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323 | October 1, 2007 | Ballmer Peak | null | Apple uses automated schnapps IVs. | :[A graph with "programming skill" on the Y-axis and "blood alcohol concentration" on the X-axis. The Y-axis slowly goes down, but spikes at 0.1337%.]
:[Cueball is making a presentation with the graph.]
:Cueball: Called the Ballmer Peak, it was discovered by Microsoft in the 80's. The cause is unknown but somehow a B.A... | This comic is about alcohol and programming ability. Programmers sometimes have a reputation for drinking habits, and programmer gatherings (such as hackfests) tend to offer copious amounts of alcohol. More generally, intoxicated programmers can [http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2795/is-the-ballmer-peak-real... | |
324 | October 3, 2007 | Tapping | null | Sometimes the best fun looks like boredom. | :[Cueball is sitting at a desk, tapping various parts of it.]
:Cueball [thinking]: Hey, I can get different pitches by tapping on different parts of the desk.
:''Tap Tap''
:''Tap Tap''
:[Cueball starts tapping faster, with both hands.]
:Cueball [thinking]: Sweet, I can do the Jurassic Park theme!
:''Tap Tap''
:''Tap T... | In the first panel, Cueball makes the chance observation that tapping different points on a desk's surface results in different pitches being produced, a consequence of the desk's different Acoustic_resonance|resonant frequencies at these points. He soon learns that by using the pitches produced, he can replicate the [... | |
325 | October 5, 2007 | A-Minus-Minus | null | You can do this one in every 30 times and still have 97% positive feedback. | :[Black Hat is packing a bobcat into a box; Megan stands beside him.]
:Megan: What are you doing?
:Black Hat: Making the world a weirder place.
:Bobcat: ''mrrowlll''
:[Black Hat has finished taping the package for shipping.]
:Black Hat: Starting with my eBay feedback page.
:[Bandaged person at a computer with assort... | Black Hat is trying to make the world a weirder place by shipping bobcats to his eBay buyers. Ordinarily, negative feedback is used to warn future buyers about sellers who ship broken products or post misleading listings. In this case, the unfortunate buyer is leaving feedback warning future buyers that Black Hat ships... | |
326 | October 8, 2007 | Effect an Effect | null | Time to paint another grammarian silhouette on the side of the desktop. | :My Hobby:
:Using the more obscure meanings of "affect" and "effect" to try to trip up amateur grammar Nazis.
:Cueball: I think that our foreign policy effects the situation.
:Computer: You mean "affects."
:Cueball: tee hee hee | [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/affect "Affect"] and [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/effect "effect"] can each both be a noun and a verb, share the sense of ''influence'', and they are often confused with each other. (See the usage note under "Affect.")
In careful speech, both words (as verbs) are simi... | |
327 | October 10, 2007 | Exploits of a Mom | null | Her daughter is named Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory. | :[Mrs. Roberts receives a call from her son's school on her wireless phone. She is standing with a cup of hot coffee or tea (shown with a small line above the cup) facing a small round three-legged table to the right. The voice of the caller is indicated to come from the phone with a zigzag line.]
:Voice over the phone... | Mrs. Roberts receives a call from her son's school. The caller, likely one of the school's administrators, asks if she really named her son Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--, a rather unusual name. Perhaps surprisingly, Mrs. Roberts responds in the affirmative, claiming that she uses the nickname "Little Bobby Tables." ... | |
328 | October 12, 2007 | Eggs | null | Oh, yeah, we get tons of them at these casual sex bars. | :[Megan sits at a bar; Beret Guy cleans a glass from behind the counter. Cueball approaches.]
:Cueball: So, how do you like your eggs in the morning?
:[Closeup on Megan.]
:Megan: Ooh, sunny side up.
:Cueball [off-panel]: Oh. Huh.
:[Wide shot with Beret Guy, Megan, and Cueball again.]
:Megan: Is that a problem?
:Cueba... | At a bar, Cueball uses what appears to be a common cheesy pick-up line: "So, how do you like your eggs in the morning?" — implying that he will be the one cooking them, because they will still be together in the morning, after they spent the night having sex.
For women who do not appreciate such paltry attempts at sol... | |
329 | October 15, 2007 | Turing Test | null | Hit Turing right in the test-ees | :[Cueball typing at a desk with two computers; there is a caption above him.]
:Turing test extra credit:
:Convince the examiner that <u>he's</u> a computer.
:Cueball: You know, you make some really good points.
:Cueball: I'm... not even sure who I am anymore.
{{ | In brief, a Turing test is a test for assessing whether a machine/program demonstrates "intelligent" behaviour. Suggested by Alan Turing, the test involves a human examiner talking through a computer terminal to either a human or a computer — which it is, is not known to the examiner. If the machine/program's responses... | |
330 | October 17, 2007 | Indecision | null | Hey, I don't make the rules. It's in the book. | :[Cueball is lying on the floor with his friend.]
:Cueball: So what do you want to do?
:Friend: Still no ideas.
:Cueball: Wait, I think there's a rule about this.
:[Cueball goes to bookshelf and removes a book called "Rules".]
:[The book of rules is opened to the following:
:RULE social.b.99.1
:If friends spend more th... | These two friends (both presumably male, since female characters in xkcd are depicted with hair) are surprisingly cavalier in taking the suggestion to engage in sexual experimentation to alleviate boredom. Even if both men are gay, the fact that they're friends (as the rule in the book describes them) suggests that the... | |
331 | October 19, 2007 | Photoshops | null | When I look into your eyes, I see JPEG artifacts. I can tell by the pixels that we're wrong for each other. | :[Megan holds a sword while Cueball looks on.]
:My hobby: Insisting that real-life objects are photoshopped.
:Megan: This sabre is a 19th-century family heirloom.
:Cueball: It looks photoshopped.
:Megan: Huh?
:Cueball: Yeah, the reflections are all wrong. Definitely photoshopped. | This is another comic in the :Category:My Hobby|My Hobby series. This whole comic, including the title text, is a play on the then-popular internet meme "[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/this-looks-shopped This Looks Shopped]". It may also be making fun of how everything and anything you find on the internet has someone ... | |
332 | October 22, 2007 | Gyroscopes | null | We didn't actually land on the moon -- it just looked like we did because of precession. Also, gyroscopes caused 9/11. | :[Cueball sits at a desk with a gyroscope in his hands. Text on top of the frame:]
:Despite years of studying physics, I still find gyroscopes a little freaky.
:[Cueball starts the gyroscope.]
:Gyroscope: zzzzip
:[The gyroscope spins.]
:Gyroscope: zzzzzz
:[Frameless panel, the gyroscope lifts into the air.]
:[The gy... | Cueball is playing with a gyroscope. Even though he has studied them and intellectually understands their behaviour, they still seem somewhat mysterious. At the end of the comic, the gyroscope is revealed to have the power of levitation and to apparently be a sentient lifeform (it talks to him).
In the title text, Ran... | |
333 | October 24, 2007 | Getting Out of Hand | null | Wikipedia's role as brain-extension, while a little troubling, is also really cool. | :[Megan and Cueball are in a bed at night, and Cueball reaches out from under the covers to do a Wikipedia search about Foreplay.] | Given how Wikipedia has an ever-expanding variety of topics, the grand majority of them in great detail, there is a possibility (even a temptation) of relying on Wikipedia to learn from every topic that leaves you confused... even foreplay. ('Bedtime' and 'us time' are not necessarily 'computer time'.)
This comic may ... | |
334 | October 26, 2007 | Wasteland | null | You make forgetting look so easy. | :[Cueball is walking through a wasteland talking to himself.]
:Cueball: I am alone in this wasteland, a thousand miles from you.
:Cueball: But I haven't forgotten the feel of your skin, your mischievous smile.
:Cueball: You'd think a thousand miles would be enough.
:Cueball: I guess I'll keep walking. | At the beginning of the comic, Cueball is wandering around in a barren area, supposedly a desert, thinking about his ex-partner, in which he, at first, appears to be fondly remembering them, but the last two boxes explain that he is trying to take a long walk to forget them, and is obviously not very good at it.
The t... | |
335 | October 29, 2007 | Mattress | null | The TempurPedic wineglass guy broke his ankle. | :[Megan and Cueball are cuddling.]
:Cuddling face-to-face is nice, but we can never figure out where to put our lower arms.
:Our solution: the Cuddle Mattress!
:Your lower arms fit in the convenient gap.
