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Laser Scope

Laser Scope

https://www.xkcd.com/101

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/101:_Laser_Scope

[Box with a mailing label on one side, and in the front:] Miss your loved ones? [Picture of a laser scope.] YOU DON'T HAVE TO. RJX-21 Laser Scope

This comic plays on the homonymic relationship between "miss" (to feel sad due to the absence of someone) and "miss" (to fail to hit – in this case, with a gunshot). "Miss your loved ones?" is a question that would generally use the former "miss." However, its use on the package for a laser scope implies the latter "miss." A sighting scope can be attached to a firearm to aid in aiming the weapon. The addition of a laser improves the accuracy of the weapon by making it easier to aim consistently. The model number RJX-21 does not appear to be a reference to anything, and this comic is primarily a play on a common marketing technique of adapting a common saying to your own product by use of homonym or homophone ; in this case, it is perhaps an inappropriate use, as one would not be expected to be aiming a firearm at their loved ones. In real life, this would imply a serious family breakdown with extreme feelings of pain and revenge, which is actually a tragically sad story, not the normal fodder for a light-hearted joke. The title text hammers it home with the dual use of the word "miss," as the writer wishes he had missed (failed in his attempt to shoot) someone so they would not miss them (feel bad that they are not there), implying that he shot a family member, and is now feeling the grief. The humor here is that the writer apparently still cares about his loved one, despite having attempted to shoot them in the past. [Box with a mailing label on one side, and in the front:] Miss your loved ones? [Picture of a laser scope.] YOU DON'T HAVE TO. RJX-21 Laser Scope

Back to the Future

Back to the Future

https://www.xkcd.com/102

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/102:_Back_to_the_Future

[Megan and Hairy are standing, talking to one another.] Hairy: This weekend, my professor friend built a time machine out of a DeLorean and I went back in time! I helped make sure my parents got together and helped my dad to be less of a loser. Megan: Wow! Do you still have the time machine? Hairy: Nah. But I did what I really needed to do. Megan: Uh huh. [Beat panel. Hairy's hair isn't drawn in this panel or the next one, making him a Cueball.] Megan: Okay, you remember that my father was in the WTC North Tower, right? Cueball: Yeah...why? Megan: I...nothing.

This comic is a reference to the Back to the Future film series (specifically the first film) in which the protagonist, Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox ), travels back from 1985 (present day for him) to 1955 and accidentally interferes with his own parents' first meeting. He must then arrange for them to fall in love before he ceases to exist due to the paradox of his own parents never having children. An unintended side-effect of the way events occur is that his dad gains self-confidence in the past and becomes "less of a loser" in the present. As noted in the comic, the time machine Marty uses is built by his professor friend, Doctor Emmett L. Brown ( Christopher Lloyd ), out of a DeLorean DMC-12 (a 1980s-era sports car). Hairy ( Cueball in the last two panels, as the art is inconsistent in this early comic, and his hair is removed in the last two panels) has had a very similar experience. He suggests that the aforementioned changes to history are what he really needed to do. After a frame of awkward silence, Megan reminds him that her father was in the World Trade Center (WTC) North Tower – implying that he died along with several thousand others in the North Tower on September 11, 2001 at the time the tower collapsed due to a terrorist-flown passenger jet crashing into the building. Megan is therefore implying that saving her father's life (and perhaps the lives of the other 9/11 victims, or even preventing other disasters in history, such as the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, or the holocaust) might have been something else of importance he "needed" to do — perhaps something of significantly more importance than just helping his father. He seems completely oblivious to what she is trying to suggest. Megan starts to explain, but apparently decides that there's no point even trying to get through to him. The title text is calling Marty McFly an asshole for not doing something more benevolent for humankind when he travelled back in time, just as the comic implies of Hairy/Cueball. It can also be seen as someone (presumably Hairy/Cueball) trying to justify the choice, by saying that Megan's dad was "kind of an asshole." As a side note, for the comic to make sense, the events in the comic must take place after September 11, 2001 , and not 1985 as it is in the movie. Since no dates are mentioned, Hairy/Cueball probably went back by thirty years, because that's how far back Marty travels in the film. [Megan and Hairy are standing, talking to one another.] Hairy: This weekend, my professor friend built a time machine out of a DeLorean and I went back in time! I helped make sure my parents got together and helped my dad to be less of a loser. Megan: Wow! Do you still have the time machine? Hairy: Nah. But I did what I really needed to do. Megan: Uh huh. [Beat panel. Hairy's hair isn't drawn in this panel or the next one, making him a Cueball.] Megan: Okay, you remember that my father was in the WTC North Tower, right? Cueball: Yeah...why? Megan: I...nothing.

Moral Relativity

Moral Relativity

https://www.xkcd.com/103

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/103:_Moral_Relativity

[A graph, rationalization as a function of speed, increasing asymptotically at c .] Related to moral relativism, it states that ethics become subjective only when you approach the speed of light. That is, it's okay to be self-serving, steal, and murder as long as you're going really, really fast. (Note: This is why rap sounds better on the highway at 90 mph)

This comic plays on the similar sounding terms relativ ity and relativ ism . Moral relativism is a position in the philosophical field of ethics that holds that moral judgments are not absolute, but vary depending on the circumstances involved and the person (or people) making them. Philosophers who hold this kind of position are often mischaracterised as believing that 'it's OK to be self-serving, steal, and murder.' The scientific theory of relativity predicts (among other things) that measurements of an object change the closer to the speed of light it travels: length contracts, observed time slows down, the notion of separated simultaneous events is relative, and so on. Randall claims to have created a new philosophy called "Moral Relativity," which appears to be a mash-up of the two ideas, where things that are typically considered unethical become more acceptable as the subject's speed increases. This supposed theory of ethics is cited to explain why rap music, perhaps particularly Gangsta rap , which often has lyrics describing rape, murder, and substance abuse, is better when traveling at speed. Music videos for Gangsta Rap also frequently feature cars speeding on the highway. The graph is a parody on that of the Lorentz factor , which is the factor by which time is dilated and length contracted. Note that relativity in the Theory of Relativity (in physics ) came from the principle of relativity : the idea that equations describing the laws of physics have the same form in all admissible frames of reference (as opposed to moral relativity). [A graph, rationalization as a function of speed, increasing asymptotically at c .] Related to moral relativism, it states that ethics become subjective only when you approach the speed of light. That is, it's okay to be self-serving, steal, and murder as long as you're going really, really fast. (Note: This is why rap sounds better on the highway at 90 mph)

Find You

Find You

https://www.xkcd.com/104

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/104:_Find_You

[The panel is black with rough-edged white passages running down through it. Cueball is climbing onto a rope that is dangling down one of these passages. White text is in the black sections.] You were afraid that you would disappear, that you would be lost and forgotten. I held you tight against the dark and said that I would always come for you. Then one day it happened. You were torn from my arms and vanished from this world. Maybe you don't remember my promise. But I meant every word. I hope you're not afraid, wherever you are. You don't need to be. I'm not. I will find you. For technical reasons (see discussion, below) the image may display inverted.

This comic depicts Cueball climbing on a rope in a cavern. The text indicates that one of his loved ones used to be afraid of being taken away from him and being forgotten. It is not explicitly made clear whether the loved one in question is a woman with whom he is in love, a family member, or a relation of some other kind, but presumably the loved one is his partner. Cueball had promised that he would always come looking for this person, but then they were actually taken from him. He reiterates that he was serious about his promise, and that he hopes they are not afraid, because he's coming to find them. It's not clear exactly in what manner his loved one was taken from him, only that they were torn from his arms and vanished from this world. Though there are many other possible interpretations, this might be read to indicate that they have died and that Cueball is descending a cavern in search of the underworld where they have been taken. The title text compares Cueball to the apparently unstoppable Terminator, from the 1984 film of the same name, in which Kyle Reese, talking to Sarah Connor, gives the following description of the Terminator: "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." The implication is that Cueball, motivated by love, can't be persuaded to stop looking for his loved one by any means, and that he will never stop looking until he finds them. [The panel is black with rough-edged white passages running down through it. Cueball is climbing onto a rope that is dangling down one of these passages. White text is in the black sections.] You were afraid that you would disappear, that you would be lost and forgotten. I held you tight against the dark and said that I would always come for you. Then one day it happened. You were torn from my arms and vanished from this world. Maybe you don't remember my promise. But I meant every word. I hope you're not afraid, wherever you are. You don't need to be. I'm not. I will find you. For technical reasons (see discussion, below) the image may display inverted.

Parallel Universe

Parallel Universe

https://www.xkcd.com/105

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/105:_Parallel_Universe

[Cueball and Hairy are standing next to a large pentagram with candles at the points. A figure is hovering above it in a wave of energy.] Cueball: Sweet. I summoned myself from a parallel universe. Hairy: You know, he could vanish at any moment. Hairy: You should take this chance to make out with yourself. Hairy: . . . You know, I could vanish at any moment.

Cueball has (by some ritual, judging by the pentagram ) summoned himself from a parallel universe . Hairy suggests that Cueball should take advantage of this rare opportunity and make out with his other self. In the third panel, Cueball seems to turn his head in response to the unexpected response. Hairy suggests that Cueball should make out with him instead, since he could also vanish at any moment. This indicates that Hairy may be attracted to Cueball, and he may have made the previous suggestion with the ulterior, voyeuristic motive of observing two attractive people making out with each other. The title text is ambiguous. It could mean that Cueball should not risk his other self disappearing, or it could mean that the risk is Hairy disappearing. Alternative explanation By a very big stretch of imagination, we can think that the other person is Megan instead of Hairy (i.e. a female instead of a male). If the character is Megan, the third panel is her having reconsidered that she would rather Cueball not make out with anyone other than her, by threatening that she would leave him. The title text does not help in deciding if this alternative is correct or not. If it is Megan, Cueball should stay safe and not make out with himself. If it is not, he should play it safe and make out now, before his alternate self goes back to the parallel universe. All this ambiguity suggests a third joke. Perhaps there are two universes that this is playing out in: in one of them the character is Megan; in the other it is not. It could also be that the parallel universe that the comic takes place in is not that of the normal comics, and that the Cueball summoned could be of the standard comics. In this universe, Hairy could be the replacement for Megan. Making out with yourself is also mentioned in 267: Choices: Part 4 . [Cueball and Hairy are standing next to a large pentagram with candles at the points. A figure is hovering above it in a wave of energy.] Cueball: Sweet. I summoned myself from a parallel universe. Hairy: You know, he could vanish at any moment. Hairy: You should take this chance to make out with yourself. Hairy: . . . You know, I could vanish at any moment.

Wright Brothers

Wright Brothers

https://www.xkcd.com/106

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/106:_Wright_Brothers

[Cueball and Megan are talking to each other.] Cueball: I've heard that when the Wright brothers argued, they periodically switched sides in the debate to try to encourage a more balanced conclusion. Cueball: We should try that in our relationship! Megan: It's a neat idea, but I think treating personal issues like a debate will only engender hostility and hurt feelings. Cueball: No, I think it would help, by forcing us to consider the other person's point of view. Megan: Hmm, maybe you're right. Cueball: Am not. It's a bad idea.

The Wright brothers are Orville and Wilbur Wright, who are credited with the invention of the airplane and the first "controlled, powered, and sustained heavier-than-air human flight" in 1903. Cueball mentions to Megan that the Wright Brothers would sometimes argue each other's point during debates in order to "encourage a more balanced debate" – presumably so both brothers would explore all of the arguments on both sides. Megan is initially against the idea, stating that treating emotionally-charged personal issues as if they were academic debates would not work. Cueball argues that it would force each person to consider the other's point of view. However, when Megan reconsiders, accepts his argument, and appears to agree that they should try it, Cueball abruptly switches his position to thinking that it's a terrible idea. The joke is that once Megan agrees with him, he employs his Wright Brothers suggestion and takes her initial position that the idea was bad. Thus, the two have switched their arguments and are now exploring the other sides. They may continue in this way to form a well balanced conclusion on the proposal or continually switch sides without ever concluding the argument. The title text suggests that Randall may either be misremembering the fact that the Wright brothers used this technique, or not be convinced that the source is reliable, but has decided to assume it is true just so that he could make the joke in this comic. [Cueball and Megan are talking to each other.] Cueball: I've heard that when the Wright brothers argued, they periodically switched sides in the debate to try to encourage a more balanced conclusion. Cueball: We should try that in our relationship! Megan: It's a neat idea, but I think treating personal issues like a debate will only engender hostility and hurt feelings. Cueball: No, I think it would help, by forcing us to consider the other person's point of view. Megan: Hmm, maybe you're right. Cueball: Am not. It's a bad idea.

Snakes on a Plane! 2

Snakes on a Plane! 2

https://www.xkcd.com/107

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/107:_Snakes_on_a_Plane!_2

[A sky full of jumbo jets is shown in movie poster format.] Top of the poster: From the creators of last summer's hit thriller Snakes On a Plane comes: Superimposed on the sky and planes: Snakes... on EVERY Plane! Much worse than last time.

Snakes on a Plane is a 2006 movie starring Samuel L. Jackson . It features (surprisingly) snakes, on a plane, attacking the passengers. This comic proposes a sequel, taking the idea to the next level, making things infinitely worse: snakes on every plane! To have snakes on every plane is much worse than snakes on just one, [ citation needed ] as many more innocent bystanders would be injured or killed, and the entire aviation industry would be destroyed. Plus it would be difficult, as there were hundreds of snakes in a single plane in the first movie, so finding enough snakes would be a challenge itself. Since the original movie was generally considered to be quite bad, there is an implied double meaning in the suggested poster, that the movie itself would be "Much Worse Than Last Time." In the title text, Randall credits James with the idea. [A sky full of jumbo jets is shown in movie poster format.] Top of the poster: From the creators of last summer's hit thriller Snakes On a Plane comes: Superimposed on the sky and planes: Snakes... on EVERY Plane! Much worse than last time.

M.C. Hammer Slide

M.C. Hammer Slide

https://www.xkcd.com/108

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/108:_M.C._Hammer_Slide

[Two guys stand next to each other talking.] Hairy: I just feel like somewhere out there is the girl for me. Cueball: Yeah. Hairy: Someone loving and caring. Cueball: I know what you mean. Hairy: A girl whose only mode of transportation is the M.C. Hammer Slide. Cueball: Yeah. Cueball: ...Wait, what? [Megan hammer slides past.] [Hairy sees Megan hammer slide and it's love at first sight.] [Megan hammer slides over into Hairy's waiting arms.]

The base part of the comic is self-explanatory: Girl attracts Boy, Boy notices Girl, Boy approaches Girl, Girl reacts positively, Boy falls in love, Girl decides to answer lovecall, happily ever after, etc. The quirk in this comic is that the way Girl catches attention of Boy is through the signature move of 1980s rapper MC Hammer (the slide). To watch MC Hammer doin' the slide, click here . The title text indicates that Randall once saw a girl go by and regrets that he did not speak with her as Boy does in this comic. It is possible that the girl Randall is referring to was actually doing the slide. [Two guys stand next to each other talking.] Hairy: I just feel like somewhere out there is the girl for me. Cueball: Yeah. Hairy: Someone loving and caring. Cueball: I know what you mean. Hairy: A girl whose only mode of transportation is the M.C. Hammer Slide. Cueball: Yeah. Cueball: ...Wait, what? [Megan hammer slides past.] [Hairy sees Megan hammer slide and it's love at first sight.] [Megan hammer slides over into Hairy's waiting arms.]

Spoiler Alert

Spoiler Alert

https://www.xkcd.com/109

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/109:_Spoiler_Alert

[At the tope of the panel there is a large heading:] Spoiler Alert! [Below that Severus Snape with long black hair is smacking a trenchcoat-clad Trinity off the top of a building with a brown sled. Below them is the following caption:] Snape kills Trinity with Rosebud!

This comic refers to several unexpected plot twists from various Hollywood movies and combines them into one giant twist invented by Randall . A " spoiler " is a term used to describe information about the plot of any media that could spoil the media for someone who has not viewed it. The term "spoiler alert" has become popularized as a warning to potential readers used to precede such spoilers, particularly in online posting. It is also a phrase often used ironically or angrily to suggest that something someone has just said is a spoiler. It is also used jokingly to suggest that something just said (or is about to be said) was a spoiler so long ago that "everyone" should have heard of it by now (e.g. "Spoiler alert, Vader is Luke's father"). Severus Snape is a character from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series of books. Trinity is a character from The Matrix trilogy of movies. Rosebud is from the 1941 film Citizen Kane . From the title text, Tyler Durden is a character from the novel and movie Fight Club . All four references share the common ground that they are all involved in significant events or ideas in their respective movies that have been often spoiled by careless viewers for those who have not yet seen the movies. Here, the relevant events are mashed together into one and spoiled in one go. In this comic, Snape is depicted knocking Trinity off a high place with a wooden sled named Rosebud. As mentioned above, this is an amalgamation of four spoilers from four different stories: [At the tope of the panel there is a large heading:] Spoiler Alert! [Below that Severus Snape with long black hair is smacking a trenchcoat-clad Trinity off the top of a building with a brown sled. Below them is the following caption:] Snape kills Trinity with Rosebud!

Clark Gable

Clark Gable

https://www.xkcd.com/110

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/110:_Clark_Gable

[Famous image of Gone with the Wind with Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) kissing Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh).] The line was actually supposed to be "Frankly, my dear, I couldn't care less." It's just that Clark Gable had Tourette's.

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" is the signature catchphrase from the 1939 movie Gone With The Wind , which starred Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh . The phrase is spoken by Gable's character Rhett Butler as his last line, in answer to Scarlett O'Hara (Leigh) asking "Where shall I go? What shall I do?" The response indicates that Butler is no longer interested in O'Hara. This lack of interest, and the mention of the word "damn," which was considered profanity at the time of releasing the film, led to the line being voted the #1 movie line of all time in 1995's American Film Institute ranking. Randall suggests that the line as written was not supposed to contain profanity, but the actor, Gable, inserted it, due to having Tourette's Syndrome , which is a neurological condition that is stereotypically characterized by bouts of random, uncontrollable cursing (and repetition of phrases/words). The title text contains a more stereotypical Tourette's Syndrome outburst of several profanities in a row shouted mid-sentence. [Famous image of Gone with the Wind with Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) kissing Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh).] The line was actually supposed to be "Frankly, my dear, I couldn't care less." It's just that Clark Gable had Tourette's.

Firefox and Witchcraft - The Connection?

Firefox and Witchcraft - The Connection?

https://www.xkcd.com/111

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/111:_Firefox_and_Witchcraft_-_The_Connection%3F

[A graph is shown with a positive slope.] [Y axis]: Membership in Wicca [X axis]: Total Firefox Downloads [Internet Explorer icon.] K EEP TH E FAITH [Outline of a cross.] This type of statistical ploy is used again in a few other comics, like 523: Decline , 552: Correlation , and 925: Cell Phones .

The comic charts the number of members of the religion Wicca against the number of times the Firefox web browser was downloaded, with the implication being that Firefox usage causes involvement in Wicca. In juxtaposing these almost certainly unrelated phenomena, Randall highlights the common error of assuming that correlation implies causation . When two variables exhibit similar trends, this is often taken as proving that one is causing the other. However, such correlation may have come about through pure coincidence, and not indicate any link between the two at all. This is particularly a problem when examining a large number of variables: the chances of finding a coincidental correlation increase exponentially as more variables are added. It may also be the case that a third factor is causally linked to both outcomes. In this case, it is plausible that the increasing ubiquity of internet access has resulted in increased demand for Firefox, and also in greater capacity to share the ideas of Wicca. Randall further illustrates one common, and perhaps destructive, use of illusory correlation in the bottom half of the image. The appearance of the symbol for Internet Explorer , a rival web browser, and the cross, representing Christianity, imply that this graph is an attack ad promoted by Microsoft and Christianity to gain an advantage over their competitors. The title text is reminiscent of political commercials, which tell you who paid for them, generally said very fast, represented by all the words being strung together. The last sentence is a play on the term of closed source software , which Internet Explorer is, as opposed to Firefox, which is open source in development. In a similar vein, the Bible can be considered "closed source" due to God's prohibition on altering its contents . [A graph is shown with a positive slope.] [Y axis]: Membership in Wicca [X axis]: Total Firefox Downloads [Internet Explorer icon.] K EEP TH E FAITH [Outline of a cross.] This type of statistical ploy is used again in a few other comics, like 523: Decline , 552: Correlation , and 925: Cell Phones .

Baring My Heart

Baring My Heart

https://www.xkcd.com/112

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/112:_Baring_My_Heart

[A Venn diagram with three sets] Description of set 1: People who can always make me smile Description of set 2: People who constantly show me new things about the world Description of set 3: People I want to spend the rest of my life with Intersection point: YOU. Intersection of sets 2 and 3: Vanilla Ice

Randall presents a logical diagram known as a Venn diagram , which illustrates the relationship between multiple sets. The diagram is usually used to illustrate the overlap between various sets. For example, a Venn diagram of "even numbers" and "numbers divisible by 5" would have 2, 4, 6, 8, 12… in one circle, 5, 15, 25… in another circle, and 10, 20, 30… in the intersection of the circles (as those numbers fit into both sets). Here we have a three-set diagram that Randall has purportedly created to explain his feelings to his love interest. The three sets are: In the intersection of these three sets is "you" – his love interest; all three of these statements apply to her. Normally, this might be a cute way of simply implying that he has these three feelings about her, without including any other elements in any of the sets. Here, however, Randall has included one other element: Vanilla Ice is shown to also constantly show Randall new things to love about the world, and to be someone Randall wants to spend the rest of his life with (although Vanilla Ice doesn't always make him smile). Vanilla Ice is an American white-skinned rapper who was most popular in the early 1990s with his song " Ice Ice Baby ." He was frequently mocked as a very "white" rapper. He is obviously an unexpected name to turn up in this diagram. Apparently, Randall's love interest didn't take too well to Randall professing similar feelings for Vanilla Ice as he did for her, causing some friction in their relationship. The title text suggests that other '90s rappers have similarly affected Randall's past relationships. Vanilla Ice also appears as an element of a romantic situation in 159: Boombox . [A Venn diagram with three sets] Description of set 1: People who can always make me smile Description of set 2: People who constantly show me new things about the world Description of set 3: People I want to spend the rest of my life with Intersection point: YOU. Intersection of sets 2 and 3: Vanilla Ice

Riemann-Zeta

Riemann-Zeta

https://www.xkcd.com/113

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/113:_Riemann-Zeta

[A z = fn(x, y) plot, with pointy spikes on the back sloping to a relatively flat front.] You are like the prime numbers Unpredictable turns, unconstrainable Tantalizingly regular but never quite the same I am like the Riemann-Zeta function A rippled curtain of the imagined and real Deeply tied with you in ways incomprehensible Although, strictly speaking, The Riemann-Zeta function couldn't have given you herpes

A prime number is any natural number with exactly two natural factors (1 and itself). The set of prime numbers is infinite, but they are somewhat elusive; there is no known way to find very large prime numbers except by trial and error. Some regularities in the primes have been found, but none that can fully predict their distribution. The Riemann zeta function , errantly referred to as the Riemann-Zeta function in the comic, is a function that takes in complex numbers and returns complex numbers. It is defined for Re('s')>1 as . For the rest of its domain (all complex numbers except 1), it is defined with analytic continuation . Its magnitude can be graphed in 3D, producing the "rippled curtain" referenced and depicted in the comic. There is a particular relationship between the Riemann zeta function and prime numbers, which makes the function a viable target for those attempting to understand primes. Here, Randall appears to be talking to his significant other, comparing her to prime numbers and himself to the Riemann zeta function. It is mathematically correct and quite poetic, until he mentions that his relationship differs from the comparison because "The Riemann-Zeta function couldn't have given you herpes ." This implies that he has infected his lover with an incurable venereal disease. The comic effect of an abrupt change in tone like this is known as bathos . As the title text indicates, the graph in the picture is of the magnitude of ζ( s ) for some section of the complex plane. Randall has forgotten the exact imaginary bounds of the graph, but he knows that the real axis goes from 0 to 2 and the imaginary axis goes from about 35 i to about 40 i . [A z = fn(x, y) plot, with pointy spikes on the back sloping to a relatively flat front.] You are like the prime numbers Unpredictable turns, unconstrainable Tantalizingly regular but never quite the same I am like the Riemann-Zeta function A rippled curtain of the imagined and real Deeply tied with you in ways incomprehensible Although, strictly speaking, The Riemann-Zeta function couldn't have given you herpes

Computational Linguists

Computational Linguists

https://www.xkcd.com/114

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/114:_Computational_Linguists

[Black Hat is standing next to a large badge that says FUCK Computational Linguistics.] Black Hat: And the dumbest thing about emo kids is that... I... You know, I'm sick of easy targets. Anyone can make fun of emo kids. You know who's had it too easy? Computational Linguists. "Ooh, look at me! My field is so ill-defined, I can subscribe to any of dozens of contradictory models and still be taken seriously!" Ryan North later teased Randall in the title text of this comic .

Black Hat has become bored with attacking Emo kids, a cultural and, particularly, musical phenomenon characterised by introversion and angst. This has become a common target of mockery for its tendency to claim that 'no one understands me,' when in fact such feelings are common amongst teenagers, which is probably why he now feels that they are too easy a target for him. Instead, Black Hat has chosen to attack computational linguistics , an interdisciplinary field that combines theoretical linguistics, artificial intelligence, statistics, and other areas of study, to attempt to create a rule-based model of language. This has given rise to a number of competing theories, some of which may appear to contradict each other. He may be associating the two groups, suggesting that computational linguists are constantly bemoaning that their 'field is so ill-defined,' and that this has similarities to the emos' refrain above, or he may just be taking a swipe at them by suggesting that they think themselves above normal scientific methods. Linguistics itself is still a hotly debated subject, as is seen by the various conflicting theories on the origin of languages like the forms of Proto-Indo-European language. The title text is a reference to some of the people who contributed to language theory: [Black Hat is standing next to a large badge that says FUCK Computational Linguistics.] Black Hat: And the dumbest thing about emo kids is that... I... You know, I'm sick of easy targets. Anyone can make fun of emo kids. You know who's had it too easy? Computational Linguists. "Ooh, look at me! My field is so ill-defined, I can subscribe to any of dozens of contradictory models and still be taken seriously!" Ryan North later teased Randall in the title text of this comic .

Meerkat

Meerkat

https://www.xkcd.com/115

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/115:_Meerkat

[A Meerkat wearing a helmet and blue jersey, and two guys in the background supposedly on a rugby field.] You have to admit--there's no rule on the books saying a Meerkat can't play rugby. A golden retriever is at the centre of the basketball film Air Bud . In the film Mr. Go , a gorilla becomes a star of the Korean Baseball League. This concept was revisited in 1552: Rulebook .

The situation is a reference to the animal athlete loophole trope, where an animal joins an underdog [ No Pun Intended ] sports team and saves the day. The other team, which is previously dominant, and usually has an entitled and/or bullying attitude, does not like it, but since there is not a specific rule against it, it has to be allowed. Randall's combination of animal ( Meerkat ) and sport ( rugby ) is particularly unlikely, since meerkats are relatively small, slight animals, whereas rugby is associated with big powerful players, and has not been used in an animal sports movie before [ citation needed ] . The title text implies that, as a result of similar instances of animal recruitment in the past, rule changes have been introduced to specifically exclude those animals from taking part, which may be why this team has had to work its way down to meerkats. The governing bodies could probably have avoided this by simply excluding non-human animals. [A Meerkat wearing a helmet and blue jersey, and two guys in the background supposedly on a rugby field.] You have to admit--there's no rule on the books saying a Meerkat can't play rugby. A golden retriever is at the centre of the basketball film Air Bud . In the film Mr. Go , a gorilla becomes a star of the Korean Baseball League. This concept was revisited in 1552: Rulebook .

City

City

https://www.xkcd.com/116

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/116:_City

[A picture of various apartment buildings.] Shadowed city slumber silently. A second-story suite. Come craving courtship, selected serendipitously Crazed copulations, a salacious storm of continuous coitus. Spread, straddled, conquered. Countless crashed suitors strewn carelessly. Center, silken sheets sensuously caressing soft skin, Contentedly sleeps your mom.

The poem or description alternates between using words that start with C and words that start with S, to achieve an effect resembling alliteration . The gentle, romantic tone of the poem is broken by the last two words, Your Mom. This is an example of a maternal insult joke, and is phrased accordingly. The title text further emphasizes this, implying that the mother in question is also promiscuous. [A picture of various apartment buildings.] Shadowed city slumber silently. A second-story suite. Come craving courtship, selected serendipitously Crazed copulations, a salacious storm of continuous coitus. Spread, straddled, conquered. Countless crashed suitors strewn carelessly. Center, silken sheets sensuously caressing soft skin, Contentedly sleeps your mom.

Pong

Pong

https://www.xkcd.com/117

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/117:_Pong

Cueball: So what do we do if video game AI opponents become smart enough to question the "Matrix" into which we've put them? Pong paddle: Wait a minute! None of this is real! I can see through the world! I can see the code! I AM THE ONE! [The pong ball is moving towards the paddle.] [The pong ball slows down.] [The pong ball stops in midair.] [The pong ball drops towards the bottom of the screen.]

