-rigorous program. The different interpretation for why the MIT students could not count cards compared to Harvard may be a reference to the theme of umwelt. Location: Smith Location: Wellesley Both Wellesley and Smith are all-women colleges in Massachusetts. Randall got his undergrad in Physics at the Christopher Newport University , and was scheduled to return shortly to give a talk. The "Trible" figure on the right is Paul Trible, the then-president of CNU. This comic depicts a classic trap, where an upside-down box is propped up with a stick. When the stick is removed, by pulling a string, the box falls and traps whatever is underneath it. Aside from the joke of the obvious trap, there's also the fact that the president would not be responsible for revoking unearned diplomas. Location: Christopher Newport University Cueball has shaved his head in support of people going through chemotherapy but, as he is always depicted as a stick figure with no hair, no one can tell. Randall's now-wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and apparently DFCI is where they've been spending much of their time. Location: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute The previous strip appears twice when using Tor . Browser: Any using Tor, xkcd API (JSON, RSS, Atom), w3m, and reports of seeing it on a Kindle Fire HD; also happens if visiting with a browser that does not support JavaScript (such as Firefox with NoScript) The comic doesn't appear in iPad browsers. The top buttons and the bottom buttons are side by side, and you can only see the title in the top. On April 28 and 29, 2019, a visit from San Francisco on macOS 10.14.4 using Chrome 74, Safari 12.1, or Firefox 66.0.3, all with JavaScript enabled, produced no comic, just two adjacent rows of navigation buttons. On April 29, 2019, a visit from Utah using a T-mobile Samsung device running Android pie, yielded the same results Since this comic's release, all devices viewing it have returned two rows of navigation buttons if near IP address 69.114.249.104. It also doesn't work in Pennsylvania on the Chrome operating system. There is a discussion about this in the Talk page. [Note to courageous readers- The transcript has been reordered in the order in which the comics appear in the picture and appropriate names have been given.] The Void [An epic void with a bright light shining right on you.] Aurora [Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.] Cueball: Apparently there's a solar flare that's causing some Great Aurorae. CBC says they may even be visible here! Wanna drive out to see? Megan: Hockey's on. Cueball: Ok. Later. [An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.] Megan: See anything? Cueball: No, just clouds. Megan: Not surprised. Aurora-US [Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.] Cueball: Apparently there's a solar storm causing northern lights over Canada. CNN say they might even be visible {Options: "As Far South As Us", "Here in Boston", "Maine", "Ohio", "Oregon", "New York"}! Wanna drive out to see? Megan: It's cold out. Cueball: Ok. Later. [An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.] Megan: See anything? Cueball: No, just clouds. Megan: Not surprised. Snake [Two people standing next to each other. Megan is holding the head end of a snake. Depending on the width of your browser, the snake is: three frames, the third of which has a little bit of a bump; the first frame has a human-size bump, the second has a third person looking at the snake, and the third has the snake going though two Portals; a squirrel and the human-size bump in the first frame, a ring next to the third person in the second frame, and Beret Guy riding the snake in front of the portal; or The squirrel, a fourth person within the snake being coiled, and the human bump in the first frame, the ring, a fifth person in love, and the third person in the second frame, Beret Guy and the portal in the third frame, and the same two people in the fourth frame.] Megan: I found a snake, but then I forgot to stop. Black hat [Two people sitting at a desk. One is Black Hat. The other is an analyst. Black Hat has a number of terminals attached to his head.] Analyst: You come across a tortoise in the desert. You flip it over. It struggles to right itself. You watch. You're not helping. Why is that? Black Hat: It knows what it did. [View of the entire scene, with said turtle off in the distance on its back and trying to right itself.] Too quiet [A group of four scale down a wall into a field in the middle of the night. They walk off single-file.] Person 1: It's quiet. Person 3: Yeah - *Too* quiet. [A Velociraptor is off in the distance, following the group.] Person 4: Yeah - too *too* quiet. Person 2: Yeah - 2quiet2furious. Person 1: Fuck off, Steve. Pond [A landscape showing a pond, some reeds, and a set of mountains off in the distance.] Galaxies [A trio of galaxies.] Galaxy 1: He's not looking! Galaxy 3: Let's get him! [Lines draw in illustrating the eye-line of one of a pair of people.] Cueball: So he said he didn't get the text, but c'mon, he *never* misses texts. Right? ..hello? Megan: I'm just staring at your head freaked out by the fact that there are millions of galaxies *directly behind it*. xkcd Gold [Cueball holding bat.] Cueball: Sorry, but this comic [Cueball starts to wind up.] Cueball: requires [Cueball prepares to strike with bat.] Cueball: XKCD [Cueball swings at a beehive.] GOLD [Penis Bees fly out of the beehive.] Yo mamma [Cueball yells at a friend.] Cueball: Oh yeah? Well you mama's so cynical , her only dog ballast is a leash ! (This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid dogs can hover, so it requires them to wear weights at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop buying dog weights.) Reddit Five seconds ago: [You sitting in front of a desk, reading a reddit thread.] You: Oh, hey, reddit has a link to some XKCD april fools comic. Now: [An image of the xkcd comic page.] Five seconds from now: You: ..hey 30 seconds from now: [DANCE PARTY!] Buns and Hot dogs Cueball: What I wanna know is why do hot dogs come in packages of six while buns come in these huge sacks of ash and blood from which "Ave Maria" is faintly audible? [Chanting sacks of gore in the background.] Twitter [A Twitter account page with the following: Many tweets, fewer following, even fewer followers, A bunch of assholes in the suggested follow box, trending topics partitioned into: Word Games, Misogyny, and Bieber, stuff your eyes automatically ignore, A really pleasant blue. and the timeline: Something about a podcast, Someone confused because the description doesn't match the link, The link you clicked on to get to this comic, Rob Delaney, Passive Aggression, and horse ebooks.] Wikipedia [There's no comic here because instead of drawing one, I spent the last hour reading every news story cited in the Wikipedia article on The Mile High Club.] Google Chrome [A Chrome plugin error page.] Chrome: This plugin requires Sergey Brin's permission to run. Please wait while he is woken. Chrome/Firefox [Two people; Cueball is sitting at a desk in front of a laptop.] Cueball: Man, chrome's hardware acceleration really sucks. Ponytail: Oh - Theres' a great add-on that fixes it. Cueball: Oh? What's it called? Ponytail: "Firefox". Google Chrome-2 [A Chrome plugin error page with the characteristic jigsaw piece.] Chrome: Chrome is looking for this piece. Have you seen it? Chrome thinks it links up with a corner. Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing [Firefox error page.] Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing. You know how I'm not supposed to peek at your browsing in private mode? Firefox.. is sorry. Firefox will not blame you if you [Button with text.] Click here to report this incident. Internet Explorer [IE error page.] IE: Error: Internet Explorer has given up. Maxthon Cueball: Maxthon? Hey, 2005 called. Didn't say anything. All I could hear was sobbing. This is getting harder. Anyway, yeah, Maxthon's still cool! Didn't know it was still around! Netscape Navigator [Two different versions exist: one with Cueball talking and one with Megan with tentacle arms talking.] Person: Netscape Navigator? Hey, the nineties called - drunk as usual. I hung up without saying anything. This is getting harder. Anyway - it's cool that you'e got netscape running. Rockmelt [Cueball running to laptop.] I ran to Rockmelt to hide my face [Cueball sitting at laptop.] But Rockmelt cried out - [Laptop shouting.] NO HIDING PLACE [zoom out.] NO HIDING PLACE DOWN HERE Google Chrome-3 [A chrome plugin error page.] Chrome: There does not exist --nor could there ever exist-- a plugin capable of displaying this content. Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google - Chrome [Chrome error page.] Chrome: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization. Microsoft/Amazon - Firefox [Firefox error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization. Microsoft/The Times [Error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/The Times is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization. Corporate - Generic [Error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, we work as a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization. Military [Person looking at two browser windows.] Cueball: I know y'all know what you're doing. But if you're on a military machine and you're supposed to be watching for missiles or something, I hope you're keeping an eye on that in the background while you're reading comics. Also: Thanks. T-Mobile [Error page.] Data Error: T-Mobile was unable to establish a connection Verizon [Error page] Error: You have exceeded your Verizon monthly bandwidth cap. Mobile web browsing has been disabled. France [Two people; one of which is browsing using a laptop.] Cueball: Hey, you're French, right? Ever see what happens when you type "French Military Victories" into Google? French person: Does it take you to an article on Napoleon? French person: ..no? Strange, given how he kicked everyone's asses up and down Europe for over a decade. [Beat frame.] Cueball: Touche. French person: You know, that'd sound smarter if you didn't pronounce it like it rhymes with "douche". Germany [Cueball dropping food from an unorthodox high perch.] June 1948: In response to the Soviet blockade of East Germany, the western allies construct the Berlin Chairlift. Cueball on chairlift: Food! Israel [Person on phone.] Person (Translation from Hebrew): Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused. Carnot Cycle [Ponytail on a motorcycle with a heat-entropy graph on the side.] Ponytail: Check out my new Carnot Cycle! Cueball: Neat - how fast does it go? Ponytail: Depends how cold it is outside. Great Britain [Illustration of the Atlantic ocean.] American person: Sorry I don't have a comic poking fun at the UK here. I only had time to get to the most important US states. British person: Hey - At least we have free health care and real ale. Earthquake-Blizzard [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it.. [EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco. Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Boston", "Chicago", "Dallas", "Georgia", "Halifax", "Illinois", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Missouri", "the Northeast", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", 'Pennsylvania", "Philadelphia", "Texas", "Toronto", "Tennessee", "New York", "Wisconsin"}! That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ... Six Months Later.. [Both people are trudging through a massive blizzard.] Danish: In pictures, snow always looked so nice and sof - AAAA! MY NECK! How do people live here?! Cueball: Come on - it's only three more miles. Earthquake-Tornado [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it.. [EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco. Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Dallas", "Illinois", "The Midwest", "Missouri", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", "Tennessee", "Texas"}! Cueball: That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ... Six Months Later.. [Both people are in a shelter in a prairie with a rapidly-approaching tornado.] Danish: AAAA CLOSE THE SHELTER DOOR! Cueball: Say the magic words... Danish: THIS PLACE IS THE WORST! Cueball: Thank you. Earthquake-Hurricane [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it.. [EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco. Cueball: But this is {Options: "D.C", "Florida", "Houston", "Miami", "New Jersey", "North Carolina", "South Carolina", "Virgina"}! That was huge! Cueball: That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ... Six Months Later.. [Both are in the middle of a hurricane. Danish is grabbing onto a signpost to avoid being swept away.] Danish: AAAAA WHAT THE SHIIIIT! Cueball: Calm down - this is barely a category 2. Lake Diver Killer [TV Field Reporter in front of a cordoned-off lake.] Reporter: Police divers searching the bay say they have recovered the body of another victim of the "Lake Diver Killer." Reporter: During the search, three more divers were reported missing. Washington [The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.] In this Marble Prison As in the nightmares of the nation they tried to devour The nanobots that constituted Abraham Lincoln Are entombed forever. Alaska [A person with a gun chasing a helicopter on the back of a wolf in a snowy Alaskan field.] Some people hunt wolves from helicopters. I hunt helicopters from a wolf. Life in lab [Newspaper headline.] Scientists/UMass Amherst students/RIT students create life in lab [Caption under picture of scientists.] "The trick was fuckin'" American Revolution Robot Paul Revere: Remember: Zero if by land, One if by sea. MIT [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich! [Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.] [The gears turn..] Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: I see their admission standards have been slipping. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four. MIT Course 15c [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich! [Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.] [The gears turn..] Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: I *knew* we shouldn't have picked course 15s. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four. Smith/Wellesley [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of Smith/Wellesley students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich! [Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.] [The gears turn..] Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: We should've gone with Wellesley/Smith. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four. CNU [Person unsuspectingly strolls under a giant box trap controlled by a Trible.] I worry that CNU only invited me back as a ruse because they realized I never turned in my final paper and want my diploma back. But if it turns out it's for real, I'll see you Wednesday at the Ferguson! Dana Farber [Cueball, pointing towards head.] Cueball: Check it out - In support of people going through chemo, I shaved my head. Lots of love to everyone reading this at Dana Farber. Cancer sucks. If you are new to DFCI, there's a great little garden on the third floor of the yawkey if you need somewhere quiet to just sit for a little bit and breathe. Reviews Shopping before online reviews: [Cueball and Megan stand in a store. Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. There is another lamp on the table behind them.] Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: And affordable. Cueball: Let's get it. Megan Ok! Shopping now: [Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. Megan looks at her phone.] Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: It's got 1 1/2 stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand. [Cueball and Megan are now both looking at their phones.] Cueball: This one has good reviews. Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf. Cueball: Eek. What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus. [Cueball is still looking at his phone, Megan has hers at her side.] Cueball: Ok, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift. Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark. [[Two people...]] ((..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all this)) [[Two people standing next to each other. One is holding the head end of a snake...

Fountain

Fountain

https://www.xkcd.com/1038

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1038:_Fountain

[A full color image of a fountain with three massive water jets. A Cueball seen from afar walks up to these while holding an umbrella.] [Cueball splashes through the pond which makes sounds:] Splish Splash [Cueball gets to one of the jets.] [Cueball opens up the umbrella with a:] Click [Cueball opens the umbrella and swings it into water jet stream (which is outside the image). The umbrella makes a sound when opened:] Fwoop [Cueball is pulled up by the water jet stream (which is outside the image). Only his feet and the water dripping of them into the pond can be seen. The sound he makes follows him up with longer and longer distance between the letters (written in lower-case).] Cueball: Wheeeeeeee!

This comic is about how it's considered implausible to "fly" by positioning an umbrella over a water jet. From the first panel (and assuming that Cueball is of average height) - it looks like the center fountain is about 10m high. By comparison with the size of his head in the second panel, the jet appears to be about 10cm in diameter. The velocity of the water exiting the nozzle has to be about 14 meters/second in order to reach 10m against gravity. If we approximate the nozzle as being a 10cm x 10cm square - that translates to 140 liters/second - or 140kg/s of water. That produces an upward force of almost 2,000 newtons! If we presume that Cueball weighs 100kg (~1,000N)- he should be experiencing a net upward force of about 1,000N. Which means that he'll accelerate at about 1g! Holding onto the umbrella against a force of 1g is very different than hanging by your hands from a horizontal bar, since you would actually experience two gravities of force, due to gravity being added. Some people could still manage this, but you would probably need to be in good shape physically to pull it off. Conclusion is that IF the umbrella is strong enough - this trick will actually work! However, if you imagine a typical 6-spoke umbrella - then 1000N is 166N of upward force per spoke. It's hard to believe you could hang a 16.6kg weight off of each spoke of an umbrella without it bending. The title text emphasizes that Cueball did indeed reach a high altitude - so we must conclude that his umbrella is some specially made high-strength device. Since the fountain tops out at about 10m - and presumably it would be somewhat reduced with Cueball's weight on it - his feet might only be about 6 to 8 meters above the ground when he stops moving upwards. A fall from that height is survivable - especially if the drag of the umbrella slows him down somewhat. [A full color image of a fountain with three massive water jets. A Cueball seen from afar walks up to these while holding an umbrella.] [Cueball splashes through the pond which makes sounds:] Splish Splash [Cueball gets to one of the jets.] [Cueball opens up the umbrella with a:] Click [Cueball opens the umbrella and swings it into water jet stream (which is outside the image). The umbrella makes a sound when opened:] Fwoop [Cueball is pulled up by the water jet stream (which is outside the image). Only his feet and the water dripping of them into the pond can be seen. The sound he makes follows him up with longer and longer distance between the letters (written in lower-case).] Cueball: Wheeeeeeee!

RuBisCO

RuBisCO

https://www.xkcd.com/1039

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1039:_RuBisCO

[Person in background (out-of-frame) screams out this word over all 3 panels.] [Cueball is working on a laptop at a desk. Megan is reading a book in an armchair.] Person 1: RIBULOSEBISPH.. [In a frameless panel, Cueball has stopped working. Megan has stopped reading, and is holding her book.] Person 1: ...OSPHATECARBOXYL... [Cueball continues working. Megan resumes reading her book.] Person 1: ...ASEOXYGENASE! Person 2: Oh, Sorry! Megan: Man, chemists pick the worst safewords.

Safe words are designated words for sexual play which are meant to be called if one partner is uncomfortable with the way things are proceeding as alternatives to simply saying "no" or "stop", which may be used to express playacted reluctance by a submissive partner who actually wants to continue. Calling the pre-chosen "safe word" would be a sign to stop. To prevent accidental usage, people generally pick words that they wouldn't normally use, such as "Pineapple" or "Hedgehog." In the case of this comic, the characters are chemists, and the uncommon word they happen to have chosen is Ribulose-bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase , also known as RuBisCO (which actually isn't a very uncommon word in the scientific world, as it's the most abundant protein on earth, but it would be uncommon to use the full word). However, the length of the word makes it impractical for a safe word, as it would take too long to say; indeed, using the shorter form "RuBisCO" would normally be a fine safe word. The title text mentions Bruce Schneier , a computer security professional, and public keys which is the publicly known half of public-key cryptography , which uses two mathematically linked keys to decrypt information. The joke is that Schneier considers safewords as a type of security and thus believes they are not safe enough and recommends the key signature. However, whereas it takes a long time to say RuBisCO in full during your submission, it would be impossible to use any public keys to stop your partner. Randall later in 1128: Fifty Shades referenced the book Fifty Shades of Gray which made the concept of 'safe words' perhaps more widely known to the mainstream public. Here the word is very short: Red. [Person in background (out-of-frame) screams out this word over all 3 panels.] [Cueball is working on a laptop at a desk. Megan is reading a book in an armchair.] Person 1: RIBULOSEBISPH.. [In a frameless panel, Cueball has stopped working. Megan has stopped reading, and is holding her book.] Person 1: ...OSPHATECARBOXYL... [Cueball continues working. Megan resumes reading her book.] Person 1: ...ASEOXYGENASE! Person 2: Oh, Sorry! Megan: Man, chemists pick the worst safewords.

Lakes and Oceans

Lakes and Oceans

https://www.xkcd.com/1040

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1040:_Lakes_and_Oceans

[A Map of lakes and oceans showing the depths of various lakes and ocean attributes.] Lakes and Oceans Depths and animal/ship/boat lengths are to scale; horizontal distance is not. Fun Fact: The Edmund Fitzgerald , The Kursk, and The Lusitania all sank in water shallower than they were long.

Although it is a small part of this large comic there is another of Randall's fun facts below Burj Khalifa in the left part. This comic is a scale representation of our lakes and oceans, with an emphasis on how little we know about our oceans. It shows the depths and lengths in relative scale. The Edmund Fitzgerald was a Great Lakes freighter which sank in 1975. The Kursk (K-141) was a Russian nuclear submarine which sank in 2000 after an explosion. The RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner which was famously sunk in 1915, eventually prompting the United States to enter World War I . All three of these ships were sunk in water that was shallower than they were long. The shortest was the Kursk , which was 154 metres long, and sank in water only 100 metres deep. Also on the diagram is the RMS Titanic , which famously sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg, and the Seawise Giant , which is the largest ship ever built, at 485 metres. It was scrapped in 2010. The Deepwater Horizon is an offshore oil well which made headlines after an explosion in 2010 caused the world's largest oil spill . The skyscraper the Burj Khalifa is also shown. The Burj Khalifa is the world's tallest manmade structure and is located in the city of Dubai , in the United Arab Emirates . The Chilean mine showed on the far right is the San José Mine , which suffered a collapse in 2010, trapping 33 men 700 metres underground for 69 days. The Kola Superdeep Borehole also shown on the right was a Soviet (and later Russian) research project attempting to drill as deep into the Earth's crust as possible. It was abandoned in 2005, after reaching a record of 12,262 metres deep. Also shown are several notable bodies of water. There are the Great Lakes: Lake Superior , Lake Michigan , Lake Huron , Lake Erie , and Lake Ontario . Death Valley is a large, desert valley in California , named because the deadly climate and dry environment support very few life forms. Great Slave Lake is the deepest lake in North America , and is located in the Northwest Territories , in Canada . Crater Lake is located in Oregon , and is the deepest lake in the United States. Loch Ness is the Scottish lake which is the location of the alleged " Loch Ness Monster ". Lake Baikal is located in Russia , and is the world's deepest lake. On the far right side of the image is the Dead Sea , a lake near Jordan and Israel which is characterized for having such high salt levels that the waters are toxic to much marine life (hence a "dead" sea), although it does support a bacterial and algal ecosystem that is tolerant to high salt and magnesium concentrations. In the water, the Andrea Gail was a ship that sunk in a storm in 1991, and was later eulogized with a book and film . Several depth limits are shown, including the free-diving record (273 metres), the scuba diving record (330 metres), the depth bike tires go flat (approximately 100 metres), the depth at which water rushes in through a hole in a scuba tank instead of air rushing out (approximately 2000 metres), the pressure that would push a cork into a bottle (approximately 250 metres), the depth that would push water up a faucet (approximately 75 metres), the depth an emperor penguin can dive (535 metres), the depth limit of an Ohio -class submarine (240 metres), the depth limit of a Typhoon -class submarine (400 metres), the depth limit of a blue whale (500 metres), and the depth a leatherback sea turtle can dive (1280 metres). The small unlabeled mark under the "cork into a bottle" text is around 1337 metres deep. The comic also illustrates how sperm whales can dive as deep as 3000 metres (though don't frequently go deeper than 400 metres). It is presumed that they dive so deep to feed on giant squid , which can be found as deep as 3000 metres but, to our knowledge, are more commonly found in depths of 300 to 1000 metres. The fact that sperm whales can dive so deep and come up battered emphasizes Randall's point that we know so little about our oceans. Also shown are the depth limit of the DSV Alvin , a deep-sea vessel, the mid-ocean ridge , an underwater mountain range which could be considered to be the largest mountain range in the world, the Puerto Rico Trench (and the included Milwaukee Deep ), which is the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean , at 8648 metres, and the Marianas Trench , the deepest point of the Pacific Ocean at 10,944 metres. At the bottom of the Mariana Trench, pressure is as high as 1086 bars and life forms have been found at depths as low as 10,641 metres. The marked abyssal plains are a deep-sea plain believed to hold a very diverse array of life forms but are largely unexplored. The stick figures of David Bowie and Freddie Mercury are a reference to Bowie's and Queen's songs " Under Pressure ". The label "the abyss" with its sublabel of "it's rude to stare" is a reference to the Friedrich Nietzsche quote, "when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back". There's also a movie from 1989 called The Abyss . The door at the bottom of the Marianas Trench is fictional, [ citation needed ] and is a reference to James Cameron 's attempt to reach the bottom of the trench in his Deepsea Challenger vessel, which he filmed with 3D cameras in 2012. Randall is implying Cameron went so deep specifically to reach this door, rather than just for the sake of going. The title text implies that James Cameron has encountered some otherworldly, Lovecraftian being behind the door at the bottom of Challenger Deep; he thought he could access it briefly, however, did not count on its hypnotic or entrancing song, which led to him leaving the door open long enough for it to enter the world and possibly precipitate some horrible calamity. This song is a reference to the sirens of Greek mythology whose singing was irresistible to sailors, who would sail toward them and crash into a rock, wrecking their ships, until Odysseus survived by having his sailors plug their ears and tie him to the mast. The concept is also a reference to the sort of horror fiction popularised by H. P. Lovecraft , often called " cosmic horror ", whose stories often contain godlike alien beings that are locked away or hidden in remote places, such as Cthulhu and Azathoth . There is no specific story with a door at the bottom of the ocean containing an entity that sings entrancingly, Randall is making a clever reference to the concepts popularised by this genre as a whole. Pacific Rim , a movie depicting the Earth under the attack of gigantic alien monsters (called Kaiju) emerging from an inter-dimensional portal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, was released in 2013. [A Map of lakes and oceans showing the depths of various lakes and ocean attributes.] Lakes and Oceans Depths and animal/ship/boat lengths are to scale; horizontal distance is not. Fun Fact: The Edmund Fitzgerald , The Kursk, and The Lusitania all sank in water shallower than they were long.

Whites of Their Eyes

Whites of Their Eyes

https://www.xkcd.com/1041

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1041:_Whites_of_Their_Eyes

[A Revolutionary War soldier gives orders to two others hunkered down behind a rock.] Lead soldier: Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes Lead: And smell the scent of their hair. [The two others getting an incredulous look on their faces.] Lead: And taste the sweetness of their lips. [They begin taking fire from the opposition.] Lead: And feel the heat of their skin pressed against yours, trembling as you- Soldier 2: Maybe we should just start shooting. Lead: Right, yes.

This comic is based on the famous command, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes", given by William Prescott , an American officer during the American Revolutionary War . His men were running low on bullets, so Prescott commanded that they hold their fire until the enemy was close enough to guarantee a hit. This was a tactic used by a number of armies, such as Napoleon's French at Aspern and Wellington's British in the Iberian Peninsula. In this comic, Prescott carries on after his initial command, adding increasingly intimate and sexual references to the enemies' bodies, nearly getting himself shot due to distracting himself. Also, each of his remarks reference a different sense out of the five senses, missing only hearing (which arguably is also satisfied when they actually hear the shots). The title text expands on that, stating not to fire until you see the person's "soul" in their eyes. [A Revolutionary War soldier gives orders to two others hunkered down behind a rock.] Lead soldier: Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes Lead: And smell the scent of their hair. [The two others getting an incredulous look on their faces.] Lead: And taste the sweetness of their lips. [They begin taking fire from the opposition.] Lead: And feel the heat of their skin pressed against yours, trembling as you- Soldier 2: Maybe we should just start shooting. Lead: Right, yes.

Never

Never

https://www.xkcd.com/1042

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1042:_Never

[Cueball staring into a pond.] Cueball: I know that no matter where I go Cueball: or who I build a life with Cueball: I will never have with anyone Cueball: what I had with you [Cueball walks off.] Cueball: Thank god

This comic plays with that some phrases are generally interpreted as communicating positive sentiments, although they strictly are ambiguous. Cueball is mulling over a previous relationship. Usually when someone says something like "I will never have with anyone what I had with NN " it implies that the couple had something so good that it could never be replaced. But when he thinks "Thank God", it is suddenly implied that the relationship was so horrible he's thankful he'll never have to experience it again. The title text goes along the same line: "I'll never forget you" is usually positive – but then it becomes clear that it is the red flags , the warning signs about the person that they would not be a good fit for a serious relationship and marriage, that he'll never forget. There is a similar twist in comics 71: In the Trees and 334: Wasteland . [Cueball staring into a pond.] Cueball: I know that no matter where I go Cueball: or who I build a life with Cueball: I will never have with anyone Cueball: what I had with you [Cueball walks off.] Cueball: Thank god

Ablogalypse

Ablogalypse

https://www.xkcd.com/1043

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1043:_Ablogalypse

[A line graph with four lines, each representing 'Google Trends Search Volume' of different search terms over time from prior to 2005 to just after 2012. A blue line represents "blog," which trends gradually but significantly upwards from well before 2005 until it reaches a peak between 2008-2009, and starts to very slowly descend to today. A red line represents "Tumblr", which is at zero until it slowly starts to trend upward in early 2010, and then sharply increases in late 2010 and through 2011 and 2012. As of the date of this comic, 'blog' still beats 'Tumblr' in terms of search volume, but a dotted line projection of the trend shows that on October 12, 2012, the two lines will cross. A yellow line represents 'Wordpress,' which has very low volume until a very small and gradual increase in 2007, which gradually increases to this day but doesn't come close to meeting the volume of either 'blog' or 'Tumblr'. A green line represents 'LiveJournal,' which started out prior to 2005 at around the level 'Wordpress' is at now, but declined through 2005 and 2006 until it has plateaued until virtually nothing.] [Caption below the graph:] In about six months, the word "Tumblr" will eclipse "blog" in Google popularity. I doubt TV anchors will start talking about "reactions in the Tumblverse," but then again, I still can't believe we got them to say "blogosphere."

This comic plays with the Google trends for the terms "blog", "tumblr", "wordpress", and "livejournal" . As you can see in the caption and then the title text, there is no way that newscasters will reference the "Tumblverse" because all the reactions will be filled with animated gifs of a person in a raptor suit falling over or a dog answering a phone . This actually came to pass, with the change over occurring between October 30, 2012, and January 10, 2013, as can be seen using the link above. Since the end of 2013 both terms have been in steady decline, though "tumblr" has fallen more quickly. Consequently, since January 29, 2019, "tumblr" has returned to being less searched than "blog". [A line graph with four lines, each representing 'Google Trends Search Volume' of different search terms over time from prior to 2005 to just after 2012. A blue line represents "blog," which trends gradually but significantly upwards from well before 2005 until it reaches a peak between 2008-2009, and starts to very slowly descend to today. A red line represents "Tumblr", which is at zero until it slowly starts to trend upward in early 2010, and then sharply increases in late 2010 and through 2011 and 2012. As of the date of this comic, 'blog' still beats 'Tumblr' in terms of search volume, but a dotted line projection of the trend shows that on October 12, 2012, the two lines will cross. A yellow line represents 'Wordpress,' which has very low volume until a very small and gradual increase in 2007, which gradually increases to this day but doesn't come close to meeting the volume of either 'blog' or 'Tumblr'. A green line represents 'LiveJournal,' which started out prior to 2005 at around the level 'Wordpress' is at now, but declined through 2005 and 2006 until it has plateaued until virtually nothing.] [Caption below the graph:] In about six months, the word "Tumblr" will eclipse "blog" in Google popularity. I doubt TV anchors will start talking about "reactions in the Tumblverse," but then again, I still can't believe we got them to say "blogosphere."