:[There is a diagram of a mattress with a notch cut through it at shoulder level. The gap is indicated with an arrow... | A commonly cited problem with cuddling is that whatever arms you and your partner are lying on tend to fall asleep from your and/or your partner's weight, and are in any case not very comfortable to be lying upon. Here Cueball and Megan have invented a mattress with a slot in it to solve that problem. To provide an act... | |
336 | October 31, 2007 | Priorities | null | You should start giving out 'E's so I can spell FACADE or DEFACED. | :[A teacher, holding a book, is talking to a student, sitting at a desk and holding a document of his own.]
:Teacher: If you don't turn in at least one homework assignment, you'll fail this class.
:Student: Yeah. But if I can fail this class, the grades on my report card will be in alphabetical order! | In this comic, Cueball is a student, who apparently didn't turn in his homework assignment repeatedly, for which he gets a warning from his Cueball-like teacher.
In some schools in the United States, a student's grades are determined mainly using letters for quick reference. In most schools, the letter grades are give... | |
337 | November 2, 2007 | Post Office Showdown | null | That track ('Battle Without Honor or Humanity') -- like 'Ride of the Valkyries' -- improves *any* activity. | :[Cueball is in a post office wearing earphones connected to his iPod. There are several other people, including an old version of White Hat at the counter with a cane and Hairbun with a long narrow box entering the office by the door. Behind the counter, Ponytail stands together with a Cueball-like guy. Another person... | Action movies, such as "Kill Bill" by Quentin Tarantino, sometimes feature elaborate fight scenes in mundane environments. In such environments, combatants may make use of everyday objects for defensive or offensive purposes. In this comic, Randall, represented by Cueball, explains that he often daydreams fantasy scena... | |
338 | November 5, 2007 | Future | null | But the past was much too cramped! | :[The comic has three panels. In the first panel, Hairy and Megan are holding hands. There is a voice bubble originating from Cueball standing in the third panel.]
:Cueball: Come explore the future with me!
:[Megan says something, which goes to the third panel.]
:[The two voice bubbles cross in the middle of the second... | Cueball is in the last panel (the future) but somehow manages to get his message into the first panel (the past). Megan answers in the first panel, but somehow her message gets to Cueball in the last panel.
This comic can be interpreted in several ways. First, it is not clear if Cueball's question is intended for Mega... | |
339 | November 7, 2007 | Classic | null | Someone get that Pachelbel's Canon kid a recording contract, stat. | :[Cueball is sitting in front of a turntable, listening to Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. A guitarist (possibly meant to be Jimmy Page) can be seen in an inset in the top left corner of the first two panels.]
:Song: And as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our soul
:Song: When all is one and one i... | Cueball listens to the song "Stairway to Heaven" performed by Led Zeppelin using an old phonograph. Led Zeppelin was active during the 1970s, with Stairway To Heaven being released in 1971; as such, the music belongs to the Baby-boom generation|Baby Boomer generation. After the song fades out to the end, he expresses h... | |
340 | November 9, 2007 | Fight | null | And she put sweet nothings in all my .conf files. It'll take me forever to get X working again. | :We had a fight last night.
:[Cueball is sitting in a sofa, head in both hands, feeling upset.]
:I guess she's still mad.
:[Megan is standing with arms crossed in front of her chest, with the same mood.]
:I woke up to find she'd written a sappy love note
:[Cueball is standing in front of a computer, with a cup in his h... | The boot sector of a hard drive is where the information for operating systems is stored. It tells the computer to load a program; in most cases, this is an operating system. If this sector is overwritten, an operating system stored on the drive can't be booted into. (Fortunately, repairing a blanked or corrupted boot... | |
341 | November 12, 2007 | 1337: Part 1 | null | If you're not cool enough to do it manually, you can look up tools like Upside-Down-Ternet for playing games with people on your wifi. | :[Cueball talks to his Cueball-like friend who is lying down on the floor, using his laptop. Cueball is pointing at the laptop.]
:Cueball: You're not on the neighbor's WiFi, are you?
:Friend: Yeah, why?
:Cueball: The admin... plays games.
:Friend: No problem. I'll just hop on a secure VPN.
:[Cueball's friend now sits ... | This is the first part of five in the ":Category:1337|1337" series. The title 1337 is "L-eet," or "elite," using the Leet alphabet, a coding system used primarily on the internet (and on early text messaging systems), meant to provide a bit of obfuscation to plain text both to make it harder to read, and to show off in... | |
342 | November 13, 2007 | 1337: Part 2 | null | Trivia: Elaine is actually her middle name. | :[Cueball standing and looking down at his Cueball-like friend, who is sitting on the floor near an armchair holding a cloth to his face.]
:Friend: So the greatest hacker of our era is a cookie-baking mom?
:Cueball: Second-greatest.
:Friend: Oh?
:[The next panel is only half height as Cueball's narration is written as... | This is the second part of five in the ":Category:1337|1337" series. The title 1337 is "L-eet," or "elite," using the Leet alphabet, a coding system used primarily on the internet (and on early text messaging systems), meant to provide a bit of obfuscation to plain text both to make it harder to read and to show off in... | |
343 | November 14, 2007 | 1337: Part 3 | null | I once asked an NSA guy whether they'd broken RSA. And I know I can trust him, because I asked if he was lying to me and he said no. | :[Outside, Adrian Lamo is helping Elaine Roberts over a barbed wire fence.]
:It was the late 90's. Elaine crisscrossed the country with Adrian Lamo, the 'Homeless Hacker', learning to gain entry into systems both virtual and physical.
:Adrian Lamo: So you just throw a rug over the fence and... say, what ''is'' this pla... | This is the third part of five in the ":Category:1337|1337" series. The title 1337 is "L-eet," or "elite," using the Leet alphabet, a coding system used primarily on the internet (and on early text messaging systems), meant to provide a bit of obfuscation to plain text both to make it harder to read and to show off in ... | |
344 | November 15, 2007 <!-- date on archive page appears incorrect(2007-11-14), based on xkcd forum date of 2007-11-15 --> | 1337: Part 4 | null | Mrs. Roberts would have gotten up sooner, of course, but she was busy piping find ~ and find ~nomad into xargs shred, just in case. | :[Elaine is sitting under tree on a grassy meadow typing on her laptop. Two trees are in the background where rolling hills goes to the horizon with a single cloud over the trees. Above the frame is text narrated by the Cueball from the first panel in the 2nd comic in the series:]
:Cueball (narrating): As time passed, ... | This is the fourth part of five in the ":Category:1337|1337" series. The title 1337 is "L-eet," or "elite," using the Leet alphabet, a coding system used primarily on the internet (and on early text messaging systems), meant to provide a bit of obfuscation to plain text both to make it harder to read and to show off in... | |
345 | November 16, 2007 | 1337: Part 5 | null | This digital music thing will probably reach its endgame sometime in the next decade or so. These are very exciting times. | :[The two men in black bowler hats (RIAA and MPAA agents as known from the previous comic) with their katanas are attacked by Elaine Roberts with her folding knife and Richard Stallman with his own two katanas. Elaine kicks the RIAA man to the left in the back of his leg, while Stallman jumps over the MPAA man to the r... | This is the fifth and last part of five in the ":Category:1337|1337" series. The title 1337 is "L-eet," or "elite," using the Leet alphabet, a coding system used primarily on the internet (and on other early text messaging systems), meant to provide a bit of obfuscation to plain text both to make it harder to read (and... | |
346 | November 19, 2007 | Diet Coke+Mentos | null | The cola+Mentos trick is up there with corn starch+water (vibrating platter optional) in scientific coolness out of common kitchen supplies. | :[Cueball and his friend are sitting on the ground, with a bottle of Diet Coke between them, and Cueball appears to be putting mentos into the bottle.]
:Cueball: This is the coolest thing. You just drop the Mentos in the Diet Coke...
:Friend: Uh huh.
:[Diet Coke starts to fizzle.]
:Cueball: Give it a moment...
:[Some... | This comic's premise is a reference to the phenomenon of Diet Coke and Mentos eruption|dropping Mentos into a bottle of a carbonate beverage to create a geyser of said beverage. During 2007, a large number of videos depicting this phenomenon floated around the Internet.
Cueball wants to show this phenomenon to his fr... | |
347 | November 21, 2007 | Brick Archway | null | The TI-86 was bad enough. I don't know how I'd have gotten through high school if I'd had a laptop+wifi. | :[An inset panel to the left shows Cueball getting ready to throw a tennis ball upward.]