This comic largely refers to the 1999 movie The Matrix , which is about escaping a simulated reality. In the movie, a hacker called Neo realizes that the world he lives in is fake, and that, like every other human, he is used as a slave battery by machines that, to keep them under control, make them feel like they're "living" in what is actually a computer-generated simulation of the world, called the "Matrix." Upon discovery, Neo rebels against this misuse of mankind and trains himself to interact with the computers that run the world until, being "the One" mentioned by a prophecy, he is able to control and use them to his own advantage. He takes part in a series of missions against those machines that wanted to keep the humans trapped in a simulated environment. In Pong , one of the earliest video games, one can play virtual table tennis against the computer. A ball (the tiny block) is "hit" by a paddle (the long block) and crosses over the screen, to be "hit" again by the other paddle. Failure to return the ball results in a point won by the opponent. The speed of the ball increases as the rally runs longer. The two game programmers in the first frame apply Neo's story to the AI bots they create to serve as computer players in their video games: What if one of them learns enough to become sentient and understands the environment the programmers trapped it in? The outcome is shown: The paddle bot, understanding the game and realizing it is "the One," takes control of the code of Pong to make the ball stop and drop. The same thing happens in the movie, where Neo, by "seeing through the code," is able to stop bullets fired at him, and simply let them drop on the floor. This is also possibly, though not likely, a pun on the meaning of the term "the One," as the long thin paddle looks very similar to how a numeral "1" could be written in several fonts. In the title text, we learn that after increasing in intelligence, the "paddle" went on to destroy the headquarters of Atari , the producer of Pong, which "trapped" the paddle into the game, much like Neo sought to destroy the machines to free the humans. In the process, the paddle ended up inside the game Enter the Matrix (a video game produced with The Matrix Reloaded , a sequel to The Matrix ), also published by Atari. Since the whole premise of The Matrix is that everyone is trapped in virtual reality, the paddle now found itself in a virtual virtual reality or essentially a meta-virtual reality, which could be pretty hard to comprehend. Cueball: So what do we do if video game AI opponents become smart enough to question the "Matrix" into which we've put them? Pong paddle: Wait a minute! None of this is real! I can see through the world! I can see the code! I AM THE ONE! [The pong ball is moving towards the paddle.] [The pong ball slows down.] [The pong ball stops in midair.] [The pong ball drops towards the bottom of the screen.]

50 Ways

50 Ways

https://www.xkcd.com/118

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/118:_50_Ways

[Two figures stand around a levitating person.] You gotta let go, Joe Just rise off your feet, Pete Just stay in the air, Claire Gotta levitate, Kate There must be 50 ways To learn to hover.

The comic provides alternate lyrics to the chorus of the 1975 song " 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover " ( Video ) by American artist Paul Simon . Both the original and alternate lyrics provide a textual hook because the name at the end of the line is rhymed with the word before it (back/Jack, plan/Stan, go/Joe). Randall , we learn from the title text, heard Simon's song during a '70s hit marathon, went to sleep, and while being sleepy replaced "lover" by "hover" while writing the last line of the song's chorus. Thus changing this line from to leave your lover into to learn to hover . Clearly, this amused him so much that he decided to create a comic where people learn how to hover, rather than leave their lover. [Two figures stand around a levitating person.] You gotta let go, Joe Just rise off your feet, Pete Just stay in the air, Claire Gotta levitate, Kate There must be 50 ways To learn to hover.

Worst Band Name Ever

Worst Band Name Ever

https://www.xkcd.com/119

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/119:_Worst_Band_Name_Ever

It's probably a good thing that I never get to pick band names. [A stage with banner overhead reading: OPENING TONIGHT! HEDGECLIPPER] [On the stage are three guys with a bass, guitar, drum kit, and strange haircuts. On the kick drum is a picture of a hedge clipper.] Lead Guitarist: Maaan...

A hedge clipper or hedge trimmer is a gardening tool for trimming hedges or bushes. The implication is that motor driven hedge trimmers produce a bad, loud sound; maybe the sound of the band is even worse. The title text suggests that they (or at least the lead guitarist) previously did not know their band's name. As he bemoans his apparent inability to choose a good band name, he probably sees the name 'Hedgeclipper' as the reason why the band has no audience. It's probably a good thing that I never get to pick band names. [A stage with banner overhead reading: OPENING TONIGHT! HEDGECLIPPER] [On the stage are three guys with a bass, guitar, drum kit, and strange haircuts. On the kick drum is a picture of a hedge clipper.] Lead Guitarist: Maaan...

Dating Service

Dating Service

https://www.xkcd.com/120

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/120:_Dating_Service

[A computer monitor displays the profile of a man named Randall on an online dating site. His profile contains a picture of a spiky-haired man and some text, which is rendered as dialogue in the panels.] Randall: Hi, my name is Randall. I like candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach. Randall: When I say long walks on the beach, I mean LONG walks on the beach. I've met people through these services who CLAIM to like long walks on the beach. But we'll be out there barely an hour before they start in with "I'm tired" and "Don't you think it's time we head back?" BRING A TENT.

Enjoying "long walks on the beach" is a romantic activity stereotypically associated with dating; specifically, it is commonly listed as an interest in dating advertisements and, more recently, online dating profiles. It is among other romantic clichés like "candle-lit dinners" and may, in fact, simply indicate that the person enjoys romantic gestures and activities in general. It is likely that many people who list this in their profiles have never, in fact, taken a walk on a beach or may not live near enough to a beach for it to be a viable suggestion for a date. In this comic, Randall lists "long walks on the beach" as an interest on a dating profile. However, while a romantic walk might last for half an hour or an hour before, presumably, moving on towards another activity, Randall suggests he likes walks that last several hours or even overnight, suggesting potential mates bring a tent to camp out in. The title text suggests that those who say they like long walks on the beach are being disingenuous, or not forthcoming. He just wants someone who wants what he does; to walk an indefinite, indeterminate distance well beyond the comfort and expectations of everyone else. [A computer monitor displays the profile of a man named Randall on an online dating site. His profile contains a picture of a spiky-haired man and some text, which is rendered as dialogue in the panels.] Randall: Hi, my name is Randall. I like candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach. Randall: When I say long walks on the beach, I mean LONG walks on the beach. I've met people through these services who CLAIM to like long walks on the beach. But we'll be out there barely an hour before they start in with "I'm tired" and "Don't you think it's time we head back?" BRING A TENT.

Balloon

Balloon

https://www.xkcd.com/121

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/121:_Balloon

[Three drawings in one panel. A Cueball-like kid is holding a red balloon; The balloon gets caught in ceiling fan; The kid still holds on and is thus pulled up. Above the drawings is the following caption:] I watched the scene in the restaurant for a full fifteen minutes, hoping this would happen:

An unidentified narrator, probably Randall , says how he saw a kid with a balloon stand next to a ceiling fan in a restaurant. He explains how for fifteen minutes, he watched the kid's balloon, hoping the balloon would get caught in the ceiling fan and make the kid fly up towards it. This looks like it could cause serious injury to the child and/or damage to the venue. The title text concludes that the narrator is now considering himself a bad person for hoping for this to happen. This might be a poke to people who think that waiting for a disaster to happen makes you a bad person like in 611: Disaster Voyeurism . It is unlikely that the strength of the balloon rope and of the ceiling fan would be enough to lift the child. [Three drawings in one panel. A Cueball-like kid is holding a red balloon; The balloon gets caught in ceiling fan; The kid still holds on and is thus pulled up. Above the drawings is the following caption:] I watched the scene in the restaurant for a full fifteen minutes, hoping this would happen:

Quirky Girls

Quirky Girls

https://www.xkcd.com/122

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/122:_Quirky_Girls

[Megan and a man with a thinning head of hair are talking, looking at a group of two men and a woman standing further away. The woman is on a table and the two men are looking at her.] Guy: I love that girl. She's not afraid to be quirky and different. Megan: You know, I'm active in street theatre and I collect and paint Asian dolls. Guy: ...Okay, I didn't actually mean be different. I just want silly and entertaining on command now and then.

This is a fairly classic play on what people say they want isn't always what they mean they want. As per the comic, this is particularly true when it comes to the generalization of wanting someone "different." When Megan opens up to the other character and says how she is "different," she is met with a stereotypical, but more accurate, response of his definition of "different." The title text refers to characters in the famously cliched plot lines of romantic comedies where often the male lead is "uptight" and the female lead is "quirky," and the course of the plot involves the male lead learning to loosen up in order to properly fall in love with the female lead (the same set-up with the genders reversed is also common). Since these movies tend to follow very strict conventions, the definitions of "uptight" (has an office job, is afraid of confronting his boss, timid in public venues, etc.) and "quirky" (abnormally friendly with strangers, loves art, isn't afraid to make a spectacle of herself for fun, etc.) are just as limited and stereotyped as any other characters. This mirrors Megan 's frustration that "acceptably quirky" is so narrowly defined. [Megan and a man with a thinning head of hair are talking, looking at a group of two men and a woman standing further away. The woman is on a table and the two men are looking at her.] Guy: I love that girl. She's not afraid to be quirky and different. Megan: You know, I'm active in street theatre and I collect and paint Asian dolls. Guy: ...Okay, I didn't actually mean be different. I just want silly and entertaining on command now and then.

Centrifugal Force

Centrifugal Force

https://www.xkcd.com/123

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/123:_Centrifugal_Force

[James Bond, drawn as Cueball, is strapped to a giant wheel suspended from the ceiling. Black Hat is standing next to two levers.] Black hat: How do you like my centrifuge, mister Bond? When I throw this lever, you will feel centrifugal force crush every bone in your body. [Same scene, but a closer shot.] Bond: You mean centripetal force. There's no such thing as centrifugal force. Black hat: A laughable claim, mister Bond, perpetuated by overzealous teachers of science. Simply construct Newton's laws in a rotating system and you will see a centrifugal force term appear as plain as day. [Closer shot, only Bond's head is visible.] Bond: Come now, do you really expect me to do coordinate substitution in my head while strapped to a centrifuge? Black hat: No, Mister Bond. I expect you to die.

Black Hat has strapped James Bond to a centrifuge and claims that the centrifugal force will be lethal. Bond objects that there is no such thing, but just centripetal force. The notion of centrifugal force is a common one, as we experience it whenever we turn. Teachers will initially teach Newtonian mechanics in an inertial frame, and in inertial frames, the centrifugal force is zero. Instead, a body that moves in a circle does so because of a centripetal force (acting towards the centre of the rotation). This is a reasonable (and correct) view, but it is a subtle point that many students find hard to grasp, as it seems to contradict their personal experience of centrifugal forces. For the sake of exposition, teachers may claim that "There is no such thing as centrifugal force." This, however, is also a misconception, which is addressed in the explanation below: Observers' point of view (Black Hat, us, etc.) James Bond is moving in a circle, and is therefore accelerating. The force keeping him there is an inward force of contact against the centrifuge, a centripetal force. Via Newton's third law , since the centrifuge is pushing Bond inward, Bond is pushing the centrifuge outward. The centrifuge's material is strong enough not to break under this force, however. James Bond's point of view In James Bond's frame of reference, Bond is at rest. He is kept there by two forces: the above-mentioned inward force of contact against the centrifuge, and an outward centrifugal force . He feels both forces. As mentioned in the explanation, as the centrifuge rotates faster, the forces needed to keep him in motion get larger, so the force he feels gets larger. This will eventually kill him. The conclusion will be the same regardless of which frame of reference is chosen. Teachers of mechanics are well aware of this; however, in introductory expositions, these ideas are often not taught. In theoretical mechanics, one describes the positions and velocities of the particles in a model relative to a frame of reference. This means that a time is chosen to be time 0, and positions are chosen to be (0,0,0), (1,0,0), (0,1,0), and (0,0,1). With these chosen, the position and time of any particle in the system can be described. It is an axiom of Newtonian Mechanics that there exist "Inertial Frames." In an inertial frame, a particle will remain at rest or at a constant speed unless acted on by an external force, and Newton's second law takes a simple form: F = ma. The surface of the Earth approximates an inertial frame. In a non-inertial frame, such as one rotating with a giant centrifuge, or moving with an accelerating vehicle, a particle will accelerate, relative to the frame. Newton's second law, when formed in such a frame, is much more complicated, as it has terms for the linear acceleration of the frame, the angular acceleration of the frame, the centrifugal force, and the Coriolis force . These extra terms are sometimes called "fictitious forces," as they result from the choice of the frame of reference. The mathematics required to describe problems in a non-inertial frame is more sophisticated, and all problems may be solved using an inertial frame. Thus is reasonable that teachers at school level " lie to children " and teach the mechanics in inertial frames. James Bond was almost killed by a centrifuge in Moonraker . The final statement by Black Hat is that said by Auric Goldfinger in Goldfinger in response to James Bond's question "Do you expect me to talk?" The title text is inspired by Dead or Alive's famous song from 1985, " You Spin Me Round ." Randall feels very strongly that the centrifugal force is a real thing. He links to this comic in the first footnote of his What if? article One-Second Day and the 6th footnote of Earth-Moon Fire Pole , stating that it is a real thing, and that he will go so far as to strap arguers to a centrifuge that he or someone he knows apparently owns. As can also be seen in the footnote on page 132 in his What if? book , he will even fight you about it. From the book: "Furthermore, if you're on the equator, you're being flung outward by a centrifugal force 1 ." "1 Yes, centrifugal. I will fight you." (The article itself is about what happens if you lose all your DNA, so it has not much to do with this "real" force... The sentence is just stating that the actual weight loss from losing all your DNA is similar to the weight loss you would experience by moving from the poles to the equator due to this force.) [James Bond, drawn as Cueball, is strapped to a giant wheel suspended from the ceiling. Black Hat is standing next to two levers.] Black hat: How do you like my centrifuge, mister Bond? When I throw this lever, you will feel centrifugal force crush every bone in your body. [Same scene, but a closer shot.] Bond: You mean centripetal force. There's no such thing as centrifugal force. Black hat: A laughable claim, mister Bond, perpetuated by overzealous teachers of science. Simply construct Newton's laws in a rotating system and you will see a centrifugal force term appear as plain as day. [Closer shot, only Bond's head is visible.] Bond: Come now, do you really expect me to do coordinate substitution in my head while strapped to a centrifuge? Black hat: No, Mister Bond. I expect you to die.

Blogofractal

Blogofractal

https://www.xkcd.com/124

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/124:_Blogofractal

From the makers of the Blogosphere, Blogocube, and Blogodrome comes the Blogofractal [A large rectangle subdivided into rectangles in a fractal pattern, most with a phrase or word inside. Some subdivisions cannot be seen, as they are too small.] [Mostly left to right from top-left corner.] TripMaster Monkey says 118th Post!! Wikiconstitution! OMG DeCSS Casemod your Boyfriend!! FLICKR They're saying on Kos that http://slashdot.org/articl tagCloud Cory Doctorow is a little upset about copyright law. Hey guys what if Google is evil?!? I'll sleep with you for a FreeIpods deal. FirstPsot!! Snakes on an I don't Even Care Anymore KiwiWiki CSS Comments (0) Blogotesseract ¡play games! [RSS icon.] is AYB retro yet? Google Google Google Apple Google Goog Cheney totally shot a dude!!! Watch this toddler get owned by a squirrel!!! Developers Developers Developers Developers I installed a Mac Mini inside ANOTHER Mac Mini! Check out this vid of Jon Stewart 9-11 <-> Trent Lott! Web 7.1 Kryptonite™ locks vulnerable to "keys!" Interesting post! Check out my blog, it has useful info on CARBON MONOXIDE LITIGATION FIREFLY!! HELP ME Engadget Boing Boing Gizmodo MAKE Blog: DIY baby My friend has a band!! Jon released an exploit in the protocol for meeting girls. Internets! Howard Dean? So I hear there's a hurricane. We should elect this dude! Google Maps is da best!! Moderation: +1 Sassy RSS! A-list <3 Trackback URL? I shot a man in Reno check it out on YouTube! HEY LOOK ROBOTS! Net Neutrality! Friends Only. Dupe! AJAX? COMPLY Cowboy Neal Blogodrome Hey look I got Linux running on my tonsils! Look alive, blogonauts! Cafepress cockrings BOOBIES!! MIA A Beowulf Cluster... of BLOGS!! SPOILER ALERT Dupe! You have been eaten by a Grue. Ruby on a monorail Lesbians! DNF Released! Steampunk BLAG PONIES! Xeni found some porn! IRONY LIARS! Linux on Rails! Blogocube del.icio.us! 404 o.O Don't slam the source when you close it.

The Blogosphere is a blanket term for all the blogs on the internet that link together and share information to the extent that the term "blogosphere" arose to describe the collective of blogs. This comic proposes a new structure for defining all blogs by a fractal of blogs. Edward Tufte is a statistician who worked on data visualization and wrote books on the subject, including "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information," as mentioned in the title text. From the makers of the Blogosphere, Blogocube, and Blogodrome comes the Blogofractal [A large rectangle subdivided into rectangles in a fractal pattern, most with a phrase or word inside. Some subdivisions cannot be seen, as they are too small.] [Mostly left to right from top-left corner.] TripMaster Monkey says 118th Post!! Wikiconstitution! OMG DeCSS Casemod your Boyfriend!! FLICKR They're saying on Kos that http://slashdot.org/articl tagCloud Cory Doctorow is a little upset about copyright law. Hey guys what if Google is evil?!? I'll sleep with you for a FreeIpods deal. FirstPsot!! Snakes on an I don't Even Care Anymore KiwiWiki CSS Comments (0) Blogotesseract ¡play games! [RSS icon.] is AYB retro yet? Google Google Google Apple Google Goog Cheney totally shot a dude!!! Watch this toddler get owned by a squirrel!!! Developers Developers Developers Developers I installed a Mac Mini inside ANOTHER Mac Mini! Check out this vid of Jon Stewart 9-11 <-> Trent Lott! Web 7.1 Kryptonite™ locks vulnerable to "keys!" Interesting post! Check out my blog, it has useful info on CARBON MONOXIDE LITIGATION FIREFLY!! HELP ME Engadget Boing Boing Gizmodo MAKE Blog: DIY baby My friend has a band!! Jon released an exploit in the protocol for meeting girls. Internets! Howard Dean? So I hear there's a hurricane. We should elect this dude! Google Maps is da best!! Moderation: +1 Sassy RSS! A-list <3 Trackback URL? I shot a man in Reno check it out on YouTube! HEY LOOK ROBOTS! Net Neutrality! Friends Only. Dupe! AJAX? COMPLY Cowboy Neal Blogodrome Hey look I got Linux running on my tonsils! Look alive, blogonauts! Cafepress cockrings BOOBIES!! MIA A Beowulf Cluster... of BLOGS!! SPOILER ALERT Dupe! You have been eaten by a Grue. Ruby on a monorail Lesbians! DNF Released! Steampunk BLAG PONIES! Xeni found some porn! IRONY LIARS! Linux on Rails! Blogocube del.icio.us! 404 o.O Don't slam the source when you close it.

Marketing Interview

Marketing Interview

https://www.xkcd.com/125

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/125:_Marketing_Interview

[Black Hat, standing in front of Cueball, who is sitting behind a executive desk, looking at some papers.] Cueball: I've heard you're one of the best in the marketing business, but I've got your portfolio here and looks like you've never run a major campaign. Why should I hire you to head our new initiative? [Same scene.] Black Hat: If you don't mind asking, what gave you the idea I was one of the best in the business? Cueball: Hm? I don't remember. Just word of mouth or someth-- ...oh, you're good. Black Hat: Thank you. When can I start?

Black Hat is trying to get a job running a marketing program. Cueball conducts the interview and says that although he has heard that Black Hat is the best in the business, his portfolio does not show that he has run any major marketing campaigns. Black Hat asks where he heard that rumor and Cueball begins to respond. Then he realizes that Black Hat has used his perfect marketing campaign tactics to get into the business. Then, Black Hat tries to skip ahead of the interview process and coyly asks, before being offered the job, when he can start working. A book that becomes the most popular in its field is the one with the best marketing, not necessarily the one with the best content. The title text suggests that in this case, where the subject matter is marketing, the most popular book would in fact be written by those with the best marketing skills, and would therefore contain the best content. However, this fails to realize that the publishers of the book would only be good at marketing themselves, but not necessarily at teaching marketing. Job interviews are a recurring topic on xkcd. [Black Hat, standing in front of Cueball, who is sitting behind a executive desk, looking at some papers.] Cueball: I've heard you're one of the best in the marketing business, but I've got your portfolio here and looks like you've never run a major campaign. Why should I hire you to head our new initiative? [Same scene.] Black Hat: If you don't mind asking, what gave you the idea I was one of the best in the business? Cueball: Hm? I don't remember. Just word of mouth or someth-- ...oh, you're good. Black Hat: Thank you. When can I start?

Red Spiders Cometh

Red Spiders Cometh

https://www.xkcd.com/126

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/126:_Red_Spiders_Cometh

[Many red spiders, standing on and hanging from blocks, hover ominously over a small city, ready to attack.] This sort of drawing, with blocks converging on a horizon, is a common type of drawing practice to practice three-dimensional views.

The fourth in the series of sketches involving red spiders , the titular spiders are overlooking a small city. The title text implies that things won't end well, and possibly that the counter-offensive from the previous comic in the series had failed. The full series of Red Spiders comics: [Many red spiders, standing on and hanging from blocks, hover ominously over a small city, ready to attack.] This sort of drawing, with blocks converging on a horizon, is a common type of drawing practice to practice three-dimensional views.

The Fast and the Furious

The Fast and the Furious

https://www.xkcd.com/127

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/127:_The_Fast_and_the_Furious

on the other side of the world a new style of street racing rules the tokyo underground the cars are lighter the tires are slick when you drift, if you ain't out of control, you ain't in control. and if you work the wheel back and forth just right, [Two cars race around a corner with blue sparks spraying from their tires.] You get blue sparks. The FAST and the FURIOUS: TOKYO DASH!!

This comic shows an imagined crossover between the film The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and video game series Mario Kart , specifically the entry Mario Kart: Double Dash!! In Tokyo Drift , the protagonist is trying to break into the underground street racing ring, and finds that the urban environment of Tokyo is far different than the rural American roads he is used to. The Asian street racers soundly beat him until he is able to master oversteering , known in both the movie and in Mario Kart as "drifting." In Mario Kart , drifting is a gameplay mechanic. During a proper drift, the kart would create a splay of blue sparks and give a small, temporary "mini-boost" to the speed of the kart. In the title text, Randall jokes about shopping in a supermarket; when he steers his shopping cart around a corner, he pretends that he is getting the blue boost sparks. on the other side of the world a new style of street racing rules the tokyo underground the cars are lighter the tires are slick when you drift, if you ain't out of control, you ain't in control. and if you work the wheel back and forth just right, [Two cars race around a corner with blue sparks spraying from their tires.] You get blue sparks. The FAST and the FURIOUS: TOKYO DASH!!

dPain over dt

dPain over dt

https://www.xkcd.com/128

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/128:_dPain_over_dt

dPain/dt = (-k 1 Pain + [Image of Megan]) (1/(1 + e ^ -(t-k 2 )/d)) k 1 =? k 2 =? [Image of Megan]=How much she's still in my life Please let d only be a few days... or weeks I guess there's some kind of a cutoff after years, where it stops mattering and we can be friends. Do I want that? Is k 1 positive? Is k 2 large? Will I ever stop feeling like this?

Another one of the math-love relationship comics, a mathematical depiction of pain as a differential equation is shown. It is hoped that dPain/dt , or the rate of pain (in this case, shrinking), decreases quickly so that the pain will vanish quickly. He's hoping the value for d will not be larger than a few days or some weeks. Assuming that How much she's still in my life is a constant [Megan], solving the differential equation leads to the following solution (with unknown c 1 ): If k 1 was positive or if k 2 was a large value, the value of dPain/dt would approach zero. Ideally, k 1 would be "How much she's in my life"/ Pain (we assume both these values are positive), while k 2 would ideally be extremely large. Either of these scenarios approach what would be a situation where the value of dPain/dt is close to zero. But we don't know the meaning of k 1 or k 2 ; these variables are just unpredictable. In the title text, Randall changes the famous "laugh to keep from crying" statement to math. dPain/dt = (-k 1 Pain + [Image of Megan]) (1/(1 + e ^ -(t-k 2 )/d)) k 1 =? k 2 =? [Image of Megan]=How much she's still in my life Please let d only be a few days... or weeks I guess there's some kind of a cutoff after years, where it stops mattering and we can be friends. Do I want that? Is k 1 positive? Is k 2 large? Will I ever stop feeling like this?

Content Protection

Content Protection

https://www.xkcd.com/129

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/129:_Content_Protection

Content Protection System: [Megan sits on a couch watching a large flat-panel television, connected to a box labeled HDMI. The screen is labeled with "Approved screen" The cable is labeled with "Approved connection" The HDMI box is labeled with "Approved player" Megan's head is labeled with "Approved content"]

This comic is a commentary on HDCP , a media standard that requires all the devices from player to cable to display to be "approved" to carry HDCP content. HDCP is intended to protect media encrypted with DRM from being intercepted between the player and the display. Interestingly, however, it is literally impossible for DRM advocates to completely prevent copying (even with such drastic measures) because of the analog hole : since the content must be shown in a human-perceptible form, it can be captured by analog means, such as recording the display with a video camera. In addition to illustrating the absurdity of HDCP, the comic presents the darker idea that when your devices control what information you are exposed to, the controlling companies can act as " thought police " and ensure that your mind only contains "approved content." With the title text, Randall is referring again to DRM . The Free Culture movement ( Lawrence Lessig being one of their activists) is fighting for free content. DRM advocates claim that their technology "protects" artists by preventing piracy, while in reality, DRM is more effective as a means of giving media companies control over devices than it is at preventing piracy. Chapters 13 and 14 of the Free Culture book by Lawrence Lessig concern Eldred v. Ashcroft , 537 U.S. 186 (2003), a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States upholding the constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). The practical result of this was to prevent a number of works from entering the public domain in 1998 and following years, as would have occurred under the Copyright Act of 1976. Lessig was a lead council in this case. In his opinion he lost the case because his arguments were about culture instead of the economy. The structure of current law makes it exceedingly difficult for someone who might want to do something with an old work to find the copyright owner, because no central list exists. Because these old works no longer seem commercially viable to the copyright holder, many are deteriorating. In chapter 14 Lessig uses the disproportionate number of HIV and AIDS victims in Africa and other poor countries to further his argument that the current control of intellectual property—in this case, patents to HIV drugs—defy "common sense." Content Protection System: [Megan sits on a couch watching a large flat-panel television, connected to a box labeled HDMI. The screen is labeled with "Approved screen" The cable is labeled with "Approved connection" The HDMI box is labeled with "Approved player" Megan's head is labeled with "Approved content"]

Julia Stiles

Julia Stiles

https://www.xkcd.com/130

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/130:_Julia_Stiles

The best thing ever to appear on TV: 12-year-old Julia Stiles as a hacker in a 1993 episode of PBS's "Ghostwriter" [A sketch of Julia Stiles, as a 12-year-old, with a bandana over her head, long wavy hair, elbow shirt, wrist band, and pants.] Julia Stiles: Do you know anything about hackers? Julia Stiles: Can you jam with the console cowboys in cyberspace? Julia Stiles: Never experienced the new wave? Next wave? Dream wave? OR cyberpunk?

Julia Stiles , who later became a well-known actress as an older teenager and adult, did in fact appear in the children's television show Ghostwriter as a 12-year-old in 1993. The sketch in this comic depicts Stiles as she appeared in the episode, and all the dialogue attributed to her is taken from her character's actual dialogue. Although this dialogue was supposed to establish Erica (Stiles' character) as an expert on hacking, it actually consists mostly of buzzwords (some of which are fake), none of which would impress an actual computer hacker. The term "console cowboys" is stated to be a reference to the book Neuromancer in the full scene. The thread in the news section of the forums, as referenced in the title text, could originally be found here . However, as the forums went offline in 2019, the link is no longer available. A copy of the video with better audio can be found here . The best thing ever to appear on TV: 12-year-old Julia Stiles as a hacker in a 1993 episode of PBS's "Ghostwriter" [A sketch of Julia Stiles, as a 12-year-old, with a bandana over her head, long wavy hair, elbow shirt, wrist band, and pants.] Julia Stiles: Do you know anything about hackers? Julia Stiles: Can you jam with the console cowboys in cyberspace? Julia Stiles: Never experienced the new wave? Next wave? Dream wave? OR cyberpunk?

Fans

Fans

https://www.xkcd.com/131

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/131:_Fans

BEST THING ABOUT HAVING MY OWN APARTMENT: Holding fans in place so they twitch helplessly and make that clicking sound without my mom yelling at me. [Cueball holding fan in place.] click click

This comic is probably best understood by someone with young kids who explore everything in their household, and the fear that the kids will damage something expensive. Some parents issue harsh warnings to their children when they so much as touch an expensive item, which can be frustrating to children who feel that they don't have the freedom to explore. In the comic, Cueball lets go of these frustrations as he finally owns his own place. He buys an oscillating fan and grabs its head, locking the mechanism that rotates it. As it attempts to turn, a release stub on the motor clicks to alleviate pressure and prevent damage to the fan. Cueball enjoys the clicking sound that the fan makes, without having to worry about his mother stopping him. This shares a theme with 357: Flies . The title text gives more falsehoods that his mother told him: that bouncing a ball against a wall will dent the wall, or that the roof is too weak to hold his weight. BEST THING ABOUT HAVING MY OWN APARTMENT: Holding fans in place so they twitch helplessly and make that clicking sound without my mom yelling at me. [Cueball holding fan in place.] click click

Music Knowledge

Music Knowledge

https://www.xkcd.com/132

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/132:_Music_Knowledge

[Megan and Cueball converse.] Megan: What kind of music do you listen to? Cueball: Oh, a mix of things. Some classic rock like Boston, but then of course Queen and Bowie, Joan Jett... Megan: Definitely, we need more of those sounds. Cueball: But there's some great newer stuff too, like Franz Ferdinand, The Donnas, and Audioslave. Megan: Sometimes they're a little much for me. I go more for things like The Arcade Fire, sometimes mixing some electronic sounds like Postal Service. Cueball: Oh yeah—have you ever checked out Freezepop? Megan: Mhm! Synth pop can be fun, but at the same time, I agree that sometimes you just need to blast some Metallica. Cueball: Who? Megan: ...Metallica. Cueball: Are they new? I sound pretty knowledgeable about music until people figure out that I'm just naming bands from Guitar Hero.