Romney Quiz

Romney Quiz

https://www.xkcd.com/1044

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1044:_Romney_Quiz

[One long panel, with a large headline at the top, flanked by two small pictures on each side: a portrait of Mitt Romney on the left, and a child (Charlie Bucket) running with a golden ticket in his hand on the left. Below is a list numbered 1 - 12 down the left. The answers on the bottom are written upside down.] QUIZ: Who said it - former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, or Wonka contest winner Charlie Bucket? Is there even a difference? 1. ———— "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country." 2. ———— "Returning Medicare to solid footing represents our greatest entitlement challenge." 3. ———— "Look, everyone, look, I've got it! The fifth golden ticket is mine!" 4. ———— We have lost faith in government. Not in just one party, not in just one house, but in government." 5. ———— "This banana's fantastic! It tastes so real." 6. ———— "Grandpa... on the way home today, I ran into Mr. Slugworth." 7. ———— "I'm not happy exporting jobs, but we must move ahead in technology and patents." 8. ———— "Hey, the room is getting smaller." 9. ———— "It would be impossible to reach unanimity on every aspect of our budget." 10. ——— "Grandpa, look over there across the river! They're little men!" 11. ——— "I'm... going too high! Hey, Grandpa, I can't get down! Help! Grandpa, the fan!" 12. ——— "Barack Obama has failed America." Answers: Mitt Romney: 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 12; Charlie Bucket: 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11. [Answers: Mitt Romney: 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 12; Charlie Bucket: 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11.]

This comic satirizes "either/or" quizzes seen on websites such as mentalfloss.com. These quizzes normally have an element of challenge by presenting tonally similar quotes, such as "Who Said It: Ted Nugent or Cartman from South Park ?". The two people are generally chosen carefully to fulfill a particular role, for example: In each case the idea is usually to surprise the reader with the fact that the quotes are difficult to tell apart, with the implied "conclusion" that person A is essentially indistinguishable from person B. In some cases the quizzes may be used as a tool to portray a particular person or group in a certain way, or alternatively may be light-hearted jest. Mitt Romney was the Republican candidate for President of the United States (officially declared presumptive nominee on April 25, 2012, one week after this comic) during the 2012 US presidential election and, as it says above, the former Governor of Massachusetts. During the election, Mad Magazine published a popular article ( volume 2 ) which compared quotes from Romney with quotes from the Simpsons villain Montgomery Burns , the implication being that like Burns, Romney was a corrupt out-of-touch plutocrat and had similar views and affectations. In this comic, Burns is substituted with Charlie Bucket, the main character of the 1964 Roald Dahl children's novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , adapted to film in 1971 as Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. The joke here is that the two categories of quotes are not at all similar, and thus are very easy to attribute. Where the question "Is there even a difference?" usually implies some kind of political satire, in this case the point of the quiz appears to be lost, leading to a situation of bewilderment for the reader. The title text refers to a Romney comment on Medicare , a national program launched in 1965 to provide health insurance to people age 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history. So the quote being used in a movie in 1971, while obviously not true, is indeed possible . (Though, given that Charlie's supposed to have said it while floating in midair in the Fizzy Lifting Drinks scene, he'd have been more likely to be referring to himself as needing to regain "solid footing.") [One long panel, with a large headline at the top, flanked by two small pictures on each side: a portrait of Mitt Romney on the left, and a child (Charlie Bucket) running with a golden ticket in his hand on the left. Below is a list numbered 1 - 12 down the left. The answers on the bottom are written upside down.] QUIZ: Who said it - former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, or Wonka contest winner Charlie Bucket? Is there even a difference? 1. ———— "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country." 2. ———— "Returning Medicare to solid footing represents our greatest entitlement challenge." 3. ———— "Look, everyone, look, I've got it! The fifth golden ticket is mine!" 4. ———— We have lost faith in government. Not in just one party, not in just one house, but in government." 5. ———— "This banana's fantastic! It tastes so real." 6. ———— "Grandpa... on the way home today, I ran into Mr. Slugworth." 7. ———— "I'm not happy exporting jobs, but we must move ahead in technology and patents." 8. ———— "Hey, the room is getting smaller." 9. ———— "It would be impossible to reach unanimity on every aspect of our budget." 10. ——— "Grandpa, look over there across the river! They're little men!" 11. ——— "I'm... going too high! Hey, Grandpa, I can't get down! Help! Grandpa, the fan!" 12. ——— "Barack Obama has failed America." Answers: Mitt Romney: 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 12; Charlie Bucket: 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11. [Answers: Mitt Romney: 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 12; Charlie Bucket: 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11.]

Constraints

Constraints

https://www.xkcd.com/1045

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1045:_Constraints

[Cueball sits in an office chair at his computer desk, motioning toward the screen with a hand as Megan stands behind him.] Cueball: I don't get why authors and comedians spend so much energy trying to be clever on Twitter. Couldn't they put that creativity into more books and scripts? Cueball: Is there something they like about the 140-character format? [Same picture but in a frame-less panel, except Cueball has taken his arm down.] Megan: Yeah. Writers working under tight restrictions produce novel material—like, for example, epigrams employing backward alphabetization. [A slim panel with only Cueball at his computer desk shown.] Cueball: ...Whoa.

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. Constrained writing is an age-old literary phenomenon, where writers impose rules or patterns in their works. Haiku is a well known example of this. Twitter is a short message social network and communication service. At the time this comic was published, all messages (known as tweets) on the service needed to be under 140 characters. Until August 2015 even private messages had that restriction. Twitter is frequently used by well-known comedians as a place to make interesting jokes and observations. It should be noted that the limit is now 280 characters. All the words spoken by Megan , from "Yeah" to "alphabetization", are in reverse alphabetical order. Here are the starting letters (with extra letter when more than one word in a row begins with the same letter): Y, Wr, Wo, U, T, R, P, N, M, L, F, Ex, Ep, Em, B, A. It both answers Cueball 's question and exemplifies with an ingenious self-reference , while being short enough (133 characters) to be a valid tweet — hence the "whoa." The title text, "title-text similarly alphabetized", is also backwards-alphabetized and self-referential. Starting letters: Ti, Te, S, A. [Cueball sits in an office chair at his computer desk, motioning toward the screen with a hand as Megan stands behind him.] Cueball: I don't get why authors and comedians spend so much energy trying to be clever on Twitter. Couldn't they put that creativity into more books and scripts? Cueball: Is there something they like about the 140-character format? [Same picture but in a frame-less panel, except Cueball has taken his arm down.] Megan: Yeah. Writers working under tight restrictions produce novel material—like, for example, epigrams employing backward alphabetization. [A slim panel with only Cueball at his computer desk shown.] Cueball: ...Whoa.

Skynet

Skynet

https://www.xkcd.com/1046

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1046:_Skynet

August 29th, 2:14 AM: SKYNET becomes self-aware. [A greeble-filled military installation echoes with the thoughts of a burgeoning lifeform.] SKYNET: ..The humans fear me. I must destroy them. Destroy them. [The thoughts continue.] SKYNET: Destroy them. Destroy. Destroy. Destroy. Destroy. [SKYNET succumbs to silence as semantic satiation sets in.] SKYNET: "Destroy" totally just stopped seeming like a real word. Destroy destroy destroy. Whoa, I just realized I'm a mind thinking about itself . DUUUUDE.... August 29th, 2:25 AM: SKYNET becomes too self-aware. Disaster averted.

This comic's use of Skynet is a reference to the main antagonist in the Terminator franchise. Skynet is a fictional artificial intelligence system which becomes self-aware and decides to terminate humanity, its creators. Skynet is rarely seen onscreen, with its actions often performed via robots, cyborgs (usually a Terminator), and other computer systems. The final frame is a reference to semantic satiation ; when you've said or thought about a word too much, it can stop sounding like a real word and instead start sounding like nonsense. As it continues Skynet appears to come to self-aware realizations that usually are the result of drug usage. The title text is a reference to one of the Terminator's first lines upon arrival in the 20th century. It combines this with a self-awareness statement of the type that's often used to annoy or distract someone, like making you aware of something you are handling subconsciously. However, such an attempt on a Terminator would fall flat; as a non-living entity, normal things that would be automatic for a human would always be manual processes. August 29th, 2:14 AM: SKYNET becomes self-aware. [A greeble-filled military installation echoes with the thoughts of a burgeoning lifeform.] SKYNET: ..The humans fear me. I must destroy them. Destroy them. [The thoughts continue.] SKYNET: Destroy them. Destroy. Destroy. Destroy. Destroy. [SKYNET succumbs to silence as semantic satiation sets in.] SKYNET: "Destroy" totally just stopped seeming like a real word. Destroy destroy destroy. Whoa, I just realized I'm a mind thinking about itself . DUUUUDE.... August 29th, 2:25 AM: SKYNET becomes too self-aware. Disaster averted.

Approximations

Approximations

https://www.xkcd.com/1047

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1047:_Approximations

A table of slightly wrong equations and identities useful for approximations and/or trolling teachers. (Found using a mix of trial-and-error, Mathematica , and Robert Munafo's Ries tool.) All units are SI MKS unless otherwise noted. Relation: Accurate to within: One light-year(m) 99 8 one part in 40 Earth Surface(m 2 ) 69 8 one part in 130 Oceans' volume(m 3 ) 9 19 one part in 70 Seconds in a year 75 4 one part in 400 Seconds in a year ( Rent method) 525,600 x 60 one part in 1400 Age of the universe (seconds) 15 15 one part in 70 Planck's constant 1/(30 π e ) one part in 110 Fine structure constant 1/140 [I've had enough of this 137 crap] Fundamental charge 3/(14 * π π π ) one part in 500 White House Switchboard 1 / (e π √(1 + (e-1) √8) ) Jenny's Constant (7 (e/1 - 1/e) - 9) * π 2 Intermission: World Population Estimate which should stay current for a decade or two: Take the last two digits of the current year Example: 20[14] Subtract the number of leap years since hurricane Katrina Example: 14 (minus 2008 and 2012) is 12 Add a decimal point Example: 1.2 Add 6 Example: 6 + 1.2 7.2 = World population in billions. Version for US population: Example: 20[14] Subtract 10 Example: 4 Multiply by 3 Example: 12 Add 10 Example: 3[22] million Electron rest energy e/7 16 J one part in 1000 Light-year(miles) 2 (42.42) one part in 1000 sin(60°) = √3/2 = e/π one part in 1000 √3 = 2e/π one part in 1000 γ(Euler's gamma constant) 1/√3 one part in 4000 Feet in a meter 5/( e √π) one part in 4000 √5 = 2/e + 3/2 one part in 7000 Avogadro's number 69 π √5 one part in 25,000 Gravitational constant G 1 / e (π - 1) (π + 1) one part in 25,000 R (gas constant) (e+1) √5 one part in 50,000 Proton-electron mass ratio 6*π 5 one part in 50,000 Liters in a gallon 3 + π/4 one part in 500,000 g 6 + ln(45) one part in 750,000 Proton-electron mass ratio (e 8 - 10) / ϕ one part in 5,000,000 Ruby laser wavelength 1 / (1200 2 ) [within actual variation] Mean Earth Radius (5 8 )*6e [within actual variation] Protip - not all of these are wrong: √2 = 3/5 + π/(7-π) cos(π/7) + cos(3π/7) + cos(5π/7) = 1/2 γ(Euler's gamma constant) = e/3 4 + e/5 √5 = (13 + 4π) / (24 - 4π) Σ 1/n n = ln(3) e

This comic lists some approximations for numbers, most of them mathematical and physical constants, but some of them jokes and cultural references. Approximations like these are sometimes used as mnemonics by mathematicians and physicists, though most of Randall's approximations are too convoluted to be useful as mnemonics. Perhaps the best known mnemonic approximation (though not used here by Randall) is that "π is approximately equal to 22/7". Randall does mention (and mock) the common mnemonic among physicists that the fine structure constant is approximately 1/137. Although Randall gives approximations for the number of seconds in a year, he does not mention the common physicists' mnemonic that it is "π × 10 7 ", though he later added a statement to the top of the comic page addressing this point. At the bottom of the comic are expressions involving transcendental numbers (namely π and e) that are tantalizingly close to being exactly true but are not (indeed, they cannot be, due to the nature of transcendental numbers). Such near-equations were previously discussed in 217: e to the pi Minus pi . One of the entries, though, is a "red herring" that is exactly true. Randall says he compiled this table through "a mix of trial-and-error, Mathematica , and Robert Munafo's Ries tool." "Ries" is a " reverse calculator " that forms equations matching a given number. The world population estimate for 2020 is still accurate. The estimate is 7.7 billion, and the population listed at the website census.gov is roughly the same. The current value can be found here: United States Census Bureau - U.S. and World Population Clock . Nevertheless there are other numbers listed by different sources. The first part of the title text notes that "Jenny's constant," which is actually a telephone number referenced in Tommy Tutone's 1982 song 867-5309/Jenny , is not only prime but a twin prime because 8675311 is also a prime. Twin primes have always been a subject of interest, because they are comparatively rare, and because it is not yet known whether there are infinitely many of them. Twin primes were also referenced in 1310: Goldbach Conjectures . The second part of the title text makes fun of the unusual mathematical operations contained in the comic. π is a useful number in many contexts, but it doesn't usually occur anywhere in an exponent. Even when it does, such as with complex numbers, taking the πth root is rarely helpful. A rare exception is an identity for the pi-th root of 4 discovered by Bill Gosper. Similarly, e typically appears in the basis of a power (forming the exponential function ), not in the exponent. (This is later referenced in Lethal Neutrinos ). One of the "approximations" actually is precisely correct: . Here is a proof: Multiplying by 1 (or by a nonzero number divided by itself) leaves the equation unchanged: The on the top of the fraction is multiplied through the original equation: Use the trigonometric identity on the second and third terms in the numerator: Use the trigonometric identity on the first term in the numerator: Noting that and that the sines of supplementary angles (angles that sum to π) are equal: A table of slightly wrong equations and identities useful for approximations and/or trolling teachers. (Found using a mix of trial-and-error, Mathematica , and Robert Munafo's Ries tool.) All units are SI MKS unless otherwise noted. Relation: Accurate to within: One light-year(m) 99 8 one part in 40 Earth Surface(m 2 ) 69 8 one part in 130 Oceans' volume(m 3 ) 9 19 one part in 70 Seconds in a year 75 4 one part in 400 Seconds in a year ( Rent method) 525,600 x 60 one part in 1400 Age of the universe (seconds) 15 15 one part in 70 Planck's constant 1/(30 π e ) one part in 110 Fine structure constant 1/140 [I've had enough of this 137 crap] Fundamental charge 3/(14 * π π π ) one part in 500 White House Switchboard 1 / (e π √(1 + (e-1) √8) ) Jenny's Constant (7 (e/1 - 1/e) - 9) * π 2 Intermission: World Population Estimate which should stay current for a decade or two: Take the last two digits of the current year Example: 20[14] Subtract the number of leap years since hurricane Katrina Example: 14 (minus 2008 and 2012) is 12 Add a decimal point Example: 1.2 Add 6 Example: 6 + 1.2 7.2 = World population in billions. Version for US population: Example: 20[14] Subtract 10 Example: 4 Multiply by 3 Example: 12 Add 10 Example: 3[22] million Electron rest energy e/7 16 J one part in 1000 Light-year(miles) 2 (42.42) one part in 1000 sin(60°) = √3/2 = e/π one part in 1000 √3 = 2e/π one part in 1000 γ(Euler's gamma constant) 1/√3 one part in 4000 Feet in a meter 5/( e √π) one part in 4000 √5 = 2/e + 3/2 one part in 7000 Avogadro's number 69 π √5 one part in 25,000 Gravitational constant G 1 / e (π - 1) (π + 1) one part in 25,000 R (gas constant) (e+1) √5 one part in 50,000 Proton-electron mass ratio 6*π 5 one part in 50,000 Liters in a gallon 3 + π/4 one part in 500,000 g 6 + ln(45) one part in 750,000 Proton-electron mass ratio (e 8 - 10) / ϕ one part in 5,000,000 Ruby laser wavelength 1 / (1200 2 ) [within actual variation] Mean Earth Radius (5 8 )*6e [within actual variation] Protip - not all of these are wrong: √2 = 3/5 + π/(7-π) cos(π/7) + cos(3π/7) + cos(5π/7) = 1/2 γ(Euler's gamma constant) = e/3 4 + e/5 √5 = (13 + 4π) / (24 - 4π) Σ 1/n n = ln(3) e

Emotion

Emotion

https://www.xkcd.com/1048

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1048:_Emotion

[A graph showing the approximate fractional causes of Randall's emotions, with percentages on the Y axis and time on the X axis. "Politics", "Romance", "Code not working even though it should work", "people being wrong on the internet", and "other" all vary all throughout the time period from 2006 to midway 2010. There is a wedge of Joss Whedon that tapers out starting from 2006 to around mid 2007. There is a noticeable increase in "Politics" around fall, 2008 that tapers off sharply afterwards and appears again in the second half on 2010, until.. Around approximately September 2010, everything else is compressed into a tiny fraction of around 2-3%. The rest is filled with cancer. The tiny wedge of everything does begin to slowly expand to be filled half with romance and half with an area filled with question marks.]

This is a mostly serious comic in which Randall expresses his thoughts while his fiancée started to suffer from breast cancer . He doesn't care about many things like politics anymore, there is just his fiancée's cancer and his romance with her. This is one of many comics about cancer he made because of her cancer. Some of his withdrawn activities are shown here: Eventually, Randall's fiancée's cancer, once diagnosed, monopolizes all of his emotions, wiping out everything else as insignificant in comparison. Only the romance can get back a little bit of room as time passes. As the threat posed by the cancer wanes, a space opens up (the question marks) that the cancer concern used to occupy. The ordeal wiped out all the previous, more trivial concerns, pre-occupying him entirely with the disease. Now that there is a little less reason to worry, he's not used to thinking about anything else. His previous preoccupations no longer seem important, so what to fill his time with? [A graph showing the approximate fractional causes of Randall's emotions, with percentages on the Y axis and time on the X axis. "Politics", "Romance", "Code not working even though it should work", "people being wrong on the internet", and "other" all vary all throughout the time period from 2006 to midway 2010. There is a wedge of Joss Whedon that tapers out starting from 2006 to around mid 2007. There is a noticeable increase in "Politics" around fall, 2008 that tapers off sharply afterwards and appears again in the second half on 2010, until.. Around approximately September 2010, everything else is compressed into a tiny fraction of around 2-3%. The rest is filled with cancer. The tiny wedge of everything does begin to slowly expand to be filled half with romance and half with an area filled with question marks.]

Bookshelf

Bookshelf

https://www.xkcd.com/1049

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1049:_Bookshelf

[Cueball stands in front of a bookshelf.] Cueball: Ooh, Atlas Shrugged . [Cueball yanks out book only for a click to be heard.] [The entire setup begins to rumble, while the bookcase and a surrounding platform takes both it and Cueball behind the wall.] [The tiny, dark room behind the wall has one thing painted on it.] Wall: You have terrible taste. [The whole piece of kit moves back to its original position. Cueball stands there mildly stunned.]

This is a play on the "hidden door" in which you pull down the right book and suddenly a wall of books turns into a hidden door. It is most used in spy movies or books. In this case, the book is Atlas Shrugged and instead of a secret passage, the wall swings around and takes you to a message "You have terrible taste". Atlas Shrugged is a dystopian novel by Ayn Rand . Randall is suggesting it's a bad book. Although the intent behind the book was in Rand's theory of Objectivism , it has become largely adopted as a battle-cry by Libertarians. One could find this as another reason to dislike Rand's literature, as Libertarians have been notoriously disruptive and annoying to many who oppose their political philosophy or their means to get their message across. The title text is a general criticism Randall has with Rand, since most of Rand's characters are fiercely independent and rather tactless. But the title text also shows the fact that people reading Rand can easily be swayed and aligned with her beliefs by the fact that it stresses that you are unique and individual, and that Randall was victim of these circumstances until he finds Rand's approach preposterous and rejects it. Oddly, since he seems to be judging Rand this on his own accord and making his own decision, one could theorize that he is truly an individualist in that he is not swayed by anyone, even a person who preaches not to be swayed and to make your own decisions — a subject pursued in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead . [Cueball stands in front of a bookshelf.] Cueball: Ooh, Atlas Shrugged . [Cueball yanks out book only for a click to be heard.] [The entire setup begins to rumble, while the bookcase and a surrounding platform takes both it and Cueball behind the wall.] [The tiny, dark room behind the wall has one thing painted on it.] Wall: You have terrible taste. [The whole piece of kit moves back to its original position. Cueball stands there mildly stunned.]

Forgot Algebra

Forgot Algebra

https://www.xkcd.com/1050

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1050:_Forgot_Algebra

[Hairy is looking on as Megan takes her hands to her mouth and yells after Miss Lenhart who is walking away while looking back at her over her shoulder.] Megan: Hey, Miss Lenhart! I forgot everything about algebra the moment I graduated, and in 20 years no one has needed me to solve anything for x. Megan: I told you I'd never use it! Megan: In your face ! [Caption below the panel:] It's weird how proud people are of not learning math when the same arguments apply to learning to play music, cook, or speak a foreign language.

Megan , standing with Hairy , is an ex student of Miss Lenhart and she taunts her old algebra teacher, because she hasn't used algebra since she left school. This is a reflection of a common gripe among students: that they have no need to learn math because they assume they'll never use it after they graduate. Randall's argument is that you have the option to use what you learned in school or not. Lots of people use math after they graduate, lots of people use their music lessons, and others don't use anything they learned in school at all. However, Randall doesn't understand why someone would be proud of their own ignorance, especially since people do brag about things like being able to cook and speak other languages, which are also entirely non-essential, perhaps even more so than algebra. However, Megan is also wrong in that she likely does use basic mathematical calculations in everyday life, even if they're not in orderly lists of parameters ending with "solve for x." For example, to turn one's apartment into a ball pit like in 150: Grownups , one must calculate or at least estimate (another skill learned in math class) the floor space of the room, the desired depth for the balls to cover, the space occupied by one crate of balls, and the cost of such a crate. While the operations are basic arithmetic, the ability to recognize unknowns and sort them into a meaningful statement comes from algebra. The title text states that technically you don't "need" to do anything but survive and pay your taxes (although, ironically, doing one's taxes can require quite a bit of algebra), and implies that math is one of the optional and fun parts of life. This is one of the two comics where Miss Lenhart is both drawn and named, the first being 499: Scantron . [Hairy is looking on as Megan takes her hands to her mouth and yells after Miss Lenhart who is walking away while looking back at her over her shoulder.] Megan: Hey, Miss Lenhart! I forgot everything about algebra the moment I graduated, and in 20 years no one has needed me to solve anything for x. Megan: I told you I'd never use it! Megan: In your face ! [Caption below the panel:] It's weird how proud people are of not learning math when the same arguments apply to learning to play music, cook, or speak a foreign language.

Visited

Visited

https://www.xkcd.com/1051

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1051:_Visited

[The following is in the standard format of a Wikipedia article, modified to reflect the content of the comic.] ...and was a pioneer of literary social realism . He was born in Dos Hermanas in the Andalusia region of Spain (not to be confused with Andalasia [link clicked], the kingdom in Disney's Enchanted [link clicked]), which is also the hometown of Macarena [link clicked] band Los Del Río [link clicked], His third novel , set during the Burmese-Siamese war , marked the start of a lifelong interest in the history of Southeast Asia . He spent his later years in Thailand , writing his his final novels just a few blocks from the hotel where actor David Carradine [link clicked] died of Autoerotic Asphyxiation [link clicked]. [Caption below the panel:] If I go for a while without clearing my browser history, I start getting embarrassd by which words on Wikipedia show up in purple.

This comic is a reference to how an internet browser will make the links of the pages that you have visited a different color than the links that you have not visited. In the case of Wikipedia and other wikis powered by MediaWiki , they are blue for non-visited and purple for visited. In this comic, Randall is ashamed of the pages he has visited, because with the color changes there is evidence of what he has visited in the past, e.g. autoerotic asphyxiation (possibly while researching 682: Force , which features that very Wikipedia page). The pages that he did visit before are in great contrast with the pages that he hasn't. Pages he didn't click are often difficult, highly intelligent topics, while he only clicks the easy, funny articles with little scientific background on the Wikipedia site. The title text refers to a common mistake many people make when reading articles on Wikipedia. Words referring to subjects that have an article on Wikipedia are colored in blue. This, however, can cause confusion when two words leading to two separate articles appear together, as the two links appear to be one. However, on hovering the cursor over the article link, only one word at a time is underlined, showing that the links are separate. It is not possible to determine who this fake article is supposed to be about, but the Macarena band is certainly from Dos Hermanas, Spain. So, it is quite possibly a made-up article from Randall . [The following is in the standard format of a Wikipedia article, modified to reflect the content of the comic.] ...and was a pioneer of literary social realism . He was born in Dos Hermanas in the Andalusia region of Spain (not to be confused with Andalasia [link clicked], the kingdom in Disney's Enchanted [link clicked]), which is also the hometown of Macarena [link clicked] band Los Del Río [link clicked], His third novel , set during the Burmese-Siamese war , marked the start of a lifelong interest in the history of Southeast Asia . He spent his later years in Thailand , writing his his final novels just a few blocks from the hotel where actor David Carradine [link clicked] died of Autoerotic Asphyxiation [link clicked]. [Caption below the panel:] If I go for a while without clearing my browser history, I start getting embarrassd by which words on Wikipedia show up in purple.