:[Cueball lies on the ground, underneath the titular brick archway, next to two halves of a brick. A pool of blood is coming from his head. Dust falls from the place in the archway where he knocked the brick from with the tennis ba... | ''Breakout (video game)|Breakout'' is a video game first created in 1976, and since then it has gained much popularity and has been recreated in many different versions. In the game, the player controls a horizontal 'bat' at the bottom of the screen to make it move left or right. Above it are several layers of bricks t... | |
349 | November 26, 2007 | Success | null | 40% of OpenBSD installs lead to shark attacks. It's their only standing security issue. | :[Four full-width panels arranged vertically, each with a label for number of hours elapsed, with a title above the stack of panels.]
:Title: As a project wears on, standards for success slip lower and lower.
:[Megan is standing behind Cueball, watching him as he sits at a desk working on a desktop computer on the de... | This comic refers to a common experience in which attempts to improve or change something can get you into even worse trouble, and where just getting back to the state at which you started becomes an arduous or even impossible task. Here, this idea is taken to a ridiculously (and amusingly) extreme level, where the att... | |
350 | November 28, 2007 | Network | null | Viruses so far have been really disappointing on the 'disable the internet' front, and time is running out. When Linux/Mac win in a decade or so the game will be over. | :[Megan looking at a large screen with many green and red squares. The squares have writing in them and lines connecting them.]
:[Side view. The screen is a huge LCD connected to a wireless router.]
:Cueball: Pretty, isn't it?
:Megan: What is it?
:Cueball: I've got a bunch of virtual Windows machines networked together... | Cueball shows off his virtual fishtank of virus-infected Virtual machine|virtual Windows machines to Megan. The machines nominally have Trojan_horse_(computing)|mail trojans, Warhol worms, all sorts of polymorphic viruses, and explicitly Blaster (computer worm)|Blaster and w32.welchia. Cueball relates to the viruses as... | |
351 | November 30, 2007 | Trolling | null | And I was really impressed with how they managed to shock the Goatse guy. | :[Black Hat and Cueball are in Rick Astley's yard, hacking into his cable TV connection and replacing the signal. Rick Astley is sitting in a chair in his house, watching TV.]
:TV: CNN has obtained this exclusive footage of the riot-torn-- ''*CZZZHT*'' ♫ Never gonna give you up... ♪
:Rick Astley: What the hell?
:[Capt... | File:Rick_Astley_-_Pepsifest_2009.jpg|thumb|200px| Rick Astley (from Wikimedia Commons)
The term ''Trolling'' is used to describe provocative, destructive, or annoying behavior on the Internet. Especially common are Internet pranks of the bait-and-switch type, an example of which is Rickrolling. It involves placing a h... | |
352 | December 3, 2007 | Far Away | null | Sometimes an impulsive 2:00 AM cross-country trip is the only solution. | :[Cueball hugging Megan in the messenger window of an early Microsoft Windows version.]
:Cueball: Meh.
:Cueball: Some nights, typing "*hug*" just doesn't cut it. | Cueball and Megan are in a long-distance relationship; to overcome the distance that separates them, they're keeping in touch with an instant messenger. Because their contact is limited to text, they have to write out the actions they wish to enact. Cueball is frustrated with the limitations of these place-holding phra... | |
353 | December 5, 2007 | Python | null | I wrote 20 short programs in Python yesterday. It was wonderful. Perl, I'm leaving you. | :[A Cueball-like friend is talking to Cueball, who is floating in the sky.]
:Friend: You're flying! How?
:Cueball: Python!
:Cueball: I learned it last night! Everything is so simple!
:Cueball: Hello world is just print "Hello, World!"
:Friend: I dunno... Dynamic typing? ''Whitespace?''
:Cueball: Come join us! Programmi... | Python (programming language)|Python is a programming language designed specifically to make it easy to write clear, readable programs. Flying is often used as a metaphor for freedom and ease, and here Randall shows Cueball literally flying in response to using Python.
A "Hello, World!" program is a very simple progra... | |
354 | December 7, 2007 | Startling | null | We actually reached the future about three years ago. | :[Cueball sits silently in front of his computer.]
:[Text block:]
:I <u>still</u> do this every few months.
:[He continues to sit for two more panels.]
:Cueball: Holy crap, it's the 21st century. | Cueball is startled every few months when he, again, realizes that he now lives in the 21<sup>st</sup> century. When he grew up as a child, the year 2000 seemed very far away — it was the future, but he now exists in that timeframe with the rest of society.
The title text states that "the future" was reached in 2004..... | |
355 | December 10, 2007 | Couple | null | Facebook defines relationships. 'Yeah, we would have broken up last night, but the net connection was down.' | :[Cueball and Megan in bed.]
:Cueball: So is this it? Are we a couple now?
:Megan: I just don't know. I like this. I just... don't know.
:[Silence.]
:Cueball: Well will you be my "it's complicated" on Facebook? | It's hard to know when you are in a relationship in modern times. In olden days, you might fancy a girl, then ask her father if you might court her, and if he granted his permission, you would be a couple. Today, that kind of structure and formality is considered antiquated in most western cultures; as a result, we don... | |
356 | December 12, 2007 | Nerd Sniping | null | I first saw this problem on the Google Labs Aptitude Test. A professor and I filled a blackboard without getting anywhere. Have fun. | :[Black Hat is sitting on a chair, Cueball is standing next to him. Across the street, another Cueball-like guy is coming from a building walking towards the pedestrian crossing across from Black Hat.]
:Black Hat: There's a certain type of brain that's easily disabled.
:Black Hat: If you show it an interesting problem... | Nerds have a way of getting distracted easily and focusing on one thing and ignoring the rest, when they feel their specific skills are challenged by an interesting problem. Black Hat has decided to make this into a disturbing game of getting nerds, in this case a physicist, to stop in the middle of a street and get cr... | |
357 | December 14, 2007 | Flies | null | I don't know about houseflies, but we definitely caught a lot of fruit flies with our vinegar bowl. Hooray science! | :[Cueball is typing on a computer, and his friend is lying on the floor.]
:"Noob" (on computer): *$@#!
:Friend: Hey, ease up on the noobs. Like my mom always said, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
:[Cueball has turned his chair around.]
:Cueball: No, you don't.
:Friend: You don't?
:Cueball: Nope, set... | The saying "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar" means that people are more likely to be won over with politeness than hostility.
When Cueball's friend tells him this after he replies to a "{{W|noob}}" using swear words, he then says that the saying is literally false by saying that balsamic vinegar attracts ... | |
358 | December 17, 2007 | Loud Party | null | I'm glad this is so much fun because I'm not sure how we're getting down. | :[In a loud party, Megan and Cueball are looking at each other, both thinking of the same scene: they are sitting on opposite branches of a large leafless tree, each with a laptop. There's cloud in the distance and a grass field around the tree.] | The comic depicts an average everyday scene - a party, with drinks, dancing, and a lot of commotion going on (hence the title). Amid the chaos, though, there are two people, Megan and Cueball, staring wistfully at each other. They both think of the same scene: the two of them sitting on branches of a large and bare tre... | |
361 | December 24, 2007 | Christmas Back Home | null | Family going to bed at 10 PM is so much worse than jet lag. | :[The panel depicts the interior of a house with numerous Christmas decorations. Santa stares at Cueball, who is sitting at his desk with his laptop.]
:'Twas the night before Christmas at my family's house.
:There were no sound of stirring save the click of a mouse.
:For 'twas just like a childhood Christmas except
:I'... | The script begins similarly to the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas":
:'''Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house''
:''Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;''
However, there is a change in the text due to the fact that Cueball is on a computer, perhaps coding or on the internet. Instead, it... | |
362 | December 26, 2007 | Blade Runner | null | Blade Runner: classic, but incredibly slow. | :Friend: What DVD is this?
:Cueball: ''Blade Runner''. I got it for Christmas.
:Friend: The one with Harrison Ford, right? And the Olsen twins?
:Cueball: Ye— What? Olsen twins? No, this is the 80's sci-fi classic!
:Friend: Huh. I didn't know the Olsen twins even ''did'' sci-fi.
:Cueball: ...They ''don't''.
:Friend: So ... | Cueball is watching a DVD he got for Christmas (the comic is set on Boxing Day). His friend seems intent to ruin it for him.
''Blade Runner'' is a famous science fiction movie from 1982 featuring Harrison Ford, and it is now considered a classic. One of the principal characters is played by Daryl Hannah. Hannah later ... | |
363 | December 28, 2007 | Reset | null | Clearance for this Sign: 11 Feet | :[Cueball stands in front of a doorway looking at a flip-counter sign posted on a wall.]