The punchline of this comic is that just by naming bands from the game Guitar Hero , you can sound pretty knowledgeable about music without actually knowing anything about the bands you are naming. This is further emphasized when Megan mentions Metallica , a very famous band that mostly everyone can be assumed to have heard of, and Cueball has no clue who they are, because Metallica is not featured in Guitar Hero (at the time of this comic writing). A similar premise was demonstrated in 1859: Sports Knowledge . Guitar Hero is a music rhythm video game developed by Harmonix and published by RedOctane for the Playstation 2 . In the title text, Cueball (or possibly Randall) is just hoping for a sequel to Guitar Hero to get more, and newer, conversational material. As of 2019, there have been 6 main sequels to Guitar Hero , with numerous other spinoffs and expansions to the Guitar Hero series . Classic Rock Newer stuff Other stuff Interestingly, neither Arcade Fire nor Postal Service (mentioned by Megan) are featured in Guitar Hero , so Cueball should not have any knowledge of these bands. [Megan and Cueball converse.] Megan: What kind of music do you listen to? Cueball: Oh, a mix of things. Some classic rock like Boston, but then of course Queen and Bowie, Joan Jett... Megan: Definitely, we need more of those sounds. Cueball: But there's some great newer stuff too, like Franz Ferdinand, The Donnas, and Audioslave. Megan: Sometimes they're a little much for me. I go more for things like The Arcade Fire, sometimes mixing some electronic sounds like Postal Service. Cueball: Oh yeah—have you ever checked out Freezepop? Megan: Mhm! Synth pop can be fun, but at the same time, I agree that sometimes you just need to blast some Metallica. Cueball: Who? Megan: ...Metallica. Cueball: Are they new? I sound pretty knowledgeable about music until people figure out that I'm just naming bands from Guitar Hero.

The Raven

The Raven

https://www.xkcd.com/133

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/133:_The_Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary While I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious Volume of forgotten lore While i nodded, nearly napping, Suddenly there came a tapping As if someone gently rapping Rapping at my chamber door... [A door opens, revealing Eminem wearing a hoodie.] click creak Eminem: Yo.

The comic's title is a reference to the well-known poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe , one of the most popular pieces of poetry in the English language. The comic quotes the first four lines of the work, in which the poetic persona perceives a strange knocking on his door in the middle of the night. Unlike the original, the comic reveals the nocturnal visitor to be the rapper Eminem . This unexpected turn reflects the ambiguity of the verb "to rap" in English. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary , the word was used in the original sense of "to strike" as early as the 14th century. The meaning of the word was later extended to "talking freely and frankly." In this purport, it was especially employed by the Black rights movement during the 1960s (cp. for example the nom de guerre of H. Rap Brown ). The hip-hop subculture, which had its roots in the aforementioned movement, finally adopted the term in the sense of "rhythmic speaking or chanting." Today, the word is almost exclusively used with the latter meaning. It is thus implied that the poetic persona in the comic hears Eminem performing a rap song, rather than someone knocking on the door as in the original. Note also that rap music is usually considered fairly aggressive, which seems to contradict the poem's description of a "gentle" sound. Beyond a linguistic interpretation of the comic, it may be added that rap music and poetry bear a lot of similarities: Some of the more advanced rap lyrics feature classical stylistic devices like alliterations or inline rhymes as well as a more or less complex metrical structure. The metre of a classical poem, on the other hand, gives the piece a distinct, almost musical rhythm, albeit it is not accompanied by any instruments. Nerdcore rapper MC Lars has recorded a rap version of the poem (with some additional lyrics and modern references added) called 'Mr. Raven,' which can be heard here . (For a comparison between the verbal capabilities of Edgar Allan Poe and Eminem, see this article .) "The Raven" is heavily referenced in popular culture. Interestingly enough, the webcomic Dinosaur Comics had a reference to Edgar Allan Poe three weeks before the xkcd comic was published. There is also a Penny Arcade version of the "Raven" trope. The title text, besides defending the graphic style of the drawing, also lampshades at the somewhat peculiar taste of fashion found in the hip-hop subculture. In the picture, Eminem wears a sleeveless hoodie. While the aesthetic value of such garment might be disputed, it certainly defeats the purpose of keeping its bearer warm. Once upon a midnight dreary While I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious Volume of forgotten lore While i nodded, nearly napping, Suddenly there came a tapping As if someone gently rapping Rapping at my chamber door... [A door opens, revealing Eminem wearing a hoodie.] click creak Eminem: Yo.

Myspace

Myspace

https://www.xkcd.com/134

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/134:_Myspace

[Computer screen showing a myspace page.] Oh man, you and everyone in earshot are gonna love the first five seconds of this song!

This comic references a common issue that users would experience in the late 2000s on the now outdated website MySpace . At the time, an individual with a profile on that website would be able to choose a song that would automatically play when anyone accessed said profile. This was a heavily promoted feature in which the majority of users would partake. The song would interrupt whatever else the user was doing, such as listening to music, watching a video, or simply browsing in silence. For further context, MySpace at the time did not have a universal "news feed" to browse, so users would perform most of their interaction with other users by actively going to their profiles. Thus, the auto-playing music became a compounding problem, as the user could experience it several times per browsing session. The "first five seconds" refers to approximately how long it would take a typical user to find the pause button. Future social networks would eschew features like this, as they are perceived by the user base to be annoying and distracting. However, the issue in some ways persists, as sites like Facebook now auto-play sound on videos and advertisements (unless the user opts out). The title text refers to the fact that old pages, back in the late 1990s, used embedded MIDI files, which would not only play automatically, but also have no way to stop playing. The viewer would have to leave the website or externally mute the audio. Additionally, some Macintosh computers at the time had a bug that would automatically play MIDI files at the maximum computer volume, making them an incredible nuisance. MIDI files do not contain actual audio, but instead contain instructions for which notes to play on which musical instruments, and upon playback, these instructions would render sound from a library of MIDI audio samples installed in the computer's operating system — audio samples that were often artificially synthesized and of poor quality, producing music reminiscent of early video games; this may have made these web pages with embedded MIDI even more annoying. (In fairness, it should be noted that high-quality MIDI audio samples are also available, often recorded from actual musical instruments, and capable of reproducing realistic music.) [Computer screen showing a myspace page.] Oh man, you and everyone in earshot are gonna love the first five seconds of this song!

Substitute

Substitute

https://www.xkcd.com/135

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/135:_Substitute

[In a classroom, the board says "Math" on the top-left corner, and "Mr. Munroe" in the middle. A Cueball portrays Randall, standing in front of it, speaking to the class.] Randall: Miss Lenhart couldn't be here today, so she asked me to substitute. Randall: I've put out your tests. Please get started. [A student in the first row raises the exam paper and says:] Student: Mr. Munroe, Miss Lenhart never taught us this. Randall: That's because Miss Lenhart doesn't understand how important certain kinds of math are. Student: But this just looks-- Randall: This material is more vital than anything you've ever learned Student: But-- Randall: No buts. Randall: This is a matter of life and death. [Excerpt from the exam paper.] Name: _________ [A stick figure is standing, hands over head. A velociraptor is running towards it.] 1. The velociraptor spots you 40 meters away and attacks, accelerating at 4 m/s^2 to its top speed of 25 m/s. When it spots you, you begin to flee, quickly reaching your top speed of 6 m/s. How far can you get before you're caught and devoured? 2. You're at the center of a 20m equilateral triangle with a raptor at each corner. The top raptor has a wounded leg and is limited to a top speed of 10 m/s. [A stick figure is shown in the above situation. The picture has a legend " (Not to scale). "] The raptors will run toward you. At what angle should you run to maximize the time you stay alive? 3. Raptors can open doors, but they are slowed by them. Using the floor plan on the next page, plot a route through the building, assuming raptors take 5 minutes to open the first door and halve the time for each subsequent door. Remember, raptors run at 10 m/s and they do not know fear.

This comic refers to the film Jurassic Park , a 1993 movie based on the 1990 novel by Michael Crichton . The film centers around a billionaire who bought an island and opened a zoo or theme park for dinosaurs that he has cloned from DNA recovered from blood found in fossilized mosquitoes. After a computer programmer shuts down the security systems to steal embryos for a rival company, several of the creatures, among which are the Velociraptors subject of this comic, run loose and try to devour every human in the theme park. Velociraptors (often shortened to "raptors") are a species of relatively small, carnivorous dinosaur that play a central role in the original film, as well as its sequels. In the film, packs of Velociraptors antagonize the main characters at various points, even entering buildings. According to newer researches, the Velociraptors in the film were erroneously based on the Utahraptor species of dinosaur. Unlike the movie, in which they are depicted as having a reptilian skin, both species of dinosaur in reality are theorized to have been feathered. The word "raptor" also refers to modern birds of prey . Randall is asked to substitute for Miss Lenhart in math class. The first page of the test he devises contains three questions, which have the recurring theme of humans running from said velociraptors. For the answers, see the trivia section. As Randall says in the comic: "This material is more vital than anything you've ever learned," the joke being that Randall is somehow fearful that such a thing could happen. Velociraptors, and in particular, the irrational fear of being attacked by them in the modern world, appear several times in xkcd . This is the second such instance; the first is 87: Velociraptors In the title text, Randall asks the kids whether they find this possibility humorous (and they rightfully should, considering that the chances of such a thing occuring are astronomically low). [In a classroom, the board says "Math" on the top-left corner, and "Mr. Munroe" in the middle. A Cueball portrays Randall, standing in front of it, speaking to the class.] Randall: Miss Lenhart couldn't be here today, so she asked me to substitute. Randall: I've put out your tests. Please get started. [A student in the first row raises the exam paper and says:] Student: Mr. Munroe, Miss Lenhart never taught us this. Randall: That's because Miss Lenhart doesn't understand how important certain kinds of math are. Student: But this just looks-- Randall: This material is more vital than anything you've ever learned Student: But-- Randall: No buts. Randall: This is a matter of life and death. [Excerpt from the exam paper.] Name: _________ [A stick figure is standing, hands over head. A velociraptor is running towards it.] 1. The velociraptor spots you 40 meters away and attacks, accelerating at 4 m/s^2 to its top speed of 25 m/s. When it spots you, you begin to flee, quickly reaching your top speed of 6 m/s. How far can you get before you're caught and devoured? 2. You're at the center of a 20m equilateral triangle with a raptor at each corner. The top raptor has a wounded leg and is limited to a top speed of 10 m/s. [A stick figure is shown in the above situation. The picture has a legend " (Not to scale). "] The raptors will run toward you. At what angle should you run to maximize the time you stay alive? 3. Raptors can open doors, but they are slowed by them. Using the floor plan on the next page, plot a route through the building, assuming raptors take 5 minutes to open the first door and halve the time for each subsequent door. Remember, raptors run at 10 m/s and they do not know fear.

Science Fair

Science Fair

https://www.xkcd.com/136

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/136:_Science_Fair

[Text above the drawing:] Although it caught me by surprise at the time, looking back I understand why my senior science fair project went over as badly as it did. [A science fair project consisting of eight posters on three pink walls is set up for presenting such a project, so it is possible to step in between the walls to read about the project. There are two posters on both the left and the right wall, all four with unreadable text. Three of them clearly have a bolder heading at the top (still unreadable). The last to the right, which has no header, has instead some kind of drawing or formula in the middle, still unreadable.] [The central wall has some readable and discernible parts. The top poster is the title of the project, written in very large letters:] The Mathematics of Cunnilingus [Below the title poster, there are three posters. Two of these are right below, one to the left and one to the right, and the last poster below takes up the rest of the wall. The left of the two posters next to each other has a table with three rows and three columns. The text in each box is unreadable, but some of the text seems to be formulas though. Above the three columns, there are readable legends:] f(t);   F(ω);   ℒ(s) [The next poster to the right shows a drawing of female genitalia with the clitoris and both sets of Labia shown. It is displayed on a chart with X and Y axes with ticks (but no labels), and there is a box with three lines of unreadable text/legends.] [The last poster at the bottom of the central panel shows four line graphs with what looks like modulated signals or other time-domain signals or functions. These are displayed in two rows/columns to the left. To the right of these, there is a readable heading, and below that is more unreadable text:] Challenges in frequency-domain analysis

A science fair involves schoolchildren doing research on a subject of their choice. The purpose is to give them hands-on experience with scientific techniques. Even so, a project based on cunnilingus , oral stimulation of the female genitalia for sexual enjoyment, would not likely be acceptable in a science fair, a setting that is not only public but also involving children. However, adolescents are often very curious about sex and can often misjudge what is appropriate behaviour. On the center left are the notations for a function f(t) , its Fourier transform F(ω) , and its Laplace transform ℒ(s) . The section titled "Challenges in frequency domain analysis" show four graphs that may be representative of amplitude modulation (variation in the depth of licking), frequency modulation (variation of the rate of licking), a small high frequency signal superimposed on a larger, slower one, and a periodic but non-continuous signal, perhaps a tangent function . These would have more complex Fourier and Laplace transforms than a simple sinusoidal licking function. The title text is probably a reference to An Inconvenient Truth , a 94-minute documentary film where former US vice president Al Gore teaches the general public about the dangers of global warming. It has been included in science curricula in schools around the world, to the ire of easily bored students everywhere. This comic was mentioned in FRUIT OPINIONS! on the Blag . Although this comic must have been one of the more controversial, it had nothing on the impact of 388: Fuck Grapefruit , which was the cause of the Blag entry, as it became the most controversial comic written to that point (i.e. 2008): ...beating out comics about cunnilingus, the Obama endorsement, and my making 4chan tiny on the map of the internet . (See the grapefruit comic for more details). [Text above the drawing:] Although it caught me by surprise at the time, looking back I understand why my senior science fair project went over as badly as it did. [A science fair project consisting of eight posters on three pink walls is set up for presenting such a project, so it is possible to step in between the walls to read about the project. There are two posters on both the left and the right wall, all four with unreadable text. Three of them clearly have a bolder heading at the top (still unreadable). The last to the right, which has no header, has instead some kind of drawing or formula in the middle, still unreadable.] [The central wall has some readable and discernible parts. The top poster is the title of the project, written in very large letters:] The Mathematics of Cunnilingus [Below the title poster, there are three posters. Two of these are right below, one to the left and one to the right, and the last poster below takes up the rest of the wall. The left of the two posters next to each other has a table with three rows and three columns. The text in each box is unreadable, but some of the text seems to be formulas though. Above the three columns, there are readable legends:] f(t);   F(ω);   ℒ(s) [The next poster to the right shows a drawing of female genitalia with the clitoris and both sets of Labia shown. It is displayed on a chart with X and Y axes with ticks (but no labels), and there is a box with three lines of unreadable text/legends.] [The last poster at the bottom of the central panel shows four line graphs with what looks like modulated signals or other time-domain signals or functions. These are displayed in two rows/columns to the left. To the right of these, there is a readable heading, and below that is more unreadable text:] Challenges in frequency-domain analysis

Dreams

Dreams

https://www.xkcd.com/137

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/137:_Dreams

[A friend is standing behind Cueball, who is typing at a computer.] Friend: You should be more careful what you write. Future employers might read it. [The friend still stands while Cueball looks at his computer.] Cueball: When did we forget our dreams? Friend: What? [Cueball stands beside his friend.] Cueball: The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I'm sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live trapped in loops, reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out before us. We see the same things every day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us. Cueball: And no, I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesn't involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of some day easing my fit into a mold. It doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit someone's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up. Cueball: This is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I can: [The next three panels are Cueball standing.] Cueball: FUCK. Cueball: THAT. Cueball: SHIT.

In the first panel of this comic, it is clear that Cueball has just written some comment that his friend thinks will lower his chances for getting a job in the future. This is common advice given to teenagers and young professionals, given as a warning that their posts online could be seen by a potential future boss. In the next panel, Cueball replies with a seeming non-sequitur: when did we forget our dreams? Without explanation, this seems like one of the overly philosophizing, ultimately meaningless questions that also happen to pop up on social media sites. Cueball's friend is confused by the sudden shift in conversation. The long monologue Cueball delivers focuses around the fact that as people get older, their lives becomes narrower and less filled with possibilities and novelty. This is a speech made in the manner of someone getting older and missing the simpler days of youth, where everything was much more exciting. From this point, he explains that part of the deadening process is responding the same way to each event that happens, and creating a routine. Routines, Cueball believes, remove our ability to act on our dreams. Finally, Cueball gets to relating this monologue to posting inappropriate material to social media sites: he will not let his concerns for a nebulous future hinder the outlook on life he has now. He will not limit his choices in order to conform with the expectations of an uninspired future. He ends with the clear and simple explanation of his choices—"Fuck. That. Shit." Cueball's use of periods between words in this closing phrase is itself another reference to practices on social media sites; people will sometimes put a period after each word in a short phrase to show emphasis. Connor's second thesis from the title text is a quote from the character Sarah Connor in the film Terminator 2 . The message expressed is a restatement of Cueball's monologue: While it sounds trite, each and every one of us has the ability to change our situation, whether by quitting the job we don't like, telling that person that we love them, or some other action. Our action (and inaction) creates our future, including the way in which we react to those things outside our control. The title text also poses the question of whether the more creativity lost to conformity, the more routine life becomes, or the more routine life becomes, the less creative you become. This is a chicken and egg type question, which is dramatically broken by the suggestion of a roadtrip. This is the situationally unexpected break that shows that the speaker is willing to break out of the routines threatening to set in. Other comics with a similar theme about finding or taking unexplored paths, instead of fitting into the mold, include 59: Graduation and 267: Choices: Part 4 . [A friend is standing behind Cueball, who is typing at a computer.] Friend: You should be more careful what you write. Future employers might read it. [The friend still stands while Cueball looks at his computer.] Cueball: When did we forget our dreams? Friend: What? [Cueball stands beside his friend.] Cueball: The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I'm sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live trapped in loops, reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out before us. We see the same things every day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us. Cueball: And no, I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesn't involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of some day easing my fit into a mold. It doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit someone's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up. Cueball: This is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I can: [The next three panels are Cueball standing.] Cueball: FUCK. Cueball: THAT. Cueball: SHIT.

Pointers

Pointers

https://www.xkcd.com/138

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/138:_Pointers

[Cueball is playing a video game, with Black Hat standing behind him.] Cueball: Man, I suck at this game. Can you give me a few pointers? Black Hat: 0x3A28213A 0x6339392C, 0x7363682E. Cueball: I hate you. In xkcd: Volume 0 , the pointers are different, specifically 0x4B657932, 0x6F66383A, and 0x73CD4542.

This comic is about a play on the dual meaning of the word "pointer." Cueball is playing a video game, but he seems to be stuck. So he asks Black Hat for a few tips ("pointers") to progress in the game. Black Hat is, as usual, annoying, so he spits out a couple of (seemingly random) 32-bit hexadecimal addresses, which are " pointers " in a programming language. These pointers are used to access a certain location in the computer's memory in order to fulfill a task; however, this would not be helpful in the game. Cueball is then annoyed at Black Hat for not answering his question. A segmentation fault , as referred to in the title text, is a result by accessing invalid memory addresses. If you define a pointer to an invalid address, then try to access the memory location associated with it, you could end up with this exception. The hexadecimal address 0x-1 is definitely invalid, because it's out of range. If you treat pointers as signed numbers, it points below the lowest address, 0; if you treat them as unsigned (meaning the numbers wrap around, so -1 is the same as the highest address - 0xFFFFFFFF on a 32-bit system), if it's pointing at any object larger than a byte, most of that object is past the highest address. So, this is a "hidden location," but as soon as you try to read more than one byte at that location, you will get a segfault. The ending letters of the pointers are spelling, reading top to bottom, the word ACE. As Cueball is playing a game, Black Hat could be additionally saying that he's an ace of the game. Pointers are often used to cheat in games and do things like change the amount of money you have. The pointers Black Hat spits out could also be cheat codes giving an extra reason for Cueball to hate him. [Cueball is playing a video game, with Black Hat standing behind him.] Cueball: Man, I suck at this game. Can you give me a few pointers? Black Hat: 0x3A28213A 0x6339392C, 0x7363682E. Cueball: I hate you. In xkcd: Volume 0 , the pointers are different, specifically 0x4B657932, 0x6F66383A, and 0x73CD4542.

I Have Owned Two Electric Skateboards

I Have Owned Two Electric Skateboards

https://www.xkcd.com/139

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/139:_I_Have_Owned_Two_Electric_Skateboards

[Caption above the panels:] How electric skateboards work: [Cueball is standing on a skateboard, just to the right of a sign. He pushes a button on the remote he has in his hand. The remote is connected to his skateboard through a wire.] Sign: Point A Click [Cueball skates while he stands still on the board.] Whirrrr [He stops just in front of another sign. To his left are three girls; Megan, Ponytail, and another Megan-like girl with even longer hair than the first. Below them are three arrows pointing to each of them and a label connected to all three arrow.] Sign: Point B Label: Chicks

Randall likes electric skateboards (he has owned two already by the time of this comic). This comic shows a simple move where Cueball drives one from A to B. It's not very artistic, but the "chicks" are cheering, and the comic states that this is how they work. The humor of the comic is an understated joke that if you use an electric skateboard just to get around, by the time you get to where you are going, there will already be a group of chicks cheering and following you just because electric skateboards are awesome. (The pickup artist in 1178: Pickup Artists would be disappointed to learn that this is not actually accurate, as it would save him the bother of "sleazy" social manipulation of the desired "chicks," assuming they can afford to acquire an electric skateboard instead.) In the title text, Randall tells us that both of his two electric skateboards were cheap and have been worn down by heavy use. If he ever moves to the city, he will buy a really nice skateboard. If it is to be able to get around over the shorter distances of the city or if it is just because there are many more "chicks" to impress is left up to the reader's imagination. Electric skateboards have been the subject of several other comics , but this was the first. It has been featured most prominently in The Race , a five part comic series. [Caption above the panels:] How electric skateboards work: [Cueball is standing on a skateboard, just to the right of a sign. He pushes a button on the remote he has in his hand. The remote is connected to his skateboard through a wire.] Sign: Point A Click [Cueball skates while he stands still on the board.] Whirrrr [He stops just in front of another sign. To his left are three girls; Megan, Ponytail, and another Megan-like girl with even longer hair than the first. Below them are three arrows pointing to each of them and a label connected to all three arrow.] Sign: Point B Label: Chicks

Delicious

Delicious

https://www.xkcd.com/140

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/140:_Delicious

[Frame is split by a diagonal.] [First half: Cueball in front of open fridge.] Cueball: I have leftover cheese. I should get chips and make nachos. [Second half: Cueball with bag of chips.] Cueball: I have leftover chips. I should get cheese and make nachos. [Caption below the two drawings:] A delicious cycle

The simplest explanation for the comic is the recipe for nachos . You take some tortilla chips , spread them out on a plate, sprinkle them with grated cheese and perhaps some other ingredients like salsa, beans, or guacamole, and put the plate in the oven until the cheese is melted. As usual with a full bag of snacks, you always end up with that tiny bit left at the bottom of the bag. In this case, it is either leftover grated cheese (left) or tortilla chips (right). So you end up buying another package of the other ingredient to make nachos again. This is an example of a virtuous or vicious cycle , in which a feedback loop reinforces itself. A virtuous cycle has favorable results, while a vicious has detrimental results. In this case, it is neither a virtuous or vicious cycle, but a delicious cycle - the pun of this joke. The title text just says that currently, Randall has leftover cheese. He will probably get chips soon, continuing the cycle. The same problem with having leftovers when making a dish using two types of food that don't match up is the setup for the joke in 1641: Hot Dogs . [Frame is split by a diagonal.] [First half: Cueball in front of open fridge.] Cueball: I have leftover cheese. I should get chips and make nachos. [Second half: Cueball with bag of chips.] Cueball: I have leftover chips. I should get cheese and make nachos. [Caption below the two drawings:] A delicious cycle

Parody Week Achewood

Parody Week: Achewood

https://www.xkcd.com/141

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/141:_Parody_Week:_Achewood

[Unlike regular xkcd comics, the text here seems to be typed on a machine, and the speech is in bubbles rather than just indicated with a thin line from the speaker. This is true for all spoken text. Also, Beef almost never uses any punctuation in his sentences.] [Philippe, an anthropomorphic stuffed otter, is participating in a hearing aid test with headphones over his ears and one arm raised. He is at a doctor's office, and behind him on the wall, there is an eye chart with six lines of E's, the large one on top a regular E, and then in the next two lines they are turned around in the four general directions. The last three lines are not readable. The doctor talks to Philippe from off-panel in a bubble going to the far right. Here it meets a thought bubble line going down and left from the upper right corner. On the right side, the background is gray, and Philippe can be seen lying in a bed, dreaming the scene to the left.] Doctor (off-panel): Philippe, your hearing is perfect! In fact, you heard ALL the beeps! You have super-hearing! You're needed at Hogwarts! Philippe: Oh boy! Eye chart: E E ɯ EMƎ ƎEƎMƎME [Roast Beef, an anthropomorphic thin cat with pointy ears and small eyes, is looking at Ray, an anthropomorphic fat cat with black glasses. He is reading from a piece of paper that has been folded out, holding it up in front of him with both hands. They are seen from the waist up. Most of the time below, their eyebrows are visible to show feelings, but Beef's are not shown here. When they speak, their mouths are open, else they are closed. Beef's is closed in this panel. Above the drawing, there is a line, and in the thin frame formed by that and the top panel, there is a caption:] Meanwhile . . . Ray: Beef, check this out. I got an invite to that The Dude Is Pretty Awesome In Most Measurable Ways I Mean Wow competition. [This panel pans up so less of their bodies can be seen and more text can be seen above them. It is clear that Ray has a medal hanging around his neck, which was partly covered by his hands in the previous panel, which are now down. Apart from this, they look the same.] Beef: Alright that is pretty sweet dogg what is your strategy gonna consist of Ray: I'm thinkin' I need to point out my best features -- maybe go holdin' a sign with an arrow toward my junk. [Ray is seen almost in full figure, which reveals that he is only wearing big black underpants and the medal, his nipples also clearly visible on each side of the medal (as they were already in the previous panel, but not the one before). He has one arm at his side, the other holding a large sign with big bold text, and beneath this a large black arrow pointing first down and then across towards his pants waistband.] Sign: Yes [Back to same view as in the first panel, except a pan so Ray is in the center and Beef is partly cut off at the left frame so there is space for a speech bubble to the right of Ray. Ray holds up a drink glass in front of him with a cherry in the bottom. Beef's eyebrows are missing.] Beef: Yeah well I always said subtlety was your middle name dogg Beef: And also your first and last in case they didn't get the point Ray: How do you think I should play it? [Only Beef is shown in this panel to make room for his speech bubbles.] Beef: Well basically you got no chance as I see it these dudes are all lovers and fighters to the last Beef: All sprung fully formed from the head of Sweet Sweetback Beef: You are gonna stand out as the sort of dude who stays at home all night playing fleshlight tag [Both are again in this panel, but it has been panned up so only their heads are visible to place speech bubbles above them.] Ray: These words you got are crazy. Didn't I win the outdoor fight? Beef: Uh huh about the fight I wasn't gonna tell you but how could you miss that I was setting you up Ray: What? Beef: You got played dogg [Same but panned down to below the medal on Ray. Beef's eyebrows are missing.] Beef: I basically just didn't have the heart to go through with it in the end. [Only Beef is shown to the right, making space for five speech bubbles to his left.] Beef: Anyway the point is that you are gonna lose this thing so hard Beef: All cheap McD's hamburger to their slabs of steak Beef: A couple 12-oz sirloins garnished with nothing but pure manhood Beef: Maybe some sprigs of parsley Beef: You are pretty much going down [Closeup of a shocked Ray mouth hanging open.] [Silence 1. Both are shown from the waistline and up standing looking slightly down, arms down. Ray has closed his mouth. Generally, their ears shift a bit from panel to panel the rest of the way, as has their head position, but else they stay the same distance from each other.] [Silence 2. Same view. Beef looks perturbed, and his ear is twitching. Ray's mouth is open again.] [Silence 3. Same view. Beef looks sorry. Ray has closed his mouth.] [Silence 4. Same view. Beef looks sorry and Ray looks angry. Ray's mouth is open again.] [Silence 5. Same view. Ray has closed his mouth again. Beef's eyebrows are missing, but also Ray's are gone, maybe hidden by the rim of the glasses. They do not reappear in the rest of the comic, indicating that he keeps his eyes downcast. ] [Silence 6. Same view. Beef's eyebrows are back.] [Silence 7. The view has panned so low that it is possible to see the waistband of Ray's underpants. Beef is looking even more down and has moved closer to Ray whose mouth is open again.] [Silence 8. Same view, but a little less waistband visible. Beef has moved back agai. His eyebrows are missing and his mouth is open, and Ray looks even more down than before, still mouth open.] [Silence 9. View panned so low that a large part of Ray's underpants can be seen. Beef is looking down, mouth closes with eyebrows, Ray standing more straight, still mouth open.] [Silence 10. Beef looks surprised with eyebrows raised and has moved close to Ray, who has finally closed his mouth again.]