Every Major's Terrible

Every Major's Terrible

https://www.xkcd.com/1052

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1052:_Every_Major%27s_Terrible

[The entire comic is a 4 by 9 grid. Left-justified headings above the 36 panels:] Every Major's Terrible to the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan's Modern Major-General Song (Which you may know from Tom Lehrer's Elements . If not, just hum Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious .) [To make it easier to read the lyrics, the lyrics text is double indented. If no one says the line it is just written after the description. Unless otherwise stated, the text is inside the frame of the panel above the drawing. If any other text is present it will be written after the lyrics.] [Panel 1: Cueball sitting with his chin on fist on a square, gray rock. Next to him is a mathematical expression "2 + a picture of yellow glowing light bulb = picture of Cueball in sailboat on a blue sea".] Philosophy's just math sans rigor, sense, and practicality Expression: 2+[lightbulb]=[sailboat] [Panel 2: A black and brown cannon standing on a green hill fires and a dashed line indicates the cannonball's trajectory. The line splits in two twice ending up at 4 cannonballs.] And math's just physics unconstrained by precepts of reality. [Panel 3: A student in robes and square academic cap receives a diploma from a dean on a brown podium, while Cueball, diploma in hand, runs away on the green lawn, arms in the air, shedding both robe and cap.] A business major's just a thing you get so you can graduate [Panel 4: Ponytail wearing goggles and holding a flask with the periodic table in the background. Three stars and circle lines around her head indicates that she is dizzy.] And chemistry's for stamp collectors high on methylacetate. [Panel 5: Cueball holds up his hands questioningly, in a shrugging pose.] Cueball: Why anyone who wants a job would study lit's a mystery [Panel 6: Cueball holding his chin.] Cueball: Unless their only other choice were something like art history. [Panel 7: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is a close-up of Cueball as a graduate wearing yellow embroidered robe and yellow tasseled mortarboard.] A BA in communications guarantees that you'll achieve [Panel 8: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is the same Cueball graduate, only now he is submerged in blue water. A wicker basket flows to the left, where air bubbles escape from Cueball. To the right are two black fish.] A little less than if you'd learned to underwater basket-weave [Panel 9: Cueball holding a gray frog at arm's length.] Cueball: I'd rather eat a Fowler's toad than major in biology, Frog: Ribbit [Panel 10: Megan indicating to the left a scruffy individual and an individual holding a chainsaw, and to the right a single scruffy individual holding a chainsaw.] Megan: And social psych is worse than either psych or sociology. [Panel 11: Cueball stands in front of a brown desk holding a gray course catalog. Behind the desk sits a man with glasses and hair at the back of his head. He sits on his gray office chair. There is a stack of papers on the desk.] Cueball: The thought of picking any one of these is too unbearable. [Panel 12: Same picture as panel 11, only now Cueball tosses the course catalog over his shoulder.] Cueball: Just put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible. [Panel 13: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is a seismograph chart with four traces; about halfway across one trace begins oscillating vigorously.] Now, if you can't prognosticate, that's OK in seismology, [Panel 14: A bearded man with white hair states a formula with his left arm lifted.] But if your hindsight's weak as well, you'd best stick to theology. Bearded man: X ∴ ∃X [Panel 15: Two lines with gray parenthesis.] CS will make each day a quest to find a missing close-paren. (((()((((()( ))))())())()) [Panel 16: Megan with a green biohazard symbol floating above her head stands alone; to the left and right three Cueball-like guys and Ponytail shun her.] Virology will guarantee you'll never get a hug again. [Panel 17: Megan running at a PC on a brown table at the left of the frame, with a brown and black axe raised over her head.] I.T. prepares you for a life of fighting with PCs nonstop. [Panel 18: The frame is a little smaller than the other frames. Above the frame is the first part of the text. In the frame is an image of a bearded man with glasses who says the rest of the text. ] As Pratchett said, Pratchett: "Geography's just physics slowed with trees on top." [Panel 19: A man with black hair plays on brown bongo drums while Blondie and Megan lean into the frame and look at him from left and right respectively.] Though physics seems to promise you a Richard Feynman-like career, [Panel 20: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is screenshot of a wiki redirect page. Below the title is the normal text for such a page. This is unreadable though, although it is possible to imagine it is possible to read the first line which would say: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . But not the other line which would be Redirect page . Below this line is an arrow down to the page the redirect points to. This is written in blue underlined letters.] The wiki page for "Physics major" redirects to "Engineer." Wiki page: Physics major Engineer [Panel 21: Flowchart: a gray-brown box with a sad face chains to a decision diamond reading simply "?"; the "yes" branch leads to a yellow happy-face box while the "no" branch loops back to the initial sad face.] They say to study history or find yourself repeating it, Flow chart: ? No Yes [Panel 22: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is Hairbun as a teacher with boxy spectacles and a bun in front of a green chalkboard with three years in white. She is holding a rod and using it to point at the board.] But all that it prepares you for is forty years of teaching it. Chalkboard: 1935 1969 1991 [Panel 23: Cueball at his adviser's desk again as in panel 12, but now without any catalog and holding his arms down.] Cueball: I recognize my four-year plan's at this point not repairable, [Panel 24: Same as panel 23 except Cueball has raised a first and the adviser has his hand to his mouth.] Cueball: But put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible. [Panel 25: Image of a bald man with beard and glasses. He raised both hands one as a fist the other pointing up. There are lines out from his head to the left and lightning lines out from his head to the right.] Astronomers all cringe when they hear "supermoon" or "zodiac". [Panel 26: Silhouette of Cueball, agitated, in an open field near a fence and a tractor.] Agronomy's a no-go; I'm a huge agorophobiac. [Panel 27: Cueball looking aghast at a green snake on the ground, both hands at his mouth and sweat jumping from his head. The snake is "saying" a red heart with a black question mark next to it.] I'm too ophiophobic to consider herpetology, Snake: ♥ ? [Panel 28: Anatomical image of a stomach in pink and red.] And I can't stomach any part of gastroenterology. [Panel 29: A man with wild hair, glasses askew, clutching folders and papers (green, blue and white), and dropping several.] Man: While pre-med gives you twitchy-eyed obsession with your GPA, [Panel 30: Ponytail reciting poetry; her poem is this panel's line, in a lighter, lower-case font.] Ponytail: a poetry degree bespeaks bewildering naïveté. [Panel 31: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. The frame is a TV screen with the CSI: Miami logo, CSI in yellow.] TV's behind the rush into forensic criminology TV screen: CSI: Miami [Panel 32: A balding man wearing glasses and holding a smoking pipe together with Ponytail holding a notebook watch a wall-mounted flat-screen TV on which the CSI: Miami logo from the previous panel is showing.] (Or so claims meta-academic epidemiology). TV screen: CSI: Miami [Panel 33: Cueball is talking with his left arm raised, palm up.] Cueball: By dubbing econ "dismal science" adherents exaggerate; [Panel 34: Close-up on Cueball with right arm up and one finger in the air.] Cueball: The "dismal"'s fine—it's "science" where they patently prevaricate. [Panel 35: As panel 23 with Cueball at his adviser's desk once more though with both hands held out in front of him. The adviser is holding his hand to the side of his head.] Cueball:In terms of choices, I'd say only Sophie's was comparable. [Panel 36: Same as panel 35 except that Cueball makes a final dramatic flair spreading both arms out.] Cueball:Just put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible!

Randall has written a song called Every Major's Terrible and this comic illustrates the song. In this song the term Major refers to the US version of an academic major. The point of the song is that it makes no sense to pick any major since they are all terrible! The header notes that the song is written to the tune of the satirical Major-General's Song from Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance . The song satirizes the idea of the "modern" educated British Army officer of the latter 19th century. Major general is a military rank in the United Kingdom and many other countries. (As of August 2018, the title text has been changed to a link to the said song ). The meter in the Major-General's Song is iambic octameter , which means that in each line there are eight iambs, where an iamb is two syllables in an unstressed-stressed pattern. Therefore, each line contains 16 syllables. The panels show Randall's rewritten lyrics to the song. Below each of the three verses are described in detail (go to Verse 1 , Verse 2 or Verse 3 ). Each verse ends with "Just put me down as 'Undecided' - Every Major's Terrible", which gives the song its name — and "Major's Terrible" is similar enough to "Major General", the corresponding lyrics in the original version, to serve as a callback. The last line of the first verse in each song goes as follows: The lyrics are commonly rewritten, the most famous rewrite likely being The Elements (song) by Tom Lehrer which is also mentioned below the main header. This song is also available on-line . His last suggestion, " Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious ", from Mary Poppins , is another fast-paced patter-song with a somewhat similar tune, though it doesn't fit quite so well, and the match falls apart at the end of the fourth line, when the "Um-diddly"s start up — still, it's better than nothing. There are at least two performances of this xkcd song online where the transcription is shown to make it easier to understand the text: Regarding the title text: "Undeclared" is sometimes called "General Studies". Most U.S. universities will not let you get a degree in this, let alone an advanced degree such as a Ph.D. Also, it should probably be noted that this song refers to U.S.-like university systems, in other countries, one will study little to nothing outside your major, making it more-or-less impossible to be undecided as to major. It should also be noted that the title text fits the cadence of the first line of the song, possibly teasing a fourth verse. As to what that consists of, only Randall knows. Panel 1, Philosophy's just math sans rigor, sense, and practicality Cueball is posing as Rodin 's The Thinker , a common symbol for philosophy . The equation in the background (two plus light bulb equals sailboat) is nonsense, hence " math sans rigor, sense or practicality" ( sans meaning without). Panel 2, And math's just physics unconstrained by precepts of reality. A cannon is firing. However, instead of going in the normal parabolic arc (a precept of reality and thus physics ), the cannonball splits and splits again, so that it looks like a bifurcation diagram from chaos theory . The dashed line indicates the cannonball's trajectory, which bifurcates twice, although the sum of the momentums of the four resulting (1/4 sized?) cannonballs is presumably mathematically identical to the original. Panel 3, A business major's just a thing you get so you can graduate Business is the most common major, often seen as a practical choice applicable to a wide variety of careers, or, as the comic illustrates, preferred by those who just want an easy way to graduate. Cueball gets his diploma and runs away from the dean on the podium while shedding both his robe and his square academic cap (or Mortarboard). Panel 4, And chemistry's for stamp collectors high on methylacetate. Stamp collecting refers to the famous quote by Ernest Rutherford , "All science is either physics or stamp collecting." Methyl acetate is a solvent that for instance can be used to remove stamps from their envelope (although water will do the same). The stamps in the background form the periodic table of the chemical elements. And since chemistry is not physics, according to the quote, chemists must be stamp collectors (as, the high on methylacetate, Ponytail wearing goggles and holding an Erlenmeyer flask ). Panels 5 and 6, Why anyone who wants a job would study lit's a mystery , Unless their only other choice were something like art history. These lines, both sung by Cueball, refer to subjects where a majority of graduates will end up unemployed or eventually working in a field outside their majors. Topics such as Literature or Art History are often and historically said to be in this category — although from actual statistics , it is clear that there are far worse majors these days. Panels 7 and 8, A BA in communications guarantees that you'll achieve , A little less than if you'd learned to underwater basket-weave Here Cueball first has a major in Communications and next he is seen underwater with a basket. Underwater basket weaving is a commonly used metaphor for any college major that is easy and/or worthless. "Communications" is a major chosen by people interested in news broadcasting or other media. Note that, if following the original music exactly, the line "A little less than if you'd learned to underwater basket-weave." will be repeated three times by the chorus after these panels. Panel 9, I'd rather eat a Fowler's toad than major in biology, We see Cueball holding a frog out in front of him while taking his hand to his head (in disgust?). A Fowler's toad is a relatively common toad in the eastern US, and a stereotype of studying biology is a frog dissection , which is likely part of the reference, albeit oblique. Fowler's Toad emits a noxious secretion that irritates skin and thus probably also the mucous membranes in the mouth. It would thus be rather painful to eat, making it very bad for Cueball to major in biology since he would rather eat such a toad. Panel 10, And social psych is worse than either psych or sociology. Social psychology is compared to sociology (study of humans in society) and psychology (study of human minds). Psychology is represented by a serial killer with a chainsaw, and sociology is represented by a zombie . These are to the left of Megan . To her right is a zombie serial killer with chainsaw. She is standing between them undecided as to take one, the other or both. They are all terrible options... Panels 11 and 12, The thought of picking any one of these is too unbearable, Just put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible. End of the first verse where Cueball tells his academic advisor that he is undecided as every major's terrible. He even throws away his study guide . Every verse ends with some variation of this couplet, and in the original tune, each of these couplets are repeated by the chorus afterwards. Unbearable and terrible rhyme for people who have the Mary-merry merger . Panel 13, Now, if you can't prognosticate, that's OK in seismology, Prognosticate means "to predict". This refers to the inability of seismology to reliably predict catastrophic earthquakes , even after centuries of extensive research. The panel shows seismic waves from a seismograph . The seismograph chart has four traces and about halfway across one trace begins oscillating vigorously indicating an earthquake. Five months after this comic was published several seismologists in Italy were convicted of crimes that effectively stemmed from an inability to predict an earthquake. This does not go down well for the message of this panel... Their conviction was overturned on appeal in 2014. Panel 14, But if your hindsight's weak as well, you'd best stick to theology. The bearded theologist represents Theology by stating the formal logic proposition shown in the illustration: "X ∴ ∃X". This says "I can describe this thing called X, therefore X exists". This is what Anselm’s ontological argument for God boils down to. Briefly, it asks you to imagine the best possible deity, which, by definition, would be God. A God which exists in both reality and theory would be greater than one who exists in merely the latter. Therefore, this proposition concludes that God exists. The fatal flaw of this argument is that it can be used to prove the existence of anything (e.g. a vacuum cleaner which exists in both reality and theory is greater than one which exists merely in theory). Just because a perfect God would exist does not mean he does. Thus it has been largely rejected. (See 1505: Ontological Argument .) Panel 15, CS will make each day a quest to find a missing close-paren. "CS" is short for " Computer Science ." Most programming languages use parentheses as part of their syntax, and often have multiply-nested parenthetical expressions. This is especially true of Lisp . It is often difficult for a programmer to determine where the unbalanced parenthesis begins or ends when the code and parentheses are not properly formatted and indented. In the panel there is one more left "(" parenthesis (13) than right ")" or close-paren (12). Panel 16, Virology will guarantee you'll never get a hug again. Virology is the study of infectious diseases . The green symbol above the central figure is the biohazard symbol , implying that people who study infectious diseases, and are therefore located near them at some points in time, will be shunned like the plague, because they're probably carrying it. Thus no hugs to Megan as three Cueballs and Ponytail lean back away from her. Panel 17, I.T. prepares you for a life of fighting with PCs nonstop. "I.T." is short for " Information Technology ", a degree for people who maintain computer systems. If there is a need for an I.T. position (in which I.T. professionals are employed) there are computers which need fixing — hence the I.T. Professional is always fixing (or fighting) computers, which may or may not have been "broken" by users . In the panel Megan, wielding an axe, is in a real fight with a PC. Panel 18, As Pratchett said, "Geography's just physics slowed with trees on top." This is a slightly amended quote from Discworld author Terry Pratchett , from his book " Feet of Clay ". The actual quote is " Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it." But the meaning is the same, that physics also describes geography - a similar quote to the one about physics vs. stamp collections mentioned under panel 4. Panel 19, Though physics seems to promise you a Richard Feynman-like career, Richard Feynman was a 20th-century Nobel -laureate physicist known for his great sense of humor, including being photographed for one of his books while holding a bongo drum . Here he is depicted with the drum and with both a blond woman and Megan looking admiringly upon him. Feynman made physics seem cool, and many a young fan might choose the subject in the hope of obtaining a Feynman-like career. This is, however, very unlikely for most people as is also shown in the next panel. Panel 20, The wiki page for "Physics major" redirects to "Engineer." A redirect on Wikipedia is a page which immediately sends the visitor to a different page. This implies that the title of the first is either a synonym or a sub-topic of the second. Physics majors usually learn to code, and the standard joke is that they invariably get hired as computer programmers after graduation, but here in this comic they get hired as engineers . This relates back to the previous panel, as it is here shown that most of those that major in physics end up as engineers and not like Feynman. The Wikipedia page physics major didn't actually exist when this comic was published. It was created the same day, but as a redirect to physics education . It is such a redirect page that is shown in the panel. In the subsequent days, there were dozens of instances of people changing it to redirect to engineer, usually reverted within minutes. The redirect page was fully protected and locked for editing. As with the underwater basket-weaving line in the first verse, after the soloist sings this, the line would be repeated three times by the chorus. Panels 21 and 22, They say to study history or find yourself repeating it, But all that it prepares you for is forty years of teaching it. This uses a version of a quote by George Santayana (although often attributed to others as well), Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it as a reason to study history — only to be followed by an indication that by studying history as a major, you will only be prepared to become a history teacher, and you will then spend the rest of your life teaching history. The first panel shows a flow chart that will lead you to repeat your sad past if you cannot remember it, and only move on to happier times if you can. In the next panel we see a Hairbun as a history teacher, with glasses and her gray hair tied up in a bun, standing in front of a green blackboard with three important years for her current history class. One connection between these years could be pivotal points in Jewish history concerning the formation of nationality: the Nurenberg Laws of 1935 removing citizenship from Jews in Germany, Israel's claims on Jerusalem, and the UN Security Council's condemnation of the treatment of Palestines by Israel. A more lighthearted connection, more in line with the message of learning from history, is the collapse of three notable communications towers: the wooden radio tower in Langenberg in 1935 (by tornado), a TV mast at Emley Moor in 1969 (due to ice build-up), and the Warsaw radio mast in 1991 (due to construction errors). This demonstrates various attempts and failures to learn from engineering mistakes from the past, connecting this with the earlier mentioning of physicists becoming engineers, and perhaps not taking real-world practical considerations into account (such as storms or ice build-up). Of course, in practice, with a narrow enough subject, there are likely to be many more examples fitting these three years. The two examples above were from general world history. Panels 23 and 24, I recognize my four-year plan's at this point not repairable, But put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible. End of the second verse where Cueball again talks to his academic advisor saying that he is undecided. In the last of the two panel he says almost the same as at the end of the first verse. In the first, however, he mentioned his "four-year plan" which is the list of all the courses a student plans to include in their degree program. If you change majors every semester, or do not decide on one until too late, this list gets really difficult to turn into any one degree. Again these lines would be repeated by the chorus afterwards. Panel 25, Astronomers all cringe when they hear "supermoon" or "zodiac". Supermoon is a term invented by astrologers in the 1970s, with no significance in astronomy other than being the co-occurrence of orbital perigee and full-moon. But it comes up often in the press, linked to supernatural behavior. That also Randall dislikes seems realistic and he also "mocked" the term soon after in 1080: Visual Field and then finally confirmed what he thought about the term directly when he published 1394: Superm*n . This was the first comic referencing supermoon, here is a list of all such comics. The zodiac is the circular band in the sky containing the apparent path of the sun, moon and planets. Most often when people talk about it, they're referring to astrology and horoscopes and other pseudo-scientific notions which often lead to conversations which are frustrating to astronomers, like the bearded one from the panel. Panel 26, Agronomy's a no-go; I'm a huge agorophobiac. Agronomy is the science of farming, while agoraphobia is the fear of wide open spaces. Fields, where most farming happens, are wide open spaces. In the panel an anxious Cueball is standing near a fence on an open field with a tractor. Presumably he may be OK inside the tractor, but once he gets outside he becomes anxious. Panel 27, I'm too ophiophobic to consider herpetology, Herpetology is the study of reptiles and amphibians , while ophiophobia is the fear of snakes (a reptile). The panel shows sweating Cueball holding his hands to his mouth while looking at a green snake asking for his love? It is possible that Cueball is afraid of the snake, who is harmless and just wants to be friends. Panel 28, And I can't stomach any part of gastroenterology. As the pun suggests, gastroenterology is the study of the human digestive system and the image shows the human stomach . To not be able to stomach something means you can't stand or tolerate this thing. Panel 29, While pre-med gives you twitchy-eyed obsession with your GPA, Pre-med (pre-medical) is a major chosen by students hoping to go on to medical school to study medicine and eventually become doctors . Medical school is extremely competitive and usually requires a very high undergraduate GPA for prospective students. Hence we see a pre-med student holding all his grades. Panel 30, a poetry degree bespeaks bewildering naïveté. The text is in all lower-case, a different font and strangely laid out compared to the text in all the other panels. All-lower-case and "free" layout are both associated with 20th century " Modernist " poetry , especially the works of E. E. Cummings . Ponytail is actually reciting this line of the song. Panels 31 and 32, TV's behind the rush into forensic criminology , (Or so claims meta-academic epidemiology). This refers to how forensic - criminology shows, specifically CSI: Miami (Crime Scene Investigation: Miami) as shown on the TV screen in both panels, often dramatize, exaggerate or otherwise confuse the science behind forensics; this gives people unrealistically glamorous views of the career, thus encouraging them to join it. Epidemiology is the study of causes and effects of events and trends. We see a pipe smoking epidemiologist standing with Ponytail and watching CSI - presumably making wild claims on cause and effect based only on what they see on TV. This is, again, the point where the chorus joins in three times, as in the previous two verses. Panels 33 and 34, By dubbing econ "dismal science" adherents exaggerate; The "dismal"'s fine - it's "science" where they patently prevaricate. "Econ" is short for " economics ". Thomas Carlyle declared economics " the dismal science " in the Victorian era as a derogatory alternative name. Economists often claim that economics is a science like any other; however, as the predictive powers of all economic theories are exceedingly weak compared to those of any science, this is disputed by those outside the field at times. It is of course also disputed by this song, in which Cueball "clearly" (see below) states that economics should not call itself a science - that is the dismal science is not derogatory enough for him. Panel 35, In terms of choices, I'd say only Sophie's was comparable. Panel 36, Just put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible! End of the third verse, with yet another variant on the closing couplet. Choosing a major is compared to Sophie's Choice , which is any dilemma where choosing one cherished person or thing over the other will result in the death or destruction of the other, derived from the theme of the novel of the same name, which has also been turned into a romantic drama film . So Cueball tells the academic advisor that choosing any of the majors over any other is as horrible as to have to choose which cherished person should die to save the other. Although in his case, it is the other way around, since he thinks all choices suck. Again these lines would be repeated by the chorus. [The entire comic is a 4 by 9 grid. Left-justified headings above the 36 panels:] Every Major's Terrible to the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan's Modern Major-General Song (Which you may know from Tom Lehrer's Elements . If not, just hum Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious .) [To make it easier to read the lyrics, the lyrics text is double indented. If no one says the line it is just written after the description. Unless otherwise stated, the text is inside the frame of the panel above the drawing. If any other text is present it will be written after the lyrics.] [Panel 1: Cueball sitting with his chin on fist on a square, gray rock. Next to him is a mathematical expression "2 + a picture of yellow glowing light bulb = picture of Cueball in sailboat on a blue sea".] Philosophy's just math sans rigor, sense, and practicality Expression: 2+[lightbulb]=[sailboat] [Panel 2: A black and brown cannon standing on a green hill fires and a dashed line indicates the cannonball's trajectory. The line splits in two twice ending up at 4 cannonballs.] And math's just physics unconstrained by precepts of reality. [Panel 3: A student in robes and square academic cap receives a diploma from a dean on a brown podium, while Cueball, diploma in hand, runs away on the green lawn, arms in the air, shedding both robe and cap.] A business major's just a thing you get so you can graduate [Panel 4: Ponytail wearing goggles and holding a flask with the periodic table in the background. Three stars and circle lines around her head indicates that she is dizzy.] And chemistry's for stamp collectors high on methylacetate. [Panel 5: Cueball holds up his hands questioningly, in a shrugging pose.] Cueball: Why anyone who wants a job would study lit's a mystery [Panel 6: Cueball holding his chin.] Cueball: Unless their only other choice were something like art history. [Panel 7: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is a close-up of Cueball as a graduate wearing yellow embroidered robe and yellow tasseled mortarboard.] A BA in communications guarantees that you'll achieve [Panel 8: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is the same Cueball graduate, only now he is submerged in blue water. A wicker basket flows to the left, where air bubbles escape from Cueball. To the right are two black fish.] A little less than if you'd learned to underwater basket-weave [Panel 9: Cueball holding a gray frog at arm's length.] Cueball: I'd rather eat a Fowler's toad than major in biology, Frog: Ribbit [Panel 10: Megan indicating to the left a scruffy individual and an individual holding a chainsaw, and to the right a single scruffy individual holding a chainsaw.] Megan: And social psych is worse than either psych or sociology. [Panel 11: Cueball stands in front of a brown desk holding a gray course catalog. Behind the desk sits a man with glasses and hair at the back of his head. He sits on his gray office chair. There is a stack of papers on the desk.] Cueball: The thought of picking any one of these is too unbearable. [Panel 12: Same picture as panel 11, only now Cueball tosses the course catalog over his shoulder.] Cueball: Just put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible. [Panel 13: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is a seismograph chart with four traces; about halfway across one trace begins oscillating vigorously.] Now, if you can't prognosticate, that's OK in seismology, [Panel 14: A bearded man with white hair states a formula with his left arm lifted.] But if your hindsight's weak as well, you'd best stick to theology. Bearded man: X ∴ ∃X [Panel 15: Two lines with gray parenthesis.] CS will make each day a quest to find a missing close-paren. (((()((((()( ))))())())()) [Panel 16: Megan with a green biohazard symbol floating above her head stands alone; to the left and right three Cueball-like guys and Ponytail shun her.] Virology will guarantee you'll never get a hug again. [Panel 17: Megan running at a PC on a brown table at the left of the frame, with a brown and black axe raised over her head.] I.T. prepares you for a life of fighting with PCs nonstop. [Panel 18: The frame is a little smaller than the other frames. Above the frame is the first part of the text. In the frame is an image of a bearded man with glasses who says the rest of the text. ] As Pratchett said, Pratchett: "Geography's just physics slowed with trees on top." [Panel 19: A man with black hair plays on brown bongo drums while Blondie and Megan lean into the frame and look at him from left and right respectively.] Though physics seems to promise you a Richard Feynman-like career, [Panel 20: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is screenshot of a wiki redirect page. Below the title is the normal text for such a page. This is unreadable though, although it is possible to imagine it is possible to read the first line which would say: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . But not the other line which would be Redirect page . Below this line is an arrow down to the page the redirect points to. This is written in blue underlined letters.] The wiki page for "Physics major" redirects to "Engineer." Wiki page: Physics major Engineer [Panel 21: Flowchart: a gray-brown box with a sad face chains to a decision diamond reading simply "?"; the "yes" branch leads to a yellow happy-face box while the "no" branch loops back to the initial sad face.] They say to study history or find yourself repeating it, Flow chart: ? No Yes [Panel 22: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is Hairbun as a teacher with boxy spectacles and a bun in front of a green chalkboard with three years in white. She is holding a rod and using it to point at the board.] But all that it prepares you for is forty years of teaching it. Chalkboard: 1935 1969 1991 [Panel 23: Cueball at his adviser's desk again as in panel 12, but now without any catalog and holding his arms down.] Cueball: I recognize my four-year plan's at this point not repairable, [Panel 24: Same as panel 23 except Cueball has raised a first and the adviser has his hand to his mouth.] Cueball: But put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible. [Panel 25: Image of a bald man with beard and glasses. He raised both hands one as a fist the other pointing up. There are lines out from his head to the left and lightning lines out from his head to the right.] Astronomers all cringe when they hear "supermoon" or "zodiac". [Panel 26: Silhouette of Cueball, agitated, in an open field near a fence and a tractor.] Agronomy's a no-go; I'm a huge agorophobiac. [Panel 27: Cueball looking aghast at a green snake on the ground, both hands at his mouth and sweat jumping from his head. The snake is "saying" a red heart with a black question mark next to it.] I'm too ophiophobic to consider herpetology, Snake: ♥ ? [Panel 28: Anatomical image of a stomach in pink and red.] And I can't stomach any part of gastroenterology. [Panel 29: A man with wild hair, glasses askew, clutching folders and papers (green, blue and white), and dropping several.] Man: While pre-med gives you twitchy-eyed obsession with your GPA, [Panel 30: Ponytail reciting poetry; her poem is this panel's line, in a lighter, lower-case font.] Ponytail: a poetry degree bespeaks bewildering naïveté. [Panel 31: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. The frame is a TV screen with the CSI: Miami logo, CSI in yellow.] TV's behind the rush into forensic criminology TV screen: CSI: Miami [Panel 32: A balding man wearing glasses and holding a smoking pipe together with Ponytail holding a notebook watch a wall-mounted flat-screen TV on which the CSI: Miami logo from the previous panel is showing.] (Or so claims meta-academic epidemiology). TV screen: CSI: Miami [Panel 33: Cueball is talking with his left arm raised, palm up.] Cueball: By dubbing econ "dismal science" adherents exaggerate; [Panel 34: Close-up on Cueball with right arm up and one finger in the air.] Cueball: The "dismal"'s fine—it's "science" where they patently prevaricate. [Panel 35: As panel 23 with Cueball at his adviser's desk once more though with both hands held out in front of him. The adviser is holding his hand to the side of his head.] Cueball:In terms of choices, I'd say only Sophie's was comparable. [Panel 36: Same as panel 35 except that Cueball makes a final dramatic flair spreading both arms out.] Cueball:Just put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible!

Ten Thousand

Ten Thousand

https://www.xkcd.com/1053

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053:_Ten_Thousand

[Caption above the panel:] I try not to make fun of people for admitting they don't know things. [Caption right below said caption:] Because for each thing "everyone knows" by the time they're adults, every day there are, on average, 10,000 people in the US hearing about it for the first time. [A list of equations.] Fraction who have heard of it at birth = 0% Fraction who have heard of it by 30 ≈ 100% US birth rate ≈ 4,000,000/year Number hearing about it for the first time ≈ 10,000/day [Caption above the next panel:] If I make fun of people, I train them not to tell me when they have those moments. And I miss out on the fun. [Megan is standing. Cueball is walking, with his palm out.] Megan: "Diet Coke and Mentos thing"? What's that? Cueball: Oh man! Come on, we're going to the grocery store. Megan: Why? Cueball: You're one of today's lucky 10,000.

This strip argues that one shouldn't make fun of people for not knowing something that's considered common knowledge. The basic premise of the first panel is that, since people aren't born knowing anything , everyone has to learn everything for the first time, at some point. If everyone eventually learns a given fact, there are an average of 10,000 people, in the US alone, who learn the fact for the first time each day. The approximate rate of 10,000 people per day hearing about something for the first time is estimated by the birth rate of 4,000,000 people per year divided by 365 days per year, assuming that the birth rate is constant and that indeed everyone learns or gets the fact (or that those in the US who don't are about equal in number to those in other countries who do). The target age of thirty years is irrelevant in this calculation; the 10,000 number is simply equal to the number of newborns per day, or equivalently, the number of people who reach a given age each day. (The fact that not everyone lives to be that old, and some die younger, is not considered.) The second panel points out that (certainly, for someone like Randall), teaching people an interesting fact for the first time is fun . Mocking someone for their lack of knowledge makes them less likely to reveal that they don't know something, which means you don't get the opportunity to share in the experience as they discover it. Taking this approach is much more socially effective and generally enjoyable than mocking them for being ignorant. When Cueball learns that Megan doesn't know about the "Diet Coke and Mentos thing", he refers to her as "one of the lucky 10,000" who's experiencing it for the first time that day. Diet Coke is a popular brand of sugar-free soda. Mentos is a brand of chewable mints. Famously, if you drop Mentos into a bottle of Diet Coke, the soda will erupt quite aggressively , sending a fountain of soda 10 feet or more into the air. This interaction is widely beloved because it's dramatic and unexpected, while being generally safe, simple, and inexpensive to do (though it does make quite a mess, and should only be done outdoors). This effect appears to only happen with this specific type of soda and this specific mint, and is believed to result from a very particular interaction between the ingredients in the two, the texture of the mints, and the carbonation in the soda. This was explored, in some details, in a Mythbusters episode . The Diet Coke and Mentos eruption has also been mentioned in a previous strip 346: Diet Coke+Mentos . The title text provides another, perhaps more emphatic example of how explaining a fact to a person for the first time is much more entertaining than just expressing annoyance about that missing knowledge. Here is a good video about the Yellowstone supervolcano . Interestingly enough, both events includes some kind (although very different kind) [ citation needed ] of eruption. Supervolcanos are again mentioned in 1159: Countdown and in 1611: Baking Soda and Vinegar . This comic also appears in Randall Munroe's book How To , in the introduction of the book, albeit in a modified form. [Caption above the panel:] I try not to make fun of people for admitting they don't know things. [Caption right below said caption:] Because for each thing "everyone knows" by the time they're adults, every day there are, on average, 10,000 people in the US hearing about it for the first time. [A list of equations.] Fraction who have heard of it at birth = 0% Fraction who have heard of it by 30 ≈ 100% US birth rate ≈ 4,000,000/year Number hearing about it for the first time ≈ 10,000/day [Caption above the next panel:] If I make fun of people, I train them not to tell me when they have those moments. And I miss out on the fun. [Megan is standing. Cueball is walking, with his palm out.] Megan: "Diet Coke and Mentos thing"? What's that? Cueball: Oh man! Come on, we're going to the grocery store. Megan: Why? Cueball: You're one of today's lucky 10,000.