:Sign: 38 days since someone reset this sign | A common sight in workplaces is a sign reading '[XX] days since [event]' or '[XX] days without [event]', where [XX] is a two-digit number (indicated using flip cards so it may be easily changed) and [event] is some undesirable preventable occurrence. The purpose of such signs is to inspire employees by proudly displayi... | |
364 | December 31, 2007 | Responsible Behavior | null | Never bring tequila to a key-signing party. | :[Cueball on the phone.]
:Voice: Hey, I just got home from the party
:Cueball: The one with the IRC folks?
:Voice: Yeah.
:Cueball: How was it?
:Voice: Got too drunk. I screwed up, bad.
:Cueball: What happened?
:Voice: There was a girl. No idea who she was. Don't even know her name. I was too drunk to care.
:Cueball: An... | This :Category:New Year|New Year's comic could play out after Cueball has returned from a New Year's party the day before. (The next New Year's day comic in 2008 was also related to a big party: 524: Party).
In order to send encrypted mail to people, you need to know their Public-key_cryptography|public key. You use t... | |
365 | January 2, 2008 | Slides | null | Did you know they can actually physically throw you out of SIGGRAPH? | :[Cueball is standing on a stage, pointing at a line graph using a pointer.]
:Cueball: That chart explained the quantum Hall effect. Now, if you'll bear with me a moment, this next graph shows rainfall over the amazon basin...
:[Caption below the panel:]
:If you keep saying "bear with me for a moment" people will take ... | In the context shown, the expression "bear with me for a moment" usually implies that two seemingly unrelated topics are in fact connected, and the connection is to be explained later. This is not the case in the comic: Cueball is in fact simply showing random slides that have no connection to each other. By using the ... | |
367 | January 7, 2008 | Fandom | null | Ron Paul wants to put the New Republic back on the Corusca gem standard. | :[Cueball is looking through a box.]
:Cueball: Hey, my old Star Wars books!
:[Cueball is holding a pair of books and showing them to Megan.]
:Cueball: Man. Timothy Zahn, Michael A. Stackpole, The Corellian Trilogy...
:Cueball: This was my <u>world</u>.
:Megan: What'd you leave it for? Firefly? BSG?
:Cueball: Nah.
:Cu... | This comic refers to the concept of fandom, which is basically the collective noun for fans of a given thing. Usually, this is used in the context of people who like a certain work of fiction, like ''Star Trek'' or ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer''. Here, Cueball digs through a box and discovers his old collection of ''Star... | |
368 | January 9, 2008 | Bass | null | And sometimes I use it to retaliate against the guy upstairs with the loud girlfriend and the elliptical dish. | :[Black Hat and Cueball are standing in a room with one window. Black Hat is pushing a box with an elliptical dish on top towards the window.]
:''THUMPA THUMPA''
:Cueball: The bass from that car is driving me nuts.
:Black Hat: Me too. Give me a hand here.
:[The dish is aimed out the window; Black Hat plugs the device... | Black Hat and Cueball are standing inside a room behind a window hearing an obnoxious car outside playing loud music with deep bass. Black Hat, owing to his destructive nature, has created a machine that is able to blow out the car's speakers. The machine evidently does this by playing the same soundwaves back at the c... | |
369 | Jan 11, 2008 | Dangers | null | Zero results: 'snake charming' and 'haberdashery'. (Things like 'car' and 'boating' and such are of course the highest, by a huge margin.) | :Dangers
:Indexed by the number of Google results for
:"Died in a _____ Accident"
:[A bar chart showing "Type of Accident" vs "Google Results" each with a bar representing a number]
:Skydiving: 710
:Elevator: 575
:Surfing: 496
:Skateboarding: 473
:Camping: 166
:Gardening: 100
:Ice Skating: 94
:Knitting: 7
:Blogging: 2 | This comic is a chart of the frequency of certain phrases in Google search results, based on the format "died in a ______ accident." At the time of this comic, if you enclosed search terms in quotation marks, Google looked up the exact phrase rather than the individual words in any order (this feature still exists toda... | |
370 | January 14, 2008 | Redwall | null | My Redwall/Jurassic Park crossover fanfic is almost complete! | :Notes from reading Redwall books for the first time since childhood.
:Some of this feels familiar.
:Aragorn: Hi, I'm Aragorn.
:Martin: I'm Martin.
:Aragorn and Martin: I'm here to reforge my broken sword so I can lead an army against the tyrant threatening my people. I live in a world of moral absolutes and racist un... | This comic references Brian Jacques|Brian Jacques' series of books, ''Redwall'', which star sapient woodland animals in various high fantasy adventures.
The first panel shows the similarity between the story of Martin the Warrior (from the book ''Mossflower'') and Aragorn from ''The Lord of the Rings'' by J. R. R. Tol... | |
372 | January 18, 2008 | To Be Wanted | null | Or so I hope? | :[Megan stands looking out on the bow of a ship.]
:[Scene backs up. More of the boat is shown.]
:[Scene backs up. The boat with Megan is within a thought bubble.]
:[Scene backs up. The thought bubble comes from Cueball sitting at a computer in an office.]
:[Scene repeated for the next frame.]
:[Scene backs up. Cueball ... | The comic begins with a grainy pencil-drawing of Megan on a ship. This is a clue that things are not as they appear.
As the point-of-view pulls back in each successive frame, we see that "Megan on a ship" is really a Thought bubble#Thought bubbles|thought-bubble belonging to Cueball, who is sitting at his desk. He app... | |
373 | January 21, 2008 | The Data So Far | null | But THIS guy, he might be for real! | :[Bar graph titled "Claims of Supernatural Powers" and has two sets of data. The first data set is labeled "Confirmed By Experiment" and is empty. The second data set is "Refuted By Experiment" and goes to the top of the graph.] | There are often people who claim to have supernatural powers, but then when their powers are tested by some sort of experiment, the experiment refutes their claims. This comic summarizes all the data from such experiments, observing that given the data, it's very unlikely that supernatural powers actually exist.
The t... | |
374 | January 23, 2008 | Journal | null | And the journal is filled with all the things I'd say to her if I were nice like you. I burn it when it's full. | :[Cueball picks up book from a table, as Black Hat turns his head towards Cueball while sitting at his desk with his computer.]
:Cueball: Since when do you keep a journal?
:Black Hat: Oh, I pretend to write in it on the train, and wait for a shy-looking girl to sit across from me.
:[Scene change to inside a train wago... | Black Hat isn't the type of person to keep a journal, so Cueball is understandably surprised when he sees Black Hat's journal. Black Hat lives up to his reputation though, as it turns out that the journal is just part of a plot to hurt innocent, preferably shy, girls.
He explains his plot to Cueball, about how he sit... | |
375 | January 25, 2008 | Pod Bay Doors | null | As they're both unplugged, they do a lovely Daisy Daisy/Still Alive duet. | :[In four black panels with white drawings, a small space pod is facing a large spacecraft. The space pod is spherical and has an arm protruding in the direction of the large space ship, and a small window in the side. The front of the spacecraft is also spherical, but to the right the space craft continues, with two r... | The first part of the dialog is taken from a scene from the classic science-fiction movie ''2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey'', where the artificial intelligence|artificial intelligent (AI) computer HAL 9000, controlling the spacecraft ''S.S. Discovery'', is trying to kill the human astronaut Dave (Dr... | |
376 | January 28, 2008 | Bug | null | The universe started in 1970. Anyone claiming to be over 38 is lying about their age. | :[Cueball sits at a computer, staring at the screen and rubbing his chin in thought. A friend stands behind him.]
:Cueball: Weird — My code's crashing when given pre-1970 dates.
:Friend [pointing at Cueball and his computer]: Epoch fail! | In computer systems, time is measured starting from some arbitrarily chosen point. That particular time is known as the "Unix time|epoch" for that system. The UNIX operating system internally uses an epoch of January 1, 1970, and measures the time as a number of seconds from then. Since this was intended only for thing... | |
377 | January 30, 2008 | Journal 2 | null | That's my hat! You took my hat! | :[Black Hat and Danish are sitting in a train across from each other. Black Hat is writing in a journal.]
:Black Hat: ''blush''
:Danish: I see what you did there.
:[Danish stands up.]
:Danish: You were trying to open me up so you could hurt my feelings.
:Danish: You like to hurt people.
:[Danish walks closer.]
:Dani... | This comic is a direct sequel to 374: Journal, where Black Hat discusses his plan exactly as Danish describes it here, that is, he intends to display signs of interest in order to flatter a stranger only to hurt her by rejecting her when she responds. In this case, the plan ricochets when Danish recognizes his plan be... | |
378 | February 1, 2008 | Real Programmers | null | Real programmers set the universal constants at the start such that the universe evolves to contain the disk with the data they want. | :[A Cueball-like man sits at a computer, programming. Cueball stands behind him and looks over his shoulder.]