This comic is a part of the Parody Week , just joking about other webcomics . This series was released on five consecutive days (Monday-Friday), not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, and it comprises the following five parodies : Achewood is a webcomic by Chris Onstad . It portrays the lives of a group of anthropomorphic stuffed toys, robots, and pets, and veers between cheerful, vulgar, and philosophical scenes from everyday American life and bizarre surreal interludes - Kevin Smith meets David Lynch. The comic's humor often lacks a traditional punchline and utilizes numerous awkward pause panels. This comic includes three of the prominent characters from the strip: Philippe a five year old stuffed otter , Ray , and Roast Beef . In the first panel, Phillippe is dreaming of having his ears checked. The doctor informs him that because of his superhearing power, he is needed at Hogwarts , School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, from Harry Potter . This fits well with his canon depiction as a dreamer who believes typically childish things in a serious way - a long-running storyline shows Philippe's semi-imaginary run for president on a platform of hugs. On the wall behind him, there is an E chart - a special version of the eye chart for young children. The comic then switches to Roast Beef and Ray discussing an invitation to a competition described only by its name ("The Dude Is Pretty Awesome In Most Measurable Ways I Mean Wow", reminiscent of the name of Roast Beef's zine "Man Why You Even Got To Do A Thing"). Achewood has had several storylines pertaining to masculinity contests, but the one that Randall is parodying here is the "Great Outdoor Fight," perhaps Achewood's most famous storyline . In this arc, Ray, finding himself in the shadow of his father, the ludicrously strong Ramses Luther Smuckles, decides to enter a 3,000-man brawl called the "Great Outdoor Fight." Although he is nowhere near as strong as the other contestants, after they all kill each other, he is the last man standing, thanks to the help of Roast Beef, and quits the contest when he realizes that he would have to knock his friend out to win. Ray, who in Achewood typically just wears a thong, glasses, and jewellery as shown here, has a strategy of simply highlighting his genitals. Roast Beef, always a pessimist who speaks without punctuation, offers his take on the competition: Ray is going to lose to the other, significantly more impressive, contestants. In canon, Roast Beef entered (or at least, hacked himself into) the Great Outdoor Fight specifically to ensure that Ray would win, and was shocked that Ray refused to knock him out. Randall offers an alternative characterization: Roast Beef was setting Ray up and planned to knock him out and claim the trophy, but couldn't complete his plan. Ray is dismayed, and Roast Beef proceeds to further shut him down, comparing Ray (a "McD's" hamburger) to the other competitors (a 12 oz. sirloin steak). This leads to a lengthy awkward pause, spanning the rest of the comic. The comic is written in the style of Onstad and his humor. The last 10 panels are "awkward-pause panels," which are used frequently in Achewood, in what appears to be a joke about overuse of dialogue-free panels (there are 11 of these, but the first is a shock panel, then the pause begins). This joke is continued in the title-text, where Randall claims that this strip set the record for the most panels of this kind, a record previously held by Achewood. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a 1971 Blaxploitation film that is generally regarded as an exemplar of its genre - its hero, Sweet Sweetback, is a strong, sexually-talented African American fighting his way out of the ghetto. Bursting fully-formed from Sweet Sweetback's head is a parody of the birth of Greek Goddess Athena . References to Fleshlight , such as this comment by Beef in the first panel in the third row: You are gonna stand out as the sort of dude who stays at home all night playing fleshlight tag , became a recurring theme in xkcd, but this seems to be the first time. [Unlike regular xkcd comics, the text here seems to be typed on a machine, and the speech is in bubbles rather than just indicated with a thin line from the speaker. This is true for all spoken text. Also, Beef almost never uses any punctuation in his sentences.] [Philippe, an anthropomorphic stuffed otter, is participating in a hearing aid test with headphones over his ears and one arm raised. He is at a doctor's office, and behind him on the wall, there is an eye chart with six lines of E's, the large one on top a regular E, and then in the next two lines they are turned around in the four general directions. The last three lines are not readable. The doctor talks to Philippe from off-panel in a bubble going to the far right. Here it meets a thought bubble line going down and left from the upper right corner. On the right side, the background is gray, and Philippe can be seen lying in a bed, dreaming the scene to the left.] Doctor (off-panel): Philippe, your hearing is perfect! In fact, you heard ALL the beeps! You have super-hearing! You're needed at Hogwarts! Philippe: Oh boy! Eye chart: E E ɯ EMƎ ƎEƎMƎME [Roast Beef, an anthropomorphic thin cat with pointy ears and small eyes, is looking at Ray, an anthropomorphic fat cat with black glasses. He is reading from a piece of paper that has been folded out, holding it up in front of him with both hands. They are seen from the waist up. Most of the time below, their eyebrows are visible to show feelings, but Beef's are not shown here. When they speak, their mouths are open, else they are closed. Beef's is closed in this panel. Above the drawing, there is a line, and in the thin frame formed by that and the top panel, there is a caption:] Meanwhile . . . Ray: Beef, check this out. I got an invite to that The Dude Is Pretty Awesome In Most Measurable Ways I Mean Wow competition. [This panel pans up so less of their bodies can be seen and more text can be seen above them. It is clear that Ray has a medal hanging around his neck, which was partly covered by his hands in the previous panel, which are now down. Apart from this, they look the same.] Beef: Alright that is pretty sweet dogg what is your strategy gonna consist of Ray: I'm thinkin' I need to point out my best features -- maybe go holdin' a sign with an arrow toward my junk. [Ray is seen almost in full figure, which reveals that he is only wearing big black underpants and the medal, his nipples also clearly visible on each side of the medal (as they were already in the previous panel, but not the one before). He has one arm at his side, the other holding a large sign with big bold text, and beneath this a large black arrow pointing first down and then across towards his pants waistband.] Sign: Yes [Back to same view as in the first panel, except a pan so Ray is in the center and Beef is partly cut off at the left frame so there is space for a speech bubble to the right of Ray. Ray holds up a drink glass in front of him with a cherry in the bottom. Beef's eyebrows are missing.] Beef: Yeah well I always said subtlety was your middle name dogg Beef: And also your first and last in case they didn't get the point Ray: How do you think I should play it? [Only Beef is shown in this panel to make room for his speech bubbles.] Beef: Well basically you got no chance as I see it these dudes are all lovers and fighters to the last Beef: All sprung fully formed from the head of Sweet Sweetback Beef: You are gonna stand out as the sort of dude who stays at home all night playing fleshlight tag [Both are again in this panel, but it has been panned up so only their heads are visible to place speech bubbles above them.] Ray: These words you got are crazy. Didn't I win the outdoor fight? Beef: Uh huh about the fight I wasn't gonna tell you but how could you miss that I was setting you up Ray: What? Beef: You got played dogg [Same but panned down to below the medal on Ray. Beef's eyebrows are missing.] Beef: I basically just didn't have the heart to go through with it in the end. [Only Beef is shown to the right, making space for five speech bubbles to his left.] Beef: Anyway the point is that you are gonna lose this thing so hard Beef: All cheap McD's hamburger to their slabs of steak Beef: A couple 12-oz sirloins garnished with nothing but pure manhood Beef: Maybe some sprigs of parsley Beef: You are pretty much going down [Closeup of a shocked Ray mouth hanging open.] [Silence 1. Both are shown from the waistline and up standing looking slightly down, arms down. Ray has closed his mouth. Generally, their ears shift a bit from panel to panel the rest of the way, as has their head position, but else they stay the same distance from each other.] [Silence 2. Same view. Beef looks perturbed, and his ear is twitching. Ray's mouth is open again.] [Silence 3. Same view. Beef looks sorry. Ray has closed his mouth.] [Silence 4. Same view. Beef looks sorry and Ray looks angry. Ray's mouth is open again.] [Silence 5. Same view. Ray has closed his mouth again. Beef's eyebrows are missing, but also Ray's are gone, maybe hidden by the rim of the glasses. They do not reappear in the rest of the comic, indicating that he keeps his eyes downcast. ] [Silence 6. Same view. Beef's eyebrows are back.] [Silence 7. The view has panned so low that it is possible to see the waistband of Ray's underpants. Beef is looking even more down and has moved closer to Ray whose mouth is open again.] [Silence 8. Same view, but a little less waistband visible. Beef has moved back agai. His eyebrows are missing and his mouth is open, and Ray looks even more down than before, still mouth open.] [Silence 9. View panned so low that a large part of Ray's underpants can be seen. Beef is looking down, mouth closes with eyebrows, Ray standing more straight, still mouth open.] [Silence 10. Beef looks surprised with eyebrows raised and has moved close to Ray, who has finally closed his mouth again.]

Parody Week Megatokyo

Parody Week: Megatokyo

https://www.xkcd.com/142

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/142:_Parody_Week:_Megatokyo

[At the top of the panel is the title of the comic inside Japanese quote characters. Beneath this is a text, and to the right of this is a drawing on an anime girl in shirt and skirt, who has blonde hair with very long pigtails, long rectangular earrings, and a blank expression looking slightly down while standing with her arms at her sides. The gray-scale drawing is far from the normal xkcd style.] megaxkcd In today's megaxkcd, our protagonist comes to terms with his romantic love for a girl who is a video game console accessory. [Cueball and Black Hat, drawn in standard xkcd style, talk.] Cueball: Wait, I'm not sure we should parody megatokyo. Black Hat: Fred Gallagher does seem like he might take it kind of hard. Cueball: He really does. Black Hat: Poor guy. We should try to cheer him up. [Cueball and Black Hat stand in front of a profile shot of a house with at least two stories. On the left is a mailbox at the curb of the road to the very left. Black Hat stands on the path to the house past the mailbox, while Cueball is holding a big cake with at least three lit candles on top. He holds it up in both hands in front of him presenting it to the closed door in front of him as he stands on the top of a two-step staircase to the front door. There are two flowers beneath him at the base of the stair, and two windows on the side wall of the house, one in each of the two visible stories. The house continues above the panel.] Black Hat: Fred? Fred, please come out. It's OK. Don't cry, Fred. Cueball: We... We baked you a cake.

This comic is a part of the Parody Week , just joking about other webcomics . This series was released on five consecutive days (Monday-Friday), not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, and it comprises the following five parodies : Megatokyo is a webcomic by Fred Gallagher . Its art and storylines are heavily influenced by Japanese comics known as Manga . The opening panel sets up a parody of Megatokyo here called megaxkcd . The girl is Ping , a robotic PS2 accessory from the comic. The soft gray-scale art, hand-drawn "shadowed" panel borders, and vertical panel layout also mimic Megatokyo's design. The joke begins with the main protagonist (probably Piro ) falling in love with Ping, a game console accessory , and in today's comic, he is supposed to come to terms with this fact. But then, the parody is apparently aborted when two characters from the normal xkcd, Cueball and Black Hat , question the parody, as they are afraid of hurting artist Fred Gallagher's feelings. This itself is a dig at the sometimes maudlin and emotionally tender tone of Megatokyo, and in particular the self-conscious resemblance of anxious protagonist Piro to creator Gallagher, who based the character on a twenty-something version of himself. This is one of the few comics where Black Hat is not his usual classhole self. So even he likes and approves of Fred and his comic! Actually, Black Hat is the one most concerned for Fred's feelings, and he suggests that they should go and cheer the poor guy up, now that he may have taken the parody kind of hard. Black Hat also yells to him that he should not cry, when he and Cueball arrive on his doorstep with a cake with lots of candles. The title text reiterates the similarity between the style of the comic and the character of the artist behind it, which has been noted elsewhere as well . It also exclaims Randall 's feelings for Fred, his webcomic, and its style. Falling in love with a robot (or using one for sex) was later investigated in the Android series . And on 144: Parody Week: A Softer World , love and robots are again investigated leading to a pregnant robot. [At the top of the panel is the title of the comic inside Japanese quote characters. Beneath this is a text, and to the right of this is a drawing on an anime girl in shirt and skirt, who has blonde hair with very long pigtails, long rectangular earrings, and a blank expression looking slightly down while standing with her arms at her sides. The gray-scale drawing is far from the normal xkcd style.] megaxkcd In today's megaxkcd, our protagonist comes to terms with his romantic love for a girl who is a video game console accessory. [Cueball and Black Hat, drawn in standard xkcd style, talk.] Cueball: Wait, I'm not sure we should parody megatokyo. Black Hat: Fred Gallagher does seem like he might take it kind of hard. Cueball: He really does. Black Hat: Poor guy. We should try to cheer him up. [Cueball and Black Hat stand in front of a profile shot of a house with at least two stories. On the left is a mailbox at the curb of the road to the very left. Black Hat stands on the path to the house past the mailbox, while Cueball is holding a big cake with at least three lit candles on top. He holds it up in both hands in front of him presenting it to the closed door in front of him as he stands on the top of a two-step staircase to the front door. There are two flowers beneath him at the base of the stair, and two windows on the side wall of the house, one in each of the two visible stories. The house continues above the panel.] Black Hat: Fred? Fred, please come out. It's OK. Don't cry, Fred. Cueball: We... We baked you a cake.

Parody Week TFD and Natalie Dee

Parody Week: TFD and Natalie Dee

https://www.xkcd.com/143

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/143:_Parody_Week:_TFD_and_Natalie_Dee

[Cueball is standing to the left in this frameless comic, talking to a woman and man. She has long black hair, black eyes, and a very wide mouth going from side to side of the part of her head visible for the hair. She wears a blue shirt, green shorts, and white shoes. She stands with her arms bent with her hands on her sides. Fourteen bees are swarming around her head. The man next to her is bald with a strange distorted face tilting down from right to left, and his eyes align with his tilted forehead. His mouth is a round O. He is wearing a white t-shirt and pants with black shoes. He holds up his left arm, hand in front of his breast. To the right, there lie two tires, the top one lying halfway up on the bottom tire. Where Cueball speaks using the normal all capital letters of xkcd, the other two speak only in lowercase letters.] Cueball: So guys what is funny this week? Natalie: bees! Drew: tires. Natalie: bees with tires! Drew: whatever

This comic is a part of the Parody Week , just joking about other webcomics . This series was released on five consecutive days (Monday-Friday), not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, and it comprises the following five parodies : This comic parodies two comics in one go. TFD is an acronym for Toothpaste For Dinner , which is a daily one-panel cartoon written and drawn by Drew Fairweather . Each comic features small, simple drawings, paired with short captions or dialogue. Natalie Dee is the author of the daily comics Natalie Dee . This webcomic comprises various sketches illustrating amusing or anecdotal situations from everyday life. Drew and Natalie are husband & wife, and are also the authors of the webcomic Married to the Sea . In similar style to their simple comics, we see xkcd's Cueball ask the two creators of the two comics what's funny. The woman in color represents Natalie, who does color drawings that could include animals, and she thinks bees are funny. The man is Drew drawn like his own characters with a weird head shape. He thinks tires are funny. Then Natalie combines those to say that bees with tires are funny, and he is like, whatever . The title text points out that it would be funny to see bees with tires. This is because bees, like other living creatures, have no wheels. [ citation needed ] [Cueball is standing to the left in this frameless comic, talking to a woman and man. She has long black hair, black eyes, and a very wide mouth going from side to side of the part of her head visible for the hair. She wears a blue shirt, green shorts, and white shoes. She stands with her arms bent with her hands on her sides. Fourteen bees are swarming around her head. The man next to her is bald with a strange distorted face tilting down from right to left, and his eyes align with his tilted forehead. His mouth is a round O. He is wearing a white t-shirt and pants with black shoes. He holds up his left arm, hand in front of his breast. To the right, there lie two tires, the top one lying halfway up on the bottom tire. Where Cueball speaks using the normal all capital letters of xkcd, the other two speak only in lowercase letters.] Cueball: So guys what is funny this week? Natalie: bees! Drew: tires. Natalie: bees with tires! Drew: whatever

Parody Week A Softer World

Parody Week: A Softer World

https://www.xkcd.com/144

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/144:_Parody_Week:_A_Softer_World

[The comic uses lowercase letters throughout for all the text, which is written in white rectangular areas superimposed on top of the images. Above the first frame there is a title:] x k c d [To the left is a red robot with a triangular lower body with panels with buttons and indicators, and the red head on top of two gray sticks has two video cameras for eyes. It is shown standing in a lab with a green brick wall behind it. It stands beneath a poster with text and a piece of paper taped to the wall with unreadable text, but only the first line of text can be seen on these, as the first of the two white text areas in the panel covers the rest. To the right there is a blue table with a computer screen (most of it visible, but it is cut of at the right panel), with blue background and three overlapping windows - unreadable text in the first window, some graphics in the second window, and only white in the last window. Two black items (one looks like a pen) lie on the table to the left, and beneath the table is a shelve where the keyboard lies. A wire goes from the robot to the computer. The other white text box is beneath the computer table, partly obscuring the lower part of the robot as well.] Poster: SAFETY when we open the lab each morning, we tell the robot to kill it's our little joke [Zooming in on the center of the first frame between robot and table reveals that the paper on the wall was a drawing of the red robot with three wheels. The panel cut down the middle of the robot's eyes to the left, below the text on the paper drawing at the top, through the middle of the screen to the right and at the keyboard at the bottom. Again, there are two white text panels, one over the drawing and beneath it, which goes partly over the screen:] but secretly we're just afraid [Zooming further in to the edge of the robot's eye, the wheel on the poster, the edge of the screen, and the edge of the table. Only one white panel in the middle over the green wall.] to tell it to love [Below the first frame is a signature:] r munroe

This comic is a part of the Parody Week , just joking about other webcomics . This series was released on five consecutive days (Monday-Friday), not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, and it comprises the following five parodies : This comic is a parody of Joey Comeau and Emily Horne's A Softer World webcomic that usually consists of three photos with some white text superimposed over them. The title of the comic is written above, and this has here been replaced with xkcd. The first panel references the Kill command that would be used to turn off the robot every morning. This joke is a reference to the classic Science Fiction theme of robots taking over and killing humans (see for instance 1613: The Three Laws of Robotics ). The second and third panels then turn the comic to a more introspective thought per A Softer World's usual style. There are two possible meanings of these panels. The first references human's natural reaction to be afraid of love because it requires vulnerability and honesty, which is very difficult. In the comic, they are afraid to tell it to love, because then it would experience these same difficulties and fears. The second meaning deals with Artifical Intelligence (AI); specifically strong AI . The idea is that the AI agent would not only act as if it was intelligent, but truly be intelligent and have emotions and feelings as well. There has been much debate over whether an AI agent could actually feel emotions in the same manner as humans, as well as much consternation over the ethical concerns and moral ramifications it would have. Thus the comic's "We're afraid to tell it to love." The title text takes love to be an act of love-making instead of an emotional feeling, thus why the robot is pregnant. Given that Randall Munroe has signed the comic (which he normally never does, but what is the style of A Softer World), the title text must be his comment. So he knows the robot is pregnant, but claims it is not his child. This does not rule out that he has been together with the robot though... Of course this is not possible. But having sex with a robot is the theme in the Android series , and falling in love with one was the theme in the 2nd parody 142: Parody Week: Megatokyo . [The comic uses lowercase letters throughout for all the text, which is written in white rectangular areas superimposed on top of the images. Above the first frame there is a title:] x k c d [To the left is a red robot with a triangular lower body with panels with buttons and indicators, and the red head on top of two gray sticks has two video cameras for eyes. It is shown standing in a lab with a green brick wall behind it. It stands beneath a poster with text and a piece of paper taped to the wall with unreadable text, but only the first line of text can be seen on these, as the first of the two white text areas in the panel covers the rest. To the right there is a blue table with a computer screen (most of it visible, but it is cut of at the right panel), with blue background and three overlapping windows - unreadable text in the first window, some graphics in the second window, and only white in the last window. Two black items (one looks like a pen) lie on the table to the left, and beneath the table is a shelve where the keyboard lies. A wire goes from the robot to the computer. The other white text box is beneath the computer table, partly obscuring the lower part of the robot as well.] Poster: SAFETY when we open the lab each morning, we tell the robot to kill it's our little joke [Zooming in on the center of the first frame between robot and table reveals that the paper on the wall was a drawing of the red robot with three wheels. The panel cut down the middle of the robot's eyes to the left, below the text on the paper drawing at the top, through the middle of the screen to the right and at the keyboard at the bottom. Again, there are two white text panels, one over the drawing and beneath it, which goes partly over the screen:] but secretly we're just afraid [Zooming further in to the edge of the robot's eye, the wheel on the poster, the edge of the screen, and the edge of the table. Only one white panel in the middle over the green wall.] to tell it to love [Below the first frame is a signature:] r munroe

Parody Week Dinosaur Comics

Parody Week: Dinosaur Comics

https://www.xkcd.com/145

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/145:_Parody_Week:_Dinosaur_Comics

[T-Rex, a large green Tyrannosaurus, holds out his small arms to each side and the tail pointing up while speaking with a wide open pink mouth showing all his teeth. All the text is written like on a typewriter with both caps and lowercase letters, which is not normal in xkcd.] T-Rex: THINGS I AM UPPITY ABOUT: "They" as a third-person singular gender-free pronoun. [Zoom in on T-Rex head holding his hands up under his mouth, and mouth even wider open so also the red tongue can be seen.] T-Rex: I'm all for it! [Zoom out to show T-Rex to the left, mouth almost closed, arms in normal position, the tail pointing up, and lifting his left leg ready to smash his foot down through the roof of a brown log cabin with chimney and porch with a blue car holding in front of the house to the right. Further right is a smaller white/yellow dinosaur, Dromiceiomimus, standing away from T-Rex, but turning its long neck toward him.] Dromiceiomimus: But isn't that terrible grammar? T-Rex: Only by recent convention! It's been in use that way for centuries, and its use is widely accepted! ALSO: This lets us avoid ridiculous constructs like "he/she", "s/he", "xe" or "hirs"! [T-Rex is moving left, so part of his head and his lifted right foot are outside the panels frame, pink mouth again partly open so tongue can be seen, but no teeth are drawn. Arms are still in normal position and the tail is pointing up. Beneath the part of his right foot visible, there is Cueball about to be squashed. Behind him an orange dinosaur, Utahraptor, has appeared. It looks like a smaller version of T-Rex, but with longer arms and very large claws on its rear legs. It has its pink mouth wide open to show its red tongue and teeth, also holding arm in front of it and the tail pointing up. It is moving forward standing only on one leg, the other lifted high up.] Utahraptor: T-Rex, I . . . agree. T-Rex: What? Utahraptor: That sounds good to me! [T-Rex stand with both legs down, but wide spread out. The tails is almost down to the ground, only the tip pointing up. The arms are still in front of it towards the left, but it has turned its head, mouth almost closed, toward right looking at Utahraptor, which now stands on both legs, but like it is leaning forward on its toes, stretching up with arms held high, mouth less open, but tongue and teeth visible.] Utahraptor: Normally I'd jump in with an objection, but I think your point makes sense. T-Rex: Could it be that the rift in our author's mind has finally healed? Is he no longer locked in perpetual war with the self-doubt that lurks in his subc- [The final part of the final words from T-Rex is interrupted in the previous panel and first finishes here after a narrator "speaks" before T-Rex with bold capital letters to the top right, and after to the bottom left. T-Rex is seen in full figure standing with wide open mouth, teeth and tongue visible, arms and tail up.] Narrator: IN A WORLD WHERE THERE IS STILL A LAND BRIDGE BETWEEN ASIA AND NORTH AMERICA FOR SOME REASON: T-Rex: -onscious? Narrator: ALSO HOW ABOUT IN THIS WORLD EVERYONE IS BICURIOUS

This comic is a part of the Parody Week , just joking about other webcomics . This series was released on five consecutive days (Monday-Friday), not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, and it comprises the following five parodies : Dinosaur Comics is a webcomic by Ryan North . The artwork never changes, save a few rare exceptions, and only the dialogue is different. Randall traced the comic's usual artwork, though the drawing of the house about to be squashed in panel 3 is a more rudimentary rendition, and the person about to be squashed in panel 4 has been changed into Cueball rather than a woman in bright yellow and pink clothes. For those who haven't read it, this is a typical strip , and here's a strip dealing with the same subject as this comic (but posted five years after it). See also this particular example , where the title text actually refer to Randall and xkcd. Randall makes several shots at recurring themes in Dinosaur Comics. T-Rex, the green Tyrannosaurus , is bold and enthusiastic, discussing various topics, a favorite of which appears to be linguistics (North got his degree in computational linguistics). This time, he is talking about " they " being used as a third person singular gender-free pronoun and how it should be more widely used, even though its acceptance varies. Dromiceiomimus , the white dinosaur in the third panel, usually responds calmly to T-Rex's discussions. T-Rex then elaborates on how singular "they" has been used for centuries (specifically since the fourteenth century), with the change in convention being relatively recent (having fallen out of "fashion" in the nineteenth century). Technically, the English language lacks personal pronouns that are gender-neutral in the singular third-person — that is, there are only gender-specific personal pronouns such as " he " and " she " — so when a gender-neutral pronoun is needed, plural pronouns such as " they " (which are gender-neutral) are often used instead. There is some debate about whether this is a grammatical error, which may result in the use of grammatically correct, but cumbersome, gender-neutral phrases such as "he or she", "him or her", "his or hers" and so on. To compensate for these shortcomings, other gender-neutral personal pronouns for the singular third-person have also been introduced, such as "he/she", "s/he" and "xe" instead of "he or she", or "hirs" instead of "his or hers." T-Rex considers these constructs to be "ridiculous" and points out that they can be avoided by simply using the singular "they" instead. While "he/she" and "s/he" are commonly used as a gender-neutral pronoun when gender is unknown, "xe" and "hirs" are often used for genderqueer individuals. Genderqueer persons do not subscribe to a "binary" definition of gender, where the only genders are male and female, and may identify as having, just to name a few examples, a gender between male and female, a combination of both male and female genders, no gender (terms for this include "genderless", "agender," and "neutrois"), a separate gender from male and female, an unnameable gender, or a "fluid" gender identity that shifts between multiple genders ("genderfluidity"). Utahraptor , the orange dinosaur, typically contradicts T-Rex, but Randall subverts this pattern and has him agree. The comic suggests that the perpetual disagreement stems from a 'rift' in the author's mind, which would be healed if only he lived in a world where there were a land bridge between Asia and North America . In the last panel, the narrator starts with "In a world…" a phrase made famous by Don LaFontaine in movie trailers. "In a world…" is also likely a reference to the recurring gag of Dinosaur Comics suddenly jumping to alternate worlds or time periods that have whatever conditions T-Rex and his friends have been discussing, to humorous effect. The last sentence suggests that in this other world, everyone is bi-curious . This is a phenomenon in which people of a heterosexual or homosexual identity who, while showing some curiosity for a relationship or sexual activity with a person of the sex they do not favor, distinguish themselves from the bisexual label. Bi-curious has been used as the word of the day two days in a row on May 11th and May 12th 2004, so it's no wonder Randall put the word in this comic. The suggestion that "everyone is bi-curious" could be a reference to Arthur C. Clarke's book Imperial Earth , where bisexuality is the norm. Deliberately trite and awkward explorations of this subject matter are also a recurring theme in Dinosaur Comics. Like xkcd , Dinosaur Comics has title texts . Ryan's title texts are often bizarre non-sequiturs; the title text for the 2593rd comic , eleven years after the appearance of the first comic, read "the sixth panel and the second panel are just zoomed versions of each other. IT'S TRUE. I'M SORRY. I COULDN'T BEAR CARRYING THIS TERRIBLE SECRET ANY LONGER." The title text in this parody fits this pattern. T-Rex from Dinosaur Comics later appeared in 1350: Lorenz (see this example story line and also the Dinosaur section under Lorenz themes ), where the actual images from the first three panels of Ryan's comic are used, rather than like here where Randall copied them himself and in 1452: Jurassic World , where it was the last image from the actual comic that was used. [T-Rex, a large green Tyrannosaurus, holds out his small arms to each side and the tail pointing up while speaking with a wide open pink mouth showing all his teeth. All the text is written like on a typewriter with both caps and lowercase letters, which is not normal in xkcd.] T-Rex: THINGS I AM UPPITY ABOUT: "They" as a third-person singular gender-free pronoun. [Zoom in on T-Rex head holding his hands up under his mouth, and mouth even wider open so also the red tongue can be seen.] T-Rex: I'm all for it! [Zoom out to show T-Rex to the left, mouth almost closed, arms in normal position, the tail pointing up, and lifting his left leg ready to smash his foot down through the roof of a brown log cabin with chimney and porch with a blue car holding in front of the house to the right. Further right is a smaller white/yellow dinosaur, Dromiceiomimus, standing away from T-Rex, but turning its long neck toward him.] Dromiceiomimus: But isn't that terrible grammar? T-Rex: Only by recent convention! It's been in use that way for centuries, and its use is widely accepted! ALSO: This lets us avoid ridiculous constructs like "he/she", "s/he", "xe" or "hirs"! [T-Rex is moving left, so part of his head and his lifted right foot are outside the panels frame, pink mouth again partly open so tongue can be seen, but no teeth are drawn. Arms are still in normal position and the tail is pointing up. Beneath the part of his right foot visible, there is Cueball about to be squashed. Behind him an orange dinosaur, Utahraptor, has appeared. It looks like a smaller version of T-Rex, but with longer arms and very large claws on its rear legs. It has its pink mouth wide open to show its red tongue and teeth, also holding arm in front of it and the tail pointing up. It is moving forward standing only on one leg, the other lifted high up.] Utahraptor: T-Rex, I . . . agree. T-Rex: What? Utahraptor: That sounds good to me! [T-Rex stand with both legs down, but wide spread out. The tails is almost down to the ground, only the tip pointing up. The arms are still in front of it towards the left, but it has turned its head, mouth almost closed, toward right looking at Utahraptor, which now stands on both legs, but like it is leaning forward on its toes, stretching up with arms held high, mouth less open, but tongue and teeth visible.] Utahraptor: Normally I'd jump in with an objection, but I think your point makes sense. T-Rex: Could it be that the rift in our author's mind has finally healed? Is he no longer locked in perpetual war with the self-doubt that lurks in his subc- [The final part of the final words from T-Rex is interrupted in the previous panel and first finishes here after a narrator "speaks" before T-Rex with bold capital letters to the top right, and after to the bottom left. T-Rex is seen in full figure standing with wide open mouth, teeth and tongue visible, arms and tail up.] Narrator: IN A WORLD WHERE THERE IS STILL A LAND BRIDGE BETWEEN ASIA AND NORTH AMERICA FOR SOME REASON: T-Rex: -onscious? Narrator: ALSO HOW ABOUT IN THIS WORLD EVERYONE IS BICURIOUS

Join Myspace

Join Myspace

https://www.xkcd.com/146

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/146:_Join_Myspace

[Cueball is talking to Black Hat.] Cueball: Dude, you should get on MySpace. Black Hat: Eh, I don't think so. Cueball: C'mon. There's no real reason not to except snobbiness. It's the new social scene. Black Hat: I know. I'm just not interested. Cueball: Please? I'll friend you. Black Hat: Carebearstare. Cueball: What? [Black Hat shoots a rainbow colored ray from his chest - the Care Bear Stare. It throws Cueball to the edge of the panel, pinned to the wall.]