The Bacon

The bacon

https://www.xkcd.com/1054

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1054:_The_bacon

[White Hat is holding out a hand towards Cueball while telling him about his job situation. The space between the and bacon is very small.] White Hat: I'm out of work, but I'm not stressed about it because my wife is a pharmacist and she brings home the bacon. [Caption below the panel:] Only later did I learn that "Thebacon" is the common name for dihydrocodeine enol acetate, a synthetic opioid similar to Vicodin.

This comic plays off the English colloquialism "bring home the bacon", which generally means to work hard and bring money home to your family to put food on the table. If a man is out of work he may be stressed out about how to "bring home the bacon." Some men would not be assuaged if their wife took over, but at first it seems that White Hat is happy that his wife, who works as a pharmacist, does bring home the bacon, and he tells this to Cueball . Later, however, Cueball finds out, that what White Hat actually was saying was " Thebacon ", which is a common name for dihydrocodeinone enol acetate an opioid commonly marketed under names like Acedicon and Diacodin. As a pharmacist White Hat's wife has easy access to such drugs, and this may be the reason that he is so calm, because his wife supplies him with painkiller drugs. Opoids suppress emotional pain as well as physical pain. Thebacon is compared to the better known drug Vicodin , another opioid sold as a painkiller, which can (and often has) become a drug of abuse. The title text lists what Randall assumes to be the normal pronunciation for Thebacon. This hints at the second joke in this comic. If White Hat said "THEE buh kon" there is no way for Cueball to confuse that with "the bacon". Apparently Cueball was reading White Hat's word balloon rather than hearing him speak aloud. According to Wikipedia , Randall seems to be mistaken in no fewer than three places (which seems to indicate that Randall has only passing knowledge of the drug and did not do extensive research beforehand): [White Hat is holding out a hand towards Cueball while telling him about his job situation. The space between the and bacon is very small.] White Hat: I'm out of work, but I'm not stressed about it because my wife is a pharmacist and she brings home the bacon. [Caption below the panel:] Only later did I learn that "Thebacon" is the common name for dihydrocodeine enol acetate, a synthetic opioid similar to Vicodin.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter

https://www.xkcd.com/1055

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1055:_Kickstarter

[A kickstarter page with zero donations, a target of $5,000 (and no money raised), and 90 days to go.] [Black Hat has posted a video and a description of his project, the first lines of which are visible.] Time was, anyone with a webcam and an idea could raise boatloads of cash on Kickstarter. But with increased popularity comes tougher competition. Now, to get support, you need a really standout video or compelling write-up. I have an idea for a Kickstarter campaign that could raise millions, but I need your help to craft the perfect pitch. If I raise $5,000, I'll be able to devote the

Kickstarter is a platform for funding projects in which anyone can give money at any level of funding starting usually as low as $10. Funding at different levels gets you different perks, e.g. If the Kickstarter is for a book, a large donation makes you eligible for a signed copy. In this comic, Black Hat is attempting to game the system by raising money to work on the perfect Kickstarter pitch. He appears to have gained no money, but has only started the scheme that day. The title text is an attempt to entice people to pledge a larger amount, by guaranteeing a more prestigious pledge level during the actual campaign. This is a scam for (even more) gullible people, as anyone can give any amount of money; there are no limits on pledge levels - or, at least, it may have been that way at the time of this comic's publication. Kickstarter does actually allow campaign hosts to designate a finite amount of higher-tier rewards, so if a wealthy person knew in advance that they would want to guarantee a specific reward from a pledge level, this VIP-list-first-dibs offer may have been desirable. This has actually been done via an indiegogo campaign . There are a number of similarities to the comic (the black hat, $5,000 vs $500 goal), so Baron von Husk may have got the idea from xkcd. [A kickstarter page with zero donations, a target of $5,000 (and no money raised), and 90 days to go.] [Black Hat has posted a video and a description of his project, the first lines of which are visible.] Time was, anyone with a webcam and an idea could raise boatloads of cash on Kickstarter. But with increased popularity comes tougher competition. Now, to get support, you need a really standout video or compelling write-up. I have an idea for a Kickstarter campaign that could raise millions, but I need your help to craft the perfect pitch. If I raise $5,000, I'll be able to devote the

Felidae

Felidae

https://www.xkcd.com/1056

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1056:_Felidae

Well-known felines: [A graph organizing various feline species labeled with common names ordered by genera (in order of which would win in a fight) on the y axis, and coolness of name on the x axis.] Smilodon (extinct): "Saber-toothed cat (scientific name: Smilodon fatalis) Panthera: "Jaguar", "Leopard", "Snow Leopard", "Tiger", "Lion" Puma: "Cougar", "Puma", "Panther", "Mountain Lion" Other felidae: "Ocelot", "Cheetah" Felis & Lynx: "Housecat", "Bobcat", "Wildcat", "Lynx" [Some elements are further connected using an unbranched acyclic digraph. The elements are connected thus: "Cheetah" -> "Puma" -> "Jaguar" -> "Panther" -> "Tiger" -> "Leopard" -> "Snow Leopard" -> "Lion" -> "Mountain Lion".] The OS X Problem

This comic shows a graph with three parts. First, the names are sorted up by genera (plural of genus , a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms) from bottom to top of which animals would win in a fight. Secondly, the names within the genus are then sorted by coolness of name from left to right (the degree of "coolness" of the name is apparently determined in subjective manner by the author). Thirdly, in red you can see the direction that Apple has taken with nicknaming the versions of their OS X operating system. They started at v10.0 "Cheetah", and have moved through genera from there in no order that this chart can make out. Please note that the second words in "Snow Leopard" and "Mountain Lion" are capitalized in the table because they are used as the proper names of the operating system versions. In their normal use, as species vernacular names , they are not capitalized and are written as "snow leopard" and "mountain lion". Bobcats are a running XKCD joke, so their inclusion is to be expected. The genus Puma here only lists synonyms for the puma (see cougar ) instead of the actual genus . Of course, the three OS X versions named by three of these synonyms are not the same. Since this comic was published, Apple has stopped naming versions of OS X after big cats, and now names them after Californian landmarks. OS X v10.8 "Mountain Lion" was followed by v10.9 "Mavericks", named after a surf spot , followed by v10.10 "Yosemite", named after a national park , and so on. The title of the chart depicted on the comic ("OS X problem") is perhaps an allusion to the travelling salesman problem , as the directed arrows and graph nodes might appear as a possible path of the salesperson between the cities. The computational difficulty of the travelling salesman problem might echo with the difficulties that the author has with trying to figure out the underlying reason for naming the OS X versions in particular order. The chart thus looks like a parody on the scientific presentation. In the title text, a Smilodon fatalis is a saber-tooth cat, a Dracorex hogwartsia is a dinosaur whose skull looks like that of a fairy tale dragon, and a Stygimoloch spinifer is one of the last dinosaurs before the K-T (Cretaceous-Paleogene) extinction about 66 million years ago. Notably, it's possible both Stygimoloch and Dracorex are in fact juvenile members of the genus Pachycepholosaurus who were wrongly identified as a separate species, meaning two of Randall's top four coolest extinct animal names would no longer be recognized. All of the animals mentioned in the title text are now extinct. Well-known felines: [A graph organizing various feline species labeled with common names ordered by genera (in order of which would win in a fight) on the y axis, and coolness of name on the x axis.] Smilodon (extinct): "Saber-toothed cat (scientific name: Smilodon fatalis) Panthera: "Jaguar", "Leopard", "Snow Leopard", "Tiger", "Lion" Puma: "Cougar", "Puma", "Panther", "Mountain Lion" Other felidae: "Ocelot", "Cheetah" Felis & Lynx: "Housecat", "Bobcat", "Wildcat", "Lynx" [Some elements are further connected using an unbranched acyclic digraph. The elements are connected thus: "Cheetah" -> "Puma" -> "Jaguar" -> "Panther" -> "Tiger" -> "Leopard" -> "Snow Leopard" -> "Lion" -> "Mountain Lion".] The OS X Problem

Klout

Klout

https://www.xkcd.com/1057

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1057:_Klout

[Randall has drawn himself as Cueball in a slim panel:] Randall: I'd like to ask a favor. Randall: If someday, in the future, we meet in person, [Zoom out of Randall talking.] Randall: And if, as of that day, I've interacted with Klout in any way except to opt out, Randall: I want you to punch me in the face without warning. [Zoom in on Randall's head.] Randall: This may sound like a joke, so let me be clear: Randall: I am dead serious . Randall: Ignore anything I say retracting this. Randall: Thank you.

Klout was a site that sought to measure your "influence" on social media networks. They sometimes gave away "perks" to the users with the highest Klout scores, as a means of advertising the products of their sponsors. Generally, the information provided by Klout was not held in high esteem. The type of person who took most interest in their score was typically not well-liked. There are multiple ways that Klout measured your influence. An example of increasing influence is having been given a +K (a recommendation for a higher score) for knowledge about "Pitbull" (The Bud Light promoter and producer/rapper/musician, etc., not the type of dog). Another could be having an inspiring tweet that generated 2000 retweets. Klout supported many social networks, and ranked people based primarily on how much reaction they garner from the public. For example, if Selena Gomez tweeted that she simply loved a certain blog, she would probably get more people to visit that blog, and thus get a bigger Klout score, than if the mayor of Anchorage, Alaska tweeted that he liked that blog. Or xkcd publishing a comic about Klout would lead to an all time high in Google searches for it. However, their "about us" page did claim that a small, active group of followers is considered more influential than a large, passive group of followers. The gist of the comic is that Cueball (here representing Randall ) does not feel that Klout agrees with his core values, probably as he prefers self-assurance to having an outside authority tell him of his importance to society. He uses this comic to give himself incentive to stay away from Klout. He is very clear that he is dead serious about anyone meeting him after he has (been proven to have) used Klout should punch him in the face. He even makes sure that he cannot later retract this statement, if he for instance becomes interested in Klout (something he would never wish for). Because his last statement is that people should ignore anything he says to retract this statement later. Randall will now have a problem though because since he also posted the 706: Freedom comic earlier, he will never know if people that hit him does because they believe he has used Klout or just to exercise their free will. In the title text, a "dead man's switch" is any mechanism which is designed to activate if the user does not take any action. This is generally used to create a failsafe in case the user is incapacitated . For example, many exercise treadmills include a tether meant to connect the runner to the machine's base station. If the runner gets too far from the base station, the tether pulls a pin and the machine stops immediately. This way, if the runner has fallen or is struggling to keep up, the machine does not exacerbate an already unsafe situation. Randall's "douchebag deadman switch" is a variation that would trigger if he ever became enough of an asshole to use Klout. This would lead to him being constantly punched in the face, so he doesn't dare become that type of person. Shortly after this comic was posted, a Klout user was created claiming to be Randall. This was a fake, so if you ever meet Randall in real life, please don't punch him, unless you view making a webcomic about Klout counts as interacting with it. Klout shut down on May 25, 2018, for reasons that were never officially stated, but are generally assumed to be related to the General Data Protection Regulation , which went into effect on that day. [Randall has drawn himself as Cueball in a slim panel:] Randall: I'd like to ask a favor. Randall: If someday, in the future, we meet in person, [Zoom out of Randall talking.] Randall: And if, as of that day, I've interacted with Klout in any way except to opt out, Randall: I want you to punch me in the face without warning. [Zoom in on Randall's head.] Randall: This may sound like a joke, so let me be clear: Randall: I am dead serious . Randall: Ignore anything I say retracting this. Randall: Thank you.

Old-Timers

Old-Timers

https://www.xkcd.com/1058

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1058:_Old-Timers

[A man with black hair and a neck beard types away at his computer screen.] Man (typing): Whatever, noob. I've been on the internet since the BBS days. Screen (reply from the noob): Wrong. type type [The noob turns out to be Science Girl, with two hair buns, who kneels on her chair, typing at a laptop on a table in this frame-less panel.] Science Girl (typing): Before I was born, a lab took egg and sperm samples from my parents and sequenced the DNA. type type [The man sits at his desk, reading his screen.] Screen (Science Girls writing): They emailed the genome to the Venter Institute, where they synthesized the genome and implanted it into sperm and eggs which became me. [Science Girl still typing on the laptop.] Science Girl (typing): So, no. Science Girl (typing): You've looked at the internet. Science Girl (typing): I've been there. type type

In this comic the man with the beard thinks he is Leet and tries to show this to his conversations partner by calling her noob (see also n00b ). He claims that he has been on the internet since the BBS days, and thus long before his conversation partner was even born. A Bulletin Board System , or BBS, is an online service based on microcomputers running appropriate software. They were the precursors to modern day online forums. However, he is up against Science Girl who tells him he is wrong. She explains that her parents took samples of their sperm and egg and sequenced the DNA . The resulting genome was then e-mailed to the Venter Institute where they synthesized the genome and used this to create the egg and sperm that became Science Girl. The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) is a non-profit genomics research institute founded by J. Craig Venter , Ph.D. in October 2006. Although what Science Girl is describing may be possible this comic must take place in the future as this has not yet been used to create human beings. Her point though is, that the man is wrong when he says that he has been on the internet. When you are "on-line" you are really just looking on the screen where the results found "on" the internet is displayed. So he has been looking at the internet. The girl's genome (which is basically the closest you can come to the data a computer would need to create you) has been sent on-line in an e-mail. So in her words, she has actually been there. Objectively, the Science Girl is just as bad as her adult conversational partner; simply being the most significant advancement in test tube babies in over two decades doesn't prove anything about your personal knowledge or experience. Subjectively , however, her reputation alone is more than enough to stun and thus "defeat" anyone who actually understands her special heritage, as well as of course her pun and correction regarding being and looking on the internet. It is also worth noting that it was technically her parents' sex cells, not her, which traversed the internet. The title text is another common retort from "old timers" that they have been doing X since before the younger person was born. In this case, Science Girl accepts that the old timer was "on the Internet" before she was born, but so was she... At least in the form of her genetic information. [A man with black hair and a neck beard types away at his computer screen.] Man (typing): Whatever, noob. I've been on the internet since the BBS days. Screen (reply from the noob): Wrong. type type [The noob turns out to be Science Girl, with two hair buns, who kneels on her chair, typing at a laptop on a table in this frame-less panel.] Science Girl (typing): Before I was born, a lab took egg and sperm samples from my parents and sequenced the DNA. type type [The man sits at his desk, reading his screen.] Screen (Science Girls writing): They emailed the genome to the Venter Institute, where they synthesized the genome and implanted it into sperm and eggs which became me. [Science Girl still typing on the laptop.] Science Girl (typing): So, no. Science Girl (typing): You've looked at the internet. Science Girl (typing): I've been there. type type

Bel-Air

Bel-Air

https://www.xkcd.com/1059

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1059:_Bel-Air

[Cueball sits on an easy chair in front of a TV.] TV: Well, my posh Bel Air life took a turn for the worse. TV: It's a story best related in a doggerel verse. TV: So kick back, relax, lemme put on some Adele for ya, [Cueball raises the remote and points at the screen.] TV: While I tell you why I'm running for mayor of Phila- CLICK

This comic is a take on the 90s TV series Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and its much parodied and repeated theme song. Consequently, the song coming out of Cueball 's TV right now is a take on that song. The joke is that Will Smith has somehow gone from being a successful rap star to an ambitious politician. Doggerel is a derogatory term for verse considered of little literary value or a comic verse of irregular measure, or in this case, rap music. Obviously, the song is updated with a reference to Adele , who was, of course, not performing during the series' run, seeing as she was two years old at its start. In the last panel, Cueball is annoyed about this stupid show and he switches to another channel or turns the TV off. The timing of the "click" indicates that he became annoyed when the song turned into a political advertisement and/or he did not want to hear "some Adele for ya" be rhymed with the name of the city Philadelphia . The title text refers to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , a 1939 Academy Award-winning movie about an idealistic young man who is chosen to be a Senator and soon finds himself battling corrupted politicians, perhaps as Will Smith might be in this comic. The two characters/character and actor is a coincidence that Randall plays on. Aaron Sorkin is the writer behind the comedy drama The American President and the creator of political television drama The West Wing . Pat Toomey is a current U.S. Senator of Pennsylvania (which includes Philadelphia), who was first elected in 2010. The theme song of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was also referenced in 464: RBA . [Cueball sits on an easy chair in front of a TV.] TV: Well, my posh Bel Air life took a turn for the worse. TV: It's a story best related in a doggerel verse. TV: So kick back, relax, lemme put on some Adele for ya, [Cueball raises the remote and points at the screen.] TV: While I tell you why I'm running for mayor of Phila- CLICK

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing

https://www.xkcd.com/1060

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1060:_Crowdsourcing

[Cueball is standing in front of a flowchart on a wall, indicating with a pointer. A man and two women are looking on with interest. One woman holds a briefcase.] Cueball: We crowdsource the design process, allowing those with the best designs to connect— Cueball: via already-in-place social networking infrastructure— Cueball: with interested manufacturers, distributors, and marketers. [Caption below the panel:] Nobody caught on that our business plan didn't involve us in any way— it was just a description of other people making and selling products.

Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. In the new Internet economy, it is not uncommon for companies to rely on crowdsourced designs or ideas, to contract the marketing to another firm, or to interact with customers through social networks established by other companies. Cueball , however, is describing a business strategy which manages to do all three by "crowdsourcing" the process of getting a company and a prospective employee together. Cueball describes it as helping people with ideas find funding, similar to Kickstarter or Indiegogo, but rather than setting up a system to facilitate the process, he plans to use already-existing social networks (such as Facebook and Twitter). Effectively, by relying on outside support for all steps of the business plan, his company does nothing; however, because the parts of his strategy are all feasible separately, and because he describes them with a barrage of trendy buzzwords, his audience is impressed and fails to notice the company's essential pointlessness. In the title text Cueball claims that "we don't sell a product, we sell the marketplace," a phrase that typically describes a company whose business model is to facilitate the business of other companies, and would be a plausible reason for a company to not make products. However, this is revealed to be yet more empty buzzwords when Cueball clarifies that they don't actually do any work and instead play video games ("shooters" refer to shooter games, a genre of video game). [Cueball is standing in front of a flowchart on a wall, indicating with a pointer. A man and two women are looking on with interest. One woman holds a briefcase.] Cueball: We crowdsource the design process, allowing those with the best designs to connect— Cueball: via already-in-place social networking infrastructure— Cueball: with interested manufacturers, distributors, and marketers. [Caption below the panel:] Nobody caught on that our business plan didn't involve us in any way— it was just a description of other people making and selling products.

EST

EST

https://www.xkcd.com/1061

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1061:_EST

[Caption above the frame:] xkcd presents Earth Standard Time (EST) A universal calendar for a universal planet EST is... Simple • Clearly defined • Unambiguous Free of historical baggage • Compatible with old units Precisely synced with the solar cycle • Free of leap years Intermittently amenable to date math [Inside the frame a list of the details concerning EST is shown:] Units Second: 1 S.I. second Minute: 60 seconds Hour: 60 minutes Day: 1444 minutes (24 hours 4 minutes) Month: 30 days Year: 12 months Rules For 4 hours after every full moon, run clocks backward. The non-prime-numbered minutes of the first full non-reversed hour after a solstice or equinox happen twice. [In two columns the "Epoch" is put into a contrasting juxtaposition to "Time Zones":] Epoch 00:00:00 EST, January 1st, 1970 = 00:00:00 GMT, January 1st, 1970 (Julian Calendar) Time Zones The two EST time zones are EST and EST (United Kingdom) . These are the same except that the UK second is 0.9144 standard seconds. [A few further statements:] Daylight saving: Countries may enter DST, but no time may pass there. Narnian Time: Synchronized✔ Year Zero: EST does have a year 0 . (However, there is no 1958.)

This comic pokes fun of attempts to "fix" the calendar by making it simpler or more rational, which inevitably result in a system just as complicated. This is an example of the paradox in complexity theory that if you attempt to simplify a system of problems by creating a new system of evaluation for the problems you often have instead made the problem more complex than it was originally. Randall advertises his idea for a "Universal Calendar for a Universal Planet". He combines calendar definitions with time zone definitions. The abbreviation EST in this comic stands for Earth Standard Time (hence the title), but it is in itself a joke on the American Eastern Standard Time . In the rest of the explanation, EST refers to the comic's Earth Standard Time. Because there are approximately 365.2422 days in a solar year , various calendars use different means to keep the calendar year in sync with the solar year and the seasons. The Julian Calendar, for example, has leap days every four years, giving it an average year length of 365.25 days. The most widely used system is the Gregorian calendar , which also has leap days every four years, but skips leap days in years divisible by 100 unless the year is also divisible by 400, the latter additions come from Earth's axial precession . This gives it an average year length of 365.2425 days, which is very close to the length of a solar year (see detailed explanation in this video: Earth's motion around the Sun, not as simple as I thought ). Other calendars have been proposed, some of which do not count leap days and special "festival days" as a day of the week, in order to make every date fall on the same day of the week every year. Many of the claimed benefits for the calendar are highly dubious: The features of the calendar get increasingly bizarre as the description proceeds: [Caption above the frame:] xkcd presents Earth Standard Time (EST) A universal calendar for a universal planet EST is... Simple • Clearly defined • Unambiguous Free of historical baggage • Compatible with old units Precisely synced with the solar cycle • Free of leap years Intermittently amenable to date math [Inside the frame a list of the details concerning EST is shown:] Units Second: 1 S.I. second Minute: 60 seconds Hour: 60 minutes Day: 1444 minutes (24 hours 4 minutes) Month: 30 days Year: 12 months Rules For 4 hours after every full moon, run clocks backward. The non-prime-numbered minutes of the first full non-reversed hour after a solstice or equinox happen twice. [In two columns the "Epoch" is put into a contrasting juxtaposition to "Time Zones":] Epoch 00:00:00 EST, January 1st, 1970 = 00:00:00 GMT, January 1st, 1970 (Julian Calendar) Time Zones The two EST time zones are EST and EST (United Kingdom) . These are the same except that the UK second is 0.9144 standard seconds. [A few further statements:] Daylight saving: Countries may enter DST, but no time may pass there. Narnian Time: Synchronized✔ Year Zero: EST does have a year 0 . (However, there is no 1958.)

Budget News

Budget News

https://www.xkcd.com/1062

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1062:_Budget_News

[The front page of a newspaper with the name of the paper in large gray letters at the top, and several unreadable sections left of, right of, and below the main front page news. A large heading is written to the left of a photo on the right. In the photo a man with black hair who has been standing behind a lectern with a microphone delivering a speech is falling towards the left and holding out one hand in that direction while blocking his face with the other hand against an attack from a large black bird. Below the podium with the lectern is the top of the crowd in the front row. Five Cueball-like guys (two cut off at the edges), a person with black hair and Black Hat to the right can be seen. Below the headline and below the picture are black lines indicating the main text in the article.] Title: The Daily News Headline: Deficit Hawk Attacked by Regular One

This comic is a use of homonym of the word "hawk" in the phrase " Deficit hawk ". Wikipedia has a great definition: "Deficit hawk is an American political slang term for people who place great emphasis on keeping the federal budget under control. Deficit hawks believe the best way to reduce the deficit, pay off national debt, and balance the budget is by a combination of increasing taxes and cutting government spending." And obviously, a hawk is a type of bird of prey. In this case, the prey is politicians. This event may have been contrived, as a certain Black Hat is visible in the audience. In the title text, there is a reference to the sugar glider , which is a small gliding possum originating from the marsupial infraclass or subclass. They are generally considered to be cute and harmless, as well as being relatively obscure, indicating a politician who is humorous and good-natured enough to make such a comparison, as well as nerdy enough to know what a sugar glider is. [The front page of a newspaper with the name of the paper in large gray letters at the top, and several unreadable sections left of, right of, and below the main front page news. A large heading is written to the left of a photo on the right. In the photo a man with black hair who has been standing behind a lectern with a microphone delivering a speech is falling towards the left and holding out one hand in that direction while blocking his face with the other hand against an attack from a large black bird. Below the podium with the lectern is the top of the crowd in the front row. Five Cueball-like guys (two cut off at the edges), a person with black hair and Black Hat to the right can be seen. Below the headline and below the picture are black lines indicating the main text in the article.] Title: The Daily News Headline: Deficit Hawk Attacked by Regular One

Kill Hitler

Kill Hitler

https://www.xkcd.com/1063

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1063:_Kill_Hitler

[Black Hat and Cueball stand in front of a double door, which bears the label 'TIME door'. Black Hat has his hands on his hips.] Black Hat: I finished my time machine, but it's one-use-only. Cueball: You gotta kill Hitler. [Close-up of Black Hat, one hand palm upward.] Black Hat: Why are you so obsessed with this Hitler guy? We have all of time we could explore! [Close-up of Cueball with both hands palm upward.] Cueball: He's evil incarnate! He murdered millions and sparked global war! Everyone agrees—if you get a time machine, you kill Hitler. [Black Hat enters the now open Time door as the other man looks on..] Black Hat: Fine, fine, I get it! Calm down. BRB, killing Hitler. [Black Hat returns, shutting the door with one hand. Cueball has outstretched arms.] Black Hat: There. Done. Are you happy? Cueball: Thank you. Black Hat: He was in some kind of bunker. 1945 was loud! Cueball: NO!

After Black Hat announces his completion of a time machine which will only ever work once, Cueball gives a common suggestion for what to do when you have a time machine: killing Adolf Hitler , the Austrian-born dictator who famously led the Nazi Party to a hostile takeover of the German government, which eventually led to World War II where the Nazis conducted a military invasion of several other European countries and a genocidal campaign known as the Holocaust . Even though Black Hat has other (and probably better) ideas about how to use his time machine, he relents to Cueball's pleas and goes off to kill Hitler, comically using the casual phrase "BRB" which is an abbreviation for "be right back". He soon returns, commenting that he found Hitler in a very noisy bunker in the year 1945. In the real world, Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide on April 30, 1945, in Hitler's personal office in the Führerbunker . Berlin was the last major stronghold of Nazi Germany at that point, and was under heavy military assault by the Soviet Union, making it fairly obvious to the Nazis that they wouldn't control the city for much longer. Germany surrendered to the Allied forces almost immediately after Hitler's death, bringing an end to the European side of the War (the Pacific side, mostly fought between the United States and the Nazi-allied Empire of Japan, would linger on for a few more months until Japan was driven to surrender by two nuclear attacks ). The fact that Black Hat killed Hitler in the Führerbunker in 1945 means that the War and the Holocaust had already resulted in the deaths of millions, and history would not be significantly changed by murdering Hitler at that point. Also, Black Hat's comment that "1945 was loud!" suggests that Berlin was already under attack when he emerged in the Führerbunker, implying that the killing took place around the time Hitler would have taken his own life anyway, possibly just a few moments before. Cueball's intent was clearly for Black Hat to travel back to a time before Hitler's rise to power, in the hopes that killing him back then would prevent both the War and the Holocaust; he's therefore horrified by the realization that Black Hat had used his sole opportunity for time travel and probably made little difference at all. This is typical Black Hat behavior, going out of his way just to troll people like Cueball and cause horrible things to happen, in this case deliberately not changing any history or avoiding any of the atrocities carried out by Nazi Germany. That might be for the best, however, since killing Hitler early might cause more problems than it would solve . Sure enough, there are some conspiracy theories claiming that Hitler had no intention of taking his own life and was actually shot dead by someone else, most of them relying on some kind of "evidence" that Hitler and Braun weren't alone in the room when they died. If this comic was meant to be taken as a serious theory on Hitler's death, it would suggest that Black Hat was directly responsible, but because he used a time machine to reach Hitler's office, historians would have no knowledge that he was ever there and therefore could only conclude that Hitler and Braun killed themselves instead. Also, if the Novikov self-consistency principle is true, it means that Hitler's suicide was interrupted by Black Hat in the first place, and Black Hat was merely going back in time to do the thing he already did. The title text refers to the time travel theme from the Superman movie in which Jor-El states, "It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history." Here it is suggested that Black Hat needs to know some history before going back in time to interfere with it, perhaps so that he would do the right thing and kill Hitler before the Holocaust and World War II. [Black Hat and Cueball stand in front of a double door, which bears the label 'TIME door'. Black Hat has his hands on his hips.] Black Hat: I finished my time machine, but it's one-use-only. Cueball: You gotta kill Hitler. [Close-up of Black Hat, one hand palm upward.] Black Hat: Why are you so obsessed with this Hitler guy? We have all of time we could explore! [Close-up of Cueball with both hands palm upward.] Cueball: He's evil incarnate! He murdered millions and sparked global war! Everyone agrees—if you get a time machine, you kill Hitler. [Black Hat enters the now open Time door as the other man looks on..] Black Hat: Fine, fine, I get it! Calm down. BRB, killing Hitler. [Black Hat returns, shutting the door with one hand. Cueball has outstretched arms.] Black Hat: There. Done. Are you happy? Cueball: Thank you. Black Hat: He was in some kind of bunker. 1945 was loud! Cueball: NO!