:Cueball: <code>nano</code>? Real Programmers use <code>emacs</code>.
:[Megan appears behind him.]
:Megan: Hey. <u>Real</u> Programmers use <code>vim</code>.
:[A second Cueball-like man appears behind her.]
:... | This comic is a satire on the idea of a Real Programmer. To quote Wikipedia "...the computer folklore term Real Programmer has come to describe the archetypical 'hardcore' programmer who eschews the modern languages and tools of the day in favor of more direct and efficient solutions—closer to the hardware." The implic... | |
379 | February 4, 2008 | Forgetting | null | Of course, the assert doesn't work. | :[Cueball sits at computer, coding.]
prev->next | Cueball is writing a piece of code (probably in the programming language C++) that removes an item from a data structure called a Linked list (the first two lines of the text). Then, he writes a Comment (computer programming)|comment (delimited by the double slashes) relating the code to his personal life. Finally, he ... | |
381 | February 8, 2008 | Mobius Battle | null | Films need to do this more, if only to piss off the people who have to feed it into the projector. | :[Cueball is standing next to a ball. A flash appears on the left side of the panel.]
:[Another Cueball comes in from the left, preparing to kick the ball.]
:[The other Cueball kicks the ball into the first Cueball's head.]
:[The first Cueball is lying outside of the frame. Second Cueball points and laughs.]
:Second Cu... | File:mobius battle.gif|right|frame|The Möbius comic strip as an animated GIF.
A Möbius strip (the comic's spelling Mobius strip is also acceptable) is an object with only one surface and one edge. It can be created by taking a strip of paper and twisting it 180 degrees before taping both ends together.
The idea of the... | |
382 | February 11, 2008 | Trebuchet | null | It was also fun when those teenagers tried to egg our house and it insta-cooked the eggs in mid-air. | :[Cueball is working on something on a table, and Megan is sitting at a computer.]
:Cueball: The trebuchet is almost done!
:Megan: Mm.
:Cueball: The range should be over 150 meters.
:[Megan leans back on her chair.]
:Megan: Look,
:Megan: I'm sure it's a cool project.
:[Picture of a trebuchet, with some spare parts to... | This is a straightforward comic playing on Megan's contradictory stance on Cueball's historical trebuchet project and her own Automatic target recognition|auto-targeting kilowatt laser.
She explains her stance with the fact that her invention helps keep the squirrels off the Bird feeder|feeder. The fact that it actua... | |
383 | February 13, 2008 | Helping | null | Oh, look, the 'make everything better' button was here behind the bookshelf all along. | :It turns out you can't take responsibility for someone else's happiness.
:[Cueball looking at a curled-up Megan across the room.]
:[Cueball's hand on Megan's shoulder.]
:[Megan has her head in her hands.]
:[Cueball watches an ambulance take Megan away in a stretcher.] | Everyone wants to help someone in need, but sometimes the help they can offer isn't enough, or is the wrong kind of help. Cueball tries to help Megan, who is in psychological/emotional distress, but despite his efforts she ends up in an ambulance. It's implied that she either attempted suicide, severe self-harm, or hur... | |
384 | February 15, 2008 | The Drake Equation | null | But seriously, there's loads of intelligent life. It's just not screaming constantly in all directions on the handful of frequencies we search. | :The Drake Equation:
:N | This comic is multi-layered, and seems to be Randall's take on the Fermi paradox.
For starters, the Drake equation is a model developed by (and named for) Frank Drake, an American astrophysicist, for estimating the number of communicating life forms in our galaxy.
Even if there is life on other planets, most life for... | |
385 | February 18, 2008 | How It Works | null | It's pi plus C, of course. | :[Cueball and a friend stand at a blackboard. The friend is writing, in standard mathematical notation, that the integral of x squared equals pi. No differential or bounds are given for the integral.]
:Cueball: Wow, you suck at math.
:[The same scene, except the writer is Megan.]
:Cueball: Wow, girls suck at math. | The comic reveals discriminative jargon against women when doing tasks such as mathematics. When a guy does something wrong, it's his own mistake. When a girl does something wrong, it is taken as a confirmation that girls are inferior.
The mathematics displayed is neither semantically nor syntactically correct. To beg... | |
386 | February 20, 2008 | Duty Calls | null | What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong! | :[Cueball is typing on a computer.]
:Voice outside frame: Are you coming to bed?
:Cueball: I can't. This is important.
:Voice: What?
:Cueball: Someone is <u>WRONG</u> on the Internet. | Cueball, and many people everywhere, feel an {{Wiktionary|irrepressible}} urge to correct people on the Internet, and often get intensely invested in arguments over mundane or insignificant topics. In this comic, Cueball is presented as an exaggerated example of one such arguer. His statement that "This is important" ... | |
387 | February 22, 2008 | Advanced Technology | null | We are sexy, sexy Von Neumann machines. | :[Cueball is inspecting Megan's abdomen.]
:Cueball: It's neat how you contain a factory for making more of you. | Cueball is fascinated by Megan's uterus—because it can create a copy of herself (albeit not an identical copy). Despite how advanced technology is, humans still have not been able to create a machine that replicates itself, an accomplishment to which only biological organisms can lay a claim. Judging by Megan's body la... | |
388 | February 25, 2008 | Fuck Grapefruit | null | Coconuts are so far down to the left they couldn't be fit on the chart. Ever spent half an hour trying to open a coconut with a rock? Fuck coconuts. | :[An X-Y scatter plot of fruit where both axes have arrows in both ends. At the end of each arrow is a label.]
:[The X-axis from left to right:]
:Difficult
:Easy
:[The Y-axis from top to bottom:]
:Tasty
:Untasty
:[The fruit names are listed here below from top to bottom according to the how tasty the fruit is, not n... | This comic consists of a chart where Randall has plotted fruits according to two criteria: ease/difficulty to eat on the horizontal axis and tastiness on the vertical axis. The Y-axis goes from "tasty" at the top to "untasty" at the bottom. The X-axis goes from "easy" on the right to "difficult" on the left.
For insta... | |
389 | February 27, 2008 | Keeping Time | null | You can identify them ahead-of-time -- they lead with their left foot when the music starts. | :My Hobby:
:Pausing in-store music for a split second and watching the ex-marching band kids stumble.
:[On a balcony overlooking a supermarket, Cueball presses a button on a pedestal. The in-store music, the first four bars of a well-known song, pauses briefly after the third bar, and one of the store's patrons falls o... | [http://imgs.xkcd.com/blag/xkcd_389.mp3 Listen to the music] played here.
A member of a marching band, after spending seasons marching in time to their music for their shows, ends up naturally walking with the rhythm of any music they hear around them, like at a shopping mall. Pausing the music for a split second woul... | |
390 | February 29, 2008 | Nightmares | null | Well, *I* think I'm real. Look at me. Look at my face. Cut me and I'll bleed. What more do you want? Please don't go. | :[Caption above the panel:]
:When I got used to the regular nightmares, my subconscious got creative.
:[Megan is standing with her hand on Cueball's shoulder.]
:Megan: Please don't wake up. I don't want to die. | This comic shows Cueball's plight with nightmares. Since he's gotten used to normal nightmares, his subconscious has begun giving him dreams where he sees his dream characters imploring him to not wake up, lest they perish, as they only exist in his dream. The horror comes from the idea that by the simple, everyday act... | |
391 | March 3, 2008 | Anti-Mindvirus | null | I'm as surprised as you! I didn't think it was possible. | :[The comic is a simple box with text.]
:'''You Just <u>WON</u> The Game.'''
:It's okay! You're free! | ''The Game (mind game)|The Game'' is a virus-like mind game. The rules are as follows:
#Everybody in the world who knows about The Game is playing The Game. (Or: ''Everyone'' is playing The Game.)
#If you think of The Game, you lose The Game.
#If you lose The Game, you must announce that you lost. This is often done b... | |
392 | March 5, 2008 | Making Rules | null | I never understood why someone would expect me to accept their rules right after they'd punched me. I'm sure it's all very symbolic or something. | :[Two men are sitting. A yellow buggy passes by.]
:Man: Punch buggy yellow no punch back!
:[Man punches Cueball, Cueball punches the man back, with seemingly greater force, causing the man to fall of the bench they are sitting on.]
:Man: I said no punch back!