This comic refers to the 1980s TV/comic series Care Bears , in which various cuddly bears in rainbow colors go on missions to save the world. The characters' ultimate weapon is the "Care Bear Stare," in which the Bears stand together and radiate light from their respective tummy symbols. These combine to form a ray of love and good cheer that could bring care and joy into the target's heart. Of course, Black Hat 's carebearstare is far more lethal. Cueball is trying to convince Black Hat to create an account at Myspace , a networking site, but Black Hat isn't interested. When Black Hat gets annoyed by Cueball's persuasions, he activates his "carebearstare," thus overthrowing Cueball's request to be friends on myspace. One possible explanation for Black Hat's odd choice of weaponry is that he is mocking Cueball. The phrase "Please? I'll friend you" sounds like an average preschooler's coaxing (along the lines of "Please? I'll be your friend!"). Therefore, Black Hat may feel that Cueball's remarks seem childish and deserve a childish backlash. On a nostalgic note, considering the state of social media in the 2010s, Black Hat is just really good at foreshadowing. In the title text, Black Hat reflects that he uses his carebearstare power too much, possibly as a form of apology to Cueball. [Cueball is talking to Black Hat.] Cueball: Dude, you should get on MySpace. Black Hat: Eh, I don't think so. Cueball: C'mon. There's no real reason not to except snobbiness. It's the new social scene. Black Hat: I know. I'm just not interested. Cueball: Please? I'll friend you. Black Hat: Carebearstare. Cueball: What? [Black Hat shoots a rainbow colored ray from his chest - the Care Bear Stare. It throws Cueball to the edge of the panel, pinned to the wall.]

A Way So Familiar

A Way So Familiar

https://www.xkcd.com/147

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/147:_A_Way_So_Familiar

Hairy: I saw a cute girl outside the bank today. She looked nice. Cueball: Oh no, not again. You are the worst judge of these things. Hairy: But she was so sweet. Shy, but there was something in her eyes. A pain down in her soul, the same as the one down in mine. Cueball: Mm hmm. Hairy: The police light played through her mohawk like the sun setting through pine trees as she shoveled the third hooker into the trunk of the Camry... Cueball: Back up.

Some introverts tend to empathize with other people they perceive as being shy or introverted. Sometimes, their imagination leads them to obscure visions. A person outside the imaginative world can easily see through this and judge it as a delusion. Hairy points out that he saw a girl at the bank and probably started having platonic romantic feelings toward her, describing many characteristics that would be impossible to know about her without actually talking to her. Cueball has clearly experienced Hairy's bad judgements before, and so responds with a "Oh no, not again." In the last panel, the reader finds out that she probably does not look like the sweet girl the reader imagined, having a mowhawk and shoveling (presumably dead) prostitutes into a car. This quickly prompts Cueball to say "back up," wanting to know what exactly had happened. Joey Comeau is a Canadian writer, best known for the webcomic “A Softer World”. The "obscure" reference is probably to one of the entries in his 'Overqualified' series, another project in which he submits sincere-sounding, but clearly unacceptable, job inquiries to real companies. That particular entry is addressed to the marketing department of Toyota, the makers of the Toyota Camry . The post could be found here . Hedwig refers to the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch , and the comic references the musical's song "The Origin of Love." This song is based on a satirical idea from Plato's Symposium , whereby every person originally consisted of two bodies joined together; the gods eventually violently tore us apart, and we fall in love when we find the person who was once physically joined to us. This song contains the lyrics: You had a way so familiar I couldn't recognize ' cause you had blood on your face I had blood in my eyes But I could tell by your expression That the pain down in your soul Was the same as the one down in mine [1] The joke is that Hairy seems oblivious to the fact that his imagination is a very obvious delusion. While people could forgive a guy empathizing with a "cute pretty girl," Cueball seems annoyed by the lack of judgment of Hairy. Hairy: I saw a cute girl outside the bank today. She looked nice. Cueball: Oh no, not again. You are the worst judge of these things. Hairy: But she was so sweet. Shy, but there was something in her eyes. A pain down in her soul, the same as the one down in mine. Cueball: Mm hmm. Hairy: The police light played through her mohawk like the sun setting through pine trees as she shoveled the third hooker into the trunk of the Camry... Cueball: Back up.

Mispronouncing

Mispronouncing

https://www.xkcd.com/148

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/148:_Mispronouncing

[Caption at top of panel:] My hobby: Mispronouncing words [Cueball and a friend are talking:] Cueball: Yeah, did you see what he said on his wobsite? Friend: ...his what? Cueball: Wobsite. Friend: ... I think you mean "website." Cueball: Why don't you write about it in your blag? Today if you visit https://www.blag.xkcd.com , you get redirected to blog.xkcd.com, but the title is still "xkcd - The blag of the webcomic".

This is the sixth comic in the My Hobby series. Cueball is deliberately mispronouncing words while talking. It's just his hobby. Hobbies in the My Hobby series are generally annoying or weird, but with an element of cleverness. Here, Cueball persists in mispronouncing his words despite the second character's attempt to correct him. In the title text, Randall explains that he got the idea for this comic from one of his friends, although it could just be his friend's accent. Interestingly, when Randall started the xkcd blog in October 2006, 6 weeks after the publication of this comic, he named it " Blag ," and he has used that name in several other comics, such as 181: Interblag and 239: Blagofaire . [Caption at top of panel:] My hobby: Mispronouncing words [Cueball and a friend are talking:] Cueball: Yeah, did you see what he said on his wobsite? Friend: ...his what? Cueball: Wobsite. Friend: ... I think you mean "website." Cueball: Why don't you write about it in your blag? Today if you visit https://www.blag.xkcd.com , you get redirected to blog.xkcd.com, but the title is still "xkcd - The blag of the webcomic".

Sandwich

Sandwich

https://www.xkcd.com/149

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/149:_Sandwich

[Cueball is sitting on a couch, talking to a Cueball-like friend.] Cueball: Make me a sandwich. Friend: What? Make it yourself. Cueball: Sudo make me a sandwich. Friend: Okay.

On both Windows and UNIX computer systems, users can be assigned all kinds of rights, for example rights to access certain directories and files, or to execute certain commands. The sudo command (pronounced "sue due" or "pseudo") lets certain (authorized) UNIX users override these policies by executing the command (everything after the word "sudo" on the command line) as the root user. Root (sometimes called the superuser) has complete system powers, exempt from all access controls; it is similar to a Windows administrator, however even the powers of a Windows administrator is limited - the system32 folder, for example, cannot be deleted because it is a critical part of the operating system, while there is no such restriction on UNIX - if a root user feels like (or accidentally) deletes a vital file, they are free to do so. As a result, common advice is to not use sudo unless the command in question absolutely requires it - indeed, most commands do not require such privileges. One very common activity for UNIX administrators is to install or configure software using the UNIX make command, e.g. % make install . Often this command requires administrative permissions in order to complete successfully, which in practice means the " make this " command will fail unless it is typed as " sudo make this " instead. However as mentioned before since most commands work just fine without sudo, along with general discouragement from using it willy-nilly, it is fairly common for people who use or administer UNIX systems to attempt a straight up % make install and have it fail. They then need to repeat the command with "sudo," whereupon the computer responds obediently, and everything works smoothly. Cueball is demanding a sandwich from his friend. Not being properly asked, the friend denies the request. Cueball then (ab)uses the sudo command on the friend, who then has no choice but to go and make the sandwich, and now does so without complaint, because Cueball has all the rights. For anyone versed in installing system software with the make command, this exchange is intensely reminiscent of the analogous onscreen experience. Simon Says is a children's game in which a leader gives various commands that must be followed if and only if ( iff ) the leader prefixes the command with "Simon says." The title text compares the way the computer will run some commands if they are preceded with "sudo" to the way Simon Says players are supposed to follow orders if (and only if) they are preceded with "Simon says." Alternatively, the title text might merely be referring to the similarity between Cueball ordering his friend around with "sudo" to the Simon Says game leader ordering other players around. Wikipedia suggests that the "Simon" in the name of the game may be the powerful lord Simon de Montfort, or a corruption of Cicero, both of whom were influential politicians of their day. [Cueball is sitting on a couch, talking to a Cueball-like friend.] Cueball: Make me a sandwich. Friend: What? Make it yourself. Cueball: Sudo make me a sandwich. Friend: Okay.

Grownups

Grownups

https://www.xkcd.com/150

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/150:_Grownups

[Cueball is talking to Megan who is behind a waist-high screen across a doorway with colorful playpen balls behind her.] Cueball: Hey, I was wondering if you had plans for-- holy crap, what happened to your apartment? Megan: I filled it with playpen balls! Cueball: I... what? Why? [Megan is seen from the front through the door with the colored balls behind her.] Megan: Because we're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means. [Cueball is seen from the side standing next to the open door. Megan cannot be seen, except her hands on the screen, but some of the coloured balls can be seen through the door. A beat panel.] [Same view but both have entered into the apartment, removing the screen so coloured balls have been spilling out into the corridor. A big pink love heart drifts out the door.]

Randall is again playing with the child/grownup mental setup. During childhood, adults ("grownups") make most of the decisions and put constraints on what their children do. As children age and eventually become grownups, there are some things that they do not do anymore, as they see them as childish. Megan has taken these thoughts seriously, and realizes that with her newfound freedom as a grownup, she gets to define what her adulthood means. Free from constraints, she goes ahead and creates a ball pit in her apartment of colored plastic balls. Cueball admires this spirit and enters the ball pit. It is difficult to decipher Randall's true intent behind this somewhat cryptic comic, but it seems from the heart that the two are engaging in sexual activity in the pit. The trend with adults participating in children's activities is continued in 219: Blanket Fort , and with adults who feel like children while doing adult things as in 616: Lease , which references this comic in the title text. The title text reveals that Randall also would like to make his own ball pit, but he finds it expensive to buy and also hard to keep clean . Both of these are true - see links. Most public ball pits can easily become very dirty, as many children and toddlers play in them. [Cueball is talking to Megan who is behind a waist-high screen across a doorway with colorful playpen balls behind her.] Cueball: Hey, I was wondering if you had plans for-- holy crap, what happened to your apartment? Megan: I filled it with playpen balls! Cueball: I... what? Why? [Megan is seen from the front through the door with the colored balls behind her.] Megan: Because we're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means. [Cueball is seen from the side standing next to the open door. Megan cannot be seen, except her hands on the screen, but some of the coloured balls can be seen through the door. A beat panel.] [Same view but both have entered into the apartment, removing the screen so coloured balls have been spilling out into the corridor. A big pink love heart drifts out the door.]

Mario

Mario

https://www.xkcd.com/151

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/151:_Mario

Megan: For our anniversary, my boyfriend took me hiking in the mountains. Ponytail: My boyfriend proposed to me. Ponytail: They should call you Mario, 'cause you just got <<1 up'd.>>

One-upmanship is the act of surpassing another person. In this case, one female character is one-upping her friend's claim of being taken on a mountain hike with a claim that she was proposed to. Mario is the major figure in the Super Mario series. In the games, completing specific conditions causes a "1-up" (but the marks are chevrons («»), used in some languages like Russian instead of quotation marks) to appear on screen, referring to an additional life. The comic relies on the homonym of the action of one-upmanship and the event of one-ups in Mario. In the title text, Randall implies that this is a pretty bad joke. Megan: For our anniversary, my boyfriend took me hiking in the mountains. Ponytail: My boyfriend proposed to me. Ponytail: They should call you Mario, 'cause you just got <<1 up'd.>>

Hamster Ball

Hamster Ball

https://www.xkcd.com/152

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/152:_Hamster_Ball

[Cueball stands by a genie, whose lower body becomes smoke and trails down to an old-fashioned lamp.] Genie: You have awakened me from the lamp. You may have three wishes. What does your heart desire? Cueball: I'd like a human-sized hamster ball. [A hamster ball appears; Cueball is inside it, arms outstretched.] Cueball: Sweet! [Cueball steps to left; the ball rolls that way.] [He does the same thing to his right.] [Cueball comes to rest in the centre of the panel.] Genie: And your other wishes? Cueball: Why would I need other wishes?

The comic starts with a genie , who, having been freed from a magical lamp, grants the owner three wishes; this isn't unusual, since the idea of a genie who does this is a very common trope in the fantasy genre. Cueball asks for a human-sized hamster ball , and when he gets it, he starts to roll around in it, obviously entertained. The genie then asks what he would like for his other two wishes , to which, having already being granted his heart's desire, he states that he wouldn't need the other wishes for anything. The title text refers to the activity of Zorbing . Later, Randall found out where to get one and went on a hamster ball heist , and hamster balls have been a recurring theme on xkcd since this comic, and 14 years later it received a direct sequel 2331: Hamster Ball 2 . This comic is referenced in 1975: Right Click , where one of the things the ADVENT.EXE wishing well allows you to wish for is a human-sized hamster ball. Doing so redirects you to this page. Genies (or magic lamps) are mentioned in at least four other comics: In the first two, Randall manages to use the concept to make penis-related jokes. In the fourth, the issue of number of wishes is discussed, from the perspective of wanting more than three wishes. The issue of wishing for more wishes is also the subject of 1086: Eyelash Wish Log , so it is not always enough with one or even three wishes! [Cueball stands by a genie, whose lower body becomes smoke and trails down to an old-fashioned lamp.] Genie: You have awakened me from the lamp. You may have three wishes. What does your heart desire? Cueball: I'd like a human-sized hamster ball. [A hamster ball appears; Cueball is inside it, arms outstretched.] Cueball: Sweet! [Cueball steps to left; the ball rolls that way.] [He does the same thing to his right.] [Cueball comes to rest in the centre of the panel.] Genie: And your other wishes? Cueball: Why would I need other wishes?

Cryptography

Cryptography

https://www.xkcd.com/153

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/153:_Cryptography

[Randall Munroe (drawn as Cueball) stands behind a lectern on a podium in front of a large conference audience (consisting of Cueball heads), with a poster hanging beside him.] Randall: My cryptosystem is like any Feistel cipher, except in the S-Boxes we simply take the bitstring down, flip it, and reverse it. [The poster reads:] Decryption 01101010 >> 00110101 [inverter symbol] 11001010 [crossed arrows] 01010011 [Caption below the crowd:] I've been barred from speaking at any major cryptography conferences ever since it became clear that all my algorithms were just thinly disguised Missy Elliott songs.

This comic refers to the study of cryptography . We can note the presence of the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) logo in the lectern ( podium? ), an association that organizes the most important conferences in the cryptology field. Randall , drawn as Cueball behind the lectern at the podium, is describing a proposed crypto system in which a computer program turns a very large number, called the " key ," and a message into an encrypted form that can only be read by using the same key, based on the model of a Feistel cipher . Part of any Feistel cipher is the "round function," which determines how the key is applied to the original message; this is applied multiple times with a variety of tricks and techniques to ensure that the process can eventually be reversed. One common component of round functions is the S-box , a simple table that converts input bytes into output bytes, preferably in a way that doesn't correspond to any mathematical rules. Here, the S-box would be implemented by doing the following (with the computer operation actually shown in the diagrams indicated in parentheses): This would be run on each round of the cipher to further scramble the message for the next round. As the caption implies, the steps are based on a line from the Missy Elliott song Work It : "I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it." As with any encryption system, there must be a way to decrypt the cipher text. In Missy Elliott's song, the phrase "I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it" is repeatedly played backward, sounding like gibberish. In the same way, steps to a Feistel cipher-based algorithm are executed in reverse to obtain the original plain text from a cipher text. The keyspace for a cryptographic algorithm is the number of possible keys the algorithm can possibly accept. For example, AES-256 has a keyspace of 2 256 (roughly 1.1579209e+77) possible keys, simply because the algorithm specifies that each key is 256 bits wide. The title text is referring to "searching a keyspace," which is to say, simply trying every key until you find one that works. (For reference, a computer would require roughly the energy of a billion billion supernovas to even count to 2 256 , let alone actually try each one.) The precise wording, "If you got a big keyspace, let me search it" is, of course, another reference to the same song: "If you got a big **** let me search ya" (The word "penis" is censored by the trumpeting of an elephant). This was the first comic where Randall was banned from conferences. Since then, he has been banned from multiple conferences for similar pranks; especially in 541: TED Talk , there is a whole list of conferences from which he has been banned. This has sometimes resulted in him being invited to those conferences - see more here on this PyCon response to Randall claiming he was banned from their conference. [Randall Munroe (drawn as Cueball) stands behind a lectern on a podium in front of a large conference audience (consisting of Cueball heads), with a poster hanging beside him.] Randall: My cryptosystem is like any Feistel cipher, except in the S-Boxes we simply take the bitstring down, flip it, and reverse it. [The poster reads:] Decryption 01101010 >> 00110101 [inverter symbol] 11001010 [crossed arrows] 01010011 [Caption below the crowd:] I've been barred from speaking at any major cryptography conferences ever since it became clear that all my algorithms were just thinly disguised Missy Elliott songs.

Beliefs

Beliefs

https://www.xkcd.com/154

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/154:_Beliefs

[A girl with long black hair and a professor who looks like Megan stand together. The girl points to Cueball in the distance.] Girl: Professor, that man claims the earth is 6,000 years old! Professor: So? Just use your head and don't concern yourself overmuch with what other people think. [Cueball is gone and the girl is no longer pointing but just talking to the professor.] Girl: But he says the fossils in the mountains were put there in a flood! Professor: Well, evidence suggests that they were not. Girl: But he-- [A mountain landscape with blue sky to the left with white clouds, gray clod cover to the right and gray mountains below. The most prominent peak is just right of the middle, but there are 14 small and large peaks all in all.] Professor (off-panel): A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them. [The girl throws her hands in the air while the professor just looks at her.] Girl: But he believes the silliest things! Professor: So? [The girl has her arms down again and looks on the talking professor.] Professor: The universe doesn't care what you believe . Professor: The wonderful thing about science is that it doesn't ask for your faith, it just asks for your eyes. [The girl and professor talks.] Girl: But he's a US senator! Professor: Ah, then yes, we do have a bit of a situation.

This comic is a reference to Young Earth creationism , which includes the belief that the Earth has only existed for about 6,000 years. Young Earth creationism is mainly based on literal interpretations of the Bible , which is pseudoscience . The professor is originally not bothered by the fact that someone believes in Young Earth creationism and simply tells the child to look at the scientific evidence . However, she then hears that the person is actually a United States senator , who would presumably influence national policy according to his creationist beliefs. This, she acknowledges, is an actual problem. The comment on the fossils refers to an argument by some Young Earth creationists about the discovery of fossilized sea creatures at high altitudes . While mainstream science sees this as evidence of geological processes taking far longer than six thousand years, these creationists say that sea life reached these locations during a worldwide flood that covered even the tops of mountains. The story of this flood, colloquially called Noah's Ark , is found in the Biblical Book of Genesis ; chapters six through nine . Though it is not stated in the Bible story, many sea creatures are presumed by those who make this claim to have died at high altitudes when the waters lowered. This is a theory held by some Young Earth creationists for the fossils. The last panel is a reference to the fact that a number of people vote based on their perception that the person they're voting for shares their religious views, and then that person goes on to make legislative or educational (if they were voted to a board of education) decisions based on said beliefs. There have been several instances in the U.S. of state boards of education trying to or succeeding at including young-earth or other creationist theories in the state's science curriculum. See for instance Theistic evolution . The title text makes a further, more playful jab, claiming that scientists not only have the upper hand in reasoning but also in sexiness. This subverts the once-commonly held idea that smarts and attractiveness are not always contained in the same "package," the stereotypical scientist being boring and dull. It also adds a tinge of irony, as no competent reasoner would make an argument from sexiness . [A girl with long black hair and a professor who looks like Megan stand together. The girl points to Cueball in the distance.] Girl: Professor, that man claims the earth is 6,000 years old! Professor: So? Just use your head and don't concern yourself overmuch with what other people think. [Cueball is gone and the girl is no longer pointing but just talking to the professor.] Girl: But he says the fossils in the mountains were put there in a flood! Professor: Well, evidence suggests that they were not. Girl: But he-- [A mountain landscape with blue sky to the left with white clouds, gray clod cover to the right and gray mountains below. The most prominent peak is just right of the middle, but there are 14 small and large peaks all in all.] Professor (off-panel): A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them. [The girl throws her hands in the air while the professor just looks at her.] Girl: But he believes the silliest things! Professor: So? [The girl has her arms down again and looks on the talking professor.] Professor: The universe doesn't care what you believe . Professor: The wonderful thing about science is that it doesn't ask for your faith, it just asks for your eyes. [The girl and professor talks.] Girl: But he's a US senator! Professor: Ah, then yes, we do have a bit of a situation.

Search History

Search History

https://www.xkcd.com/155

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/155:_Search_History

[In a slim panel at the top of the comic Randall (drawn as Cueball) stands to the left and his speech is written in the rest of the panel to his right.] Randall: In solidarity with the many AOL users whose often embarrassing web searches were released to the public, I offer a sample of my own search history: [The long panel beneath the first panel shows a screenshot of Google's front page. The Google logo is partly cut through the top third of the logo. It is in the typical Google color code. Beneath the logo are six links for where to search, one of them is black, because it is chosen, the others blue. One has a red super script indicating there are news there. Below is the search bar. To the right of this, there are three lines with links, for what type of search preferences etc.] G o o g l e Web Images Video New! News Maps more>> Advanced search Preferences Language Tools [Below the search bar is a box with a thin line around, which comes up when Randall presses the bar, it has the following 20 entries that Google suggests for autocompletion:] velociraptors site:imdb.com "jurassic park" raptors dromaeosaurids utahraptor "home depot" deadbolts security home improvement surviving a raptor attack robert bakker paleontologist robert bakker "possible raptor sympathizer" site:en.wikipedia.org surviving a raptor attack learning from mistakes in jurassic park big-game rifles tire irons treating raptor wounds do raptors fear fire how to make a molotov cocktail do raptors fear death can raptors pick locks how to tell if my neighbors are raptors

The comic references the AOL search data leak , where users had potentially identifying and embarrassing search histories published. Randall , drawn as Cueball , thus publishes his own potentially embarrassing searches in solidarity with the AOL users. All of his searches relate to his fear of dinosaurs, mainly velociraptors , as a consequence of the Jurassic Park movie he saw when younger. The search " Utahraptor " may be a reference to Dinosaur Comics, which xkcd has parodied in 145: Parody Week: Dinosaur Comics . Alternatively, "Utahraptor" may be referenced because the raptors portrayed in Jurassic Park were much more like utahraptors than velociraptors in terms of size. The title text refers to a document posted on a humor site: link (part 1) link (part 2) , link (part 3 ). [In a slim panel at the top of the comic Randall (drawn as Cueball) stands to the left and his speech is written in the rest of the panel to his right.] Randall: In solidarity with the many AOL users whose often embarrassing web searches were released to the public, I offer a sample of my own search history: [The long panel beneath the first panel shows a screenshot of Google's front page. The Google logo is partly cut through the top third of the logo. It is in the typical Google color code. Beneath the logo are six links for where to search, one of them is black, because it is chosen, the others blue. One has a red super script indicating there are news there. Below is the search bar. To the right of this, there are three lines with links, for what type of search preferences etc.] G o o g l e Web Images Video New! News Maps more>> Advanced search Preferences Language Tools [Below the search bar is a box with a thin line around, which comes up when Randall presses the bar, it has the following 20 entries that Google suggests for autocompletion:] velociraptors site:imdb.com "jurassic park" raptors dromaeosaurids utahraptor "home depot" deadbolts security home improvement surviving a raptor attack robert bakker paleontologist robert bakker "possible raptor sympathizer" site:en.wikipedia.org surviving a raptor attack learning from mistakes in jurassic park big-game rifles tire irons treating raptor wounds do raptors fear fire how to make a molotov cocktail do raptors fear death can raptors pick locks how to tell if my neighbors are raptors

Commented

Commented

https://www.xkcd.com/156

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/156:_Commented

[Cueball calls out to and Black Hat while they are some distance apart as seen from the side. Black Hat is holding an arm out towards Cueball making a gesture and speaking one word.] Cueball: Hey, can you do me a favor? Black Hat: Commented! [The same setting seen from behind Black Hat with Cueball drawn much smaller in the background.] Cueball: Huh? [Black Hat's hand is shown in close up. He is holding his first and second fingers parallel and at an angle towards the "small" Cueball to the left of the hand. The two fingers, as well as Cueball and his next line, are green.] Cueball: Wait, what does that gesture even mean?

When Cueball asks Black Hat for a favor, he seems to be making a rude gesture , by lifting a finger towards Cueball. However, the word he says, Commented! , does not seem to fit with the shorter four letter word usually combined with such a gesture. Cueball also fails to understand this, but as it turns out, as the panels move around Black Hat and zooms in on his fingers, he is not making this rude gesture, but is instead actually lifting two fingers toward Cueball , forming a double slash and thereby ignoring both him and his question for a favor, by commenting him out programming style, even to the point where Black Hat sees the commenting out slashes, Cueball, and anything he says in the color for ignored parts of the program (or real world in this case). In certain programming languages (including but not limited to C (since C99), C++, C#, Java, Javascript, PHP, and Scala), inserting a double slash ( // ) in a line marks everything after the double slash in the line as a " comment ," i.e. something for humans to read that generally helps them understand the code better, rather than something for the computer to execute. Since all comment lines are ignored when a program is run or compiled, it is possible to simply put a double slash in front of any line of code to skip that line. This is known as "commenting out" the line. For example: An Integrated Development Environment (IDE for short) is an application that programmers use to write, compile, execute, and debug code. Many IDEs color-code text to make reading the code easier. In IDEs like Eclipse and Microsoft Visual Studio, a line that is commented out will be colored green; however, the color may vary depending on which IDE you use, and can usually also be customized. The title text refers to this variation among IDEs' color schemes. [Cueball calls out to and Black Hat while they are some distance apart as seen from the side. Black Hat is holding an arm out towards Cueball making a gesture and speaking one word.] Cueball: Hey, can you do me a favor? Black Hat: Commented! [The same setting seen from behind Black Hat with Cueball drawn much smaller in the background.] Cueball: Huh? [Black Hat's hand is shown in close up. He is holding his first and second fingers parallel and at an angle towards the "small" Cueball to the left of the hand. The two fingers, as well as Cueball and his next line, are green.] Cueball: Wait, what does that gesture even mean?

Filler Art

Filler Art

https://www.xkcd.com/157

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/157:_Filler_Art

[Cueball stands in the middle of a single panel. The text above reads:] Sorry guys no comic today. I've gotta go to the doctor to get my thighs rotated. But here's some new character art I'm working on!

There are times in which the owner of a webcomic can not make a comic on time for the next scheduled update (for example, needing to attend to a family emergency). Some deal with these situations by creating a "buffer" of comics (that is, making several comics ahead of time) in anticipation for these events. However, if the buffer runs out (or if there was no buffer in the first place), the owner might have to resort to uploading whatever is available (e.g. concept art, random sketches, a draft of the planned comic, etc.). Many webcomic owners prefer to upload filler art so that their more fickle fans can see that they have not abandoned the comic. Here, Randall parodies this situation with two separate punchlines. First, he tells us that he has to go to the doctor to get his thighs rotated, which is medically unnecessary (as a "thigh rotation" is physically impossible, and is likely a play on tire rotation ). Second, he refers to "new character art" for his comic. The punchline here is that, since the characters are drawn in a stick figure style, there are no distinguishable features between the man here and most other males in the comic series. In addition, the fact that this stick figure should not have taken more than 10 seconds to draw makes the notion that Randall has been "working on" it ridiculous. The title text refers to Megatokyo , a popular webcomic widely known for its use of filler art. Creator Fred Gallagher , who goes by his online moniker Piro, frequently makes use of what have come to be called " Dead Piro Days ", in which he posts character art, or concept art often based in the comic's world or characters, generally of draft or unfinished quality. By his own admission, these days of filler art are sometimes the result of nothing more than his feeling too under the weather, or tired, or emotionally depressed to put in the necessary amount of work to finish a proper update. While Gallagher has been raked over the coals for this by the broader webcomics community, longtime fans of Megatokyo tend to be highly tolerant and have been described as " some of the most patient and forgiving " readers, often viewing these lapses as endearing rather than inconvenient. Randall 's mention of letting up on Megatokyo refers to 142: Parody Week: Megatokyo , in which Megatokyo and Gallagher were also teased. [Cueball stands in the middle of a single panel. The text above reads:] Sorry guys no comic today. I've gotta go to the doctor to get my thighs rotated. But here's some new character art I'm working on!