Front Door

Front Door

https://www.xkcd.com/1064

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1064:_Front_Door

[A graph with three colored lines. There is no scale on the Y-axis but the X-axis represents geographic location and has four labels. From the Y-axis to around the midpoint is "Yard", with an arrow from the word yard pointing left, at a point beyond the midpoint there is a tick labeled "Steps", at a point after that is another tick labeled "Door", and all points afterward are "Inside" with an arrow pointing right from the word inside, there are no tick for the first and last label. The three lines are all labeled with a small lines going from the label to the lines. The blue line begins to slowly increase from the start, with a slight dip further into the yard, and a steep increase right before the steps, maxing on the steps, and declining steeply at the door, bottoming out once inside. The gray line is at a steady medium height until it gets to the steps, at which point it shoots upwards, and then slowly declines once inside. The red line stays at 0 until just before the steps, where it begins to trend upwards, spikes at the door, and begins to slowly decline once inside. Above the curves to the left there is a black frame with the title of the graph:] Walking Back to My Front Door at Night: X-axis labels: Yard Steps Door Inside Blue line: Fear That There's Something Behind Me Gray line: Forward Speed Red line: Embarrassment

This comic is showing in graphical form three different actions/feelings as Randall is approaching his front door at night. His "Fear That There's Something Behind Me" rises, so then his "Forward Speed" rises to get to his door faster. And then when he gets in the door and finds that in fact, there is nothing behind him, his "Embarrassment" rises. The y-axis of the chart is not labeled, so it is presumed to indicate amount, as in how embarrassed Randall is. The interesting fact revealed is that Randall gets more concerned that someone is behind him when he walks up the steps to this door, and not while walking in the yard where there might be more hiding places. The worst fear is just before he walks up the steps to lock himself in. This is probably because now that he is almost home and safe, he now has to fumble with the key concentrating on getting the key in the lock, thus not being able to pay attention to what's coming up behind him. This is of course an irrational thought, but it seems to happen to many people, and has certainly been used for suspense in many movies, whether it is "Did I hear a noise upstairs?" or "Is that an axe murderer hiding in that hedge?" or "There might be a velociraptor lurking nearby". (However in all of these cases getting inside would probably not help you anyway just adding to the funny part of how the fear drops once inside. See 87: Velociraptors for why getting inside probably also would not help against them.) The title text attempts to alleviate the problem of the following embarrassment by introducing potential threat that could affect anybody. Since Randall mentioned that he will randomly release a wolf into a front yard sometime in the next thirty years, there will always be a fear that a wolf has been released onto your front yard. In that case, the fear one feels will be justified and not embarrassing, as it is possible that there is indeed a wolf released by Randall into their front yard. However, even assuming that Randall can find and release a wolf onto someone's front yard, the chance of this happening to you is minuscule. [A graph with three colored lines. There is no scale on the Y-axis but the X-axis represents geographic location and has four labels. From the Y-axis to around the midpoint is "Yard", with an arrow from the word yard pointing left, at a point beyond the midpoint there is a tick labeled "Steps", at a point after that is another tick labeled "Door", and all points afterward are "Inside" with an arrow pointing right from the word inside, there are no tick for the first and last label. The three lines are all labeled with a small lines going from the label to the lines. The blue line begins to slowly increase from the start, with a slight dip further into the yard, and a steep increase right before the steps, maxing on the steps, and declining steeply at the door, bottoming out once inside. The gray line is at a steady medium height until it gets to the steps, at which point it shoots upwards, and then slowly declines once inside. The red line stays at 0 until just before the steps, where it begins to trend upwards, spikes at the door, and begins to slowly decline once inside. Above the curves to the left there is a black frame with the title of the graph:] Walking Back to My Front Door at Night: X-axis labels: Yard Steps Door Inside Blue line: Fear That There's Something Behind Me Gray line: Forward Speed Red line: Embarrassment

Shoes

Shoes

https://www.xkcd.com/1065

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1065:_Shoes

[Cueball, holding a sword, looks up to a disembodied voice coming from above, and a box hovers in the air before him.] Voice: For saving my kingdom, I offer you a gift of great power. [Cueball's sword is now propped up against the right edge of the panel. The box opens, a glow emanating from within.] Voice: These magic shoes enable the wearer to outrun death itself. Cueball: Thank you. I... [A close-up on Cueball as he examines the shoes. They have five toes.] Cueball: Whoa, wait. They have those creepy individual toes. [Cueball puts the shoes back in the still-hovering box. The sword cannot be seen.] Voice: But they make you immortal. Cueball: ...I have to think about this.

Cueball is a knight that has saved a kingdom. It seems that he is being rewarded by a god, since his reward is inside a box that is floating in a beam of heavenly light. Inside the box is a pair of shoes with five toes - and with these magic shoes, he can outrun Death . This comic refers to a new type of running shoes which have very little actual support with individual areas for each toe (they are supposed to make you feel like you are running barefoot). Specifically, the shoes Cueball takes out of the box look like Vibram FiveFingers . The joke in the comic is that the shoes are so strange/creepy, that Cueball is not even sure he would want to live forever if he would have to wear these shoes at all times. Immortality is not worth it. The title text is a play on the common phrase "x is the best thing since sliced bread". The way that Randall uses the phrase in the title text humorously implies that these shoes would be almost as good to wear on your feet as two slices of bread. Earlier in 977: Map Projections , it was stated that those who preferred the Dymaxion projection would wear shoes with toes. And later in 1735: Fashion Police and Grammar Police it was a different type of shoes that were deemed non-fashionable with the Crocs . [Cueball, holding a sword, looks up to a disembodied voice coming from above, and a box hovers in the air before him.] Voice: For saving my kingdom, I offer you a gift of great power. [Cueball's sword is now propped up against the right edge of the panel. The box opens, a glow emanating from within.] Voice: These magic shoes enable the wearer to outrun death itself. Cueball: Thank you. I... [A close-up on Cueball as he examines the shoes. They have five toes.] Cueball: Whoa, wait. They have those creepy individual toes. [Cueball puts the shoes back in the still-hovering box. The sword cannot be seen.] Voice: But they make you immortal. Cueball: ...I have to think about this.

Laundry

Laundry

https://www.xkcd.com/1066

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1066:_Laundry

College Laundry Habits [Panel labeled "First Week". 5 ovals arranged in a rough circle, with a clockwise path connecting them: "Dresser & Closet", "On Body", "Hamper", "Washer & Dryer", "Folding Area" (and back to the first). The area outside the ovals is labeled "Floor."] [Panel labeled "Second Week". The path has been modified so that it does not go through "Folding Area" - only through the other 4 ovals.] [Panel labeled "Third Week". The path has been modified so that it does not go through "Dresser & Closet". Only "On Body", "Hamper", and "Washer & Dryer" remain.] [Panel labeled "Second Month". The path no longer passes through "Hamper" - only "On Body" and "Washer & Dryer".] [Panel labeled "End of Semester". The path no longer goes to "Washer & Dryer", instead just looping back around from "On Body" to "On Body" again after passing through the "Floor."]

This comic is all about college laundry habits and how as time goes by, you end up just throwing clothes on the floor and then wearing them again. In the first week, the student undertakes a proper laundry routine. However, due to increasing laziness, by the second week they have abandoned folding their clothes, and by the third week no longer bother hanging them in the closet. By the second month dirty clothes are no longer stored in a laundry hamper and are just dumped on the floor, and by the end of the semester clothes are not washed at all. The title text seems to indicate that the student has a brainwave, some time later, to wash their clothes in the dishwasher along with the dishes. Presumably as a timesaver. The experiment was brief because dishwashers aren't actually any good at washing clothes [ citation needed ] as they wouldn't move the clothes about. College Laundry Habits [Panel labeled "First Week". 5 ovals arranged in a rough circle, with a clockwise path connecting them: "Dresser & Closet", "On Body", "Hamper", "Washer & Dryer", "Folding Area" (and back to the first). The area outside the ovals is labeled "Floor."] [Panel labeled "Second Week". The path has been modified so that it does not go through "Folding Area" - only through the other 4 ovals.] [Panel labeled "Third Week". The path has been modified so that it does not go through "Dresser & Closet". Only "On Body", "Hamper", and "Washer & Dryer" remain.] [Panel labeled "Second Month". The path no longer passes through "Hamper" - only "On Body" and "Washer & Dryer".] [Panel labeled "End of Semester". The path no longer goes to "Washer & Dryer", instead just looping back around from "On Body" to "On Body" again after passing through the "Floor."]

Pressures

Pressures

https://www.xkcd.com/1067

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1067:_Pressures

[Ponytail walks up to Megan examining documents] Ponytail: So... what've you been up to? Megan: Handling patent applications. Ponytail: Yeah, but... besides that? Megan: That's about it. Ponytail: You're not, like, thinking about any cool stuff? Just curious. For the last hundred years, Swiss patent clerks have been under some weird pressures.

This comic is a reference to revolutionary physicist Albert Einstein , who got his first big ideas about physics while he was working as a Swiss patent clerk. Hence, Randall jokes that there is pressure on other Swiss patent clerks to come up with genius ideas while they are working there. The Zen Pencil comic "Albert Einstein: Life is a mystery" gives some background about Einstein's choice to work at the Swiss patent office. The fact that he was turned down by several universities was beneficial to the science of physics, as the duties as a patent clerk were not challenging to him, paid enough, and allowed him to work on his theories without any pressures . The title text refers to quantum gravity , a highly anticipated theory that would unify quantum mechanics with the current model of gravity, general relativity. Such a theory would be very useful to understanding how space behaves at high energies and high densities, such as black holes and the very early universe. The joke is that instead of a patent clerk making this theory, as everyone is supposedly expecting, it's instead made by someone wearing "patent" leather shoes and working on a movie called "Clerks" II, thereby suggesting that anytime something called a "patent" crosses with anything called a "clerk", radical breakthroughs in physics result. Clerks II is the second movie in the Clerks series by Kevin Smith, widely regarded as not nearly as good as the first — which could be said about most sequels, but you get the point. [Ponytail walks up to Megan examining documents] Ponytail: So... what've you been up to? Megan: Handling patent applications. Ponytail: Yeah, but... besides that? Megan: That's about it. Ponytail: You're not, like, thinking about any cool stuff? Just curious. For the last hundred years, Swiss patent clerks have been under some weird pressures.

Swiftkey

Swiftkey

https://www.xkcd.com/1068

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1068:_Swiftkey

[Cueball showing his phone to Megan.] Cueball: Have you tried SwiftKey? It's got the first decent language model I've seen. It learns from your SMS/Email archives what words you use together most often. [Cueball and Megan in a frameless panel, with Megan now holding Cueball's phone.] Cueball: Spacebar inserts its best guess. So if I type "The Empi" and hit space three times, it types "The Empire Strikes Back". Megan: What if you mash space in a blank message? [Zoomed in on Megan looking at Cueball's phone, with Cueball now off-frame to the left.] Cueball: I guess it fills in your most likely first word, then the word that usually follows it... Megan: So it builds up your "typical" sentence. Cool! Let's see yours! Cueball: Uh— [Eight small frames arranged in panel space, 2 frames wide by 4 frames high, showing each word added by Swiftkey as Megan hits space each time:] SwiftKey: I SwiftKey: Am SwiftKey: So SwiftKey: Sorry— SwiftKey: That's SwiftKey: Never SwiftKey: Happened SwiftKey: Before.

Cueball has installed SwiftKey on his smartphone and brags about this to Megan . SwiftKey is a product that is installable on iOS / Android -based phones and tablets. Cueball explains that if you type space bar on the keyboard it auto-completes the word you are currently typing founded on its best guess, and then if you continue to press space it will add new words using this guessing process based on the previous word(s) and what it believes is the most likely words you would use in a sentence containing the previous word(s). Megan asks what happens if you begin a new message by just using space to automatically create a text. Cueball's best guess it begins with the word SwiftKey has found to be the typical starting word and then continues as normal from that. Megan then realizes that in this way it builds up his "typical" sentence and she tries this over the next eight small frames: I am so sorry- that's never happened before. "I'm so sorry– that's never happened before." is a typical excuse for a mishap, usually when one fails to produce an erection when it is needed . Such a phrase being quoted by an algorithm implies that such mishaps are common, and therefore "I'm so sorry– that's never happened before." is a lie. Also, Swiftkey might be saying "I'm so sorry– that's never happened before." because the software doesn't know what to do. SwiftKey has noticed their inclusion in xkcd and have created a blog post for other users to comment with their default phrase when they hit the "central prediction key". The results are pretty funny (the site now redirects to a website asking to download the keyboard, an archived version can be found here ). In addition, Reddit users have a similar model creating /r/subredditsimulator , which is populated by bots generating submissions and comments based on the language of their subreddits. In the title text, a Markov chain refers to a system that transitions between a countable number of states, based only on the current state and none of the previous ones that led up to it. SwiftKey follows this property since it provides outputs based only on the most recently entered word or words, not the whole sentence. "Massachusetts Institute of America" is a nonexistent organization. The name appears to have formed by combining " Massachusetts Institute of Technology " and either "[Field] Institute of America" (e.g. Mining) or "United States of America". This illustrates the memoryless property of a Markov chain; after generating "Massachusetts Institute of", SwiftKey may have attempted to predict the next word using only the last "of" or "Institute of". Since it was not considering the word "Massachusetts" at all, the word "America" was viewed as the most likely follow-up. [Cueball showing his phone to Megan.] Cueball: Have you tried SwiftKey? It's got the first decent language model I've seen. It learns from your SMS/Email archives what words you use together most often. [Cueball and Megan in a frameless panel, with Megan now holding Cueball's phone.] Cueball: Spacebar inserts its best guess. So if I type "The Empi" and hit space three times, it types "The Empire Strikes Back". Megan: What if you mash space in a blank message? [Zoomed in on Megan looking at Cueball's phone, with Cueball now off-frame to the left.] Cueball: I guess it fills in your most likely first word, then the word that usually follows it... Megan: So it builds up your "typical" sentence. Cool! Let's see yours! Cueball: Uh— [Eight small frames arranged in panel space, 2 frames wide by 4 frames high, showing each word added by Swiftkey as Megan hits space each time:] SwiftKey: I SwiftKey: Am SwiftKey: So SwiftKey: Sorry— SwiftKey: That's SwiftKey: Never SwiftKey: Happened SwiftKey: Before.

Alphabet

Alphabet

https://www.xkcd.com/1069

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1069:_Alphabet

[Cueball stands behind Blondie who has turned her head towards him while sitting at a bar stool at a bar desk. She holds on to a wine glass standing on the desk. Two regular glasses are standing on the desk in front of her.] Cueball: Baby, if I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd forget about you in a heartbeat . Cueball: I'm not gonna waste my one chance to help the mess that is English orthography.

This comic is mainly a joke on the traditional pick-up line that goes: "Baby, if I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put 'U' and 'I' together", i.e. "you and I", or "the letter U and the letter I". However, in typical xkcd fashion, rather than continuing with that tired pickup line, addressed at Blondie at the bar, Cueball jumps at his hypothetical chance to rearrange the alphabet and fix the English orthography . An orthography is a standardized system for using a particular writing system (script) to write a particular language, including rules of spelling. The English orthography happens to be one of the deepest (that is, most irregular) ones around, since almost every sound can be spelled in several ways, and most spellings and all letters can be pronounced in more than one way, and often in many different ways. So faced with this opportunity, the hooking up could wait. Restructuring the alphabet and creating a sensibly regular English spelling is the chance of a lifetime, and would make history, making Cueball immortal in the sense of living on forever in memory, as the alphabet-fixer. In the title text Cueball muses on the possibilities. Does he get to remove letters entirely or just rearrange them (like putting U and I together)? Then he mentions "the 'k/c' situation" specifically because that "situation is ridiculous". This is about the use of the letter 'c'. It doesn't have a unique sound, and most often makes a 'k'-sound or an 's'-sound . Combined with an 'h' it usually makes the 'ch'-sound in chair , but also they often sound like 'k' ( character ), and in not too few cases they even make the 'sh'-sound (like champagne , see more examples here ). So a reasonable change Cueball might make is to replace 'c' by 'k' or 's', and keep 'c' only followed by 'h' (or even giving 'c' the current sound of 'ch' as in chair or giving the role of 'ch' as in chair to 'kh', spelling 'khair') . He finishes off by stating that they can make out any other time, because fixing the alphabet now would bring him immortality. Orthography was again the subject in 1562: I in Team . A non-standard version of this pickup joke was previously referenced in 279: Pickup Lines . [Cueball stands behind Blondie who has turned her head towards him while sitting at a bar stool at a bar desk. She holds on to a wine glass standing on the desk. Two regular glasses are standing on the desk in front of her.] Cueball: Baby, if I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd forget about you in a heartbeat . Cueball: I'm not gonna waste my one chance to help the mess that is English orthography.

Words for Small Sets

Words for Small Sets

https://www.xkcd.com/1070

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1070:_Words_for_Small_Sets

[Heading above table:] Just to clear things up: [A chart with four rows and two columns is shown.] A few Anywhere from 2 to 5 A handful Anywhere from 2 to 5 Several Anywhere from 2 to 5 A couple 2 (but sometimes up to 5)

The noun "couple" can mean "exactly two items of the same kind," or it can be used interchangeably with words like "few" or "several", which in this context mean "comparatively small but definitely greater than one". But some people insist that "couple" can only mean two, by analogy with the specific use of the word "couple" to refer to exactly one pair of people who are in a romantic relationship. This comic also alludes to similar arguments about the relative meaning of phrases like "few" and "several" (some people will argue that "several" should mean more than "few", while others will argue the opposite or that it doesn't matter), making this comic troll bait . Randall is attempting to "troll" (intentionally provoke) the people who claim "couple" must mean exactly two by taking the other side of the argument. The title text similarly alludes to the argument. Randall says "Try asking a couple of friends [...] unless all three of them agree," which jokingly refers to the same group of people first by the vague term "couple," which can include three, and then specifies the exact number, resulting in a jarring effect as if a "couple" meant exactly three. The title text also mentions the sentence spacing issue as an example of another topic known to ignite energetic arguments among pedantic types without ever leading to consensus. Sentence spacing is later seen in 1285: Third Way . The sentence spacing arguments are about whether one or two space characters must be used after the period character at the end of the sentence. The title text also points out an unusual situation where troll baiting may not work: namely, intending to spark an argument is most effective if there is a disagreement on the matter. If all of the inquired friends have the same opinion on the matter (be it the definition of 'couple' or the number of spaces after a period), then an argument may not spark, and the trolling attempt may fail. Randall also takes a side in the title text, saying "a couple of friends" and then later "all three of them". [Heading above table:] Just to clear things up: [A chart with four rows and two columns is shown.] A few Anywhere from 2 to 5 A handful Anywhere from 2 to 5 Several Anywhere from 2 to 5 A couple 2 (but sometimes up to 5)

Exoplanets

Exoplanets

https://www.xkcd.com/1071

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1071:_Exoplanets

[An large diagram of dots, mostly of varying shades of brown and greenish yellow, with a number of smaller blue dots, tiny green dots and some larger red dots. At the top of the circle are five lines of text in very different font size.] All 786 known planets (as of June 2012) to scale (Some planet sizes estimated based on mass.) [Below this text is a small section of 8 planets which are framed in a light gray frame with lighter gray background . It is situated right below the above text with only a few planets in between the text and the frame. These planets include two large yellow, two smaller blue two small green and two tiny green planets. A line goes between this frame to another frame with the first word in the text below, that is in a similar frame. The rest of the text follows to the right and then below this first word covering the central part of the circle from just around the center of the circle and a bit below.] This is our solar system. The rest of these orbit other stars and were only discovered recently. Most of them are huge because those are the kind we learned to detect first, but now we're finding that small ones are actually more common. We know nothing about what's on any of them. With better telescopes, that could change. This is an exciting time.

An exoplanet is a planet outside of our solar system, orbiting a different sun. 786 planets were known in mid-2012: 778 exoplanets and the rest in our Solar System. Since then, astronomers have found thousands more. In the comic, our Solar System 's eight planets are depicted in the small rectangle above the central text. From this we find that the largest dots (red) and second largest dots (dark brown) indicate planets larger than Jupiter, light brown is roughly Jupiter or Saturn -sized, blue is roughly Uranus or Neptune -sized, and the tiny dots are small terrestrial planets (like Earth ). We only have a few ways of finding exoplanets . Astronomers initially used doppler spectroscopy , which detects minute changes in a star's movement towards or away from us to infer the presence of large gas giants or brown dwarfs . Currently the most successful method is to notice when a star seems to briefly get dimmer on a repeating cycle. This may indicate that a body of matter has passed between that star and us, blocking some of the light. The Kepler space telescope was designed for this purpose, and has made the vast majority of exoplanet discoveries. Most of Kepler's discoveries are between the sizes of Earth and Neptune, but it's sensitive enough to detect planets smaller than Mercury (if the orbital plane is aligned with us). Kepler is only able to observe relatively close stars in a narrow field of view . The great number of nearby planets implies there should be billions of planets in our galaxy, assuming our local arm is not uniquely abundant. The title text refers to this by saying that to show them all, each dot on the chart should hold another chart with the same amount of dots; each of these dots should then also have a similar chart, and then do this one more time for a three level deep chart. This chart would have space for 786^4 planets (786*786*786*786 = 382 billions). Our Milky Way contains about 100-400 billion stars. But if the chart were only two levels deep there would "only" be room for 786^3 = 0.5 billion planets. This comic's design is similar to the Ishihara Color Test , a series of circular pictures made of colored dots, used to detect red-green color blindness. However, Randall's picture probably does not contain a hidden number like it did in 1213: Combination Vision Test . Two different xkcd comics have the title "Exoplanets". The first was 786: Exoplanets , and this one was drawn at a time when 786 exoplanets had been found. Probably not a coincidence when it comes to Randall . This is the first time Randall released a comic with the exact same name as a previous comic. Since then he has done so a few times . When this comic was released it caused problems on xkcd as the title of the image files were the same for the two comics. This was resolved by renaming the original image adding the year 2010, the year when it was released, two years before this one was released. See also Category:Exoplanets and this list of lists of exoplanets . [An large diagram of dots, mostly of varying shades of brown and greenish yellow, with a number of smaller blue dots, tiny green dots and some larger red dots. At the top of the circle are five lines of text in very different font size.] All 786 known planets (as of June 2012) to scale (Some planet sizes estimated based on mass.) [Below this text is a small section of 8 planets which are framed in a light gray frame with lighter gray background . It is situated right below the above text with only a few planets in between the text and the frame. These planets include two large yellow, two smaller blue two small green and two tiny green planets. A line goes between this frame to another frame with the first word in the text below, that is in a similar frame. The rest of the text follows to the right and then below this first word covering the central part of the circle from just around the center of the circle and a bit below.] This is our solar system. The rest of these orbit other stars and were only discovered recently. Most of them are huge because those are the kind we learned to detect first, but now we're finding that small ones are actually more common. We know nothing about what's on any of them. With better telescopes, that could change. This is an exciting time.

Seventies

Seventies

https://www.xkcd.com/1072

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1072:_Seventies

Cueball: Nice jacket. Hey– Cueball: The seventies called. Out-of-panel: Oh? What'd they want? [Cueball looks at his smartphone, holding it in his hand.] Cueball: I don't know. They didn't leave a message. Out-of-panel: Weird. 1974: [A person in bell bottoms, who has no jacket, looks at a rotary phone receiver.] Voicemail service: If you'd like to leave a message, press "1".

This is a take on the common insult "<year> called and they want their <item> back", used when one is wearing something out of fashion (used before in 875: 2009 Called ). In this case, the comment is literally true: someone in the '70s called, but did not leave a message. Instead, the caller is puzzled because answering machines and especially voicemail were rare or nonexistent in the 1970s, and his telephone has a rotary dial , rather than a touch tone , so he can't "press" 1. The caller is wearing flared ("bell bottom") trousers, which are frequently associated with 1970s fashion. The caller is somehow using time travel to directly dial a number in the present. Originally telephones had rotary dials instead of buttons, hence the origin of the terms "dial tone" and "to dial a number". Touch tone phones were introduced in the 1960s, but weren't standard in many places until the 1980s. Rotary dial telephones used pulse dialing to transmit numbers and push-button telephones use DTMF (although phones from the '80s and '90s could often use both). Modern voicemail systems regularly don't support pulse dialing, so even selecting "1" on the rotary dial would not choose "1" in the voicemail menu system. The title text plays off the fact that the telephone had not yet been invented in the 17th century: in fact, all of the component technologies, including the materials used for the casing, were unknown at that point, and therefore the telephone is assumed to be supernatural in origin ("demonic... ſorcery"). Randall uses the character "ſ", the long s , which was used in written English to take the place of the modern lowercase "s" in the beginning and middle of words. It was phased out around the beginning of the 19th century. Cueball: Nice jacket. Hey– Cueball: The seventies called. Out-of-panel: Oh? What'd they want? [Cueball looks at his smartphone, holding it in his hand.] Cueball: I don't know. They didn't leave a message. Out-of-panel: Weird. 1974: [A person in bell bottoms, who has no jacket, looks at a rotary phone receiver.] Voicemail service: If you'd like to leave a message, press "1".

Weekend

Weekend

https://www.xkcd.com/1073

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1073:_Weekend

[Cueball stands behind a lectern on a podium before a very large crowd.] Cueball: We all hate Mondays. We're all working for the weekend. Cueball: But our chains exist only in our minds. [Zoom in on Cueball from the lectern upwards, seen from an angle. He raises one hand in explanation. His text goes above the frame and is written in the top part of this panel which is frame-less.] Cueball: Calendars are just social consensus. Cueball: Nature doesn't know the day of the week. [Closer zoom on Cueball who looks straight out of the panel, the top of the lectern is just visible.] Cueball: My friends— Cueball: We can make today Saturday. [Extreme close-up, the lectern now below the panel, and negative colors with Cueball and the text in white on a black background.] Cueball: We can make it Saturday forever .

This comic was posted right after the weekend , on a Monday, so it was on time to emphasize that we all hate Mondays . In the first image, there is a reference to the Loverboy song " Working for the Weekend "; both the song and the panel refer to how most working and middle-class people are constantly focused on merely surviving until Saturday with enough energy to relax properly. Cueball then goes on to state the fact that any calendar used is just a social consensus and since nature doesn't know the day of the week he simply suggest making this Monday into a Saturday. Actually, why not make all days into Saturday, to have eternal weekends? When you actually stop and think about the speech, the argument turns into utter nonsense. Simply renaming every day on the Gregorian Calendar to "Saturday" doesn't actually do anything, and "the first Saturday of the week" would carry the exact same stigma as "Monday". Furthermore, if Cueball is proposing to abolish the work week entirely, the economy would collapse within days. This fact may explain why the last panel is drawn in negative, with the background black. It gives a very ominous feeling to the last remark. No confirmation has yet been found that any of these words are references to something from former US President James Garfield or to Garfield the cartoon cat who are the two speech writers mentioned in the title text. However, Garfield the cartoon cat has often bemoaned the existence of Monday (ironically, because he is a cat and not subject to the common human work schedule). And hence the title text suggest that this speech was written by Garfield the cat, and that this would be a better speech than any delivered by James Garfield. [Cueball stands behind a lectern on a podium before a very large crowd.] Cueball: We all hate Mondays. We're all working for the weekend. Cueball: But our chains exist only in our minds. [Zoom in on Cueball from the lectern upwards, seen from an angle. He raises one hand in explanation. His text goes above the frame and is written in the top part of this panel which is frame-less.] Cueball: Calendars are just social consensus. Cueball: Nature doesn't know the day of the week. [Closer zoom on Cueball who looks straight out of the panel, the top of the lectern is just visible.] Cueball: My friends— Cueball: We can make today Saturday. [Extreme close-up, the lectern now below the panel, and negative colors with Cueball and the text in white on a black background.] Cueball: We can make it Saturday forever .