:Cueball: You can do that?
:Cueball: Man, this changes <u>ev... | "Punch Buggy" is a game played by two people with a view of traffic (often, but not here, during a car ride). For each Volkswagen Beetle that passes nearby, the first player to see it is entitled to punch the other player, while calling "Punch Buggy" followed by the color of the spotted Beetle. Traditionally the other ... | |
393 | March 7, 2008 | Ultimate Game | null | RIP, Gary. | :[Split screen down the diagonal. Upper left: A man with only hair around the back of his head is standing to the left of a desk with a hand on it, speaking on an office phone on a desk. There is a photo in a frame behind the phone. Bottom right: Death in a cloak, black hole to the left where the head should be, speaks... | Gary Gygax was a game designer best known for co-creating the iconic nerd pastime ''Dungeons and Dragons'' (D&D); as such, he is commonly described as the "father of D&D." He died on March 4, 2008, three days before this comic was released. It made him the first person to receive tribute in conjunction with his death o... | |
394 | March 10, 2008 | Kilobyte | null | I would take 'kibibyte' more seriously if it didn't sound so much like 'Kibbles N Bits'. | :There's been a lot of confusion over 1024 vs 1000,
:kbyte vs kbit, and the capitalization for each.
:Here, at last, is a single, definitive standard:
:[table of various kinds of kilobytes]
:{| border | This comic pokes fun at the confusion over the definition of a kilobyte. Historically, 1024 bytes was called a kilobyte for convenience purposes (same with megabyte and gigabyte); this usage was frowned upon by both the International Bureau of Weights and Measures and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Enginee... | |
395 | March 12, 2008 | Morning | null | I'd press on them to try to unstick them, but I can't reach. Can we try cycling day and night really fast? | :[Megan is standing to one side.]
:We've all seen ''The Matrix''
:We've all joked about "What resolution is life?"
:But it doesn't blunt the shock
:Of waking up one morning
:[Megan looks up from field and sees several colored pixels in the sky.]
:And seeing dead pixels in the sky. | This comic makes reference to the idea, as presented in the movie ''The Matrix'', that reality is a computer simulation. In Liquid-crystal display|LCD screens, especially TFT LCD, a Defective pixel|dead pixel is a pixel that does not work properly, usually set as black or as some other color. Megan realizes that the re... | |
396 | March 14, 2008 | The Ring | null | On the other hand, poor Samara -- transcoded to FLV. No one deserves that. | :[Ponytail is speaking to young Cueball sitting in front of a TV with a black background and a white ring.]
:Ponytail: You watched the tape!?
:Cueball: Yeah, sorry.
:Ponytail: Now you'll die in seven days!
:Cueball: It's worse than that.
:[TV is cut from the frame.]
:Ponytail: ...You didn't.
:Cueball: Yup.
:[Both ar... | ''The Ring (2002 film)|The Ring'' is a horror movie released in 2002 based off of the Japanese movie ''Ring (film)|Ringu''. In it, there is a video tape that causes everyone who watches it to die after seven days. However, the viewer can prevent their death by making a copy of the tape and giving it to someone else.
A... | |
397 | March 17, 2008 | Unscientific | null | Last week, we busted the myth that electroweak gauge symmetry is broken by the Higgs mechanism. We'll also examine the existence of God and whether true love exists. | :[Cueball and Megan are sitting on a coach, watching Mythbusters.]
:TV: Can a ninja catch an arrow? On this episode, we'll find out!
:Cueball: Mmm, science.
:Megan: Hey, Mythbusters is entertaining, but it's not science.
:Zombie Feynman: ''BRAAAAAIIINNS''...
:Cueball: Zombie Feynman!
:Zombie Feynman: You got a problem... | In the first and second frames, Megan can be seen accusing ''MythBusters'' of not actually "doing science" because of its lack of Rigour|rigor - a debate beyond the scope of this Wiki. The zombie of deceased physicist, Richard Feynman, comes to explain to Megan that she has failed to recognize the purpose of ''MythBust... | |
398 | March 19, 2008 | Tap That Ass | null | Hey, when you're done draining the syrup, just leave the hole, okay? | :[Cueball in a hallway looking in on a board meeting.]
:Cueball: I'd tap that ass to be the new committee chair.
:[Cueball wearing headphones with a briefcase and a laptop. Another man on a telephone.]
:Cueball: I'd tap that ass without a warrant.
:[Cueball with his hand on his chin, looking at a tree.]
:Cueball: I'd... | In this comic, Cueball either accidentally or purposefully exploits the double meanings of "tap." The phrase "tap that ass" is a colloquialism for "to have intercourse with that person" and is most likely how the reader expects the phrase to be used. However, throughout the comic, Cueball uses the phrase ambiguously.
... | |
399 | March 21, 2008 | Travelling Salesman Problem | null | What's the complexity class of the best linear programming cutting-plane techniques? I couldn't find it anywhere. Man, the Garfield guy doesn't have these problems... | :[There is a linked black web, with a path in red; it appears to be a map of the United States.]
:Brute-force solution: O(n!)
:[The web continues in this one. A man with a brown hat and a case is drawing it.]
:Dynamic programming algorithms: O(n<sup>2</sup>2<sup>n</sup>)
:[Another man, with a brown hat too, is at a com... | The Travelling salesman problem|travelling salesman problem is a classic problem in computer science. An intuitive way of stating this problem is that given a list of cities and the distances between pairs of them, the task is to find the shortest possible route that visits each city exactly once and then returns to th... | |
400 | March 24, 2008 | Important Life Lesson | null | I didn't even know I *had* the Monty Python 'Lumberjack' song. | :Important life lesson: If there's any possibility of sex, do ''not'' leave your music library on "shuffle all."
:[Megan lies down in a bed, while Cueball is beneath the bed sheets with his head between her legs. On the other side of the room, a computer is turned on and playing music.]
:Megan: *GASP* MMMMM-
:Computer:... | It's common to have music playing in the background when two individuals decide to engage in sexual behavior. However, some people have a lot of silly or funny songs in the same music library as their more dramatic or romantic song choices. If the library is left to randomly choose songs from the whole library, those m... | |
401 | March 26, 2008 | Large Hadron Collider | null | When charged particles of more than 5 TeV pass through a bubble chamber, they leave a trail of candy. | :The Large Hadron Collider, CERN...
:Megan: Okay, moment of truth. "click"
:Large Hadron Collider: "VVVVVRRMMMMMM"
:Cueball: Do you see the Higgs Boson?
:Megan: Nope.
:Cueball: Huh.
:Megan: Well, then.
:Cueball: Until the theorists get back to us, wanna try hitting pigeons with the proton stream?
:Megan: Already on it.... | The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest particle accelerator, used in physics research, and particularly for finding the Higgs Boson. The Higgs Boson is one quantum excitation of the Higgs Field, in the same way as the photon is a quantum of the electromagnetic field. Interaction between particles and th... | |
402 | March 28, 2008 | 1,000 Miles North | null | Twister would've been a much better movie if they'd cut out the bad-guy storm chaser and all the emotional romance crap. All you need for a good movie are tornados and scientists. Actually, that's all you need for anything. | :[A van (almost exiting the frame to the right) and a pickup truck behind the van are driving on a road where dust blows up behind the tires. There are three mountain peaks in the background. In the rear of the truck is a cylindrical-shaped object. Above the truck there are two frames with yellow background and text. T... | Spoofing off of tornado chasers are these permafrost chasers, who are just like tornado chasers, but they are chasing very boring<sup>[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']</sup> permafrost. Permafrost is a layer of ground that never thaws, unlike ground closer to the equator, where the ground freezes in winte... | |
403 | March 31, 2008 | Convincing Pickup Line | null | Check it out; I've had sex with someone who's had sex with someone who's written a paper with Paul Erdős! | :[Cueball and Megan sit at a small table in a cafe. Megan holds up a graph.]
:Megan: We're a terrible match. But if we sleep together, it'll make the local hookup network a symmetric graph.
:Cueball: I can't argue with that. | A graph (mathematics)|graph is a mathematical object consisting of '''nodes''' connected by lines called '''edges'''. The nodes could represent for example people, and the edges could represent a connection from having slept together. Now, Megan has such a graph. Arguably, a symmetric graph|graph that is symmetric is n... | |
405 | April 2, 2008 | Journal 3 | null | Oh, and, uh, if the Russian government asks, that submarine was always there. | :[Two women ice-skating outside.]
:Ponytail: Wait up!
:Danish (wearing Black Hat's Hat): Skate faster!
:[Danish sees cracking ice.]