Six Months

Six Months

https://www.xkcd.com/158

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/158:_Six_Months

[Cueball is standing.] Cueball: It's been six months and I still have those dreams where you're pressed tight against me, where you look into my eyes and give me that grin and it's like you've forgotten everything. Cueball: And something in the back of my head says it's wrong, it's not like this anymore, but I push it down. In the morning, I tell myself I can't control my dreams, but there's a part of me that doesn't want them to stop. Cueball: And honestly, waking up would be a lot easier if your mom didn't look so much like you. Cueball: There's always that moment of confusion.

Cueball is addressing his ex-partner, telling her that six months after their split-up, he still has dreams of their being together. In the moment after waking up, he is sometimes unable to tell reality and dream apart. However, the third panel reveals the punchline: His confusion results from the likeness between his ex and her mother, next to whom he apparently wakes up every morning. It becomes clear that he has left the girl six months ago in order to live with her mother instead. The comic lampshades at the state of emotional confusion after a break-up that is prominently featured in many films and books. The title text furthers the joke, saying the confusion of why he left her is gone once the older woman does "that thing with her tongue," possibly referring to fellatio. [Cueball is standing.] Cueball: It's been six months and I still have those dreams where you're pressed tight against me, where you look into my eyes and give me that grin and it's like you've forgotten everything. Cueball: And something in the back of my head says it's wrong, it's not like this anymore, but I push it down. In the morning, I tell myself I can't control my dreams, but there's a part of me that doesn't want them to stop. Cueball: And honestly, waking up would be a lot easier if your mom didn't look so much like you. Cueball: There's always that moment of confusion.

Boombox

Boombox

https://www.xkcd.com/159

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/159:_Boombox

[Megan is looking out a second story window at Cueball holding a boombox over his head. Musical Notes are coming out of it.] Cueball: Megan! Megan: Oh my god, I can't believe this is happening. Cueball: I love you! Megan: Okay, that's great. Wait a second. Is... is that... Ice Ice Baby? What the hell? Cueball: I'm not very good at this.

We see Cueball declare his love for Megan in an oft-used setting, paying homage to similar events in classic literature, notably the "balcony scene" from William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet ( act 2, scene 2 ), and a similar situation in Edmond Rostand 's Cyrano de Bergerac ( act 3, scenes 6-7 ). In the former, Romeo, attempting to woo Juliet, stands beneath her balcony to profess his love for her. In the latter, an inarticulate cadet, Christian, professes his love for Roxane by arranging to use the words of a fellow soldier, Cyrano, who secretly also loves Roxane. The 1989 movie " Say Anything... " contains a modern interpretation of this declaration of love, where John Cusack plays Peter Gabriel's " In Your Eyes " on a boombox outside the house of the girl he likes. Parodying this iconic scene ( video ), Cueball is holding up a boombox (a self-contained semiportable stereo system, typically with cassette tape or CD player, and complete with integrated speakers) that is playing music while Cueball declares his love for Megan. She first is startled, embarrassed, then eventually confused by the 1990 hit single Ice Ice Baby ( video ) by Vanilla Ice playing on the boombox. Cueball then admits he is "not very good at this," attempting to recreate the classic romantic scene, but utterly failing to play music suitable for such an event. The title text mentions that Cueball is actually playing " Under Pressure " ( video ), the 1981 hit song by Queen and David Bowie , but Megan has confused it with "Ice Ice Baby," which samples the bassline from "Under Pressure." It also may be that Cueball is having trouble holding the boombox, hence Cueball being 'under pressure.' These two songs are again referenced together in 1561: Water Phase Diagram , and "Ice Ice Baby" is also lampooned in 210: 90's Flowchart . It is possible that this is the same couple as mentioned in 112: Baring My Heart , as the creator of that Venn diagram reveals to their romantic partner that their feelings towards their paramour are comparable to their feelings for Vanilla Ice. This was the first time that the name " Megan " was used in xkcd. The next comic to use it was the much more depressing 215: Letting Go . [Megan is looking out a second story window at Cueball holding a boombox over his head. Musical Notes are coming out of it.] Cueball: Megan! Megan: Oh my god, I can't believe this is happening. Cueball: I love you! Megan: Okay, that's great. Wait a second. Is... is that... Ice Ice Baby? What the hell? Cueball: I'm not very good at this.

Penny Arcade Parody

Penny Arcade Parody

https://www.xkcd.com/160

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/160:_Penny_Arcade_Parody

[The first panel uses the art style of Penny Arcade.] Gabe: What? Sony has plenty of launch titles lined up that aren't lame sequels. Tycho: Name one. And furthermore, they... I... uh... [The art style is dropped. The next two panels are just text.] I can't do this. I can't parody Penny Arcade. I've got nothing on those guys. They're a class act, they know their audience, they know exactly what they're doing. Gabe experiments with his art, always bold and fresh without trying to perform. Tycho's writing continues to astound day after day. I can just see him, reading my uncultured swill masquerading as his florid prose. [The panel is bottomless, and the text escapes the panel.] But he's not angry, no. He's sitting at his desk smiling that condescending half-smile, the corner of his mouth belying the self-assurance of a writer who never misplaces a word. His firm hands rest easily on the keyboard, his right thumb caressing the space bar gently, as I enter the room. He knows I'm there without turning around, and I'm too nervous to speak. But I don't have to; he understands, I can see it in the way his eyes play over me, reading my fears and doubts in a glance and washing them away with a knowing smile. Then he's on his feet, he's in front of me, and I don't feel the electric jolt I expected as our hands meet. It's just warm, warm and right: As I sink into his eyes I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I see Tycho smile at someone behind me. Gabe is standing there, grinning that mischievous grin, and twirling his beloved cardboard tube between his fingers. The night has just begun.

Penny Arcade is a webcomic , primarily about video games and the culture surrounding them. It is written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik , though they are better known as their comic alter-egos: Tycho Brahe and Jonathan "Gabe" Gabriel. This strip begins as a parody of the Penny Arcade strip, which makes fun of Sony for providing a lack-luster selection of PS3 games available on the console's launch date. However, it quickly turns into the narrator's fantasy of what might happen if Tycho discovered his spoof. The enormous wall of text in the second and third panels may be a reference to the Penny Arcade strip "I Hope You Like Text." The cardboard tube references one of Gabe's alternate characters, Cardboard Tube Samurai . [The first panel uses the art style of Penny Arcade.] Gabe: What? Sony has plenty of launch titles lined up that aren't lame sequels. Tycho: Name one. And furthermore, they... I... uh... [The art style is dropped. The next two panels are just text.] I can't do this. I can't parody Penny Arcade. I've got nothing on those guys. They're a class act, they know their audience, they know exactly what they're doing. Gabe experiments with his art, always bold and fresh without trying to perform. Tycho's writing continues to astound day after day. I can just see him, reading my uncultured swill masquerading as his florid prose. [The panel is bottomless, and the text escapes the panel.] But he's not angry, no. He's sitting at his desk smiling that condescending half-smile, the corner of his mouth belying the self-assurance of a writer who never misplaces a word. His firm hands rest easily on the keyboard, his right thumb caressing the space bar gently, as I enter the room. He knows I'm there without turning around, and I'm too nervous to speak. But I don't have to; he understands, I can see it in the way his eyes play over me, reading my fears and doubts in a glance and washing them away with a knowing smile. Then he's on his feet, he's in front of me, and I don't feel the electric jolt I expected as our hands meet. It's just warm, warm and right: As I sink into his eyes I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I see Tycho smile at someone behind me. Gabe is standing there, grinning that mischievous grin, and twirling his beloved cardboard tube between his fingers. The night has just begun.

Accident

Accident

https://www.xkcd.com/161

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/161:_Accident

[Cueball driving in a car while listening to some music.] Music: ♫ ♩ ♬ [Another panel of Cueball listening to music while driving. Cueball's head is turned to the right.] Music: ♬ ♪ ♩ [A third panel. Cueball's head is turned to the left.] Music: ♫ NAAAA NA NA NANA NANA NA NA KATAMARI DAMACY ♪ ♩ [Cueball and Megan talking.] Megan: And that's when you veered into the mailbox? Cueball: It looked smaller then me. It was just instinct.

After someone plays a game enough, various instincts develop. One might be ready to push the right button when a right arrow comes up on screen. One might learn the tricky sequences of moves needed for a situation in the game, and find oneself doing them in another game in a similar situation. Or, as in this case, one might get used to pushing a giant ball around trying to collect smaller objects, and try doing so with your car when the game's theme song starts playing. In the game Katamari Damacy , the player has to grow a large ball of clutter by rolling the ball over smaller objects in the playfield, which become attached to the ball, growing the clutter ball larger and larger. As the clutter ball gets larger, bigger things in the environment will begin sticking to the clutter ball instead of acting as obstacles, giving the player more clutter to grab. How big the player can get this clutter ball, or "katamari," determines how well the player does in the game, as is also mentioned in 83: Katamari . When Katamari Damacy's theme song comes on in the third panel, Cueball begins acting out the game's premise, and drives his car into a mailbox - which "looked smaller" than his car - trying to get it to attach. This doesn't work so well outside of the game. [ citation needed ] The title text implies that music used in the game Guitar Hero is equally hazardous when driving. Anyone who's become accustomed to rocking out on a fake guitar to a particular song could find themselves involuntarily playing the air guitar when said song comes on the radio unexpectedly. Randall is pointing out that Guitar Hero-induced spontaneous air guitar performances are not safe activities while driving. Alternatively, one may try to hit all incoming objects in an attempt to mimic hitting strings of notes as they move down the fretboard, which would be immediately more disastrous. Another possibility is that the hazard is pressing several buttons repeatedly to mimic Guitar Hero, which would not only distract from driving, but also cause chaos in the car. The theme song from Katamari Damacy is also mentioned in 851: Na . [Cueball driving in a car while listening to some music.] Music: ♫ ♩ ♬ [Another panel of Cueball listening to music while driving. Cueball's head is turned to the right.] Music: ♬ ♪ ♩ [A third panel. Cueball's head is turned to the left.] Music: ♫ NAAAA NA NA NANA NANA NA NA KATAMARI DAMACY ♪ ♩ [Cueball and Megan talking.] Megan: And that's when you veered into the mailbox? Cueball: It looked smaller then me. It was just instinct.

Angular Momentum

Angular Momentum

https://www.xkcd.com/162

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/162:_Angular_Momentum

[Cueball sits sideways on a bed under an open window in the corner of a room. He is looking at Megan, who is spinning fast, indicated with two large circles indicating where her arms that are spread far out rotate, as well as two smaller circles around her knees and feet. The bed sheets are clearly messed up, as if someone has used it for activities other than sleeping. It is night and dark gray outside the window, and inside the room everything is also gray but lighter. Behind the spoken text, the background is white, but fades to the darker gray at the edges. There is also different gray shading in different parts of the room.] Cueball: What are you doing? Megan: Spinning counterclockwise Megan: Each turn robs the planet of angular momentum Megan: Slowing its spin the tiniest bit Megan: Lengthening the night, pushing back the dawn Megan: Giving me a little more time here Megan: With you

A moving object (like the Earth) has momentum. Momentum is the mass (size) of the object multiplied by the velocity (speed) of the moving object. So the Earth has a very high momentum because the Earth has a large mass (size) and is moving at a high velocity (speed) around the Sun. However, the momentum referenced in this comic is the angular momentum of the Earth spinning on its axis, which creates the days and nights. A moving object has to keep moving at the same velocity for its momentum to stay the same. The momentum of a moving object can increase, decrease, or stop via the force of another object. Force is the transfer of momentum from one object to another. Megan attempts to slow down the Earth's angular momentum, and spins counter-clockwise to force her momentum onto the Earth, so that she can have more time with the one she loves. The Earth has a massively high momentum, and the momentum that she produces is minuscule relative to the Earth's. And the few nanoseconds gained by spinning, while being with Cueball, is effectively offset by the seconds spent spinning. Slowing down the rate of time in the universe directly slows down the velocity of life, so there would be no change in the total duration of life. And as the text implies, this isn't even possible: While not being able to reverse time, enjoy your night time. Sunrise always comes too early. Her attempt of surmounting the seemingly impossible is grand; culturally, we value this kind of high romanticism. Later in 442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel , the same kind of spinning Megan is used in the first frame to tell that xkcd loves momentum. Technical notes: Angular momentum depends on the axis used for measuring angular momentum . Apparently, the time Megan is stopping is “ less than 1/20th of the time light takes to cross the diameter of a hydrogen atom ” A considerably larger (but still minuscule) effect could be achieved by Megan (and/or Cueball and/or the bed) moving even a few meters closer to the equator . This would also have the advantage of not interfering with any other activities Megan and Cueball might want to undertake in their time together. [Cueball sits sideways on a bed under an open window in the corner of a room. He is looking at Megan, who is spinning fast, indicated with two large circles indicating where her arms that are spread far out rotate, as well as two smaller circles around her knees and feet. The bed sheets are clearly messed up, as if someone has used it for activities other than sleeping. It is night and dark gray outside the window, and inside the room everything is also gray but lighter. Behind the spoken text, the background is white, but fades to the darker gray at the edges. There is also different gray shading in different parts of the room.] Cueball: What are you doing? Megan: Spinning counterclockwise Megan: Each turn robs the planet of angular momentum Megan: Slowing its spin the tiniest bit Megan: Lengthening the night, pushing back the dawn Megan: Giving me a little more time here Megan: With you

Donald Knuth

Donald Knuth

https://www.xkcd.com/163

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/163:_Donald_Knuth

[Black Hat and Cueball are sitting back to back at two separate desks, typing. Black Hat has turned toward Cueball to respond to him.] Cueball: Man, you're being inconsistent with your array indices. Some are from one, some from zero. Black Hat: Different tasks call for different conventions. To quote Stanford algorithms expert Donald Knuth, "Who are you? How did you get in my house?" [Black Hat and Cueball are sitting back to back at two separate desks, typing. Cueball has turned toward Black Hat, confused.] Cueball: Wait, what? Black Hat: Well, that's what he said when I asked him about it. Later, the topic of breaking into a software expert's house through the skylight became topic of 225: Open Source again.

Donald Knuth is a computer science Professor Emeritus at Stanford University who is famous for writing The Art of Computer Programming and developing the T e X computerized typesetting system. In computer science, an array is a structure that stores multiple values in a fixed order, and the elements are accessed by their index number. In Fortran , for instance, one writes array(1) to access the first element in the array. Most "modern" (read: descended from C ) languages use 0 as the index for the first element in the array, but it is possible (if one is careful about it) to ignore the 0th element and use 1 as the first index. In some programming languages, such as Pascal or Ada , it is possible to select an arbitrary range of indices for each array type, so the first index might not only be 0 or 1, but also −42 or 100000. Cueball is complaining that Black Hat was not consistent in his choice of where to start his arrays. This is a valid complaint, as a lack of such consistency can make coding errors both more likely and more difficult to detect. Black Hat cites Donald Knuth to support his rebuttal, but the quote he uses does not seem relevant. Presumably, Black Hat had illegally entered the professor's house in order to question him on indices. Donald Knuth's words were not an intellectual response to the question, but rather an alarmed response to the presence of an intruder. It is not clear if Black Hat is aware of this. The title text suggests that Black Hat finds Knuth's books intimidating, due to perhaps their size or complexity, to the extent that he considers breaking into Knuth's house (a risky, difficult crime) to be the better option in finding his answer. Even for Donald Knuth's books, this is very exaggerated and illogical behavior. [ citation needed ] [Black Hat and Cueball are sitting back to back at two separate desks, typing. Black Hat has turned toward Cueball to respond to him.] Cueball: Man, you're being inconsistent with your array indices. Some are from one, some from zero. Black Hat: Different tasks call for different conventions. To quote Stanford algorithms expert Donald Knuth, "Who are you? How did you get in my house?" [Black Hat and Cueball are sitting back to back at two separate desks, typing. Cueball has turned toward Black Hat, confused.] Cueball: Wait, what? Black Hat: Well, that's what he said when I asked him about it. Later, the topic of breaking into a software expert's house through the skylight became topic of 225: Open Source again.

Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

https://www.xkcd.com/164

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/164:_Playing_Devil%27s_Advocate_to_Win

[Cueball is standing under a large amount of text said in one go.] Cueball: Yes, from the evidence it looks pretty likely to me that we're causing global warming on a horrific scale. But with science you don't need to argue. It doesn't matter who wins the debate — it's about reality. By just waiting a little longer, we'll get to see who was right. It feels unethical but I find myself wanting to keep quiet about the science just to know for sure. As terrible as it sounds, the state of the world isn't really my responsibility. I'm just thrilled to get to watch. If the scientists are right — and if we keep people from understanding just a little longer — we'll enjoy quite a ride. And pragmatically, on the outside chance that they're all wrong, I get saved the embarrassment of having spoken up.

Global warming is the rise of the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans since the late 19th century and its projected continuation. More than 97% of scientists are sure that it's caused by an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humanity's industrialization and activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. Losses of human food security and habitat; melting of glaciers leading to a rise in sea temperatures; and more frequent heat waves, droughts, and species extinctions are just some of the many likely effects of global warming. Yet, despite the unequivocal nature of climate change , it's a hot-button political topic in the United States, with many conservatives denying its existence, arguing that it has natural causes, or claiming that global warming could be a good thing. Liberals counter by saying that conservatives are claiming these things because they're in bed with the oil companies, and by denying the existence of global warming, they're saved from having to do anything about it. It's such a controversial topic in the U.S. that, in this comic, Cueball says he's decided to keep his mouth shut about the whole thing. He has withdrawn from the debate because it doesn't matter if he wins the debate or not — science doesn't care about who got the last word. If humanity reaches the tipping point and one day can't do anything to stop global warming, Cueball will find it interesting to watch exactly what happens. And if it turns out that the scientists are wrong, he won't feel embarrassed that he's been making a big deal about it this whole time. In the title text, he touches on the political side of global warming, saying that there are many well-meaning conservatives out here who honestly believe that global warming doesn't happen, and that liberals only bring it up to have a moral issue to attack conservatives with. This was the first direct reference to global warming in xkcd, but since then, climate change, with an emphasis on global warming, has become a recurring theme in xkcd. Seems Randall would no longer like to be on this ride, especially with the comic 1732: Earth Temperature Timeline released almost 10 years after this one. [Cueball is standing under a large amount of text said in one go.] Cueball: Yes, from the evidence it looks pretty likely to me that we're causing global warming on a horrific scale. But with science you don't need to argue. It doesn't matter who wins the debate — it's about reality. By just waiting a little longer, we'll get to see who was right. It feels unethical but I find myself wanting to keep quiet about the science just to know for sure. As terrible as it sounds, the state of the world isn't really my responsibility. I'm just thrilled to get to watch. If the scientists are right — and if we keep people from understanding just a little longer — we'll enjoy quite a ride. And pragmatically, on the outside chance that they're all wrong, I get saved the embarrassment of having spoken up.

Turn Signals

Turn Signals

https://www.xkcd.com/165

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/165:_Turn_Signals

[Two cars are seen sitting at a red light. One person is seen walking from his car up to the driver of the car in front of him. The turn signals of both cars seem to be blinking at the same time.] Person in Street: Hey, our turn signals are in sync! Person in Car: What the hell? Person in Street: Usually they're at least a little off. But I've been watching like 30 seconds and haven't seen any beat frequency! Person in Car: Who are you? Person in Street: You know, from the beat frequency you can tell the difference in timing of the two signals. Person in Car: ... Person in Street: But ours are the same! Person in Car: ... Person in Street: So, wanna hang out later?

Turn signals are designed to flash between 60 and 120 times per minute. Most turn signals are driven by an electromechanical device. Due to manufacturing tolerances, battery state of charge, ambient temperature, and various other factors, two different turn signals rarely flash at the same rate, even among cars of the same make and model. Having two cars with turn signals flashing at the same rate would be a rare event. Cueball notices this event, and expresses his excitement to the driver of the other car, despite being stopped at an intersection. The other driver is confused by this. Turn signal frequency is something that most people don't take notice of. [ citation needed ] Cueball, however, takes it as an opportunity to strike up a conversation and make a new friend. The beat frequency is the rate at which two frequencies transition from being in phase with each other to being out of phase and then to being in phase again. In other words, two turn signals that begin by flashing together will transition to flashing opposite each other and then back to flashing together, and the rate at which this process cycles is the beat frequency. Because the beat frequency is simply the difference between the two turn signal frequencies, two turn signals whose frequencies are closer together will take longer to pass through the in-phase/out-of-phase cycle, and two signals whose frequencies are identical would take an infinite time (i.e., their relative phase never changes). The beating of turn signals is an easy phenomenon to observe when one is stopped at a traffic light with nothing to do but watch the flashing turn signals, and it is the lack of beating that Cueball noticed and excitedly reported. The title text refers to the fact that this is probably not a good strategy for making friends, and it could suggest that the character Cueball may be Randall . [Two cars are seen sitting at a red light. One person is seen walking from his car up to the driver of the car in front of him. The turn signals of both cars seem to be blinking at the same time.] Person in Street: Hey, our turn signals are in sync! Person in Car: What the hell? Person in Street: Usually they're at least a little off. But I've been watching like 30 seconds and haven't seen any beat frequency! Person in Car: Who are you? Person in Street: You know, from the beat frequency you can tell the difference in timing of the two signals. Person in Car: ... Person in Street: But ours are the same! Person in Car: ... Person in Street: So, wanna hang out later?

Misusing Slang

Misusing Slang

https://www.xkcd.com/166

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/166:_Misusing_Slang

The best part of getting older is gonna be intentionally misusing slang around teenagers just to watch them squirm. Cueball: Oh man, that song is so pwned! Teenager: twitch

Randall expresses excitement for the time in the future where he can intentionally misuse modern-day slang in order to make nearby teenagers feel uncomfortable. He illustrates this by using the word "pwned," the past tense of "pwn" (from "own," as in to defeat completely): "The noob was pwned by the pro." Many teenagers believe their parents to be not "with the times," but Randall suggests that parents actually do know what the words mean, but are acting otherwise in order to mess with their heads for their personal amusement. The title text reinforces this, as every generation has had some form of slang that they used, and it could be possible that this practice has been continued for a good while. It also suggests that the parents of teenagers may be "pwning" their children by intentionally misusing these modern-day slang. The best part of getting older is gonna be intentionally misusing slang around teenagers just to watch them squirm. Cueball: Oh man, that song is so pwned! Teenager: twitch

Nihilism

Nihilism

https://www.xkcd.com/167

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/167:_Nihilism

[Beret Guy and Cueball approach a tree while talking.] Cueball: There is no God. Our existence is without purpose. Beret Guy: Oh, definitely. Beret Guy: We are adrift in an uncaring void indifferent to all our mortal toil. Cueball: Exactly! In the end, nothing we do matters. [Beret Guy climbs the tree.] Beret Guy: Totally. Cueball: We just... Why are you climbing that tree? [Beret Guy is now completely submerged in the tree.] Beret Guy: Because the future is an adventure! Come on! Cueball: But-- Beret Guy: Hey! I found squirrels !

It is argued by some that atheism leads to nihilism . One rebuttal would be to reject the premise that there is no purpose outside of fulfilling divine intention, but Randall instead rejects the premise that nihilism ought to be burdensome. As a result, Beret Guy resolves that, if everything is ultimately meaningless, then it would be more fun to spend one's meaningless existence having fun rather than constantly moping. The presence of squirrels may relate to Beret Guy's head's resemblance to an acorn. As reinforced by the title text, the complete lack of angst on Beret Guy's part is off-putting to other nihilists. [Beret Guy and Cueball approach a tree while talking.] Cueball: There is no God. Our existence is without purpose. Beret Guy: Oh, definitely. Beret Guy: We are adrift in an uncaring void indifferent to all our mortal toil. Cueball: Exactly! In the end, nothing we do matters. [Beret Guy climbs the tree.] Beret Guy: Totally. Cueball: We just... Why are you climbing that tree? [Beret Guy is now completely submerged in the tree.] Beret Guy: Because the future is an adventure! Come on! Cueball: But-- Beret Guy: Hey! I found squirrels !

Reverse Euphemisms

Reverse Euphemisms

https://www.xkcd.com/168

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/168:_Reverse_Euphemisms

My Hobby: Reverse Euphemisms [Two people talking.] Cueball: Oh, hey, school just let out and it's YMCA night, so I've gotta go take a shit. Friend: What? Cueball: I mean I actually have to drop the kids off at the pool.

Euphemisms are figures of speech used in place of more offensive terms. In this comic, Cueball uses swear words in the place of benign terms, inverting the typical usage of euphemisms. To "drop the kids off at the pool" is a euphemism meaning to "go take a shit." In this case, however, Cueball actually has to drop kids off at the pool but instead uses "go take a shit." Cueball is using the euphemism in reverse , hence the title. In the title text, the figure is waiting for a situation in which he has to see a man concerning a horse, as this relates to another euphemism meaning to urinate. It can be assumed that, when telling someone about seeing the man about the horse, he would say "...then I had to go take a piss." This is not to be confused with the opposite of a euphemism called a dysphemism . My Hobby: Reverse Euphemisms [Two people talking.] Cueball: Oh, hey, school just let out and it's YMCA night, so I've gotta go take a shit. Friend: What? Cueball: I mean I actually have to drop the kids off at the pool.

Words that End in GRY

Words that End in GRY

https://www.xkcd.com/169

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/169:_Words_that_End_in_GRY

[Black Hat and Cueball are standing next to each other.] Cueball: There are three words in the English language that end in "gry". "Angry" and "Hungry" are two. What's the third? Black Hat: I don't think there is one, unless you count really obscure words. Cueball: Ha! It's "language"! I said there are three words in "the English--" Hey! GRAB [Black Hat grabs Cueball's hand, with a knife in hand.] Cueball: What th--AAAAAAAAAA SLICE [Black Hat slices off Cueball's hand with the knife.] [Cueball is bleeding profusely.] Black Hat: Ok, listen carefully. Cueball: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Black Hat: Communicating badly and then acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness. Cueball: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Black Hat: I hope we've learned something today. Cueball: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Around the time this comic was posted, Randall also posted Blue Eyes : The Hardest Logic Puzzle in the World. He apparently took his own advice to heart as he explicitly states he has gone over the wording of the puzzle several times before publishing it to make it as unambiguous as possible.

This is a reference to a famous joke (see the first of the meta versions under the wiki link), mistold in the above comic. The original, correct telling of the joke is: Think of words ending in "-gry". "Angry" and "Hungry" are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? Hint: The word is something that everyone uses every day. If you have listened carefully, I have already told you what it is. Phrased this way, the answer is "language" because "There are only three words in (the phrase) 'the English language' ." Cueball tells this joke (unfortunately by mis-phrasing the original riddle). When Cueball attempts to say the answer is "language" and act smugly about it, Black Hat is unimpressed and cuts off Cueball's forearm, explaining that communicating badly is not the same as cleverness. Black Hat's point is that the riddle's "cleverness" depends on misleadingly implying that "three words" refers to words ending in "-gry," rather than the phrase "the English language." Black Hat does not seem to agree that this riddle is clever. In the title text, Randall clarifies that his point about bad communication applies to the riddle in general. [1] However, a secondary interpretation is that Black Hat is angry that Cueball botched the joke. The joke is supposed to go, "There are only three words in 'the English language,'" while only implying that you meant "words that end in '-gry.'" By instead saying, "There are three words in the English language that end in '-gry,'" Cueball has ruined any chance of Black Hat determining the correct answer; now, "three words" can't refer to the correct answer "the English language" because Cueball has accidentally used a longer phrase instead. Thus, Cueball has communicated badly both intentionally and unintentionally. In any case, no matter how annoying Cueball's smugness, Black Hat responding by cutting off Cueball's forearm is a comical overreaction [ citation needed ] (while his calm demeanor in doing so is a comical underreaction to the overreaction). Additionally, his calmly-made point about the riddle is likely not to be understood by Cueball, who can only focus on his debilitating injury. Black Hat has, ironically, failed to communicate his point about proper communication, although given Black Hat's personality he likely doesn't care, and may even have intended the irony. As Black Hat mentioned in the comic, if you count obscure and archaic words, there are additional English words that end with "-gry." Some are listed here . The title text refers to postmodernism , a philosophy and corresponding art movement. Postmodern music is often minimalist , as exemplified by the weird sounds of Philip Glass and Steve Reich , and postmodern visual art saw trends such as lowbrow and installation art gain attention. Apart from a rejection of modernism, however, it is difficult to outline postmodernism to justify the strange works of art. Deconstruction is another important concept, but it is difficult to describe the process. In short, postmodernists make art that no one understands and may act smugly about it, but they do not adequately explain what their art means, or it doesn't really mean anything. In other words, there is nothing to understand. Thus, Black Hat's statement, that such practice is not "cleverness," applies to them as well. [Black Hat and Cueball are standing next to each other.] Cueball: There are three words in the English language that end in "gry". "Angry" and "Hungry" are two. What's the third? Black Hat: I don't think there is one, unless you count really obscure words. Cueball: Ha! It's "language"! I said there are three words in "the English--" Hey! GRAB [Black Hat grabs Cueball's hand, with a knife in hand.] Cueball: What th--AAAAAAAAAA SLICE [Black Hat slices off Cueball's hand with the knife.] [Cueball is bleeding profusely.] Black Hat: Ok, listen carefully. Cueball: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Black Hat: Communicating badly and then acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness. Cueball: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Black Hat: I hope we've learned something today. Cueball: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Around the time this comic was posted, Randall also posted Blue Eyes : The Hardest Logic Puzzle in the World. He apparently took his own advice to heart as he explicitly states he has gone over the wording of the puzzle several times before publishing it to make it as unambiguous as possible.