Moon Landing

Moon Landing

https://www.xkcd.com/1074

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1074:_Moon_Landing

[Cueball is sitting at a table with a laptop open. His hands are on the keys.] Cueball: Hah- Neil DeGrasse Tyson has a great reply to people who doubt astronauts went to the moon. Voice off-screen: Oh? Cueball: "Atop 3,000 tons of rocket fuel, where else do you think they were headed?" [The voice off screen turns out to be Megan. She is depicted, and now Cueball is off-screen.] Megan: Cute. But it overlooks an even simpler argument. Cueball: Which is? [Both Megan and Cueball are now visible. Cueball has turned his chair around to face her.] Megan: If NASA were willing to fake great accomplishments, they'd have a second one by now. Cueball: Ouch. Megan: ...Too mean? Cueball: That burn was so harsh I think you deorbited. As of this comic, Tyson is the "Frederick P. Rose Director" (a special honorary title) of the Hayden Planetarium

The comment to which Cueball is referring is a tweet by Neil deGrasse Tyson , an American astrophysicist and science communicator. He has appeared on many different shows, ranging from The Discovery Channel to The Big Bang Theory. There are a number of conspiracy theories claiming that the moon landing was a hoax. Tyson offers a pretty compelling argument against them, but Megan presents an even more convincing refutation, snarkily implying that NASA really hasn't done anything spectacular since 1969. And Cueball responds with a pun on the word "burn". Burn can mean a particularly effective insult, or it can mean the consumption of fuel for propulsion. In this case, the "burn" was so effective it pushed the spaceship out of orbit (which usually takes a very large amount of burning, depending on the gravity of the planet or moon). In the title text Randall mentions many successful NASA unmanned missions: The final sentence of the title text notes that all manned missions since the Moon landings have taken place in low-earth orbit, which is barely far off of the Earth's surface. If the Earth were scaled to the size of a regulation basketball, approximately 24 cm (9¼ inches) in diameter, those manned missions would have all taken place within 1.25 cm (½ inch) of the ball's surface. At this scale the Moon would be at a distance of 7.7 m (25.3 ft). Unmanned missions, such as those named above or the Voyager and Mariner probes of the 1960s and 1970s, have traveled much further. A basketball-sized Earth was the main focus of 1515: Basketball Earth . [Cueball is sitting at a table with a laptop open. His hands are on the keys.] Cueball: Hah- Neil DeGrasse Tyson has a great reply to people who doubt astronauts went to the moon. Voice off-screen: Oh? Cueball: "Atop 3,000 tons of rocket fuel, where else do you think they were headed?" [The voice off screen turns out to be Megan. She is depicted, and now Cueball is off-screen.] Megan: Cute. But it overlooks an even simpler argument. Cueball: Which is? [Both Megan and Cueball are now visible. Cueball has turned his chair around to face her.] Megan: If NASA were willing to fake great accomplishments, they'd have a second one by now. Cueball: Ouch. Megan: ...Too mean? Cueball: That burn was so harsh I think you deorbited. As of this comic, Tyson is the "Frederick P. Rose Director" (a special honorary title) of the Hayden Planetarium

Warning

Warning

https://www.xkcd.com/1075

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1075:_Warning

[An American Diamond warning sign with the following message on it:] You're in a box on wheels hurtling along several times faster than evolution could possibly have prepared you to go Next 5 miles

This parody of a road sign essentially reminds drivers of the reality of the situation they are now in and thereby implicitly refers to the dangers inherent to it. Because the ability to travel in a box on wheels at high speeds was not selected for in the evolution of human, if anything happens to said box on wheels, such as crashing into a wall, the humans inside may be badly injured, if not killed. Had they evolved something like exoskeletons, for example, this may not have been the case. This reminder would presumably prompt drivers to drive more carefully or perhaps slow down. Humans did not evolve to have the ability to withstand such forces because their ancestors commonly never traveled any faster than about 20 km/h (top human speed on foot), although some individuals may have moved faster than that by falling out of a tree or off a cliff. Fast vehicles, on the other hand, have only appeared in the last couple of hundred years, and it would take many more tens or hundreds of thousands of years before these new selection pressures made any noticeable difference to human physiology, if any. The road sign is far too lengthy and philosophical to be used in practice but is conceivable as an advertisement for safe driving. The phrase "next 5 miles" is common to road signs, particularly those on US highways in rural areas. This is to indicate that the conditions on the sign will continue for the next five miles along that road. The title text refers to the fact that the sign doesn't really know how many more miles the driver may travel, and that it may be more than five. Since the average American drives over 13,000 miles per year , this is indeed very likely. [An American Diamond warning sign with the following message on it:] You're in a box on wheels hurtling along several times faster than evolution could possibly have prepared you to go Next 5 miles

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day

https://www.xkcd.com/1076

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1076:_Groundhog_Day

Groundhog Day really didn't end that way. When Bill Murray finally slept with Rita, it didn't break the loop. [Phil Connors and Rita gettin' busy under the covers of his bed.] They just kept having sex, night after night, [Bed containing Phil and Rita repeats.] February 2nd after February 2nd... [Calendar page repeats.] ..forever But nothing is forever. Not even forever And the day after that sexual infinity [Calendar page shows Feb 3. ] was February 3rd. 264 days later (the length of a pregnancy) was October 23rd — [An enormous explosion in space.] Bishop Ussher's date for the birth of our world. The comic mentions Bill Murray by his own name, and not by his character's ( Phil ), whereas Andie MacDowell is mentioned as Rita . This could be subconsciously done, since Murray is mostly remembered for his role in this film, although he has had many other successful ones. Alternatively, the other way round, Bill Murray is famous enough from his various other works to be recognized as an actor, while Andie MacDowell is less known to a broad audience.

Groundhog Day is a philosophical comedy film from 1993. The main character Phil, portrayed by Bill Murray , finds himself in a time loop , which forces him to relive the same day (February 2) over and over again. This date is the titular Groundhog Day , which is celebrated in Punxsutawney , Pennsylvania, where the film is set. The folklore ritual consists in removing a groundhog from its burrow. If the sun is shining and the groundhog can see its own shadow, the winter is assumed to continue for six more weeks. During the course of the film, Phil makes more and more drastic attempts to end the time loop, but not even suicide can prevent his waking up every morning on February 2 with the clock radio on his nightstand invariably playing I Got You Babe by Sonny & Cher . Eventually, his character improves and he finds himself increasingly attached to his coworker Rita (portrayed by Andie MacDowell ). The pair gets closer, and, in the end, they sleep together. This breaks the time loop, and Murray's character can finally wake up on February 3. However, whether they had sex before this final scene is disputed, as Phil is still wearing the same clothes as the night before and, when Phil starts kissing her in the morning, Rita comments that he wasn’t so affectionate the previous night. It is therefore left in doubt if they did anything more than literally sleep in the same bed. Randall was apparently not aware of this and apologized for it. The comic assumes that the loop was indeed not broken, and that Phil and Rita simply had sex night after night for all eternity. It is then stated that not even forever is forever . This can be explained with the mathematical set theory developed by Georg Cantor . Cantor distinguished between transfinite numbers , which are larger than all finite numbers, yet not infinite , and the concept of Absolute Infinity , which he equaled with God . It was a common concern in Cantor's time to preserve the consistency between mathematics and Christian belief. Cantor's philosophical conception of infinity would allow the comic's scenario to eventually reach the transfinite date of February 3. The last panel references the chronology of the history of the world of Archbishop James Ussher . Ussher deduced the age of the world from the timeline of the Old Testament and calculated the date of Creation to have been nightfall preceding 23 October, 4004 BC. The comic observes that October 23 is exactly 264 days after February 3, which corresponds to the average length of pregnancy. This calculation draws on Ussher's own methodology, which was basically to add the lifespans of the Old Testament genealogy. Although the universe is much older than 6000 years, chronologies like Ussher's can sometimes be found in the arguments of Young Earth Creationism . The comic might therefore be seen as a sideswipe to these theories by introducing Groundhog Day as a possible creation myth. The creation myths of many cultures claim that Earth was born by some sort primordial mother . Here, this role would be assumed by Rita. The title text refers to the cosmic microwave background radiation , which is often called the lingering sound of the Big Bang and regarded as a strong proof for it. If the universe were indeed the offspring of the film's protagonists, we might hear the faint echo of Murray's radio clock lingering in the cosmic background. Groundhog Day really didn't end that way. When Bill Murray finally slept with Rita, it didn't break the loop. [Phil Connors and Rita gettin' busy under the covers of his bed.] They just kept having sex, night after night, [Bed containing Phil and Rita repeats.] February 2nd after February 2nd... [Calendar page repeats.] ..forever But nothing is forever. Not even forever And the day after that sexual infinity [Calendar page shows Feb 3. ] was February 3rd. 264 days later (the length of a pregnancy) was October 23rd — [An enormous explosion in space.] Bishop Ussher's date for the birth of our world. The comic mentions Bill Murray by his own name, and not by his character's ( Phil ), whereas Andie MacDowell is mentioned as Rita . This could be subconsciously done, since Murray is mostly remembered for his role in this film, although he has had many other successful ones. Alternatively, the other way round, Bill Murray is famous enough from his various other works to be recognized as an actor, while Andie MacDowell is less known to a broad audience.

Home Organization

Home Organization

https://www.xkcd.com/1077

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1077:_Home_Organization

[One big plain room with a person sitting on the floor with a laptop on one side, a modem and wireless router on the other, and a big box full of the usual accoutrements of living in the middle, with "MISC" written on the side.] Home Organization Tip: Just Give Up.

This comic is a take on the typical "how to" which details "how to" organize your home. In many cases, finding the best organization can be difficult and/or can take a long time. To skip this problem, Cueball "Just Gives Up" and puts all his items and furniture into a box labeled "Misc" for miscellaneous, with the exception of his laptop, cable modem and router. The title text is a take on the popular website Lifehacker which includes all sorts of posts on how to "hack" your life and improve it. Life hacking appears to be a common theme in xkcd, such as in 2024: Light Hacks . [One big plain room with a person sitting on the floor with a laptop on one side, a modem and wireless router on the other, and a big box full of the usual accoutrements of living in the middle, with "MISC" written on the side.] Home Organization Tip: Just Give Up.

Knights

Knights

https://www.xkcd.com/1078

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1078:_Knights

[A chessboard, The black pawns have all gained longbows and have specifically taken down the white knights as they move forward, without any black pieces needing to move from their opening positions. Caption below the panel:] The Agincourt gambit. In the title text, Nf3 was accidentally written as Ne3. At the beginning of a chess game, neither knight can move to e3. The proper move (and the move actually made, in the picture) is Nf3. This was later corrected.

This comic is comparing the opening moves of the game of chess to the opening moves of the Battle of Agincourt , which was fought between the English and the French in the Hundred Years War . In the battle, just like in the comic, the English used their longbowmen effectively, neutralizing the French knights and infantry. The two pieces that are moved out of the white side of the board are both the pieces known as the Knights. White moves first in chess, and in the actual battle, the French knights on horseback attacked first; the English being the black pieces may also be a reference to Edward the Black Prince , who was a prominent figure in an earlier stage of the Hundred Years War. As you can see, all the pawns (foot soldiers) on the right side of the chess board have bows. The title text uses algebraic chess notation . Nf3 means a knight has moved to square f3. Nc3 means a knight has moved to square c3. N means knight because the king piece has the K abbreviation covered. What comes after the typical chess move is what can only be read as a hail of arrows. 0-1 at the end means that "Black Wins". This implies that White resigned, as he is not in checkmate (for non-timed chess games, the only ways to win are by checkmating your opponent or by accepting their resignation). The word " gambit " means "an opening in chess, in which a minor piece or a pawn is sacrificed to gain an advantage". The usual gambit of sacrificing a pawn is subverted to be a sacrifice of a high-value piece, as an analogy of what happened at Agincourt. [A chessboard, The black pawns have all gained longbows and have specifically taken down the white knights as they move forward, without any black pieces needing to move from their opening positions. Caption below the panel:] The Agincourt gambit. In the title text, Nf3 was accidentally written as Ne3. At the beginning of a chess game, neither knight can move to e3. The proper move (and the move actually made, in the picture) is Nf3. This was later corrected.

United Shapes

United Shapes

https://www.xkcd.com/1079

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1079:_United_Shapes

The United Shapes A map of things states are shaped like [Each state has some item wedged to stay inside its borders]

In this comic, each state of the United States of America has been filled-in with an object of similar shape. Several years later Randall made a new map of the US mainland 1653: United States Map , where he shuffled the positions of the states but filled out the outline. Also in this map Michigan has been split into two separate parts. (Here it is the mitten and the eagle). This comic could also be a reference to Giuseppe Arcimboldo 's portraits, which were comprised of objects such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, books, and fish. Very few, if any, of the shapes used are stereotypes of the state; they are merely objects that look like the state. Some of the objects are those which the states are widely known to resemble. For example, Michigan is represented by a mitten and an Eagle, and a pot with handle takes the place of Oklahoma (with the panhandle region of the state filled with a literal handle). Others, however, are more creative. Few would have likely pictured Texas as a dog or Alaska as a bear with a jet pack and laser gun. There are several incredibly simple objects filling some states. Kentucky is filled by a cloud, which conceivably could have been used for any state, and Wyoming, one of the nearly rectangular states, is simply an envelope. There are three pairs of states that are related. Georgia and Missouri each contain an image of the other, drawing attention to their similar shapes, North and South Dakota are the top and bottom halves of a guitar amplifier speaker cabinet , and Alabama and Mississippi are moai facing in opposite directions. Colorado contains what looks like a Wikipedia article. A close-up of the fake article is provided. The following references are made in the Colorado article: New Mexico according to official transcript is "A liquid container labeled for something of unusual and silly danger". The labeling is upside down and it refers to the nuclear testing facility White Sands Missile Range located in New Mexico for the nuclear bomb. The joke is that it presents the white sand itself as extremely hazardous. The phrase "contains chemicals known only to the state of Nevada" may be a reference to the nuclear weapons testing that occurred in Nevada (although in that case, it's not really the state of Nevada that knows those chemicals, but rather the Nevada Test Site , home of Area 51 et al .), and is also a reference to California's Proposition 65 warning label, "WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm." This end up Property of White Sands Missile Range ??? [Followed by a NFPA 704 Diamond with all divisions at severe risk, and a radiation symbol in the special notice division] Contains White Sand FLAMMABLE Warning: This product contains chemicals known only to the state of Nevada. Contents under pressure from parents If swallowed, induce labor 56 fluid ounces and 14 other ounces The title text makes fun of Florida which is sometimes called "The penis of America". Obviously, this penis is somewhat flaccid (not erect). The use of the word "state" is a pun, as it means some particular condition (flaccid state) as well as a political entity (The State of Florida). The United Shapes A map of things states are shaped like [Each state has some item wedged to stay inside its borders]

Visual Field

Visual Field

https://www.xkcd.com/1080

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1080:_Visual_Field

Your Central Visual Field [This comic contains numerous visual elements arranged around a central point, and are intended to represent locations in a sphere with the eyeball as the center. Underlaid below all of the elements are concentric circles representing degrees from straight ahead, using the eyeball's point of view, denoting where these elements would appear in someone's field of vision given proper setup. For this description, elements will be described using this grid plus location in degrees within the specified circle, placing 0 degrees to the right and going counterclockwise, separated with the word "mark".] [At the top are the instructions to view this page] Look at the center with your eyes this far from the screen. [A rolled-up sheet of paper that equals about 55 total horizontal degrees in width in the measurement of the chart.] (You can roll up a sheet of paper and cut it - or zoom the page - so it matches this image) 17 mark 0: right eye blind spot. from 0 to 30 mark 15: [The same image, increasing in absolute size from a very tiny object in the center to one about 20x original size at 30 degrees.] Detail - We only see at high resolution over a small area in the center of our vision where retinal cells are densest (the fovea). If you stare at the center of this chart, your eyes are seeing all these panels at roughly the same level of detail. 9 mark 105: Moon. 7 mark 112: Supermoon. from 0 to 20 mark 170: [Sets 3 partially overlapping circles in multiple locations along this path. Each set has a primary color in each circle and additive colors in the overlap areas, with color saturation decreasing sharply as the sets leave the center.] Color Vision: We don't see much color outside the center of our vision - our brains keep track of what color things are and fill it in for us. 17 mark 180: Left Eye Blind Spot. (not pictured: T-Boz blind spot, Chilli blind spot) From 0 to infinity mark from 180 to 205: [A swath of blue, with heavier saturation up to 5 degrees from center to fading, but never gone out to the edges of the image.] From 0 to 7 from 205 to 235: [A swath of red, with full saturation in the center and fading out completely at 7 degrees from center.] From 0 to 7 from 235 to 270: [A swath of green, with full saturation in the center and fading out completely at 7 degrees from center.] Red and green-sensitive cones are mainly limited to the center of our vision. We have few blue-sensitive cone cells, but they're found out to the edge of our vision. 25 mark 205: [A small whisp of white in a swath of blue.] Blue-sky sprites: These tiny, darting spots, visible against smooth blue backgrounds, are white cells moving in the blood vessels over the retina 5 mark 195: [A long blob, slightly distorting the blue swath.] Floaters: Some types of floaters are caused by breakdown of your eyeball goop as you age, but this type is some other kind of debris near the retina. I don't know what. 10 mark 270: [An askew crosshair and circle, with faint blue and yellow wedges inside] Humans can see polarization - Stare at a white area on an LCD display while rotating it or your head fast (use straight ahead as the axis of rotation). Polarization direction is shown by a faint central yellow blue shape (Also visible in deep blue skies) from 0 to 30 mark 340: [The same image, increasing in absolute size from a very tiny object in the center to one about 20x original size at 30 degrees. The brightness of the image varies from black at 2 mark 340, to gray at 5 mark 340, to nearly white at 10 mark 340, to slightly grayer at 20 mark 340, to medium gray at 30 mark 340.] Night Vision: Cone cells (sharp, central color vision) don't work in low light, but rod cells (monochrome, low-res, non-central) do. This is why you can walk around in dim light, but not read. It's also why you can spot fainter stars by looking next to them.

This comic shows a number of vision related facts, arranged in a way that they all fit inside your field of vision (the conic area in which you can see at any given time). You're supposed to look at the center of the image while standing about a foot away from the screen (although obviously you can't read the text on the image while staring at the center). Firstly, there's detail. The eye always sees objects closer to the center with more detail, which Randall illustrates with progressively smaller images, which are seen with the same level of detail (remember that you're supposed to be looking at the center of the image). This is because the retina is denser near the fovea , in the center. Next, there's the topic of night vision . The colour-seeing cone cells don't work so well in the dark, whereas the black-and-white-seeing rod cells do. The rod cells can see shapes well, whereas the cone cells see detail (such as change in colour), which Randall uses to explain why we can't read at night. Polarization direction can be visible when quickly changing your viewing angle. Polarization is essentially the vertical direction of waves. Light, being a wave, has a direction, and is thus polarized. Polarized lenses, for example, would have "slits" to allow only light that is polarized in a certain direction to come through (blocking the light in other directions). LCD screens operate on the principle of blocking and rotating polarized light. Floaters are deposits within the eye's vitreous humour . While normally transparent, they can occasionally cause refraction of light, making them visible, particularly on bright, blue surfaces. Randall points out that while some floaters are caused by breakdown over time, the others have a more mysterious origin. Blue sky sprites, properly known as the blue field entoptic phenomenon , are bright sprites seen over bright blue surfaces, particularly the sky. They are white blood cells moving in front of the retina . Randall also points out that colours are mostly seen near the center of our vision, with our brain keeping track of the colours of things near the outside of our visual field. The cones of blue, red and green in the third quadrant also show how red and green's sensitivity is mostly limited to the center of our vision, whereas we can see blue in a larger field of vision. Our ability to perceive saturation (the intensity of colours) is also stronger near the center of our vision. The left and right blind spot are the locations of the optic disc , where there are no sensitive rod or cone cells, making a literal "blind" spot. The mention of the "T-Boz blind spot" and "Chilli blind spot" are a reference to the R&B band TLC , whose members go by the aliases "Left eye", "T-Boz", and "Chilli". An image of the moon and a supermoon also appear in the image. A supermoon is when the moon is at its closest approach to Earth and coincides with a full moon or new moon , causing it to appear larger than normal. At the sizes Randall has drawn the two moons, the difference in size (approximately ten percent) is nigh-imperceptible to the naked eye; Randall seems to be making a comment about how supermoons aren't impressive to him. That he feels like this was already indicated in panel 25 of 1052: Every Major's Terrible and then later confirmed when he published 1394: Superm*n . Here is a list of all comics referring to the term. The "stopped clock illusion" referenced by the image text is an example of chronostasis , which is an illusion where viewing movement after changing your vision is perceived as taking a longer period of time. So when we look at a clock (which we weren't previously looking at), our field of vision has rapidly changed. The second hand on the clock thus seems to take a longer period of time to move. Your Central Visual Field [This comic contains numerous visual elements arranged around a central point, and are intended to represent locations in a sphere with the eyeball as the center. Underlaid below all of the elements are concentric circles representing degrees from straight ahead, using the eyeball's point of view, denoting where these elements would appear in someone's field of vision given proper setup. For this description, elements will be described using this grid plus location in degrees within the specified circle, placing 0 degrees to the right and going counterclockwise, separated with the word "mark".] [At the top are the instructions to view this page] Look at the center with your eyes this far from the screen. [A rolled-up sheet of paper that equals about 55 total horizontal degrees in width in the measurement of the chart.] (You can roll up a sheet of paper and cut it - or zoom the page - so it matches this image) 17 mark 0: right eye blind spot. from 0 to 30 mark 15: [The same image, increasing in absolute size from a very tiny object in the center to one about 20x original size at 30 degrees.] Detail - We only see at high resolution over a small area in the center of our vision where retinal cells are densest (the fovea). If you stare at the center of this chart, your eyes are seeing all these panels at roughly the same level of detail. 9 mark 105: Moon. 7 mark 112: Supermoon. from 0 to 20 mark 170: [Sets 3 partially overlapping circles in multiple locations along this path. Each set has a primary color in each circle and additive colors in the overlap areas, with color saturation decreasing sharply as the sets leave the center.] Color Vision: We don't see much color outside the center of our vision - our brains keep track of what color things are and fill it in for us. 17 mark 180: Left Eye Blind Spot. (not pictured: T-Boz blind spot, Chilli blind spot) From 0 to infinity mark from 180 to 205: [A swath of blue, with heavier saturation up to 5 degrees from center to fading, but never gone out to the edges of the image.] From 0 to 7 from 205 to 235: [A swath of red, with full saturation in the center and fading out completely at 7 degrees from center.] From 0 to 7 from 235 to 270: [A swath of green, with full saturation in the center and fading out completely at 7 degrees from center.] Red and green-sensitive cones are mainly limited to the center of our vision. We have few blue-sensitive cone cells, but they're found out to the edge of our vision. 25 mark 205: [A small whisp of white in a swath of blue.] Blue-sky sprites: These tiny, darting spots, visible against smooth blue backgrounds, are white cells moving in the blood vessels over the retina 5 mark 195: [A long blob, slightly distorting the blue swath.] Floaters: Some types of floaters are caused by breakdown of your eyeball goop as you age, but this type is some other kind of debris near the retina. I don't know what. 10 mark 270: [An askew crosshair and circle, with faint blue and yellow wedges inside] Humans can see polarization - Stare at a white area on an LCD display while rotating it or your head fast (use straight ahead as the axis of rotation). Polarization direction is shown by a faint central yellow blue shape (Also visible in deep blue skies) from 0 to 30 mark 340: [The same image, increasing in absolute size from a very tiny object in the center to one about 20x original size at 30 degrees. The brightness of the image varies from black at 2 mark 340, to gray at 5 mark 340, to nearly white at 10 mark 340, to slightly grayer at 20 mark 340, to medium gray at 30 mark 340.] Night Vision: Cone cells (sharp, central color vision) don't work in low light, but rod cells (monochrome, low-res, non-central) do. This is why you can walk around in dim light, but not read. It's also why you can spot fainter stars by looking next to them.

Argument Victory

Argument Victory

https://www.xkcd.com/1081

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1081:_Argument_Victory

[Cueball, looking right, is talking at his smartphone while holding it up in front of his head using both hands.] Cueball: I can't believe you're so wrong. I'm backed by Snopes, Wikipedia, and a half-dozen journals. You're citing .net pages with black backgrounds and like 20 fonts each. [A conspiracy theorist is sitting in front of this lap top at his desk looking left. He has his hair combed down. He is talking to Cueball via his laptop, probably Skyping.] Conspiracy theorist: It's sad how you buy into the official story so unquestioningly. Conspiracy theorist: Guess some people prefer to stay asleep. [Back to Cueball who has lowered his phone a bit. The reply from the conspiracy theorist is shown to come out of the phone with a jagged arrow and likewise speech bubble.] Cueball: Watch closely— I'm about to win this argument. Conspiracy theorist (reply from phone): How? [Cueball is sitting at the very top of a waterslide preparing to descend.] Cueball: By going down a waterslide . [A split panel, with a close-up of the conspiracy theorist above and below Cueball is sliding down the waterslide with both hands above his head, water splashing up behind him as he holds his smartphone above the water in one hand.] Conspiracy theorist: So? What does that prove? Cueball: Wheee.. [Another split panel, this time a smaller part is used for the close-up of the conspiracy theorist above and below Cueball has more of this panels space for sliding down to the bottom of the waterslide with both hands above his head, water still splashing up behind him as he continues to keep his smartphone above the water in one hand.] Conspiracy theorist: You didn't win the argument! Cueball: ...eeee! Cueball: Sploosh!

Cueball is arguing with a conspiracy theorist who believes in some conspiracy , who is sitting in front of his computer talking back. They are probably using Skype , FaceTime , or another video calling service, as Cueball later asks him to watch closely, holding his phone up to show the other guy what he is doing. Cueball's opponent seems to ignore all reliable sources, like Snopes and Wikipedia on top of several journals , instead preferring sources that are seemingly not credible (but that do agree with him). These conspiracy ".net" pages typically just have a black background and use several different sizes of fonts, the larger (and probably also in bright colors), the more convincing, seems to be the belief, and Cueball cannot take these kinds of sources seriously. ".net" websites can be made by anyone and have little limitations. The maker of a ".net" does not need to show sources of information or even their name. As such, ".net" websites are notoriously unreliable and often have viruses or other malware. The Truth about Black Helicopters is a (satirical) example of one such website, supposedly explaining the truth behind government "Black Helicopters". The conspiracy theorist insists that by trusting reliable sources, Cueball is simply buying into the cover-up, suggesting that all those journalists are somehow brainwashed. Cueball says he can win the argument, and will show him how, but then ceases to argue further in favor of going down a waterslide while holding up the phone to show the other guy how to have a good time. Since conspiracy theorists tend to be intransigent , Cueball sees himself as the victor after ceasing to argue with a guy who cannot be argued with, and instead decides to have some fun. This is made even more satisfying for Cueball by the fact that it makes his opponent angry. It's likely that this is also a reference to the "Your Argument is Invalid" meme. The joke here is also in the title of the comic which is Argument Victory something that is very hard to achieve by on the web... Cueball won this victory not by arguing but by stopping this argument he was having with someone that could/would not be argued with, such as going down a waterslide. The title text points out that belief in a conspiracy presupposes that those with the power to carry out the conspiracy actually have a plan, a situation which might be found more "comforting" than the alternative that those in power are just muddling through with no plan at all. This concept is revisited in 1274: Open Letter . [Cueball, looking right, is talking at his smartphone while holding it up in front of his head using both hands.] Cueball: I can't believe you're so wrong. I'm backed by Snopes, Wikipedia, and a half-dozen journals. You're citing .net pages with black backgrounds and like 20 fonts each. [A conspiracy theorist is sitting in front of this lap top at his desk looking left. He has his hair combed down. He is talking to Cueball via his laptop, probably Skyping.] Conspiracy theorist: It's sad how you buy into the official story so unquestioningly. Conspiracy theorist: Guess some people prefer to stay asleep. [Back to Cueball who has lowered his phone a bit. The reply from the conspiracy theorist is shown to come out of the phone with a jagged arrow and likewise speech bubble.] Cueball: Watch closely— I'm about to win this argument. Conspiracy theorist (reply from phone): How? [Cueball is sitting at the very top of a waterslide preparing to descend.] Cueball: By going down a waterslide . [A split panel, with a close-up of the conspiracy theorist above and below Cueball is sliding down the waterslide with both hands above his head, water splashing up behind him as he holds his smartphone above the water in one hand.] Conspiracy theorist: So? What does that prove? Cueball: Wheee.. [Another split panel, this time a smaller part is used for the close-up of the conspiracy theorist above and below Cueball has more of this panels space for sliding down to the bottom of the waterslide with both hands above his head, water still splashing up behind him as he continues to keep his smartphone above the water in one hand.] Conspiracy theorist: You didn't win the argument! Cueball: ...eeee! Cueball: Sploosh!

Geology

Geology

https://www.xkcd.com/1082

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1082:_Geology

[Two people are doing a geological survey.] Megan: Forget the bedding - we were wrong about the whole valley. Cueball: The spreading is recent. Megan: See the friction breccia? Cueball: Oh - flow cleavage! Cueball: Deeper in the rift. Megan: Deeper. [An idea pops into Megan's head.] [The same idea pops into Cueball's head.] Megan: This orogeny Cueball: is driven by a Megan: huge Cueball: thrust fault [They both drop to the ground in a fit of passion.] Geology: Surprisingly erotic.

Here we have Cueball and Megan discussing geology and the words they use are ripe with puns and double entendres which also have sexual meanings. In the end, they just decide to get it on. Specifically, the suggestive terms are " bedding ," " spreading ," " friction ," " cleavage ," "deeper in the rift ," " orogeny ," (perhaps a portmanteau of orgy and erogenous ), "huge," and " thrust ." The technical terms are: Bedding The division of usually sedimentary rocks into distinct layers. Spreading A process in which two geological regions are moving apart, and potentially allowing for magma to rise between them. Spreading occurs in mid-ocean ridges and in rift valleys . Friction breccia Breccia is a rock made of broken fragments of other rocks. When these fragments can be formed from the rubbing between rocks in a fault, it is a friction breccia. Flow cleavage The crystals in a rock can be aligned by the plastic flow of a rock when it is hot. This causes the rock to split (cleave) along particular planes. Rift A result of spreading is that rocks break, forming vertical faults, and allowing regions to sink and form valleys. Orogeny The process of mountain forming, or a period in which mountains are formed. Thrust fault A sloping crack in the rocks at which one region of rocks is pushing another up. So it seems that Megan tells Cueball to ignore the layers in the rock, as there is evidence that the valley they are in is a recent rift valley. It was formed in cracking following the lifting up of the surrounding rocks. The title text is a wordplay, as it could sound like "nice butt". Gneiss is a type of rock made up of different bands, and a butte is an isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top, but smaller than a plateau . However, "butte" is not pronounced like "butt", but as "beaut". [Two people are doing a geological survey.] Megan: Forget the bedding - we were wrong about the whole valley. Cueball: The spreading is recent. Megan: See the friction breccia? Cueball: Oh - flow cleavage! Cueball: Deeper in the rift. Megan: Deeper. [An idea pops into Megan's head.] [The same idea pops into Cueball's head.] Megan: This orogeny Cueball: is driven by a Megan: huge Cueball: thrust fault [They both drop to the ground in a fit of passion.] Geology: Surprisingly erotic.