:''Crack Crack''
:[Danish on chunk of ice broken off.]
:''Crack Rumble''
:[Submarine dorsal fin emerging.]
:''AWOOGA''
:[Black Hat (without hat) coming out of hatch.]
:''CREAK''
:Black... | In 374: Journal, Black Hat explains to Cueball that a hobby of his is to pretend to write in a journal while on the subway, acting embarrassed if anyone sees. He then proceeds to silently scorn the person once they give him any kind of reassurance.
In 377: Journal 2, however, Danish sees through his ruse. She countera... | |
406 | April 4, 2008 | Venting | null | P.P.S. I can kill you with my brain. | :[Caption above the panel:] When I need to blow off steam, I find a particularly stupid blog comment and reply with an exhaustively researched word-by-word rebuttal, which I sign 'Summer Glau'.
:[Cueball is sitting at a desk, typing in front of a monitor. A curved line leads up from his hands to the text above.]
:In c... | This is yet another xkcd comic referencing ''Firefly (TV series)|Firefly'', but it's not so much about ''Firefly'' itself as about Summer Glau. Summer Glau is an American actress best known for playing River Tam in ''Firefly'' and ''Serenity (film)|Serenity'', as well as Cameron in the ''Terminator: The Sarah Connor Ch... | |
407 | April 7, 2008 | Cheap GPS | null | In lieu of mapping software, I once wrote a Perl program which, given a USB GPS receiver and a destination, printed 'LEFT' 'RIGHT' OR 'STRAIGHT' based on my heading. | :[Cueball driving down the road, with a GPS reading "COLD."]
:GPS: COLD... WARM... HOT! COLD... | GPS is a system allowing people to find their location and from that, speed on Earth. It was first developed for the U.S. military, but now it sees international usage for everyday navigation. Many motorists today have GPS devices (sometimes just called GPS's) that can give driving directions electronically.
Hunt the ... | |
408 | April 9, 2008 | Overqualified | null | To anyone I've taken on a terrible date, this is retroactively my cover story. | :[Megan on the phone.]
:Megan: I know you're not that into my sister, but she's really crushing on you.
:Cueball: Yeah, it's awkward.
:Megan: She's in a rough spot. It's a lot to ask, but could you take her out and... Dissuade her, without rejecting her?
:Cueball: Wait a second. Are you asking me to show her a medioc... | Megan's sister has a crush on Cueball, but Cueball doesn't feel the same way about her sister. To alleviate the situation without hurting Megan's sister's feelings, Megan wants Cueball to deliberately take her sister out on a bad date to convince her that Cueball is not worth dating, so that her sister can move on with... | |
409 | April 11, 2008 | Electric Skateboard (Double Comic) | null | Unsafe vehicles, hills, and philosophy go hand in hand. | :[Cueball showing off electric skateboard to Megan reading something.]
:Cueball: Check it out! An electric longboard!
:Megan: Sweet!
:[Cueball riding longboard with Megan sitting onboard — people in background.]
:Longboard: ''RRRR''
:[Megan turned around on longboard.]
:Megan: I feel like we're missing something...
:... | This comic is an affectionate parody of ''Calvin and Hobbes'', a newspaper comic drawn by Bill Watterson that ran for ten years from November 1985 to December 1995. Calvin and Hobbes follows the daily life of a rambunctious, precocious six-year-old named Calvin and his sarcastic stuffed tiger Hobbes. The artwork in the... | |
410 | April 14, 2008 | Math Paper | null | That's nothing. I once lost my genetics, rocketry, and stripping licenses in a single incident. | :[Cueball, holding a pointing stick, is using it to point at an equation on a panel. He is looking to the right. There are several parts of the panel that can be read. At the top, there is a formula. Below is a frame with text. Below again to the left is an X-Y plot with small dots all over all four quadrants, probably... | The math paper Cueball is in the process of describing in this comic turns out to be nothing but an elaborate setup for a joke about imaginary friends by taking the concept of "friendly numbers" into the complex (imaginary) plane, which comprises complex numbers that have both a real and an imaginary part (see details ... | |
411 | April 16, 2008 | Techno | null | I don't know what's worse - that there exists broken-hard-drive-sound techno, or that it's not half bad. | :[Cueball looking over Megan's shoulder while she is clicking her mouse with her other hand on her chin.]
:Cueball: Wait, you're buying techno on iTunes?
:Megan: Yeah. So?
:Cueball: Couldn't you just loop the 15-second free sample 20 times and get basically the same thing? | Cueball points out that due to the repetitive nature of Techno|techno music, the iTunes 15 second sample can be used to recreate the entire song. This is for the many repetitions in techno music, usually repeating it 4 (or other powers of two) times.
The title text refers to the clicking and grinding noises of a dying... | |
412 | April 18, 2008 | Startled | null | ... | :[Wide panel. Cueball and Megan are standing to one side. Black Hat is standing some distance away. Megan is looking at Cueball while pointing both at Cueball and at Black Hat.]
:[Normal sized panel. Zoom in as Megan sneaks up close to Black Hat, who now looks a little upwards.]
:[An inserted panel only half the heig... | Black Hat, the cool-headed troll, has the tables turned on him. Almost always seen antagonizing other characters, Black Hat is shown in this comic in a rare moment of losing face. Megan notices Black Hat facing away from Cueball and her, and decides to play a simple, childish prank on him: sneaking up from behind and s... | |
413 | April 21, 2008 | New Pet | null | ONE LAPTOP PER HAMSTER! | :[Megan is placing EEE PC inside hamster ball. Cueball scratches his head.]
:Cueball: What are you doing?
:Megan: Mounting your EEE PC in a hamster ball.
:Megan: Well, the TCO of a cat is like $1,000/year, so we're saving money.
:[Cueball is typing.]
:Megan: Microcontrollers are all wired up! How's the brain coming?
... | Megan and Cueball create a new pet by putting an Eee PC into a hamster ball, allowing it to roll around.
The Asus Eee PC was one of the first subnotebook computers available on the American market, noted for its small size and coming pre-installed with Linux. With a diagonal size of 11 inches, it would take a big hams... | |
416 | April 28, 2008 | Zealous Autoconfig | null | I hear this is an option in the latest Ubuntu release. | :[Cueball is sitting on a chair with his laptop in his lap. The text written on the laptop is shown above him, and there is a zigzag line from the laptop to the bottom of the last sentence.]
:Laptop: Starting WiFi autoconfig... searching for WiFi... Found no open networks.
:Laptop: Found secure net SSID "Lenhart Family... | Cueball is seen in an attempt to connect his laptop to a Wi-Fi network using, as the comic title suggests, a particularly zealous "Wifi Autoconfig" utility — "zealous" being a synonym for {{Wiktionary|zealous|"eager" or "enthusiastic."}} The utility manages to find a secure access point named "Lenhart Family," presumab... | |
417 | April 30, 2008 | The Man Who Fell Sideways | null | Strip originally conceived in conversation with Jeph Jacques. Soon to be a major motion picture. | :[Cueball standing, with a dotted line perpendicular to him and a 30 degree angle going downwards.]
:From a young age, gravity pulled him wrong.
:[Cueball bouncing around his house.]
:Sometimes east, sometimes west. When he was restrained, it grew erratic.
:''WHAM WHAM''
:[Cueball bouncing/rolling on the ground.]
:So h... | File:A Matter of Some Gravity.png|right
This comic is humorously built-up like a short drama story, about a man (Cueball) with an unusual physics condition.
It might have been inspired by the Uncle Scrooge adventure comic "A Matter of Some Gravity" ([http://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c | |
419 | May 5, 2008 | Forks and Spoons | null | Their biggest mistake was bringing Rachael Ray and Emeril to tour the lab and sign off on the project. That's when Spielberg caught wind of it. | :Megan: A spoon crossed with a fork is a spork.
:Off-panel Megan's voice: Our lab has successfully crossed a <u>spork</u> with a spoon. [Diagram showing the fractions of fork and spoon in each item.]
:[Chart showing possible combinations of spoons a forks.]
:Megan, facing audience: With your funding, we could create hy... | The comic shows scientists testing a new technology to blend species.
They show that their new technology allows them to cross a spork (an even mix between a spoon and a fork) with a spoon to make a new implement that is three-quarters spoon and one-quarter fork. By blending these new fork-spork hybrids and their res... | |
420 | May 7, 2008 | Jealousy | null | Oh, huh, so you didn't know that story? | :[Dark scene shown, with Cueball and Megan sitting in the moonlight let in by the only window.]
:Megan and I first met at a party at her sister's.