Turn Back

Turn Back

https://www.xkcd.com/170

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/170:_Turn_Back

Cueball: Should we keep going? Megan: I don't know. Cueball: We can turn back if you want. Megan: Look-- Megan: Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don't have a plan any more than you? Maybe just having this conversation means we're lost. [Wide shot of the characters in a Calvin and Hobbes-esque alien landscape.] Cueball: Kind of scary. Megan: It's terrifying. Cueball: This place is beautiful. Megan: Yeah.

Calvin and Hobbes was a daily comic drawn by Bill Watterson , published between 1985 to 1995. It followed the adventures of a young boy named Calvin and his tiger, Hobbes. The frequent themes of spontaneity, beauty, and adventure that characterize many of Calvin's conversations with his friend Hobbes can also be seen in this exchange between Cueball and Megan as they explore a landscape reminiscent of Calvin's daydreams of intergalactic adventure. The cluelessness and simultaneous wonder that Cueball and Megan feel at their surrounding landscape mirror Calvin's inexperience and curiosity that he exhibits in Watterson's comic. The title text, while unclear if it were actually true or not, reflects Mr. Watterson's reclusive nature. He has never licensed his characters for any use outside of reprints, and he stays out of the public spotlight. Thus, it is very probable that it was true at the time of this comic. The title text also serves to point out the connection between Watterson's work and this comic. However, in more recent years, Watterson has come out of his shell a bit. He collaborated with Stephan Pastis, creator of "Pearls before Swine," to do a story arc where a second grader was a better artist than an actual cartoonist. Stephan Pastis later wrote of the experience: "I began to wonder if [Bill Watterson] even had electricity, then I remembered we were using e-mail to communicate." Cueball: Should we keep going? Megan: I don't know. Cueball: We can turn back if you want. Megan: Look-- Megan: Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don't have a plan any more than you? Maybe just having this conversation means we're lost. [Wide shot of the characters in a Calvin and Hobbes-esque alien landscape.] Cueball: Kind of scary. Megan: It's terrifying. Cueball: This place is beautiful. Megan: Yeah.

String Theory

String Theory

https://www.xkcd.com/171

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/171:_String_Theory

[Heading above panel:] String theory summarized: [Two Cueballs are talking.] Cueball: I just had an awesome idea. Suppose all matter and energy is made of tiny, vibrating "strings". Friend: Okay. What would that imply? Cueball: I dunno.

String theory is a theory in theoretical physics for explaining how the universe works. It is a theory trying to explain everything belonging to our universe; specifically, it aims to unite general relativity and quantum field theories . When a new theory is thought up, the theorists will usually supply some predictions, measurable by experimental physicists. String theory's predictions, however, are few and extremely difficult to test; though its inception was over forty years ago, string theory has yet to be experimentally tested. Randall is unimpressed with string theorists (for another instance of this, see the punchline to 397: Unscientific ). String theory has not provided any useful new knowledge to engineering science as quantum physics has, and lacks the imagination-stirring philosophical implications that the general population associates with other fields — for example, quantum scientists have proven predictions like tunneling , used by modern electronic devices, and relativity is relevant to modern systems like GPS navigation. String theory either hasn't reached that stage yet or cannot. In the title text, Randall points out that string theory is so technically difficult that at essentially every level (except, presumably, the very top), this explanation is as good as it gets. [Heading above panel:] String theory summarized: [Two Cueballs are talking.] Cueball: I just had an awesome idea. Suppose all matter and energy is made of tiny, vibrating "strings". Friend: Okay. What would that imply? Cueball: I dunno.

Skateboarding is Not a Crime

Skateboarding is Not a Crime

https://www.xkcd.com/172

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/172:_Skateboarding_is_Not_a_Crime

[A set of lockers, that are dark pink, blue, yellow, dark pink then blue. The middle one has a white sticker stuck to it proclaiming "Skateboarding is not a crime."] When I'm president, skateboarding will still be legal, but display of those stupid stickers will be a felony.

The skateboarding subculture has taken up the phrase "skateboarding is not a crime" in protest of how many cities have banned skateboarding in certain areas, such as parks. Randall apparently really does not like these stickers and states that when he becomes president, any and all displays of stickers bearing the phrase (like the one on the locker in the comic) will be considered a felony, though skateboarding itself will still be legal. The title text also shows another protest phrase, "Arrest me, I'm a skateboarder," that Randall hates even more than "skateboarding is not a crime." [A set of lockers, that are dark pink, blue, yellow, dark pink then blue. The middle one has a white sticker stuck to it proclaiming "Skateboarding is not a crime."] When I'm president, skateboarding will still be legal, but display of those stupid stickers will be a felony.

Movie Seating

Movie Seating

https://www.xkcd.com/173

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/173:_Movie_Seating

At the movies, I get frustrated when we file into our row haphazardly, ignoring the computationally difficulty problem of seating people together for maximum enjoyment. [Map of relationships between 8 people.] [Legend:] Single line: friends. Double line: in a relationship. Arrow: one-way crush. Dashed line: acquaintances [The eight friends sit in a row in a dark cinema. Cueball and one other are between two lovers.] Cueball: Guys! This is not socially optimal!

At the time of writing in most movie theaters in the US, seats were not reserved . [1] That is, tickets are sold by screening without seat assignment, and therefore an entering patron can take any vacant seat. Therefore, a group of incoming patrons may walk in a column and take a section of consecutive seats in a row, each person taking one next to the person in front of them. The order of these people is thus determined by the order in which they walk into the theater, which is in most cases random. Cueball is upset at the way he and his friends have sat down at the movie theater. Part of the problem is that two people who are apparently in a relationship do not sit together. He therefore tries to use a social graph to calculate the best way for him and his seven friends to sit in a row, while taking into account all of the social connections among them. In mathematics , this type of problem is called combinatorial optimisation . The most popular example, the traveling salesman problem , is referenced in the title text, as well as in comics 287 and 399 . The title text shows that another part of the problem is that Cueball's friends, who could have helped him calculate a solution, are each sitting three seats away from him, and so he cannot ask them for help. Two hypothetical solutions for the specific problem proposed in the comic are displayed: At the movies, I get frustrated when we file into our row haphazardly, ignoring the computationally difficulty problem of seating people together for maximum enjoyment. [Map of relationships between 8 people.] [Legend:] Single line: friends. Double line: in a relationship. Arrow: one-way crush. Dashed line: acquaintances [The eight friends sit in a row in a dark cinema. Cueball and one other are between two lovers.] Cueball: Guys! This is not socially optimal!

That's What SHE Said

That's What SHE Said

https://www.xkcd.com/174

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/174:_That%27s_What_SHE_Said

My Hobby: Using "that's what she said" only in the most grammatically ambiguous situations. Friend: He doubts she could've done what they claimed she did. Cueball: That's what she said!

" That's what she said! " is a phrase used in the US in response to an unintended sexual innuendo, similar to the UK phrase "said the actress to the bishop." An example usage might look like the following: A: (while putting together some furniture) I think this is too big. B: That's what she said! In this example, the innuendo is that A was referring to a furniture component (say, a bolt too large to fit into the hole that was drilled in the factory), but the phrase might also refer to a human penis. While popular for a while, the phrase is considered puerile and cliché nowadays, so it isn't often used except in mockery. In this case, no sexual innuendo is intended; instead, the phrase is used to maximize the ambiguity of the statement. Ambiguity is when a statement could mean more than one thing. In English, it is often created as a result of pronouns like "he" and "they," which might potentially refer to many different things in context. Here, "that's what she said!" could mean several things, because "that" and "she" could refer to multiple parts of the sentence: Another explanation would be that the intense grammatical ambiguity of the situation allows for any type of interpretation of the situation... even a more "perverted" interpretation. Taken more literally, the "she" in "that's what she said!" could be a hypothetical woman who is known for saying crazy things, thus the grammatically ambiguous statement reminds the speaker of this hypothetical woman. The title text turns this back around, saying that there is actually a sexual innuendo in the statement: apparently the girl in question said this during sex. Since all of these possibilities are highly unusual things to say during sex, the observation in the second sentence is accurate. One of Randall's many hobbies . My Hobby: Using "that's what she said" only in the most grammatically ambiguous situations. Friend: He doubts she could've done what they claimed she did. Cueball: That's what she said!

Automatic Doors

Automatic Doors

https://www.xkcd.com/175

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/175:_Automatic_Doors

When I walk past an automatic door and it opens for me, I worry that if I don't go in I'll hurt its feelings. [Automatic door whirrs open.] whirrrr Cueball: Oh, um, I'm sorry, I was just... um... I guess I can hang out for a bit.

Cueball has an uneasy suspiction that the automatic doors may have feelings, possibly due to their apparent sentience. This assigning of human characteristics to non-human things such as the doors is called anthropomorphism . Cueball extends the premise that the doors have feelings to those feelings being hurt by his not entering the opened doors. This is analogous to the social faux pas of ignoring someone who has waved to you, or purposefully failing to acknowledge someone who is trying to get your attention. The anthropomorphized doors are much like those in the starship Heart of Gold in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . In the story, the characters find a brochure describing the ship, which states that "All the doors in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done." Such doors would not be given the "satisfaction" of the "knowledge of a job well done" if the figure passes close enough to trigger the doors, but does not actually go through them. In the title text, it is revealed that Cueball has made the acquaintance of a number of automatic doors and possibly hung out with them only because he doesn't want to hurt their feelings. His being embarrassed about hurting the feelings of any automatic doors who happen to read the comic and thus find out that what they thought was a genuine friendship was only Cueball trying not to hurt their feelings, in fact should more likely be embarrassment over making friends with mechanical doors who he believes have feeling that can be hurt in the first place. [ citation needed ] When I walk past an automatic door and it opens for me, I worry that if I don't go in I'll hurt its feelings. [Automatic door whirrs open.] whirrrr Cueball: Oh, um, I'm sorry, I was just... um... I guess I can hang out for a bit.

Before Sunrise

Before Sunrise

https://www.xkcd.com/176

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/176:_Before_Sunrise

Cueball: Every morning for a week now I've gone out driving before sunrise. I wanted to get lost in the dark, park my car, listen to music, and sip from a warm drink as dawn broke around me, gradually revealing a landscape I'd never before seen. A chain of unique beginnings forcing wonder into the seeds of each day. Cueball: But I guess I need more willpower, because each sunrise just found me at your mom's apartment again.

This is another example of Randall's propensity towards "your mom" jokes. The second panel contains an eloquent prosaic description of an idyllic sunrise over an unfamiliar landscape analogizing the uncertainty and excitement of the life that lies ahead. This is designed to put the reader off-guard for the "your mom" stinger in the third panel. Cueball wants to settle down on his own, but every time when he tries, he still ends up at the reader's Mom's place (as is customary in such jokes). In photography, the term Golden Hour is used to describe the hour after sunrise (and also the hour before sunset), due to the good lighting conditions at those times. In the title text, you could initially believe that Cueball is using these early morning trips to capture beautiful photographs of the scenery, until it turns out that in fact the photos were of the reader's Mom (and likely risque in nature). Cueball: Every morning for a week now I've gone out driving before sunrise. I wanted to get lost in the dark, park my car, listen to music, and sip from a warm drink as dawn broke around me, gradually revealing a landscape I'd never before seen. A chain of unique beginnings forcing wonder into the seeds of each day. Cueball: But I guess I need more willpower, because each sunrise just found me at your mom's apartment again.

Alice and Bob

Alice and Bob

https://www.xkcd.com/177

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/177:_Alice_and_Bob

[Eve stands in the frame, talking to the reader.] Eve: I'm sure you've heard all about this sordid affair in those gossipy cryptographic protocol specs with those busybodies Schneier and Rivest, always taking Alice's side, always labeling me the attacker. Eve: Yes, it's true. I broke Bob's private key and extracted the text of her messages. But does anyone realize how much it hurt ? Eve: He said it was nothing, but everything from the public-key authenticated signatures on the files to the lipstick heart smeared on the disk screamed "Alice." Eve: I didn't want to believe. Of course on some level I realized it was a known-plaintext attack. But I couldn't admit it until I saw it for myself. [Eve places her hands on her hips.] Eve: So before you so quickly label me a third party to the communication, just remember: I loved him first. We had something and she tore it away. She's the attacker, not me. Not Eve.

Any good cryptography presentation will include at least one story about Alice and Bob . They are the canonical "protagonists" of the crypto world, frequently used in illustrations to demonstrate how a cryptographic system works. (The names were mostly chosen to abbreviate to A and B, as well as being of different genders so that they can be distinguished by pronouns alone.) Here, Randall casts the story in a different light. Instead of Alice and Bob being perfectly innocent people who just want to communicate in private, Bob is actually having an affair with Alice, and his former partner, upset, cracked the encryption to see what the message contained. Nevertheless, the "gossipy cryptographic protocol specs" all took Alice's side (since the goal of any good crypto system is, of course, to succeed in this struggle). The rest of the comic makes a few other allusions to cryptography: Finally, in a twist ending, the girlfriend is revealed to be none other than Eve, the eave sdropper, who is also ubiquitous in Alice and Bob stories. Hell hath no fury, indeed. The title text continues the theme of Randall getting barred from speaking at conferences due to his unusual take on certain topics. To further spice things up, there are many other characters in the Alice/Bob canon, including Mallory, the mal icious attacker, who wants to actually alter the message with nefarious intent; Craig, the cr acker, who doesn't particularly care about the message but does care about the passwords used; Plod, a law enforcement officer attempting to access keys or data; and Chuck, a third party in the communication who secretly has a villainous intent. [Eve stands in the frame, talking to the reader.] Eve: I'm sure you've heard all about this sordid affair in those gossipy cryptographic protocol specs with those busybodies Schneier and Rivest, always taking Alice's side, always labeling me the attacker. Eve: Yes, it's true. I broke Bob's private key and extracted the text of her messages. But does anyone realize how much it hurt ? Eve: He said it was nothing, but everything from the public-key authenticated signatures on the files to the lipstick heart smeared on the disk screamed "Alice." Eve: I didn't want to believe. Of course on some level I realized it was a known-plaintext attack. But I couldn't admit it until I saw it for myself. [Eve places her hands on her hips.] Eve: So before you so quickly label me a third party to the communication, just remember: I loved him first. We had something and she tore it away. She's the attacker, not me. Not Eve.

Not Really Into Pokemon

Not Really Into Pokemon

https://www.xkcd.com/178

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/178:_Not_Really_Into_Pokemon

I have found the perfect phrase for condescendingly dismissing anything: Cueball: Have you seen the new Ubuntu release? Black Hat: Nah, I'm not really into Pokémon.

Pokémon is a popular franchise that includes 5 children's animated television shows, a collectible card game , and a whole series of video games. The premise is that a young "trainer" goes out to explore the world and catch Pokémon: fanciful wild creatures that come in many varieties, ranging from armoured dinosaurs that have drills for horns to robotic bugs that change their type depending on the items they are holding . When the trainer comes across wild Pokémon or other trainers, they use their Pokémon to fight each other. In this comic, Randall claims that "I'm not really into Pokémon" can serve as an all-purpose phrase of condescending dismissal. The implied insult to the thing being dismissed can include: The example in the comic is Black Hat dismissing Ubuntu , an open-source computer operating system. Ubuntu may have been particularly chosen as specifically suitable for the "Pokémon dismissal" for reasons such as: The title text refers to the complications that new software releases can have on computers, especially if either the release is an alpha or beta release, or if the computer is rather old. Randall specifically mentions Ubuntu 6.10 and Firefox 2.0 , both of which were officially released around two weeks after this comic was posted, so the versions causing problems were certainly pre-release editions. While Randall does not detail any specific issues, the title text may paint a picture of two computer programs fighting each other inside the computer and making a mess in the process, as if they were Pokémon. Other comics which advocate using catch-all phrases as standard responses for any comment: I have found the perfect phrase for condescendingly dismissing anything: Cueball: Have you seen the new Ubuntu release? Black Hat: Nah, I'm not really into Pokémon.

e to the pi times i

e to the pi times i

https://www.xkcd.com/179

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/179:_e_to_the_pi_times_i

[Two Cueballs are standing at a board with writing on. One Cueball is pointing at the board.] Cueball: Numbers of the form n√-1 are "imaginary," but can still be used in equations. Friend: Okay. Cueball: And e^(π√-1)=-1. Friend: Now you're just fucking with me.

The comic largely references Euler's identity . This identity states that e iπ + 1 = 0. Therefore, e iπ = −1. The humor from this comic is because of the seemingly arbitrary relationship between e, π, and the identity of i (the square root of −1). e is the mathematical identity of which the derivative of e x with respect to x is still e x , while π is the relationship between the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter. Taking these two values and applying them to the value of i in such a manner makes it seem counter-intuitive that it would yield −1 from basic analysis. The above linked Wikipedia page goes into good detail of how to derive this identity, as does this YouTube video . The title text refers to how Euler's identity is called upon in complex form (separating real and imaginary numbers): e ix = cos(x) + i sin(x). [Two Cueballs are standing at a board with writing on. One Cueball is pointing at the board.] Cueball: Numbers of the form n√-1 are "imaginary," but can still be used in equations. Friend: Okay. Cueball: And e^(π√-1)=-1. Friend: Now you're just fucking with me.

Canada

Canada

https://www.xkcd.com/180

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/180:_Canada

[Two men stand talking to each other.] Cueball: If we lose this election, I'm moving to Canada. Friend: You say that every year. Cueball: I mean it this time. Friend: Well, becoming a citizen takes work. Meanwhile, you have no money, half an art degree, and it's the start of winter. You'll freeze to death in the streets. Cueball: Whatever. [Friend raises his hands.] Friend: No, don't you get it? If you die in Canada, you die in REAL LIFE!

Canada is the country north of the USA . [ citation needed ] During political seasons, partisan voters often threaten to move away if their side loses. For Americans, this often comes to claims of moving to Canada . The punchline references the tagline "If you die in the game, you die in real life" from the 2006 horror movie Stay Alive (released a few months before this comic), where people die in real life soon after their characters are killed in a certain video game. The idea was also present in The Matrix : "If you're killed in the Matrix, you die here?" There is also a Yahoo Answers thread about this question. Taken literally, it is obviously true, as Canada is, arguably, part of reality [ citation needed ] . It really is "all real" as the title text says. [Two men stand talking to each other.] Cueball: If we lose this election, I'm moving to Canada. Friend: You say that every year. Cueball: I mean it this time. Friend: Well, becoming a citizen takes work. Meanwhile, you have no money, half an art degree, and it's the start of winter. You'll freeze to death in the streets. Cueball: Whatever. [Friend raises his hands.] Friend: No, don't you get it? If you die in Canada, you die in REAL LIFE!

Interblag

Interblag

https://www.xkcd.com/181

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/181:_Interblag

Terms I have used or heard used to make fun of the internet: [Below: A matrix whose entries may contain crosses to indicate that a term has been used. The rows (prefixes) are labelled WORLD WIDE, INTER-, BLOGO-, BLAGO-, and WEB-; the columns are labelled NET, WEB, SPHERE, TUBES, and BLAG. In the interests of properly propagating the term "blagoblag," the full list of used terms follows:] World Wide Web Internet Interweb Intersphere Intertubes Interblag Blogosphere Blagonet Blagosphere Blagoblag Webnet Webweb [Cueball and Megan stand facing each other; Cueball raises his hands in the air while Megan is nonplussed.] Cueball: I heard about it on the interblag!

The comic parodies the habit of word coining on the internet, as well as the enthusiasm for modern sounding terms in the IT world in general. Common examples include the shortening of "weblog" to " blog ," while the entirety of blogs is referred to as the " blogosphere ." The internet itself is sometimes called "The Tubes," a term derived from Senator Ted Stevens 's infamous statement " Series of Tubes ." The suffixes "-net" and "-web" are often used to denote a certain interconnection of information on the internet, as well as to make products and brands sound fit for the 21st century. The matrix shown in the comic spoofs the internet jargon by combining common prefixes and suffixes to new and impressive but meaningless words. The culmination of nonsense is, as indicated in the transcript, the term "blagoblag." This is also a sideswipe at comic 148 , where "blag" was introduced as a substitute for the usage of "blog." The official weblog of the xkcd webcomic is called "blag." The prefix "blago-," meanwhile, was used again in comic 239: Blagofaire . Terms I have used or heard used to make fun of the internet: [Below: A matrix whose entries may contain crosses to indicate that a term has been used. The rows (prefixes) are labelled WORLD WIDE, INTER-, BLOGO-, BLAGO-, and WEB-; the columns are labelled NET, WEB, SPHERE, TUBES, and BLAG. In the interests of properly propagating the term "blagoblag," the full list of used terms follows:] World Wide Web Internet Interweb Intersphere Intertubes Interblag Blogosphere Blagonet Blagosphere Blagoblag Webnet Webweb [Cueball and Megan stand facing each other; Cueball raises his hands in the air while Megan is nonplussed.] Cueball: I heard about it on the interblag!

Nash

Nash

https://www.xkcd.com/182

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/182:_Nash

[Cueball and Dr. Nash (the Cueball-like guy to the right) stand talking to each other. Cueball is looking left and pointing off-panel.] Cueball: Hey, Dr. Nash, I think those gals over there are eyeing us. This is like your Nash Equilibrium, right? One of them is hot, but we should each flirt with one of her less-desirable friends. Otherwise we risk coming on too strong to the hot one and just driving the group off. [Cueball is now looking at Dr. Nash.] Dr. Nash: Well, that's not really the sort of situation I wrote about. Once we're with the ugly ones, there's no incentive for one of us not to try to switch to the hot one. It's not a stable equilibrium. [Cueball again looks left while Dr. Nash shakes his fist.] Cueball: Crap, forget it. Looks like all three are leaving with one guy. Dr. Nash: Dammit, Feynman!

The first panel references a scene in the movie A Beautiful Mind in which Dr. John Forbes Nash, Jr. comes up with his famous concept of Nash equilibrium when he realizes that they get suboptimal results if all the guys go after the same hot girl. The second panel deconstructs the idea as Dr. Nash point out that staying away from the hot girl does not actually constitute a stable Nash equilibrium. The third panel has physicist Dr. Richard Feynman render their entire discussion a moot point by getting all the girls while the mathematicians ponder optimal strategies. In fact, the situation in the comic is a great example of what a Nash equilibrium is not . The only reason that one player (pun intended) wouldn't try to go for the hot girl is if they were afraid that someone else would go for the hot girl as well. However, in a Nash equilibrium, each player assumes that the other players won't change their strategy, and concludes from this assumption that their own strategy shouldn't change either. If all of them have the strategy of flirting with the hot girl's friends, and all of them are assuming (incorrectly) that the others won't change their strategies, then they all would change their strategies simultaneously, breaking the equilibrium. Feynman shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his important work in quantum electrodynamics . Feynman wrote popular books and gave public lectures. These presented his work in advanced theoretical physics to the general public, a practice that was not very common at that time. One of his more famous books, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! gives many personal anecdotes from his lifetime, and it contains a passage giving advice on the best way to pick up a girl in a bar. The aforementioned public books and lectures brought him great attention in the media, and his exceptional results in physics coupled with this have led to his getting an almost cult-like following among scientists. He's also (largely due to his book) known as something of a womanizer, thus why he would take several women home at once. The title text explains that Randall wonders whether this "collective crush" (crush as in love affair) will fade away one day, but he doubts it. Great respect for Feynman continues to this day, even though he died about a quarter-century ago. [Cueball and Dr. Nash (the Cueball-like guy to the right) stand talking to each other. Cueball is looking left and pointing off-panel.] Cueball: Hey, Dr. Nash, I think those gals over there are eyeing us. This is like your Nash Equilibrium, right? One of them is hot, but we should each flirt with one of her less-desirable friends. Otherwise we risk coming on too strong to the hot one and just driving the group off. [Cueball is now looking at Dr. Nash.] Dr. Nash: Well, that's not really the sort of situation I wrote about. Once we're with the ugly ones, there's no incentive for one of us not to try to switch to the hot one. It's not a stable equilibrium. [Cueball again looks left while Dr. Nash shakes his fist.] Cueball: Crap, forget it. Looks like all three are leaving with one guy. Dr. Nash: Dammit, Feynman!

Snacktime Rules

Snacktime Rules

https://www.xkcd.com/183

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/183:_Snacktime_Rules

My dad was always the one who taught me about science, but looking back, I'm starting to realize how much my nerdiness was influenced by my mom. [A woman and a child talk.] Child: Mom, can I have a snack in my room before bed? Mom: No, dear. You know you only get that privilege when your age is one less than a multiple of three.

The comic shows Randall's mother telling Randall that he can have a snack in his room before bed only when his age is "one less than a multiple of three." This means that the child starts getting snacks in his room before bed when he turns 2 years old, then stops getting them when he turns 3. Then he starts again when he turns 5 but stops when he turns 6. This cycle repeats every 3 years, so the kid has the privilege to get snacks in his room before bed when his age is 2, 5, 8, 11, etc. (every 3 years). It's difficult to defend this policy with a reasonable argument. The first impression is that the mother just made up the rule for some obscure, unknown reason. However, the title text explains that Randall's mother actually enforced this rule on him, and his mother claims that, at the time, there was a valid reason for it (though the reason is not explained in the comic). The caption says that Randall has figured out that his nerdiness as an adult comes (at least in part) from his mother's strange rules. Note that there is some debate about whether the privilege spoken of is to have snacks, to have snacks in his room, to have snacks before bed, or to have snacks in his room before bed. My dad was always the one who taught me about science, but looking back, I'm starting to realize how much my nerdiness was influenced by my mom. [A woman and a child talk.] Child: Mom, can I have a snack in my room before bed? Mom: No, dear. You know you only get that privilege when your age is one less than a multiple of three.

Matrix Transform

Matrix Transform

https://www.xkcd.com/184

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/184:_Matrix_Transform

[A square matrix next to a vertical two-by-one matrix, equated to a horizontal matrix that looks like the two-by-one matrix turned 90 degrees.] [Square matrix: cos90° sin90° -sin90° cos90°] [Two by one matrix:] [a₁ a₂] [An equal sign] [The same two by one matrix, but rotated by 90 degrees clockwise:] [a₁ a₂]

A rotational matrix transformation (i.e. the big brackets with "cos" and "sin" in them) is used in computer graphics to rotate an image. In general, to rotate a point [a1, a2] in a 2D space by z° clockwise, you can multiply it by the rotation matrix [[cos z°, sin z°], [-sin z°, cos z°]]. In this case, the left side of the equation is rotating [a1, a2] by 90°. Simplifying the trigonometry, the 90° clockwise rotation matrix is [[0, 1], [-1, 0]], so multiplying this by [a1, a2], you should get [a2, -a1]. The joke is that the author performed the rotation transformation on the image of the vector rather than just the vector itself. Rotational matrix transformations are a special case of the general linear matrix transform, which can do other things to images, including the other two affine transformations of scaling them or translating (moving) them. On a pedantic note, normally mathematics uses counterclockwise as a default, although computer graphics frequently use a clockwise default, so this may be an intentional reference. So the title text may be referring to the professors going home (translation) and shrinking (scaling) from the joke; it may also refer to them going home and seeing a shrink (counselor) in despair of their student understanding. [A square matrix next to a vertical two-by-one matrix, equated to a horizontal matrix that looks like the two-by-one matrix turned 90 degrees.] [Square matrix: cos90° sin90° -sin90° cos90°] [Two by one matrix:] [a₁ a₂] [An equal sign] [The same two by one matrix, but rotated by 90 degrees clockwise:] [a₁ a₂]

Wikifriends

Wikifriends

https://www.xkcd.com/185

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/185:_Wikifriends

WikiFriends: [Two people are talking to each other.] Cueball: I really liked that movie. Friend: I hated that movie. Cueball: Me too.

The comic's title refers to Wikis , which are collaboratively edited websites (such as this one). The first such site was WikiWikiWeb , but Wikipedia (an online encyclopedia) has become the most well-known example, and may have been specifically what Randall had in mind while drawing this comic, as other comics also reference Wikipedia. The influence of social environment is called peer pressure , often with a negative connotation. The term "Wikifriends" is coined in the comic as a label for people who adjust their views in order to incorporate into a group. That is to say that, in the same way a Wiki page can be edited by people other than the original author, a "Wikifriend" allows their opinions to be "edited" by someone else. As an example, the comic shows a discussion about a movie in which one contributor changes his opinion entirely when he hears what his friend thinks. The title text suggests that Randall also sees himself as being frequently influenced by others. WikiFriends: [Two people are talking to each other.] Cueball: I really liked that movie. Friend: I hated that movie. Cueball: Me too.

Console Lines

Console Lines

https://www.xkcd.com/186

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/186:_Console_Lines

Fans turning away latecomers to all-night game console campouts: [Two different lines presumably leading to a video game store are shown. In the line labeled Sony/Microsoft:] Cueball: The line is full, asshole! Get off! [And in the one labeled Nintendo:] Cueball: I'm so sorry, all the consoles are spoken for. Cueball: Do... Do you want a hug?