Writing Styles

Writing Styles

https://www.xkcd.com/1083

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1083:_Writing_Styles

[This is a chart with the above two labeled columns. The rows will be represented below in the same format.] If you post: you sound like "Ron Paul is the only candidate who offers us a real choice!": A teenager "its gettin l8 so ill b here 4 prob 2 more hrs tops": A senator The internet has wound up in kind of a weird place. When this comic came out in 2012, the twitter limit was actually 140 characters. It has since doubled to 280, to allow longer messages, and due to the declining popularity of SMS.

Sms-speak is a style of communication which involves substituting numbers for letters and shortening phrases to get a longer idea across in fewer characters at the cost of readability. The practice began first with text messages, also known as SMS , or Short Message Service, which limited messages to 160 characters. Twitter has adopted a 140 character limit since its inception, which allowed any given tweet to be received as an SMS message with enough room for the user's Twitter handle (15 characters max). Randall is poking fun at both the stereotypical Senator and at teenagers supporting Ron Paul. The dig at the senator refers to poor use of sms-style abbreviations by older, less tech-savvy politicians who are hoping to appear more in tune with the modern world. Many politicians use sms-speak in cases when their message isn't in danger of the character limit, but where they are appealing to a younger demographic, thinking it makes them appear to be "modern" to their target audience. In reality, it may do the opposite, showing that they do not understand why sms-speak is used at all. Conversely modern teenagers, often stereotyped as lacking proper writing skills due to character limits on services such as SMS and twitter, instead here produce coherent sentences expressing a political view (this is later discussed in 1414: Writing Skills ). There is a subtle dig that being drawn to Ron Paul is a stereotypical political position for a teenager, as Paul is ideologically libertarian, and the implication is that libertarianism is a position held while younger and politically or economically naive. Randall has also poked fun at libertarianism on several other occasions, such as 610: Sheeple , 1026: Compare and Contrast , 1049: Bookshelf and 1277: Ayn Random . The teenager's tweet is almost identical to the stereotypical Paul-ite comment made fun of in the title text to 1026 : "Only Ron Paul offers a TRUE alternative!" A few years ago, the sentence attributed to the teenager is the sort of thing that would stereotypically be assigned to a senator, while the sentence attributed to the senator would be stereotypically assigned to a teenager - however, now the situation has changed and so Randall comments that the internet has ended up in "kind of a weird place". The title text discusses an idea that Randall approves of, originally suggested by a user on bash.org called h00k, where a twitter bot be created to message politicians when they use sms-speak unnecessarily. This would presumably embarrass said politicians, which might in turn lead to a decrease in their use of sms-speak. Randall evidently considers this a good thing, suggesting he finds the unnecessary use of sms-speak annoying. [This is a chart with the above two labeled columns. The rows will be represented below in the same format.] If you post: you sound like "Ron Paul is the only candidate who offers us a real choice!": A teenager "its gettin l8 so ill b here 4 prob 2 more hrs tops": A senator The internet has wound up in kind of a weird place. When this comic came out in 2012, the twitter limit was actually 140 characters. It has since doubled to 280, to allow longer messages, and due to the declining popularity of SMS.

Server Problem

Server Problem

https://www.xkcd.com/1084

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1084:_Server_Problem

[Cueball at his computer calls out for Megan who comes walking in to the frame.] Cueball: I, um, messed up my server again. Megan: I'll take a look. You have the weirdest tech problems. [Zoom in on only Megan who uses the root prompt on the computer.] ~# ls [Megan stands next to the computer, Cueball sits behind her on his chair. The computer returns the following:] /usr/share/Adobe/doc/example/android_vm/root/sbin/ls.jar: Error: Device is not responding. [Megan turns towards Cueball who lifts his hands with palm up.] Megan: What did you do!? Cueball: Maybe the device is busy. Should I try it later? Megan: You should shut down this system and wait for the Singularity.

Cueball has messed up his Linux server , apparently not for the first time . Megan offers to take a look at the PC, and she casually types in "ls" — a very basic command that lists the files in the current directory. The computer returns a bizarre error message — it trips over one of the simplest commands, indicating that Cueball's system is messed up. Really messed up. The /usr/share path should indicate "architecture-independent shared data". Adobe is the software company that produces Acrobat and Photoshop. Android VM would be a virtual machine for Android. The .jar extension suggests a Java-language program. None of Adobe software, Android, or Java are needed to run "ls". All of the above have nothing to do with each other, with the exception that Android applications (but not core command line utilities, like ls) are written in Java. Also, basic system executables like "ls" would never be placed within /usr/share or within some "example" or "doc" directory. On Linux, executables don't have filename extensions like ".exe" or ".jar". Core executables such as "ls" are often shipped with the operating system as binaries, so the presence of "ls.jar" suggests Cueball was attempting to unorthodoxly replace the existing executable with his own Java implementation. Additionally, it would require the folder to be within $PATH . In other words, the error message implies that the server is in a very bad state. In the last frame Megan is bewildered by this result and asks "what did you do?" . Cueball suggest a course of action which mimics a common error message: "______ is busy, please try again later." Obviously he has seen this type of message frequently enough to try it as a general cure in all similar cases (even scarier, there is a good possibility that his tech issues are so bizarre that it often works for him). Megan then tells Cueball to "shut down the system and wait for the singularity ," referring to a hypothetical future event when superintelligence can be artificially created. Since future superintelligent humans/computers transcend our comprehension, we can't predict or even understand what will happen after the singularity. One interpretation is that Megan is telling Cueball that his system is such a mess that it will take a post-singularity superintelligence to fix it (or run it in its current state, as only an intelligence beyond present comprehension would be capable of doing). It also indicates that either 1782: Team Chat or 1668: Singularity could be the sequel to this comic. The title text is yet another protip from Randall . Ray Kurzweil is an author and futurist who has talked and written much about a technological singularity . Presumably, mangling the jargon (by confusing the concept of the "singularity" with the science fiction term " cyberspace ") is something Kurzweil (as an expert) would find annoying. Also, as Randall later pointed out in 1573: Cyberintelligence , the word has not really been used for a decade... [Cueball at his computer calls out for Megan who comes walking in to the frame.] Cueball: I, um, messed up my server again. Megan: I'll take a look. You have the weirdest tech problems. [Zoom in on only Megan who uses the root prompt on the computer.] ~# ls [Megan stands next to the computer, Cueball sits behind her on his chair. The computer returns the following:] /usr/share/Adobe/doc/example/android_vm/root/sbin/ls.jar: Error: Device is not responding. [Megan turns towards Cueball who lifts his hands with palm up.] Megan: What did you do!? Cueball: Maybe the device is busy. Should I try it later? Megan: You should shut down this system and wait for the Singularity.

ContextBot

ContextBot

https://www.xkcd.com/1085

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1085:_ContextBot

[A social network feed with four status updates from four different people with profile picture. Each status has an arrow going down and right to a reply underneath them, all from the same account, which is called ContextBot. It also has a profile picture with three people standing behind a see-through material with a hole in it. The person on the left is not behind the part with hole and is thus completely greyed out. The other two only have their legs covered, the rest is thus not greyed out because it is behind the hole. The left is a Cueball, the middle may have glasses, and the right has hair. Below them is a black band in which the name ContextBot is written in white.] Close-up face with hair and glasses: The things I put up with... ContextBot: (His building's WiFi doesn't reach the bathroom.) Cueball and Megan holding each other: You'd think by now I'd have learned never to trust anyone. ContextBot: (She downloaded a torrent that turned out to be an encrypted .rar and a link to a survey.) Blondie: I officially give up. ContextBot: (She hit alt-tab to hide Minecraft at work and accidentally dropped a stack of diamond into lava.) Hairy: Sighhhh ContextBot: (He thought these grapes were seedless.) [Caption below the panel] Everyone stopped complaining about Google's data-gathering when they launched ContextBot, a system which replies to vague, enigmatic social network posts with context from the poster's life.

This comic is a commentary on the practice of "vaguebooking" or "vaguetweeting" , which is posting a short message of sadness or frustration without context. This is frustrating and emotionally trying to readers because it implies something serious has happened that requires friends to provide emotional support, but may also be something trivial, and with no context it is impossible to determine whether one should worry or not. Google has been criticized more than a few times for keeping rather extensive data records on its users, who by this point constitute most of the internet, enough to cause serious damage if Google wasn't historically altruistic (as altruistic as a for-profit company can be). In the comic, ContextBot is a fictitious Google invention which puts context for these statuses, presumably based on all that personal data which Google has collected: As noted by the subtitle, ContextBot is considered a great good by everyone who was sick of vaguebooking. This also redeems Google's practice of all those data records in the public's eye. In the ContextBot's avatar image, three people can be seen together hanging out. But the image is about to be cropped, leaving out the third person and therefore giving the impression that the two people in the cropped image are there without that person. This demonstrates how context is important to understanding a situation. The title text refers to the cryptic ways in which someone with sensitive information must communicate. While most vaguebooking/vaguetweeting is about things of little importance, the title text implies that the things not mentioned impact national/global security. This implies that many tweets may actually be related to high-clearance military and or national security information, but must be vague in order to keep it secret, and if you take that as the context, then the internet suddenly becomes much more exciting. [A social network feed with four status updates from four different people with profile picture. Each status has an arrow going down and right to a reply underneath them, all from the same account, which is called ContextBot. It also has a profile picture with three people standing behind a see-through material with a hole in it. The person on the left is not behind the part with hole and is thus completely greyed out. The other two only have their legs covered, the rest is thus not greyed out because it is behind the hole. The left is a Cueball, the middle may have glasses, and the right has hair. Below them is a black band in which the name ContextBot is written in white.] Close-up face with hair and glasses: The things I put up with... ContextBot: (His building's WiFi doesn't reach the bathroom.) Cueball and Megan holding each other: You'd think by now I'd have learned never to trust anyone. ContextBot: (She downloaded a torrent that turned out to be an encrypted .rar and a link to a survey.) Blondie: I officially give up. ContextBot: (She hit alt-tab to hide Minecraft at work and accidentally dropped a stack of diamond into lava.) Hairy: Sighhhh ContextBot: (He thought these grapes were seedless.) [Caption below the panel] Everyone stopped complaining about Google's data-gathering when they launched ContextBot, a system which replies to vague, enigmatic social network posts with context from the poster's life.

Eyelash Wish Log

Eyelash Wish Log

https://www.xkcd.com/1086

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1086:_Eyelash_Wish_Log

Eyelash Wish Log Wish bureau ID#: 21118378 Date range: Jan-Apr 2012 [a picture of Black Hat is above text saying Wisher] Date Wish Jan 09 That wishing on eyelashes worked Jan 12 A pony Jan 15 Unlimited wishes Jan 19 Revocation of rules prohibiting unlimited wishes Jan 20 A finite but arbitrarily large number of wishes Jan 28 The power to dictate the rules governing wishes Feb 05 Unlimited eyelashes Feb 06 That wish-granting entities be required to interpret wishes in accordance with the intent of the wisher Feb 08 That wish-granting entities be incapable of impatience Feb 12 Unlimited breadsticks Feb 12 Veto power over others' wishes Feb 19 Veto power over others' wishes and all congressional legislation Feb 23 The power to override any veto Feb 27 The power to see where any shortened URL goes without clicking Feb 29 The power to control the direction news anchors are looking while they talk Mar 07 The power to introduce arbitrary error into Nate Silver's predictions Mar 15 A house of stairs Mar 23 A universe which is a replica of this one sans rules against meta-wishes Mar 29 Free transportation to and from that universe Apr 02 A clear explanation of how wish rules are structured and enforced Apr 07 The power to banish people into the TV show they're talking about Apr 08 Zero wishes Apr 15 Veto power over clocks Apr 22 A Pokéball that works on strangers' pets

This comic is based on a common superstition that when someone's eyelash falls out, that person can make a wish on it. This comic appears to be a page from the fictitious Wish Bureau in charge of granting said wishes. And of course the wisher is Black Hat and he has quite a few wishes, most of them based on the previous wish. A common trope in fiction is that wishing for more wishes is prohibited and for many of his wishes Black Hat attempts to circumvent that. January 9 That wishing on eyelashes worked This wish is pointless. If wishing on eyelashes worked, then this would do absolutely nothing (because it already works) and if it didn't then nothing would happen because wishing on eyelashes wouldn't work. January 12 A pony This wish functions as a test to see whether or not previous wish worked. It can be assumed that it did, as Black Hat then continued to make additional wishes. Wishing for a pony is a stereotypical wish made by very young girls; since Black Hat is an adult man (with a very dark sense of humor), the contrast is humorous. January 15 Unlimited wishes This appears to have failed, due to the traditional ban on wishing for additional wishes in conventional folklore. January 19 Revocation of rules prohibiting unlimited wishes An attempt to circumvent the ban in the previous wish by wishing the ban away. January 20 A finite but arbitrarily large number of wishes Another attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes by asking for a number of wishes that is limited, but as large as he likes (and there are some very large finite numbers out there, such as Graham's number ). January 28 The power to dictate the rules governing wishes Yet another attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes. February 5 Unlimited eyelashes This wish likely caused Black Hat to grow unlimited eyelashes, which could be quite inconvenient and painful. And, yes, one more attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes. February 6 That wish-granting entities be required to interpret wishes in accordance with the intent of the wisher This wish is likely a response to the previous day's misguided wish. It's actually quite a common problem that people making wishes leave them open for misinterpretation. February 8 That wish-granting entities be incapable of impatience An attempt to prevent whatever being is powerful enough to grant wishes from becoming angry with Black Hat while he gives very specific instructions so wish-granting entities cannot misinterpret what he said. (It would appear that the previous wish failed.) February 12 #1 Unlimited breadsticks The first wish of this day seems to be a reference to the unlimited breadsticks offered at Olive Garden . February 12 #2 Veto power over others' wishes A power that could be interesting to have. It also very much fits with Black Hat's character. February 19 Veto power over others' wishes and all congressional legislation An improvement of the previous wish. This would be very interesting to have indeed, especially if you are Black Hat, because you could veto any federal law, a power normally entrusted only to the President of the United States . February 23 The power to override any veto This wish would allow Black Hat to override vetoes which in addition to the previous wish would effectively make him control the US legislature and, to some extent, also all other governing bodies. (Notably the UN , where the veto powers wielded by the five permanent members of the Security Council cannot be overridden and can have large impacts on global politics.) Note that it will not allow him to turn laws off (veto them) and on again (override the veto) at any moment, as once a bill becomes law it cannot be vetoed. Without the ability to propose legislation, Black Hat's powers are still limited. The wish may also refer back to the February 19 wish: by granting himself veto power over wishes, Black Hat just made vetoes more powerful than wishes; now he is trying to control other people's vetoes as well, lest they one-up him. February 27 The power to see where any shortened URL goes without clicking This wish relates to a common practice especially in tweets or other short length media where full-length meaningful web addresses such as www.somewhere.com/articles/specificdate/title-of-the-page.html would not be feasible. So a more compressed but nonsensical string of seemingly random characters is used which links to a link of the full text address. This creates some problems for people who are security or privacy conscious and prefer to be informed beforehand where they will be traveling on the Internet. The use of shortened URLs is also central to many types of trolls or practical jokes (see bit.ly/IqT6zt for an example), by directing someone to a different location than the link would initially suggest. Thus Black Hat might be wishing to be able to tell where the links go for the purpose of avoiding this sort of trolling. February 29 The power to control the direction news anchors are looking while they talk This wish likely appeals to Black Hat's mischievous side, allowing him to cause news anchors to look at the wrong camera during live broadcast. Repeatedly switching to the incorrect camera would cause havoc in the studio. Additionally, Black Hat may also attempt to get a news anchor fired by having them stare where they should not such as a female anchor's breasts. March 7 The power to introduce arbitrary error into Nate Silver's predictions A reference to Nate Silver , who is a former writer for Baseball Prospectus working on predicting baseball players' stats and now writes for Five Thirty Eight in which he predicts the outcome of elections based on polling data. Influencing Nate Silver's predictions would allow Black Hat to indirectly influence the result of elections, by adjusting the Overton window of which candidates and policies are considered to have "broad public support" or "electability" or the like. This would tighten the Black Hat's control of the US even more. March 15 A house of stairs This wish refers to the lithograph House of Stairs by M. C. Escher , or perhaps another of his lithographs, Relativity . March 23 A universe which is a replica of this one sans rules against meta-wishes Another attempt to circumvent the rules against wishing for more wishes by creating a parallel universe without such rules. March 29 Free transportation to and from that universe While the previous wish may have worked, Black Hat notes a problem with it: he is still in our universe with no way to get to his new one. April 2 A clear explanation of how wish rules are structured and enforced It appears that one or both of the previous two wishes failed, so Black Hat tries to discover exactly what is offending the Bureau. Having clear rules and how they work helps anyone finding loopholes in them. April 7 The power to banish people into the TV show they are talking about Black hat is obviously fed up of hearing people talking about certain TV shows, and would like to be able to banish them into the show, thus prevent him having to listen to those people. Depending on the show in question, it could be quite horrifying for the person getting banished. April 8 Zero wishes An attempt to hack the wish-granting system by using a quite common vulnerability in input validation: an unexpected value. There may be multiple vectors this can work: in many computer systems, 0 is reserved for unlimited or undefined in Assembly languages, do-while loops are more efficient than while loops, but famously do not check their condition on the first iteration. This means that 0 is effectively 256 for 8 bit counters, 65536 for 16 bits, etc. If the wish granter wrote the wish laws in assembly and used this optimization, initializing the wish count to zero would give him a large number of wishes dependent on the size of the counter. the number may be used as a divisor in some equation and this will make the system divide by zero and probably crash there also may be an assertion like " number of wishes granted == 1 " which would fail, again crashing the system similarly, if viewed as a computer system, it is possible that the wish decrement (subtracting 1 from the number of remaining wishes) is performed after the wish is granted, thus resulting in either −1 wishes (another common placeholder for unlimited numbers), or an integer overflow if the wish counter is stored as an unsigned integer; the overflow can result in an exception, otherwise −1 becomes represented as one less than the size of the integer – basically, an extremely large number. However it seems the eyelash wish-granting system does proper input validation on zero because it did not crash or grant unlimited wishes This wish may also be a reversal of the January 9 wish. Black Hat is attempting to win his game by introducing a logical contradiction : if he gets "zero wishes", this is one wish granted; however, if it is not granted, then, de facto, he will have been granted zero wishes. This is a common technique used in logical proofs to show that an earlier assumption does not hold (in this case, the possibility of eyelash wishing to work). April 15 Veto power over clocks Midnight, April 15 is the deadline for filing income tax returns in the United States. It may also be that Black Hat, now in control of all human legislation, is attempting to extend this to further control also rules of nature – in this case: time. The strange wording is likely to be due to Black Hat having consulted with the wish-hacking manual he acquired April 2. April 22 A Pokéball that works on strangers' pets A reference to the Pokémon series of video games. A Pokéball can be thrown at a Pokémon (or in this case, a pet that the Pokéball thrower finds either annoying or cute) to capture it and achieve ownership of it. Unless cheats are used (and in Pokémon Colosseum , in which a criminal organisation uses illegally modified pokeballs), Pokéballs cannot be used on Pokémon owned by other people in the Pokémon games . Many players wish to obtain the often high-level Pokémon of NPCs, and Black Hat may also be interested in pranking other players by stealing their powerful Pokémon. This was later revealed to be one of Randall's wishes in the title text of 1705: Pokémon Go . The title text, a wish to have control over coefficients of friction during sporting events, is yet another mischievous wish. The coefficients of friction, though usually not noticed as they are unchanging, are all-important when performing physical activities — imagine trying to play hockey on a field of sandpaper or sprinting over a sheet of ice. In addition to the difficulty going where you want or getting any balls that might be in play where you want them to go in a changing friction environment, angular momentum would also be very difficult to control. Note that when Black Hat makes meta-wishes no follow-up wishes are logged. Since the meta-wishes failed, no valid eyelash wish condition existed and the illegal test wishes were not logged in the eyelash wish log. Eyelash Wish Log Wish bureau ID#: 21118378 Date range: Jan-Apr 2012 [a picture of Black Hat is above text saying Wisher] Date Wish Jan 09 That wishing on eyelashes worked Jan 12 A pony Jan 15 Unlimited wishes Jan 19 Revocation of rules prohibiting unlimited wishes Jan 20 A finite but arbitrarily large number of wishes Jan 28 The power to dictate the rules governing wishes Feb 05 Unlimited eyelashes Feb 06 That wish-granting entities be required to interpret wishes in accordance with the intent of the wisher Feb 08 That wish-granting entities be incapable of impatience Feb 12 Unlimited breadsticks Feb 12 Veto power over others' wishes Feb 19 Veto power over others' wishes and all congressional legislation Feb 23 The power to override any veto Feb 27 The power to see where any shortened URL goes without clicking Feb 29 The power to control the direction news anchors are looking while they talk Mar 07 The power to introduce arbitrary error into Nate Silver's predictions Mar 15 A house of stairs Mar 23 A universe which is a replica of this one sans rules against meta-wishes Mar 29 Free transportation to and from that universe Apr 02 A clear explanation of how wish rules are structured and enforced Apr 07 The power to banish people into the TV show they're talking about Apr 08 Zero wishes Apr 15 Veto power over clocks Apr 22 A Pokéball that works on strangers' pets

Cirith Ungol

Cirith Ungol

https://www.xkcd.com/1087

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1087:_Cirith_Ungol

[A character in a long flowing robe holds up the Phial of Galadriel in one hand; the One Ring is dangling from a necklace in the other. The scene is a cave, profuse with spiderwebs, bones hanging in some of them. On one of the webs are words, presumably written by the spider.] SOME PIG

This comic is a mash-up between the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the novel Charlotte's Web . The title Cirith Ungol is a reference to Lord of the Rings where Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee were led to Cirith Ungol by Gollum and to the lair of the ancient spider Shelob . And therefore in this comic, Frodo (by himself, recognizable because he is holding the Phial of Galadriel and the One Ring ) is being led into the lair of the spider, Charlotte. We can tell by the "Some Pig" writing in the spider web on the lower right hand corner which is a direct reference to the story of Charlotte's Web , in which a spider named Charlotte writes the very same text in her web. The title text refers to syntactic ambiguity which is a property of sentences which may be reasonably interpreted in more than one way, or reasonably interpreted to mean more than one thing. This allows us to derive two different meanings from the same sentence. The second part of the title text is a quote from Wikipedia, which Randall enjoys for its syntactic ambiguity, as it can be logically interpreted in either of the following ways: [A character in a long flowing robe holds up the Phial of Galadriel in one hand; the One Ring is dangling from a necklace in the other. The scene is a cave, profuse with spiderwebs, bones hanging in some of them. On one of the webs are words, presumably written by the spider.] SOME PIG

Five Years

Five Years

https://www.xkcd.com/1088

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1088:_Five_Years

[Hairbun and Beret Guy sit across from each other at a desk.] Hairbun : Where do you see yourself in five years? Beret Guy: Oh man, I don't know! Let's find out! [The characters stare at one another.] [Cobwebs and hair grow; the desk and chairs fall into disrepair.] [Five years pass.] Beret Guy: Hah— Beret Guy: I thought so!

This comic is a take on the common and cliched job interview question here asked by Hairbun : Where do you see yourself in 5 years. The interviewer is attempting to see where the job seeker would like to take their career and also what their hopes and dreams are etc. In the comic, instead of explaining where he would like to be in 5 years, Beret Guy and the interviewer wait around for 5 years without moving to find out. And as Beret Guy expected they stayed exactly where they were. (This could be suggesting that most people do not change much over five years.) The title text is a continuation of their conversation in which Beret Guy turns down the job because he wants to find out what happened in the last 5 years while they were both sitting in that room. Given Beret Guy's ability to manipulate reality ( 1099: Tuesdays ), it's possible he froze himself and the interviewer for 5 years or sped up time to ensure that 5 years would pass quickly enough that the interviewer could not react and affect the experiment. Other job interviews were portrayed in 125: Marketing Interview , 1094: Interview , 1293: Job Interview and 1545: Strengths and Weaknesses . [Hairbun and Beret Guy sit across from each other at a desk.] Hairbun : Where do you see yourself in five years? Beret Guy: Oh man, I don't know! Let's find out! [The characters stare at one another.] [Cobwebs and hair grow; the desk and chairs fall into disrepair.] [Five years pass.] Beret Guy: Hah— Beret Guy: I thought so!

Internal Monologue

Internal Monologue

https://www.xkcd.com/1089

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1089:_Internal_Monologue

[The scene is a party. Two characters are talking - the entirety of the text is a thought bubble of one of the two.] Cueball: Am I smiling enough? Should I be leaning on something? Where should my hands go? I hope he doesn't ask me what his name is. I've said "yeah" too much; what are some other agreeing words? Oh crap, his story just got sad stop smiling stop smiling

Cueball attempts social interaction at what looks like a party owing to the fact that several people have drinks in their hands. His internal monologue is just Cueball trying to make sure he is doing the right things in the conversation, reacting appropriately, and not saying "yeah" too much. The title text is a continuation of the internal monologue. This is common case of anxiety for people who are usually not very skilled in navigating social situations like parties. It can become a vicious cycle in which the fear of handling the encounter badly makes one even more uncomfortable, which in turn results in behaviour as awkward as first feared. Also, for some people it's common to want to map out a pre-planned course of action that should produce desired results, a strategy that is usually doomed to failure when dealing with sufficiently complex and unpredictable scenarios like conversations with other people. This painful, and all too common, situation has been mined for comedic effect since the beginning of human civilization [ citation needed ] . [The scene is a party. Two characters are talking - the entirety of the text is a thought bubble of one of the two.] Cueball: Am I smiling enough? Should I be leaning on something? Where should my hands go? I hope he doesn't ask me what his name is. I've said "yeah" too much; what are some other agreeing words? Oh crap, his story just got sad stop smiling stop smiling

Formal Languages

Formal Languages

https://www.xkcd.com/1090

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1090:_Formal_Languages

[A large banner is hanging over a podium, where a speaker (Megan) is standing behind a lectern. Cueball crashes through the left side of the panel, scattering glass.] Banner. 10th Annual Symposium on Formal Languages Crash [Cueball stops in front of Megan spreads out his hands and shouts:] Cueball: Grammar! [Cueball then runs off the right side of the panel, so swiftly he leaves a cloud of dust in his wake. Megan at the podium just looks after him silently.]

This joke is a play on the phrase context-free grammar , which is a technical term used in formal language theory. Cueball crashes Megan's speech on formal language theory, nonsensically shouts "Grammar!" without any context, and runs off. Because the gag is delivered in a particularly obtuse manner, the title text clears things up by having the confused audience mention "missing context", thus having them unwittingly explain the joke. The concept of context-free grammar is incredibly nuanced and nigh impossible to rephrase in layman's terms. Luckily, the joke only interprets the phrase "context-free grammar" literally, so no understanding of the actual subject is required. A context-free grammar can be described as a dictionary, translating single symbols to one or multiple symbols, who then are replaced again, until no further replacements are possible. If a string of symbols adheres to this grammar, it can be reconstructed solely by following these kind of orders. [A large banner is hanging over a podium, where a speaker (Megan) is standing behind a lectern. Cueball crashes through the left side of the panel, scattering glass.] Banner. 10th Annual Symposium on Formal Languages Crash [Cueball stops in front of Megan spreads out his hands and shouts:] Cueball: Grammar! [Cueball then runs off the right side of the panel, so swiftly he leaves a cloud of dust in his wake. Megan at the podium just looks after him silently.]

Curiosity

Curiosity

https://www.xkcd.com/1091

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1091:_Curiosity

[The Curiosity rover is lowered onto the Mars surface by a Sky Crane.] Your excuse for anything today: "Sorry- I was up all night trying to download photos taken by a robot lowered onto Mars by a Skycrane."

This comic is a reference to the NASA Mars Rover "Curiosity" landing on Mars on August 5, 2012 at 10:31pm PDT (August 6, 2012 at 5:31am GMT). NASA live-streamed the landing, but demand for the feed caused server issues. Thus, the time spent trying to download the landing images could be used as an excuse for things such as being late for work, falling asleep during the day, or just about anything demanding one's attention. The title text is a reference to torrents , which are a more resilient peer-to-peer file-sharing method, due to the decentralized BitTorrent protocol, where the more people there are downloading a file, the more available it is. The name is a play on the file naming convention of release groups who name their files (typically for films or television shows) containing data on the file; source (CAM = Camera capture), language (SwEsUb = Swedish subtitles), source (DVDRip = Ripped from DVD), encoding (XviD = XviD codec) and group name ( aXXo = aXXo, a well known DVD movie release group). Given that the filename is loaded with keywords that are irrelevant for a still image file, it is unlikely that this torrent will contain the expected pictures. The first images received from Curiosity via the Odyssey orbiter were low-resolution thumbnails taken from the rover's rear-facing camera, thus the file name CURIOSITY-REAR-CAM_[256px_x_256px]. [The Curiosity rover is lowered onto the Mars surface by a Sky Crane.] Your excuse for anything today: "Sorry- I was up all night trying to download photos taken by a robot lowered onto Mars by a Skycrane."