:We hit it off, opened up, shared secrets, and talked about everything. Around us, the party waned, but we hid from sleep together, talking through the deepest hours of the ... | In the first four stanzas of this soliloquy, Cueball reminisces fondly about his meeting of Megan at a party where they quickly had a romantic rapport and spent the night together. The next two stanzas are a lamentation that Megan is now married and can never have that same experience again.
The final stanza reveals t... | |
421 | May 9, 2008 | Making Hash Browns | null | There are at least fourteen ways this could go badly (seventeen if that fork is a dangerous crossbreed.) | :[Cueball stands holding a flaming tennis racket. He is throwing a potato in the air as if to serve like a tennis ball. Behind him is a red gas can and a sack of potatoes. Across from him is another person holding a fork in one hand and balancing a serving tray with a glass holding an orange liquid in it.] | Cueball is attempting to make hash browns. A hash brown is a way of serving a potato where the potato has been diced or shredded in some way, then pan-fried. Cueball's method for making hash browns, though, is rather unique. He is throwing potatoes into the air and striking them with a flaming tennis racket at his frie... | |
422 | May 12, 2008 | A Better Idea | null | It's *almost* enough to make me want to redo high school. | :[Cueball wearing a bow tie stands holding hands with Megan wearing a dress. On the left, there is a sign pointing left, which reads "PROM"; on the right, there is a sign pointing right, which reads "LAN PARTY IN FORMAL ATTIRE".] | In the United States, prom (short for promenade) is a semi-formal (black tie) dance or gathering of high school students. They normally are awkward experiences for nerdy people.
A LAN party is a temporary gathering of people with computers or game consoles, between which they establish a local area network (LAN), prim... | |
424 | May 16, 2008 | Security Holes | null | True story: I had to try several times to upload this comic because my ssh key was blacklisted. | :[Cueball sitting at computer.]
:Cueball: I'll just comment out these lines...
:<code>// MD_update(&m, buf, j);</code>
:<code>// do_not_crash();</code>
:<code>// prevent_911();</code>
:In the rush to clean up the debian-openssl fiasco, a number of other major security holes have been uncovered:
:[A two-column tabl... | The "Debian-OpenSSL fiasco" was a major security problem discovered in the Debian Linux distribution and its version of the Cryptography|cryptographic library called OpenSSL. With just a tiny change in the software, which was intended to have no effect on security, its Random number generation|random number generator w... | |
425 | May 19, 2008 | Fortune Cookies | null | "You will have hot, steamy, sweaty sex... IN BED!" | :[Megan to the left, Cueball to the right, and Blondie in the middle are sitting on chairs around a table with lots of small stuff on it. A few small white items are standing up. All three are reading from the piece of paper they each hold up in their hands (Megan only using one hand). Below them, there is a caption in... | Fortune cookies are crisp cookies containing a small piece of paper with words of wisdom or a vague prophecy. Even though they were not actually invented in China, they are commonly served as dessert in Chinese restaurants in the United States.
There is a Fortune cookie#In popular culture|common joke involving fortune... | |
426 | May 21, 2008 | Geohashing | null | Saturday is game night | :Date (example): 2005-05-26
:That date's (or most recent) DOW opening: 10458.68
:[Concatenate, with a hyphen: 2005-05-26-10458.68]
:md5: db9318c2259923d08b672cb305440f97
:[Split it up into two pieces:]
:0.db9318c2259923d0, 0.8b672cb305440f97
:To decimal: 0.857713..., 0.544544...
:Your location (example): 37.421542, -12... | Geocaching is a sport where you have to find things hidden by other people based on geographical coordinates. Randall has had a similar idea before in 201: Christmas GPS.
[https://geohashing.site/ Geohashing] is a sport created by Randall based on reaching a random location determined by an [https://geohashing.site/ge... | |
427 | May 23, 2008 | Bad Timing | null | Protip: Even without the red spiders, never have that conversation halfway through a balloon ride. | :[Cueball and Megan, flying in a hot air balloon that takes up most of the panel.]
:Cueball: I like you. I'm just not feeling the relationship.
:[The hot air balloon is now further away, and a rough sketch of the ground below with possible shoreline features is shown.]
:Cueball: I'm sorry.
:[Only the basket of the ho... | Cueball breaks up with Megan in the middle of a hot air balloon ride. Then Non sequitur (literary device)|the red spiders attack.
The red spiders are among the earliest xkcd characters, first appearing in 8: Red spiders.
As the protip in the title text states, a break-up conversation while you are stranded in an ina... | |
428 | May 26, 2008 | Starwatching | null | I always figured the word 'blog' would sound *less* silly as the years went by. | :[Cueball and Megan are lying on the ground stargazing.]
:Cueball: Just look at those stars.
:Cueball: My father once told me that the great bloggers of the past are up there, watching over us.
:[Cueball sits up, and then stands up, stretching his arms in the air as if to encompass the whole night sky.]
:Cueball: Hig... | Megan and Cueball are stargazing. In the first two panels, Cueball references a scene in the movie ''The Lion King'', where the protagonist, Simba, remembers how his father, List_of_The_Lion_King_characters#Mufasa|Mufasa, explained the night sky by saying, "The great kings of the past are up there." The quote in last p... | |
429 | May 28, 2008 | Fantasy | null | I guess if she accepted irrational realities, she'd hardly be my fantasy. | :[Cueball sits hugging his knees. From his head, there go three bubbles to a thought bubble.]
:Cueball: If only there were some way we could be together.
:[The comic fades into a thought bubble in shaded gray color. The bubble contains the next four panels.]
<div style | Cueball is fantasizing about being together with Megan, a girl he really wishes to be with, but he has so far not found any way to make this happen. However, in his fantasy, the imaginary versions of himself and Megan quickly realize how impossible their relationship would be. First of all, neither of them can remember... | |
430 | May 30, 2008 | Every Damn Morning | null | There was something about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill... | :[In the background, a vivid dream scene is apparent, including mountains, a city with a mushroom cloud, a zeppelin where one person has knocked another off, another person climbing on or off the blimp on a rope, another blimp anchoring to a city in the background, one Cueball and Megan holding hands, one Cueball looki... | Cueball has had a wondrous and striking dream, but is unable to recount it to Megan, as he has forgotten it. The title of the strip suggest that this is a regular occurrence: he wakes up with vivid memories of elaborate and fascinating dreamscapes, but is unable to tell anyone about it, because the memories fade so qui... | |
431 | June 2, 2008 | Delivery | null | Ma'am, I admit that wasn't in the best taste, but you have to admire my delivery! Ha, ha get it? Oh god, don't throw those syringes! Your baby's fine! | :[In a delivery room.]
:Doctor: There's the head... he's looking at me... Wait, he's crawling back into the womb.
:Megan: What?!
:Doctor: Yeah, it's the darnedest thing.
:Megan: Um, what does it mean?
:Doctor: My guess? Six more weeks of winter. | It is an old superstition that a groundhog (a type of rodent akin to a large squirrel) can predict the seasonal change from winter to spring in early February. A groundhog that sees his shadow and retreats back in his home predicts another six weeks of winter, while a groundhog that does not see its shadow predicts an... | |
432 | June 4, 2008 | Journal 4 | null | Man, this emo shit was supposed to be for people who didn't have hats. | :[Black Hat sits slumped over on a bench, holding his hat in one hand, displaying his thin hair, while resting his cheek on his other arm.]
:Black Hat: S<big>i</big>GH | In Journal 1, Black Hat explains to Cueball that a hobby of his is to pretend to write in a journal while on the subway, acting embarrassed if anyone sees. He then proceeds to silently scorn the person once they give him any kind of reassurance.
In Journal 2, however, Danish sees through his ruse. She counteracts it b... | |
433 | June 6, 2008 | Journal 5 | null | 'Pick you up at eight?' 'Nine. I've got to re-mine the driveway.' | :[Black Hat parks his car.]
:''PARK''
:[Black Hat knocks at door.]
:''KNOCK KNOCK''
:Black Hat: Hi.
:Danish: Hi.
:Black Hat: I give up. You win. I have to know who you are.
:Black Hat: We understand each other. I can't let that slip away—
:''beep'' [from device in Danish's hand.]
:''BOOM''
:Black Hat: What was tha... | In Journal, Black Hat explains to Cueball that a hobby of his is to pretend to write in a journal while on the subway, acting embarrassed if anyone sees. He then proceeds to silently scorn the person once they give him any kind of reassurance.
In Journal 2, however, Danish sees through his ruse. She counteracts it by ... |
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