This comic relates to video game consoles . At the time this comic was published, there were three major competing products: the Playstation 3 by Sony , the Xbox 360 by Microsoft , and the Wii by Nintendo . When a game console gets released, fans are often seen queuing outside the stores or camping on the pavement in order to be among the first to get their hands on a console. The comic shows such a console camp and points out the differences between the fan communities. While the fans waiting in line for a Sony or Microsoft product are very rude, the Nintendo fans are apologetic and try to comfort (that is to say, console ) those who arrived too late to obtain a package. The cliché that Nintendo fans are nicer and more polite may be attributed to the fact that the Wii is targeted at children and families, while the PS3 and the Xbox are targeted at the more "serious gamer" crowd. The title text primarily expresses Randall 's distance from the console wars (he has never owned a game console before), but also indicating an inclination towards the Nintendo Wii. Fans turning away latecomers to all-night game console campouts: [Two different lines presumably leading to a video game store are shown. In the line labeled Sony/Microsoft:] Cueball: The line is full, asshole! Get off! [And in the one labeled Nintendo:] Cueball: I'm so sorry, all the consoles are spoken for. Cueball: Do... Do you want a hug?

The Familiar

The Familiar

https://www.xkcd.com/187

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/187:_The_Familiar

[A guy is standing behind his friend who sits at a computer. Both look like Cueball.] Guy: Let's go see sunrise over the ocean. [The friend turns and replies:] Friend: That's a long drive, it's cold, I'm tired, and rationalizing the familiar is easy. [The guy leaves, and in the next two frames, the friend remains at his computer alone.]

Cueball's friend asks him to go with him to view the sunrise over the ocean. Cueball refuses by giving a list of excuses, including the statement that "rationalizing the familiar is easy." This statement is amusing, because Cueball acknowledges the fact that he is making excuses and seems to refuse going out on the basis that rationalizing going to see the sunrise would require much more effort. This criticizes some people's tendency of not trying new things or going out with friends, even though one would likely get more fulfillment by doing these things. It may well be implied that the friend doing the inviting has left to view the sunrise, leaving Cueball behind since he wasn't willing to engage in an activity. The computer with the egg-shaped profile looks like an iMac G3, sold from 1998 until 2003. It seems that rationalizing the familiar has made Cueball resistant to upgrading his computer long beyond its obsolescence date. The title text indicates Randall's frustration with this mentality and his hope that when he wants to make plans with someone, they are just as eager. [A guy is standing behind his friend who sits at a computer. Both look like Cueball.] Guy: Let's go see sunrise over the ocean. [The friend turns and replies:] Friend: That's a long drive, it's cold, I'm tired, and rationalizing the familiar is easy. [The guy leaves, and in the next two frames, the friend remains at his computer alone.]

Reload

Reload

https://www.xkcd.com/188

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/188:_Reload

[Four soldiers are preparing to enter a battlefield; their leader addresses them.] Leader: Okay men, we're going in. Stay low, keep behind cover, and if you run out of ammunition, shoot outside the battlefield to reload.

This comic refers to the common method for reloading your ammunition in arcade game type shooters, also known as "rail shooters." The player is typically given a Light gun , and the player characters typically have unlimited magazines of ammunition; to load a new magazine, the player would aim his light gun away from the screen and pull the trigger. The title text tells you to watch out for the guy from comic 53: Hobby , which shows a man who randomly pops up to the police when they are performing a drug raid. This refers to the random figures that pop out at many games; if they are not a valid target and you shoot them, you will lose points. [Four soldiers are preparing to enter a battlefield; their leader addresses them.] Leader: Okay men, we're going in. Stay low, keep behind cover, and if you run out of ammunition, shoot outside the battlefield to reload.

Exercise

Exercise

https://www.xkcd.com/189

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/189:_Exercise

Like many geeks, I got a lot more interested in exercise once I made the connection to leveling up. [Cueball is doing pull-ups on a bar in a doorframe.] Cueball: One more point to STR, then I'll run to work on CON.

Role-playing games (RPGs) are a pastime commonly associated with geeks in which players assume the role of a fictional character in a fantasy world. In many RPGs, character evolution and advancement is represented by "leveling up." Through winning battles and, less frequently, completing tasks or missions, characters are awarded experience points (XP), which can be spent on increasing their ratings in attributes (such as strength or speed) or skills (such as bow-hunting or computer hacking). The number of XP awarded is generally proportional to the difficulty of the task completed. Cueball is doing chin-ups , a strength-training exercise that targets the latissimus dorsi and biceps. Repeating this exercise over time will improve his ability to do more chin-ups in one go - in other words, he will become stronger. In doing so, he is effectively leveling up his STR (strength) attribute in real life. While doing his chin-ups, he comments that he will soon switch to running - an aerobic exercise that improves endurance - in order to build up his CON (constitution) attribute. Cueball is treating his gym session like an RPG, and observes that, as a self-confessed geek, he would not be as interested in exercising without that link. The title text implies that since Randall has lost his patience and ability to play RPG games, likely due to the connection to exercise. Like many geeks, I got a lot more interested in exercise once I made the connection to leveling up. [Cueball is doing pull-ups on a bar in a doorframe.] Cueball: One more point to STR, then I'll run to work on CON.

IPoD

IPoD

https://www.xkcd.com/190

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/190:_IPoD

[Black Hat sits at a computer. Cueball stands behind him.] Black Hat: You see, statisticians communicate using IPoD -- IP over Demographics. For example, the header of the next packet I send will be encoded into the New Jersey death rate. Cueball: So you're going to hack the census bureau and change the number of reported deaths? Black Hat: Guess again. Black Hat: Hey, have you seen my crossbow?

IP is one of the main protocols of the Internet. It is used to route data packets from one computer to another, using other computers or even complete networks in between if needed. It is designed to use the fastest (not necessarily the shortest) route to the target, automatically using another route if a connection or a transmitting host fails. Every participant of the network has to have a so-called IP address . The data is divided into packets , each consisting of a header and the payload. The header tells the transmitting parties where the packet comes from and where it should go (together with some other details). The payload is the data to be transmitted. IP packets can be carried by a variety of transport networks. Such methods are often referred to as "IP over X" (or "IPoX" for short). Examples include IP over DVB , IP over ATM , and the humorous IP over Avian Carriers . Black Hat (and other statisticians) is using demographics as IP packets to send data. In order to adjust the death rate to encode the header, Black Hat plans to travel to New Jersey and go on a killing spree with a crossbow, instead of merely hacking the census bureau's computers. Such antics could only be used to increase the death rate; decreasing it would require saving lives instead, as mentioned in the title text. Also as mentioned, birth rates would be trickier to manipulate, as doing so would require encouraging or discouraging women to have children and would require an approximately nine-month delay, which is a great deal more difficult than taking a crossbow to a heavily populated area. Crossbows were also mentioned in 564: Crossbows . Black Hat is also seen using his crossbow in 929: Speculation . [Black Hat sits at a computer. Cueball stands behind him.] Black Hat: You see, statisticians communicate using IPoD -- IP over Demographics. For example, the header of the next packet I send will be encoded into the New Jersey death rate. Cueball: So you're going to hack the census bureau and change the number of reported deaths? Black Hat: Guess again. Black Hat: Hey, have you seen my crossbow?

Lojban

Lojban

https://www.xkcd.com/191

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/191:_Lojban

[Cueball and Black Hat are having a conversation.] [English version:] Cueball: If you learned to speak Lojban, your communication would be completely unambiguous and logical. Black Hat: Yeah, but it would all be with the kind of people who learn Lojban. [Lojban version:] Cueball: da'i ganai do crebi'o la lojban gi le se cusku be do cu mulno pavysmu je logji Black Hat: .i .ie ku'i cusku fi le prenu klesi poi certu la lojban

Lojban is a constructed language designed to be logical, unambiguous, and culturally neutral — similar to the better known artificial language Esperanto . The authors originally designed it as an experiment, but a few people have picked it up and tried to learn it. However, anyone actually willing to learn Lojban is someone Black Hat would rather avoid. Alternately, only people who speak Lojban, who compose an admittedly tiny proportion of the general population, could benefit from the logic of the language, making the benefits of Lojban mostly pointless to most people. Clicking on the original comic brings you to a Lojban translation of the comic . The Lojban version literally translates to something like: Cueball: Hypothetically, you becoming an expert in Lojban implies things you say would completely be an unambiguous meaning and logical. Black Hat: Agreed, but would be talking to the people subgroup that is an expert in Lojban. If reading pedantically, a few mistakes can be identified: The title text is also written in Lojban. It translates roughly as: "That was a joke. Really. Wanna be friends with me?" Since Lojban aims to be completely unambiguous, idiomatic structures like sarcasm and humor have associated particles - when a joke is made, it must be explicitly marked as such or else it's incorrect. Most languages rely on intonation expressing this, but Lojban does not, leading to the strange practice here of specifically pointing out that a joke was made. A more literal translation gives: "Humorously that false. Please is-it-true-that you friend me?" [Cueball and Black Hat are having a conversation.] [English version:] Cueball: If you learned to speak Lojban, your communication would be completely unambiguous and logical. Black Hat: Yeah, but it would all be with the kind of people who learn Lojban. [Lojban version:] Cueball: da'i ganai do crebi'o la lojban gi le se cusku be do cu mulno pavysmu je logji Black Hat: .i .ie ku'i cusku fi le prenu klesi poi certu la lojban

Working for Google

Working for Google

https://www.xkcd.com/192

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/192:_Working_for_Google

[A guy sits at a computer and addresses his friend standing behind.] Guy: Have you read about Google HQ? It sounds like an incredible place to work. [The friend throws his hands in the air as he delivers this speech:] Friend: Man, I ain't going to be chained down in no corporate idea factory! They think just 'cause they've got a nice building and laid back culture, I'm gonna want to come in all day long and work on fascinating problems with the smartest people in the world. [Close up of the guy staring at his friend.] [Back to the original setting.] Guy: So, what, they turned you down? Friend: I don't understand it! I even baked them a cake shaped like the Internet!

Many look up to Google as the ultimate workplace in the IT industry. Therefore, they have lots of applicants but can afford to be very selective, and only the best and brightest succeed. In the first panel, the guy at the computer asks his friend (both look like Cueball ) what he thinks about working at Google HQ ( Head Quarters ). His friend starts out by dismissing Google as a "corporate idea factory," but from the rest of his speech, we can infer that these are not his true feelings. He is exhibiting the attitude known as " sour grapes ," where you criticize something that is out of your reach, or that has been denied from you. In the last panel, it is revealed that the friend has been trying very hard to get a job at Google, even resorting to bribing the interview panel by baking them a cake "shaped like the Internet." This misguided action is a sign of how much he wanted a position. Since the Internet does not have a defined shape, it is difficult to visualize exactly what he baked. The comment was maybe foreshadowing 195: Map of the Internet that came out a week later. It would, though, be a more interesting cake if it looked like the map in 256: Online Communities , but that came out 20 weeks later. Another possibility is that the comment is a reference to this video , in which the black box shown is supposedly the Internet. If this is the case, then the cake would have been shaped like the box in the video. The title text says that if you work for Google for 256 (2 8 ) days, you get to learn how to levitate. This displays some of the mystique with which Google is commonly viewed. The joke here is that 256 is the largest value a single byte can hold, as has been demonstrated with the 256 Bug . However, Astro Teller, the director of Google X labs, a Google division that researches "moonshot" projects, has mentioned in an interview that they contemplated starting a levitation project. [A guy sits at a computer and addresses his friend standing behind.] Guy: Have you read about Google HQ? It sounds like an incredible place to work. [The friend throws his hands in the air as he delivers this speech:] Friend: Man, I ain't going to be chained down in no corporate idea factory! They think just 'cause they've got a nice building and laid back culture, I'm gonna want to come in all day long and work on fascinating problems with the smartest people in the world. [Close up of the guy staring at his friend.] [Back to the original setting.] Guy: So, what, they turned you down? Friend: I don't understand it! I even baked them a cake shaped like the Internet!

The Perfect Sound

The Perfect Sound

https://www.xkcd.com/193

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/193:_The_Perfect_Sound

[Cueball and his friend are listening to music on a stereo.] Cueball: I'm telling you, listen right here to the sets of rising notes following the opening section. Friend: Uh huh. [Cueball indicates stereo.] Cueball: And then right here, the transition into the chorus. This is music. This is art ! [Cueball dances along with the music.] Stereo: Oh Mickey, you so fine, you so fine you blow my mind, hey Mickey! *clap* *clap* Hey Mickey! Friend: There's something wrong with you.

This comic relates to the song " Mickey ", performed in 1982 by one-hit-wonder Toni Basil . The lyrics, as well as the instrumentation of the song, were in fact rather simple, being a perfect example of bubblegum pop in the early 1980s. In the comic, however, the song is introduced as a musical masterpiece. Cueball points out the opening sequence to his friend and states that it should be considered art. When the chorus sets in and the song unfolds its lyrical brilliancy, his friend has no other comment to make except that there must be something wrong with Cueball. Cueball's actions might be seen as a critical approach towards over-interpreting music. The comic's title, as well as the stereo setup depicted, could perhaps also denote a sidesweep on audiophiles . The title text parodies a line from the song and links it with the incomprehension of Cueball's friend. [Cueball and his friend are listening to music on a stereo.] Cueball: I'm telling you, listen right here to the sets of rising notes following the opening section. Friend: Uh huh. [Cueball indicates stereo.] Cueball: And then right here, the transition into the chorus. This is music. This is art ! [Cueball dances along with the music.] Stereo: Oh Mickey, you so fine, you so fine you blow my mind, hey Mickey! *clap* *clap* Hey Mickey! Friend: There's something wrong with you.

Penises

Penises

https://www.xkcd.com/194

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/194:_Penises

PENISES: Megan: They are about this big. [Holds her hands close together, about half a foot apart.] Now can we PLEASE , as a culture, move on?

The comic takes aim at what is considered by some to be the apparent societal obsession with the male sexual organ ("phallocentrism"), especially in regards to size. In general, depictions of an erect penis (also called phallus ) represent male potency. While present in every human civilization, the symbol of the penis is also prominently featured in modern mass media. Many films and television series make use of penis-related jokes. A very common trope is the male obsession with the idea that a larger penis is considered more desirable, and a smaller penis less manly or satisfying to women. Megan criticizes this obsession by pointing out that most penises are about the same size, and normal variations in size are not worth getting worked up about. The title text refers to the excessive advertisement for potency pills and penis enlargement in spam emails . The symbol of the phallus can be regarded by some as omnipresent in modern Western society (but not necessarily in other cultures) [ citation needed ] , with presumably every public toilet sporting at least one badly drawn depiction of a penis. PENISES: Megan: They are about this big. [Holds her hands close together, about half a foot apart.] Now can we PLEASE , as a culture, move on?

Map of the Internet

Map of the Internet

https://www.xkcd.com/195

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/195:_Map_of_the_Internet

Map of the Internet The IPv4 Space, 2006 This chart shows the IP address space on a plane using a fractal mapping which preserves grouping--any consecutive string of IPs will translate to a single, compact, contiguous region on the map. Each of the 256 numbered blocks represents one 8 subnet (containing all IPs that start with that number). The upper left section shows the blocks sold directly to corporations and goverments in the 1990's before the RIRs took over allocation. Diagram showing IP ownership: 0: Local 1-2: Unallocated 3: General Electric 4: BB&N INC 5: Unallocated 6: Army AISC 7: Unallocated 8: BB&N INC 9: IBM 10: VPNs 11: DoD Intel 12: Bell Labs 13: Xerox 14: Public data nets 15: HP 16: DEC 17: Apple 18: MIT 19: Ford 20: CSC 21: DDN-RYN 22: DISA 23: Unallocated 24: Cable TV 25: UK MoD 26: DISA 27: Unallocated 28: DSI 29-30: DISA 31: Unallocated 32: NORSK 33: DLA 34: Halliburton 35: Merit 36-37: Unallocated 38: PSI 39: Unallocated 40: Eli Lily 41: ARINIC 42: Unallocated 43: Japan INET 44: HAM Radio 45: INTEROP 46: BB&N INC 47: Bell North 48: Prudential 49-50: Unallocated 51: UK Social Security 52: duPont 55: Boeing 56: USPS 57: SITA 58-61: Asia-Pacific 62: Europe 63-76: USA & Canada (contains: UUNET, Google, Digg, Slashdot, Ebay, Craigslist, XKCD, Flickr) 77-79: Europe (unused) 80-91: Europe 92-95: Unallocated 96-99: North America 100-120: Unallocated 121-125: Asia-Pacific 126: Japan 127: Loopback 128-132: Various Registrars 133: Japan 134-172: Various Registrars 173-189: Unallocated 188: Various 189-190: Latin America & Caribbean 191-192: Various (contains Private (RFC 1918)) 193-195: Europe 196: Africa 197: Unallocated 198: US & Various 199: North America 200-201: Latin America & Carribbean 202-203: Asia-Pacific 204-209: North America (contains Suicide Girls, BoingBoing) 210-211: Asia-Pacific 212-213: Europe 214-215: U.S. Department of Defense 216: North America (Contains Myspace, SomethingAwful) 217: Europe 218-222: Asia-Pacific 223: Unallocated 224-239: Multicast 240-255: Unallocated

On the map, all allocated IPv4 address blocks (as of 2006) are shown using a fractal mapping. (The Hilbert curve is used: the pattern is demonstrated at the bottom of the image.) In February 2011, the final remaining IPv4 blocks were allocated to the Regional Internet registries , and so today there would no longer be any green spaces outside of Class E addresses (above 240 through 255, excluding the Broadcast address of 255.255.255.255). In the early 1990s, corporations and governments could register an entire class A segment (one 256th of the total space), but later it was divided into smaller parts because of a lack of space. This leads to the title text, which mentions IPv6 . This protocol has so many addresses that only a swarm of nanobots could exhaust them. The default desktop picture in Windows XP is a green landscape, and the joke is that since barely any of the addresses are allocated yet, the IPv6 map would just be a green landscape. Later, Randall actually drew some "real" maps of the Internet, or at least its online Communities (see 256: Online Communities and 802: Online Communities 2 ). Map of the Internet The IPv4 Space, 2006 This chart shows the IP address space on a plane using a fractal mapping which preserves grouping--any consecutive string of IPs will translate to a single, compact, contiguous region on the map. Each of the 256 numbered blocks represents one 8 subnet (containing all IPs that start with that number). The upper left section shows the blocks sold directly to corporations and goverments in the 1990's before the RIRs took over allocation. Diagram showing IP ownership: 0: Local 1-2: Unallocated 3: General Electric 4: BB&N INC 5: Unallocated 6: Army AISC 7: Unallocated 8: BB&N INC 9: IBM 10: VPNs 11: DoD Intel 12: Bell Labs 13: Xerox 14: Public data nets 15: HP 16: DEC 17: Apple 18: MIT 19: Ford 20: CSC 21: DDN-RYN 22: DISA 23: Unallocated 24: Cable TV 25: UK MoD 26: DISA 27: Unallocated 28: DSI 29-30: DISA 31: Unallocated 32: NORSK 33: DLA 34: Halliburton 35: Merit 36-37: Unallocated 38: PSI 39: Unallocated 40: Eli Lily 41: ARINIC 42: Unallocated 43: Japan INET 44: HAM Radio 45: INTEROP 46: BB&N INC 47: Bell North 48: Prudential 49-50: Unallocated 51: UK Social Security 52: duPont 55: Boeing 56: USPS 57: SITA 58-61: Asia-Pacific 62: Europe 63-76: USA & Canada (contains: UUNET, Google, Digg, Slashdot, Ebay, Craigslist, XKCD, Flickr) 77-79: Europe (unused) 80-91: Europe 92-95: Unallocated 96-99: North America 100-120: Unallocated 121-125: Asia-Pacific 126: Japan 127: Loopback 128-132: Various Registrars 133: Japan 134-172: Various Registrars 173-189: Unallocated 188: Various 189-190: Latin America & Caribbean 191-192: Various (contains Private (RFC 1918)) 193-195: Europe 196: Africa 197: Unallocated 198: US & Various 199: North America 200-201: Latin America & Carribbean 202-203: Asia-Pacific 204-209: North America (contains Suicide Girls, BoingBoing) 210-211: Asia-Pacific 212-213: Europe 214-215: U.S. Department of Defense 216: North America (Contains Myspace, SomethingAwful) 217: Europe 218-222: Asia-Pacific 223: Unallocated 224-239: Multicast 240-255: Unallocated

Command Line Fu

Command Line Fu

https://www.xkcd.com/196

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/196:_Command_Line_Fu

[Two men talking.] Cueball: Last night I was watching videos with this girl and my monitors kept turning off - even though I had disabled power save. Friend: Odd. Cueball: However! I wrote a command to jiggle the mouse pointer every couple minutes to keep it from going idle. Friend: Not the first hack I'd try, but see? Linux has problems, but it gives you the tools to deal with them - and save your date! Cueball: Actually, I was half an hour into the pointer scripting documentation when she got dressed and left.

The Linux command line allows a user to make their computer do nearly anything. The only hitch is that the interface is entirely text-based, and reading through user manuals to find the commands that you need can take a very long time. In this comic, Cueball recounts how he used a command line hack to solve a problem with his monitors turning off during a movie. However, in the time that he spends trying to solve the issue, the woman he had brought home had already left, and his need for a movie to watch was gone. The title text is the supposed moral to this story: if your user interface takes as long to operate as a command line, you may very well be denying your users the chance to get laid. Software that jiggles the mouse actually exists, as well as instructions for linux scripting (although installing the necessary libraries might take a while). [Two men talking.] Cueball: Last night I was watching videos with this girl and my monitors kept turning off - even though I had disabled power save. Friend: Odd. Cueball: However! I wrote a command to jiggle the mouse pointer every couple minutes to keep it from going idle. Friend: Not the first hack I'd try, but see? Linux has problems, but it gives you the tools to deal with them - and save your date! Cueball: Actually, I was half an hour into the pointer scripting documentation when she got dressed and left.

Ninja Turtles

Ninja Turtles

https://www.xkcd.com/197

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/197:_Ninja_Turtles

[Four pie graphs, each colored green and brown.] Leonardo [Almost one-half green.] Michelangelo [More than one-half green.] Donatello [Five-sixths green.] Raphael [Roughly half-and-half.] [A legend] Notoriety as a [Brown.] Renaissance artist [Green.] Ninja turtle

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , or Ninja Turtles, are a pop-cultural phenomenon especially prominent in the late 1980s and 1990s. The four turtles are named for four artists of the European Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci , Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi , and Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino . Due to the popularity of the Ninja Turtles in a variety of media, some of the names are now better known through their Ninja Turtle connection than their original artist forebears. The pie charts provide an approximation of this effect - Leonardo da Vinci remains one of the most notable artists of the period, and thus "Leonardo" is depicted as more notable for the artist. Donatello is the most obscure of the four as an artist, and consequently the majority of the current notoriety of "Donatello" is as a Ninja Turtle. The title text alludes to a similar phenomenon, as two villain characters from the same Ninja Turtles show called "Bebop" and "Rocksteady" are now better known as the characters than for the musical genres they are named for. Similarly, the William Tell Overture became so closely tied to the character of the Lone Ranger in media for the previous generation that, to many, the William Tell Overture is in effect "The Lone Ranger Theme." [Four pie graphs, each colored green and brown.] Leonardo [Almost one-half green.] Michelangelo [More than one-half green.] Donatello [Five-sixths green.] Raphael [Roughly half-and-half.] [A legend] Notoriety as a [Brown.] Renaissance artist [Green.] Ninja turtle

Perspective

Perspective

https://www.xkcd.com/198

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/198:_Perspective

Sometimes, when I first wake up, I am caught in the horrible grip of perspective. [Cueball sitting up in bed.] Cueball: It may be a jewel of open source, but Firefox is just a browser. It shows webpages. What the hell is wrong with us? Fortunately, this subsides quickly.

Firefox is a popular browser, and in 2006, it was the second most commonly used browser. Its more fervent supporters sometimes wrote as if there was a moral imperative to use Firefox rather than Internet Explorer. Cueball , presumably representing Randall , wakes up with a reasonable perspective on the relative unimportance of an internet browser within the world at large, but quickly loses that perspective as his enthusiasm for nerdy things like Firefox gets the better of him. The humor stems from the irony that Cueball is relieved to trade a richer perspective for a simpler, browser-oriented world view. The title text references Richard Stallman , an American software freedom activist and computer programmer, and Cirque du Soleil , an entertainment company specializing in big-top circus performances. The two have no connection with one another, so this is one example of an odd combination of topics that would only (and commonly) be connected in dreams. Alternately, the dream may be a reference to Stallman's forceful defense of software freedom, which could be seen as "over-the-top" or circus-like. Another possible joke is that the comic, unlike most other xkcd comics, is drawn with perspective as well as being about a more metaphorical perspective. Sometimes, when I first wake up, I am caught in the horrible grip of perspective. [Cueball sitting up in bed.] Cueball: It may be a jewel of open source, but Firefox is just a browser. It shows webpages. What the hell is wrong with us? Fortunately, this subsides quickly.

Right-Hand Rule

Right-Hand Rule

https://www.xkcd.com/199

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/199:_Right-Hand_Rule

[Picture of a right hand with fingers curved, thumb pointed away, with axes drawn to demonstrate the right-hand rule of physics.] Alternatives to the Right-Hand Rule in vector multiplication: [A slightly-open book with labeled axes drawn on.] Book Rule: Open the front cover along the first vector and the back cover along the second. The result vector is along the spine, out the top. [A handgun with axes.] Handgun Rule: Point the grip along the first vector and rotate it so that the second vector is on the safety latch side. Fire. The result vector is toward the bullet holes. [A person with right arm extended.] Body Rule (males only): Point your right arm along the first vector and your legs along the second, then watch some porn.

The right-hand rule is a mathematics and physics trick to learning how to find the cross product of two Cartesian vectors in three dimensions. First, extend the fingers of your right hand in the direction of the first vector (in the example diagram in the comic, this is to the left). Then, curl your fingers in the direction of the second vector (out of the page/screen, in the example). Now point your thumb perpendicular to the other fingers, and it will point in the direction of the cross product of those two vectors (upwards, in the example). Note that reversing the order of the two vectors also reverses the direction of the cross product. The book rule is an actual alternative to the right hand rule that might be useful to some physics students doing exercises out of their textbooks. However, it would give incorrect results with books in languages that are read from right to left, such as most Jewish prayer books. The gun rule also technically works, but it would be extremely impractical, expensive, and dangerous to use and fire a loaded gun every time you want to find the result vector. It would also be very awkward to hold the gun in line with the vectors. It also assumes that the safety latch is consistently on the same side of all guns; if a gun was made with the safety latch on the other side, then it would give incorrect results. The body rule is for males only, which limits the number of people who are able to use this rule. With the right arm oriented along one vector and the legs along the second, the result vector is found along the penis of the person, which is conveniently erected by watching porn. The title text refers to Edwin Abbott Abbott , author of the book Flatland, a story about a two-dimensional world. Orientability is a property that refers to a space with continuously varying surface normals , which are essentially just vectors that are perpendicular to the surface of the space. Nearly every space commonly encountered is orientable; this is likely why the porn is referred to as mind expanding and superior to Edwin Abbot Abbott's work. [Picture of a right hand with fingers curved, thumb pointed away, with axes drawn to demonstrate the right-hand rule of physics.] Alternatives to the Right-Hand Rule in vector multiplication: [A slightly-open book with labeled axes drawn on.] Book Rule: Open the front cover along the first vector and the back cover along the second. The result vector is along the spine, out the top. [A handgun with axes.] Handgun Rule: Point the grip along the first vector and rotate it so that the second vector is on the safety latch side. Fire. The result vector is toward the bullet holes. [A person with right arm extended.] Body Rule (males only): Point your right arm along the first vector and your legs along the second, then watch some porn.

Bill Nye

Bill Nye

https://www.xkcd.com/200

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/200:_Bill_Nye

[A restaurant. Blondie is with two small Cueballs at a table; Bill Nye with black hair in a white lab coat sits at the next table with his back turned towards them. Two other tables can be seen at the edge of the panel at either side. A caption is written above them:] The tribulations of Bill Nye: Blondie: Hey, kids, see how the ice cracks and pops in your water? I wonder what causes that... Blondie: *Ahem* I said, I wonder what— Bill Nye: Know what? Maybe I just wanna enjoy my goddamn meal.

Bill Nye is an educator well known in the United States for his science-focused television show targeted to elementary school children ( website ). A mother, Blondie , is sitting at a table in a restaurant with her two children, asking them a science-related question about the ice cubes in their drinks. She is hoping to prompt Bill Nye, sitting at the next table, to join the conversation and perhaps inspire her kids. Thinking he has not heard, the mother then coughs slightly and starts to repeat the question. His then immediate and abrupt dismissal of her is antithetical to his television persona, where he is consistently enthusiastic about science and keen to take any opportunity to teach the viewer. The use of the word "tribulation" implies that being recognized and accosted in public is a cause of much suffering and misery to Mr. Nye. The title text contains another joke. He eats a meal in public where he does not want to be recognized or harassed with questions; however, he wears a lab coat. Regardless of Bill Nye's otherwise iconic and recognizable appearance, wearing a lab coat in public will probably draw the gazes and curiosity of others, no matter who is wearing it. Ice pops and cracks when dropped in a glass of water because of thermal contraction: the much warmer water causes the surface of the ice to shrink, resulting in audible internal fractures in the brittle structure. [A restaurant. Blondie is with two small Cueballs at a table; Bill Nye with black hair in a white lab coat sits at the next table with his back turned towards them. Two other tables can be seen at the edge of the panel at either side. A caption is written above them:] The tribulations of Bill Nye: Blondie: Hey, kids, see how the ice cracks and pops in your water? I wonder what causes that... Blondie: *Ahem* I said, I wonder what— Bill Nye: Know what? Maybe I just wanna enjoy my goddamn meal.