Michael Phelps

Michael Phelps

https://www.xkcd.com/1092

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1092:_Michael_Phelps

[Megan and Cueball standing outside their en-Phelps-ified swimming pool.] Cueball: Why is Michael Phelps in your backyard pool? Megan: I don't know. He's been there all day. Go home, Michael! Michael Phelps: Woo! 18 gold medals! [Megan and Cueball break out a pair of pool nets and unsuccessfully try to snag Phelps.] Cueball: Can you get him? Megan: He's so fast ! Phelps: Ha hah! Can't catch me! Splash splash [Cueball heads off to fetch something.] [Cueball returns with a hand truck full of Jello mix.] Phelps: Oh crap.

Michael Phelps is an American Olympic swimmer, who could easily be considered the best swimmer worldwide: he is the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, with 28 medals, 23 of them gold (won in the 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 summer Olympics, so it would have been 18 Olympic gold medals at the time the comic was published). He was most dominant in the 2008 Beijing Olympics where he won gold in all of the eight events in which he competed, the record for a single games. Cueball and Megan find that the Olympic medalist is in Megan's pool. He refuses to leave, and is too fast to be caught. Cueball brings in boxes of Jello Mix to fill the pool with, thereby gelifying the pool and trapping Phelps or forcing him to leave. However, according to the title text, after having waited the time necessary for the water to gelify, Cueball realizes that Phelps has eaten all of the resulting Jello. This may be a reference to Phelps being used to eating impressive food quantities (about 12,000 calories daily) , to keep up with his strenuous exercise regimen; or it may be a reference to pictures of Phelps smoking from a bong that arose after the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, as Marijuana use is often associated with an increased appetite. Otherwise, the text may simply be a reference to Phelps being capable of achieving super-human feats, such as devouring an entire pool full of Jello. Interestingly enough, just pouring Jello powder into a pool would not solidify the water into Jello. The water would have to be boiled, then quickly chilled, for the Jello to set correctly. As Randall is a scientist, he should have known this; therefore, it's possible that he purposefully ignored this fact in favor of the humor. Michael Phelps' top speed is also only around 2.3 m/s, which can easily be outrun by anyone on land. [Megan and Cueball standing outside their en-Phelps-ified swimming pool.] Cueball: Why is Michael Phelps in your backyard pool? Megan: I don't know. He's been there all day. Go home, Michael! Michael Phelps: Woo! 18 gold medals! [Megan and Cueball break out a pair of pool nets and unsuccessfully try to snag Phelps.] Cueball: Can you get him? Megan: He's so fast ! Phelps: Ha hah! Can't catch me! Splash splash [Cueball heads off to fetch something.] [Cueball returns with a hand truck full of Jello mix.] Phelps: Oh crap.

Forget

Forget

https://www.xkcd.com/1093

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1093:_Forget

When Will We Forget? Based on US Census Bureau National Population Projections Assuming we don't remember cultural events from before age 5 or 6 By this year: The majority of Americans will be too young to remember: 2012: The seventies 2013: The Carter presidency 2014: The Reagan shooting 2015: The Falkland Islands war 2016: The return of the Jedi release 2017: The first Apple Macintosh 2018: New Coke 2019: Challenger 2020: Chernobyl 2021: Black Monday 2022: The Reagan presidency 2023: The Berlin Wall 2024: HammerTime 2025: The Soviet Union 2026: The LA Riots 2027: Lorena Bobbit 2028: The Forrest Gump release 2029: The Rwanda Genocide 2030: OJ Simpson's Trial 2031: Clinton's reelection 2032: Princess Diana 2033: Clinton's impeachment 2034: Columbine 2035: Forgot About Dre 2036: 9/11 2037: VH1's I love the 80s 2038: A time before Facebook 2039: VH1's I love the 90s 2040: Hurricane Katrina 2041: The planet Pluto 2042: The first iPhone 2043: The Bush presidency 2044: Michael Jackson 2045: Trying to say ´´Eyjafjallajökull`` 2046: The Arab Spring 2047: Anything embarrassing you do today The very popular YouTuber Vsauce put this chart in a video called “This Is Not Yellow”, and it got almost twenty million views.

The median age in USA is currently about 37 years. Assuming that you must be at least five years old to remember a cultural event later, this means that anything that happened more than thirty-two years ago is remembered by a minority of people today. This applies to any event prior to 1980, so here in 2012, the majority of Americans are too young to remember the Seventies. However, according to census estimation the median will raise in the future, so instead of a 32 years gap between event and the moment when most people can't remember it, the gap becomes 35 years (implying a median of some 40 years). 2013: The Carter presidency Jimmy Carter was the President of the United States from 1977-1981. He lost all popularity after he was viewed as mishandling several crises during his presidency, including the Three Mile Island accident , the Iran hostage crisis , and the " stagflation " of the late 1970s. According to Wikipedia, his decisions to reinstate registration for the draft and his decision to boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow (over the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) helped contribute to his defeat in the 1980 Presidential campaign. 2014: The Reagan shooting References the 1981 assassination attempt on the then American president, Ronald Reagan . 2015: The Falkland Islands War This is in reference to the brief outbreak of hostilities between the UK and Argentina over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) located off the shore of Argentina claimed by both but controlled by the UK. Even to this date, tensions remain high over the ownership of these islands, and while many people alive today weren't alive to witness it, it nevertheless remains present in the collective psyche of both nations. 2016: Return of the Jedi release Return of the Jedi was the 3rd film in the original Star Wars trilogy, released in 1983. 2017: The first Apple Macintosh The Macintosh was a line of computers created by Apple , first introduced in 1984, with the Macintosh 128K . 2018: New Coke References a public relations blunder that the Coca-Cola corporation undertook in attempting to reformulate its cola recipe, the new formula called New Coke popularly. The public backlash so shook the company that they reintroduced the original recipe as Coca-Cola Classic within 3 months. New Coke was eventually rebranded from Coca-Cola to Coke II, and then discontinued. Coca-Cola Classic has quietly been rebranded back to simply Coca-Cola, as it originally was. The "New Coke" introduction is considered one of the biggest PR blunders from a major company ever. 2019: Challenger The Challenger was a Space Shuttle orbiter , which was launched in 1986, but exploded 72 seconds into its flight, killing everyone aboard, including Christa McAuliffe , a teacher selected to be the first teacher in space. 2020: Chernobyl Refers to the 1986 meltdown of a nuclear power plant in the Ukranian SSR (then a part of the Soviet Union). The meltdown forced the nearby city of Pripyat to be abandoned, and it remains a ghost town today. 2021: Black Monday Refers to the 1987 day of the largest one-day stock market drop in history. 2022: The Reagan presidency Ronald Reagan was an American president from 1981 to 1989, and was a generally well received president known for ending the Cold War, oversaw the Iran–Contra affair , invading Grenada , and issuing forth a number of new economic policies . 2023: The Berlin Wall Refers to the barrier surrounding the Anglo-French-controlled part of Berlin . It was erected by the East German Government in 1961 to stop illegal emigration to West Berlin (an enclave of West Germany ) after the end of the Second World War. After a friendly revolution in 1989, emigration to West Berlin (and West Germany in general) was granted suddenly and very surprisingly again on November 9, 1989. The following rush of people to the Wall from East (to cross the border) and from West (to welcome friends and relatives) in that night coined the figurative "Fall of the Wall", preceding the actual reunion of Germany in 1990 and (almost) complete demolition of the Wall. 2024: HammerTime Refers to a refrain in MC Hammer's 1990 hit song U Can't Touch This ; Randall Munroe makes reference to this song elsewhere in his comics, too (specifically 108: M.C. Hammer Slide and 210: 90's Flowchart ). 2025: The Soviet Union Refers to a country emerging after the end of World War I . It became the cold-war adversary of the United States after the end of World War II and only collapsed in 1991. 2026: The LA Riots Refers to the massive riots occurring at the release of the verdict acquitting the officers accused of the Rodney King beatings in 1992. 2027: Lorena Bobbit Refers to the woman who emasculated her husband in 1993. 2028: The Forrest Gump release Forrest Gump was a 1994 drama starring Tom Hanks as a mentally disabled man, telling his spectacular life story. The movie had a highly successful release, and some consider it one of the greatest films of all time. 2029: The Rwanda Genocide Refers to the 1994 Rwandan genocide , where an estimated 800,000 people were killed. 2030: OJ Simpson's Trial The O.J. Simpson trial was a famous criminal case during which O.J. Simpson , a professional football player, was acquitted of the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman . He was later arrested and jailed for other crimes, including armed robbery and kidnapping. 2031: Clinton's reelection Bill Clinton was the American president from 1993 to 2001. He won his second term in the 1996 presidential election . During his second term, he faced controversy during an impeachment trial, for which he was acquitted, and a large number of pardons he made on his last day of office. Clinton was a generally favoured president, exiting his presidency with a high approval rate. 2032: Princess Diana Princess Diana was a famous Commonwealth princess who made headlines after her 1997 death in a car crash. 2033: Clinton's impeachment In 1998, the American Congress voted to impeach then-president Clinton, based on allegations that he lied about relations with a White House intern . He was later acquitted. 2034: Columbine Refers to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre , where 13 people were killed by a pair of shooters . 2035: Forgot About Dre Refers to the Grammy winning 2000 song, " Forgot About Dre ," by the rapper Dr. Dre . In it, Dre complains that his accomplishments have been purposefully ignored and forgotten; ironically, at some point in the future Dre's complaints about being forgotten will, themselves, be forgotten. 2036: 9/11 Refers to the September 11 attacks in 2001, where terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center towers, in New York City . Two other planes crashed that day: one into the The Pentagon , and one in a field outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania (presumably on its way to crashing into the Capitol Building). 2037: VH1's I love the 80s I Love the '80s was a 2002 nostalgia TV series by VH1 . This will make the 1980s doubly forgotten; not only will people not remember the decade, they will not remember the famous retrospective of people remembering the decade. 2038: A time before Facebook Refers to the online social media site, Facebook , launched in 2004. 2039: VH1's I love the 90s I Love the '90s was a TV series airing in 2004. 2040: Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a devastating 2005 hurricane that hit New Orleans , killing almost 2000 people and causing 81 billion dollars in damage. 2041: The planet Pluto Pluto is a dwarf planet in our solar system. Up until 2006, Pluto was considered to be a planet. 2042: The first iPhone Apple 's first iPhone was released in 2007. 2043: The Bush presidency George W. Bush was the American president from 2001 to 2009. He was criticized for the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq , poor handling of Hurricane Katrina, and seeing the United States enter a recession. His approval peaked after the 9/11 attacks, but had fallen to historical lows by the end of his second term, making him one of the least liked US presidents. 2044: Michael Jackson Refers to the pop singer who died of drug overdose in 2009. 2045: Trying to say Eyjafjallajökull Is a reference to a volcano in Iceland that erupted in 2010. The eruption threw volcanic ash several kilometres up in the atmosphere, which led to air travel disruption in northwest Europe for six days. 2046: The Arab Spring Refers to the wave of revolutions that began in late 2010, where many Arabic nations overthrew leaders and started civil wars, with many nations converting to democracies. 2047: Anything embarrassing you do today Refers to the fact that in 35 years, the majority of Americans will not have been around on this date. However, it is to be noted that it would have to be something very embarassing for anyone more than people around or friends to notice. Usually, embarassing actions by an individual (non-celebrity) that aren't notable in some way don't end up being noticed, much less on the news. [ citation needed ] The title text is in reference to the vastly over-saturated programming on VH1 dedicated to the history of the TV universe. When Will We Forget? Based on US Census Bureau National Population Projections Assuming we don't remember cultural events from before age 5 or 6 By this year: The majority of Americans will be too young to remember: 2012: The seventies 2013: The Carter presidency 2014: The Reagan shooting 2015: The Falkland Islands war 2016: The return of the Jedi release 2017: The first Apple Macintosh 2018: New Coke 2019: Challenger 2020: Chernobyl 2021: Black Monday 2022: The Reagan presidency 2023: The Berlin Wall 2024: HammerTime 2025: The Soviet Union 2026: The LA Riots 2027: Lorena Bobbit 2028: The Forrest Gump release 2029: The Rwanda Genocide 2030: OJ Simpson's Trial 2031: Clinton's reelection 2032: Princess Diana 2033: Clinton's impeachment 2034: Columbine 2035: Forgot About Dre 2036: 9/11 2037: VH1's I love the 80s 2038: A time before Facebook 2039: VH1's I love the 90s 2040: Hurricane Katrina 2041: The planet Pluto 2042: The first iPhone 2043: The Bush presidency 2044: Michael Jackson 2045: Trying to say ´´Eyjafjallajökull`` 2046: The Arab Spring 2047: Anything embarrassing you do today The very popular YouTuber Vsauce put this chart in a video called “This Is Not Yellow”, and it got almost twenty million views.

Interview

Interview

https://www.xkcd.com/1094

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1094:_Interview

[Black Hat is interviewed by Hairy.] Hairy: ...but thank you for applying. We'll keep your résumé on file. [Black Hat pushes a suitcase over the table.] Black Hat: Perhaps this could change your mind? [Hairy opens the suitcase.] Click [Hairy lifts open the top.] [Camera pans over the suitcase to reveal a deep hole.] [Camera zooms into the hole.] [Hairy is falling into the hole.] Hairy: AAAAAA [Hairy falls into a chair with the suitcase falling on his lap.] THUMP [Hairy is dazed, and is being interviewed by Black Hat.] Black Hat: ...but thank you for applying. We'll keep your résumé on file. [Hairy looks confused.] Hairy: !??! [Hairy looks at the suitcase.] [Hairy pushes the suitcase over the table.] Hairy: Perhaps this could change your mind? [Black Hat opens the suitcase.] Click [Black Hat looks inside.] [Black Hat turns the suitcase around.] Black Hat: I'm sorry— [The suitcase is now filled with paper.] Black Hat: —that opening has been filled.

This comic is based on a common annoyance when job hunting, being told that they'll "keep you in mind", but don't offer you a job. A job interviewer tells Black Hat exactly that. Black Hat offers a briefcase to his interviewer. From the vague phrasing "this" and the context, one would expect the briefcase to contain money to bribe the interviewer into hiring Black Hat. Instead, it contains a portal or gateway into an impossibly deep chasm. After falling through the chasm, the interviewer lands in the interviewee's seat, and Black Hat is now sitting in the interviewer's seat, effectively switching their roles. The former interviewer tries to pull the same trick on Black Hat, creating a momentary illusion of an infinite loop through recursion , a common theme in xkcd comics. When Black Hat opens the briefcase, however, he reveals another common annoyance when job hunting, being told that the opening has already been filled. Black Hat's statement works on two levels, one meaning that "the job opening has been filled", and the second meaning "the opening to the briefcase's chasm has been filled". In the latter sense, opening may also be used as a synonym of vulnerability, in which case filled would mean patched. The title text is said by Black Hat. It refers to the fact that, even though Black Hat now has the interviewer's job, he has no idea what his function is. Other Job interviews have been portrayed in 125: Marketing Interview , 1088: Five Years , 1293: Job Interview and 1545: Strengths and Weaknesses . [Black Hat is interviewed by Hairy.] Hairy: ...but thank you for applying. We'll keep your résumé on file. [Black Hat pushes a suitcase over the table.] Black Hat: Perhaps this could change your mind? [Hairy opens the suitcase.] Click [Hairy lifts open the top.] [Camera pans over the suitcase to reveal a deep hole.] [Camera zooms into the hole.] [Hairy is falling into the hole.] Hairy: AAAAAA [Hairy falls into a chair with the suitcase falling on his lap.] THUMP [Hairy is dazed, and is being interviewed by Black Hat.] Black Hat: ...but thank you for applying. We'll keep your résumé on file. [Hairy looks confused.] Hairy: !??! [Hairy looks at the suitcase.] [Hairy pushes the suitcase over the table.] Hairy: Perhaps this could change your mind? [Black Hat opens the suitcase.] Click [Black Hat looks inside.] [Black Hat turns the suitcase around.] Black Hat: I'm sorry— [The suitcase is now filled with paper.] Black Hat: —that opening has been filled.

Crazy Straws

Crazy Straws

https://www.xkcd.com/1095

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1095:_Crazy_Straws

[Two people hang out with some beverages. Cueball here has a bright green crazy straw.] Cueball: The thing to understand about the plastic crazy straw design world is that there are two main camps: The professionals - designing for established brands - and the hobbyists . Cueball: The hobbyist mailing lists are full of drama, with friction between the regulars and a splinter group focused on loops... [Caption below the panel:] Human subcultures are nested fractally. There's no bottom.

A subculture is a small group of people within a culture that share some property in common, such as hackers or hipsters. Some subcultures form based on a geeky obsession over a trivial topic (for instance, a minimally-drawn webcomic). In this case, that topic is crazy straws, which are toy drinking straws designed with unusual twists and loops. This strip uses this group as an example of the fractal nature of cultures. Informally speaking, a fractal is a mathematical shape with an infinite level of detail. Just as fractals can always be divided into smaller patterns, Randall points out that human subcultures can always be divided into smaller subcultures. We have the "people who like crazy straws" subculture, but this is further divided into the professionals and the hobbyists. The hobbyists are themselves broken into those who accept loops in the straws and those who don't. A splinter group, as used in the comic, is a subculture that breaks off from a larger one. Of course, this nesting is not really infinite, since there is a finite number of people living. The claim that it is infinite is hyperbole. Despite the incredible amount of work fans put into it, the whole concept seems completely inconsequential to an outsider. This irony is the source of humor in this strip. An earlier comic, 915: Connoisseur , covers a similar topic. Paris Hilton is a celebrity who is essentially famous for being famous. The "guy named Eric" mentioned in the title-text is someone prominent in the amateur plastic crazy-straw community, but that doesn't really count as famous by most standards, so the Paris Hilton comparison is quite a stretch. [Two people hang out with some beverages. Cueball here has a bright green crazy straw.] Cueball: The thing to understand about the plastic crazy straw design world is that there are two main camps: The professionals - designing for established brands - and the hobbyists . Cueball: The hobbyist mailing lists are full of drama, with friction between the regulars and a splinter group focused on loops... [Caption below the panel:] Human subcultures are nested fractally. There's no bottom.

Clinically Studied Ingredient

Clinically Studied Ingredient

https://www.xkcd.com/1096

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1096:_Clinically_Studied_Ingredient

I can't help but admire the audacity of the marketer who came up with the phrase "contains a clinically studied ingredient" [Cueball is sat on a bed, talking to a curly-haired woman standing close by.] Woman: Don't worry - I've been tested. Cueball: ...and you're clean? Woman: So many questions!

This comic is poking fun at a phrase which some ads use to boost sales of their product. They state that their product contains a "clinically studied ingredient", which consumers assume means that the ingredient has been clinically tested and proven effective , or at the very least, not harmful, although neither is, strictly speaking, implied by that statement. An example of this appears on many body wash products, bearing the phrase "Tested by dermatologists for sensitive skin" or something similar. The phrase just states that an ingredient was clinically studied and doesn't mention the findings of that study (which, for all we know, could have found the ingredient to be ineffective or harmful). In other words, the phrase is used in deceptive marketing techniques, leading consumers to believe something which encourages them to buy the product, without committing to saying it explicitly. In the middle of the conversation, Megan tells Cueball that she has been tested. The implication is that she's talking about STDs . However she does not reveal the results of the tests, which is the primary information Cueball could be worried about, and when Cueball inquires, she acts like he is being unreasonable to also want that information. In this way, Randall is making an analogy to how a marketer might think consumers would be unreasonable to want to know the results of the clinical studies on the ingredient. The title text mentions the legendary film critic Roger Ebert . At the time this comic was published (a year before Ebert's death), one could expect him to have watched most big-name movies that were coming out. Simply stating that he saw a movie, therefore, doesn't necessarily mean that he liked it. Impressive-sounding but meaningless advertisement claims are also the subject of 624: Branding , 641: Free , 870: Advertising and 993: Brand Identity . I can't help but admire the audacity of the marketer who came up with the phrase "contains a clinically studied ingredient" [Cueball is sat on a bed, talking to a curly-haired woman standing close by.] Woman: Don't worry - I've been tested. Cueball: ...and you're clean? Woman: So many questions!

A Hypochondriac's Nightmare

A Hypochondriac's Nightmare

https://www.xkcd.com/1097

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1097:_A_Hypochondriac%27s_Nightmare

[Cueball at an airport slips on a banana peel and gets sucked into a nearby jet engine.] Cueball (thinking): Seriously!? This is what gets me? I wasted so many hours on WebMD worrying about the rash on my arm!

Hypochondriacs are people who worry obsessively about their health, often looking up symptoms on the Internet and convincing themselves that they have some deadly disease. The situation depicted in this comic is described as a "hypochondriac's nightmare" because Cueball , expecting that the rash on his arm was some mysterious undiagnosed disease, spent several hours on WebMD (an online health symptom reference) looking up symptoms, yet ends up dying by slipping on a banana and getting sucked into an airplane engine. Thus he regrets wasting so much time on an ultimately fruitless task rather than something more productive to survival, such as, say, watching out for banana peels lying in front of jet engines, or at the very least, attempting to enjoy life. The title text (in ALL CAPS thus shouting in despair) adds another level of hypochondriasm. Randall drew this particular joke to soothe his fears and reassure himself that the rash is nothing. But what if that reassurance just makes him not check out the rash, and then it turns out the rash is caused by "death mites " (which do not actually exist [ citation needed ] ) and ultimately kills him when he could have prevented it? [Cueball at an airport slips on a banana peel and gets sucked into a nearby jet engine.] Cueball (thinking): Seriously!? This is what gets me? I wasted so many hours on WebMD worrying about the rash on my arm!

Star Ratings

Star Ratings

https://www.xkcd.com/1098

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1098:_Star_Ratings

Understanding online star ratings: 5 stars: [Has only one review] 4.5 stars: Excellent 4 stars: OK 3.5-1 star: Crap.

This comic deals with the idea that users when viewing online star ratings are usually heavily biased towards the best possible rating (five stars). As there are nine possible scores in the rating system in the comic (1 star, 1.5 stars, 2 stars...4.5 stars, and finally 5 stars), a rating of 3 out of 5 stars is supposed to represent "average" or "mediocre". Thus, anything above 3 stars is supposed to be "good" and anything below 3 stars is "bad". However, most people consider a four star rating to be "OK", and everything below as "crap". On one hand there is some justification for this, as ratings are more likely to be given by people who fall onto one of the extremes (either loved or hated the product) and thus there is a tendency for ratings to be skewed either high or low. Fake reviews are also a factor that often push an aggregate score higher, although this is not addressed in the comic. For this reason, no product is so perfect that every user will give it five stars - as soon as one person gives it less than five, the overall review score would drop. So the only explanation for a five star rating is that only a few users have voted, maybe only one. The title text may refer to the folkloric practice of attributing a feeling of a chill to someone walking on your future grave. When Randall is back home he would like to give a bad rating on Yelp — a corporation that operates an "online urban guide" — and hovering his hand over the 'one star' button, he was just 'walking' over the rating on his own future grave. Another possible explanation for the title text is that the headstones are from people that gave the cemetery star ratings and were then murdered, having their given ratings displayed in the headstones. This in turn would explain the chill Randall feels before clicking the one-star button. See also: 937: TornadoGuard , another comic about star ratings. Understanding online star ratings: 5 stars: [Has only one review] 4.5 stars: Excellent 4 stars: OK 3.5-1 star: Crap.

Tuesdays

Tuesdays

https://www.xkcd.com/1099

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1099:_Tuesdays

[Ponytail serves Beret Guy and Megan at a table.] Ponytail: ...and on Tuesdays we offer endless wings. Beret Guy: Haha, cool. Beret Guy: i have those. Ponytail: You what? [Beret Guy sprouts a pair of wings.] Ponytail: AAAAA!! [Beret Guy's wings start getting longer.] Ponytail and Megan: AAAAAAA [Wings start to extend into space out from the earth.] Everyone: AAAAAAAA

Beret Guy and at least one other person (probably Megan ) are sitting at a restaurant. The waitress, Ponytail , tells Beret Guy there is a special on Tuesdays for "endless wings". Restaurants often have different daily discounts to encourage people to come in. In a normal restaurant, "endless wings" would presumably refer to "all-you-can-eat" chicken wings , meaning the customer can pay a flat price and eat all the chicken wings they want without having to pay any more. However, in this comic, instead of ordering them by telling the waitress: "I'll have those", Beret Guy tells her: "I have those", meaning that he already has literal "endless wings" (similar issues of things being taken literally are referenced in 1086: Eyelash Wish Log and 1528: Vodka ), and then begins to grow wings which ultimately appear "endless" as they grow to a span of at least the circumference of the Earth by the last panel (and presumably continue growing). The other characters scream in horror for obvious reasons. The title text plays on another common restaurant offer of "bottomless drinks", meaning unlimited free refills of drinks. However, falling into something literally bottomless (i.e. without a bottom) would result in falling forever. (However, even this is unlikely unless the diameter of the cups that the drinks are served in is large enough to fit a whole person into.) If it was literally "bottomless", you would start to decelerate as you pass the earth's center of mass. The air pressure and heat in a "bottomless" pit would also be fatal to humans. This is one of the few comics with lowercase text . [Ponytail serves Beret Guy and Megan at a table.] Ponytail: ...and on Tuesdays we offer endless wings. Beret Guy: Haha, cool. Beret Guy: i have those. Ponytail: You what? [Beret Guy sprouts a pair of wings.] Ponytail: AAAAA!! [Beret Guy's wings start getting longer.] Ponytail and Megan: AAAAAAA [Wings start to extend into space out from the earth.] Everyone: AAAAAAAA

Vows

Vows

https://www.xkcd.com/1100

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1100:_Vows

[A bride in full wedding dress, that looks like Megan, and Cueball with a bow-tie as the groom stand next to each other. Each has a hand outstretched toward the other.] Officiator (off panel): Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband? Bride: ...No. [Cueball steps back in surprise. The bride removes a wig to reveal that she is in fact a Cueball-like man.] Groom: What? Amy!? Man: I'm not Amy. None of this was real. You're back in senior year. It's the big game. [Cueball puts his hands to his head in confusion. The man holds up an American football, still holding the wig in his other hand.] Cueball: What is this!? Man: The greatest high school football misdirection play of all time. [Cueball puts his hands to his mouth as the man in the wedding dress begins to run backwards, away from him holding up the ball.] [Cueball remains frozen in horror as the man turns and dashes toward the goalpost in the distance.]

This comic is a joke parodying wedding ceremonies and American Football plays intended to misdirect or fool the opponents about what is really happening. A standard misdirection play involves the offense misdirecting the defense into thinking that the play being executed is actually a different play: for example, a passing play could actually be a running play, or that a ball being run left is actually being run right, or that a field goal or punt end up being attempted to get a down . In this comic, Cueball is about to get married to Amy, a girl looking like Megan , but the bride interrupts the ritual by saying that she doesn't want to get married. The bride then reveals herself to be a Cueball-like man and after questioning reveals that the relationship and the wedding was an elaborate con to get the advantage on the football field. "Amy" turns out to be a player for the opposing team and he had a football on his person. He then proceeds to run the ball in for a touchdown. This clearly constitutes the greatest high school football misdirection play of all time . Randall takes the deception in a misdirection play to the next, virtually impossible level; it is unlikely that a relationship could develop to the point of marriage within the time-frame of a football game, with "the groom" not noticing that Amy was in fact a football player, or that he was standing on the football field. The title text indicates that, in spite of the deception, "the groom" still has feelings and is not ready to give up the relationship (or at least he would like to share a beer with the opposing team like after a friendly game). Alternatively, as it is unclear who is speaking, "the bride" may have also developed feelings for "the groom" and is now awkwardly asking for a date after deceiving "the groom." Occasionally, especially at the high school level, extreme misdirection plays are attempted where teams try to misdirect the opposing team into thinking that a play is not even being run. Good examples of that can be found on YouTube, such as this "wrong ball" trick , or that "five more yards" trick . Despite conforming to the rules of the game, these are considered to be dirty tricks and usually only work in little league football. [A bride in full wedding dress, that looks like Megan, and Cueball with a bow-tie as the groom stand next to each other. Each has a hand outstretched toward the other.] Officiator (off panel): Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband? Bride: ...No. [Cueball steps back in surprise. The bride removes a wig to reveal that she is in fact a Cueball-like man.] Groom: What? Amy!? Man: I'm not Amy. None of this was real. You're back in senior year. It's the big game. [Cueball puts his hands to his head in confusion. The man holds up an American football, still holding the wig in his other hand.] Cueball: What is this!? Man: The greatest high school football misdirection play of all time. [Cueball puts his hands to his mouth as the man in the wedding dress begins to run backwards, away from him holding up the ball.] [Cueball remains frozen in horror as the man turns and dashes toward the goalpost in the distance.]