id int64 1 2.63k | title stringlengths 1 50 | image_title stringlengths 1 53 ⌀ | url stringlengths 22 25 | image_url stringlengths 29 77 ⌀ | explained_url stringlengths 49 96 | transcript stringlengths 0 18.9k ⌀ | explanation stringlengths 262 39.4k ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
601 | Game Theory | Game Theory | https://www.xkcd.com/601 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/601:_Game_Theory | [Cueball is sitting at a desk in an office chair typing on his computer. The text appearing above him is implied to be what is displayed on the screen.] A.I. Loaded >>> Analyze love
[An hourglass appears over the computer as Cueball sits back and wait.]
[The hourglass continues to display as Cueball shifts in his chair... | The comic and title text is a direct reference to the movie WarGames .
In the movie, the Artificial intelligence (AI) that controls the US Nuclear Weapons is asked to play Global Thermonuclear War , a real time game simulating a nuclear attack scenario.
Spoilers : In the movie it then takes the simulation to the real w... | |
602 | Overstimulated | Overstimulated | https://www.xkcd.com/602 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/602:_Overstimulated | [There is a group of people. Three women and four men. They are standing around a table with a drink on it.] Man #3: Have you seen John lately?
Woman #3: He and Claire blew off this party to see Jeff. Man #4: They do that a lot.
Man #1: Yeah; I don't know what his problem is with hanging out lately. Man #3: He's like K... | After being cooped up working on papers, Cueball goes to a party, only to find himself tuning out the gossip of his friends in order to work on math problems in his head. He writes down the prime numbers on cards, and then stretches them out such that the area of the card is the same (say, 1), but one of the sides has ... | |
603 | Idiocracy | Idiocracy | https://www.xkcd.com/603 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/603:_Idiocracy | [Cueball is standing in front of three shelves with DVDs, holding a single DVD in his hand looking at the cover. A guy with a white rounded safari hat (Safari Hat from now on) stands behind him.] Cueball: Idiocracy is so true. Safari Hat: I know, right? It used to be that the intelligent, upper classes had more childre... | The title of this comic is a reference to the dystopian comedy Idiocracy . The film postulates that over about 500 years, society will suffer from a massive decrease in intellectual potential. This development is attributed to the fact that people with a lower IQ are believed to be more likely to reproduce thus more re... | |
604 | Qwertial Aphasia | Qwertial Aphasia | https://www.xkcd.com/604 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/604:_Qwertial_Aphasia | [Caption in a frame partly above the main panels, but which breaks the top border of the two first panels frames:] I hate how when I'm talking while I type, sometimes I accidentally type a word I'm saying.
[Cueball is sitting at a computer chatting with a friend. The friends message "comes" out of the computer.] Friend... | Randall has invented the term Qwertial Aphasia to describe the common experience of having a word, from a spoken conversation, accidentally spill over into something one is typing, often with humorous results.
The description "Qwertial" refers to the position of the top row of letters in the most common keyboard arrang... | |
605 | Extrapolating | Extrapolating | https://www.xkcd.com/605 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/605:_Extrapolating | My Hobby: Extrapolating
[There is a graph. Time runs along the horizontal axis; Number of Husbands on the vertical graph. Yesterday and today are labeled in time, 0 and 1 in number of husbands. Points are plotted with 0 at yesterday, 1 at today. A straight line is fitted through them.] [Cueball is holding a pointer to ... | This comic is a joke on the incorrect application of linear extrapolation . By connecting two points without any context, we can come up with incredibly funny results. Here, connecting the number of spouses yesterday (zero) and today (one) can result in a linear extrapolation to hundreds of spouses a year. Cueball pres... | |
606 | Cutting Edge | Cutting Edge | https://www.xkcd.com/606 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/606:_Cutting_Edge | [Megan is standing. Cueball sits at a computer.] Megan: Where've you been all week? Cueball: Playing Half-Life 2! Megan: ...that came out in 2004.
Cueball: I get games on a five-year lag. That way, I never have to buy a high-end system, but get the same steadily-advancing gaming experience as people who do - and at a f... | Half-Life 2 is a computer game, specifically a first-person shooter , released in 2004. In the above comic, Cueball plays the game in 2009. Newer games usually require more powerful computer parts, such as GPUs and RAM. The prices of these computer parts usually start expensive but drop quickly, so even a very cheap co... | |
607 | 2038 | 2038 | https://www.xkcd.com/607 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/607:_2038 | [Text above the panel:] I'm glad we're switching to 64-bit, because I wasn't looking forward to convincing people to care about the Unix 2038 problem. [Cueball's Cueball-like friends asks him a question. Cueball raises his arm above his head while answering.] Friend: What's that? Cueball: Remember Y2K? This could be ev... | The 2038 problem is a well-known problem with 32-bit Unix-based operating systems. Unix time is stored as a 32-bit signed integer on these systems, counting the number of seconds since 1970. In 2038, we overflow the highest number we can store in signed 32-bit integers, leading to unexpected behavior. The switch to 64-... | |
608 | Form | Form | https://www.xkcd.com/608 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/608:_Form | [There is a sheet of paper, with a series of check boxes. A white rectangle is the focus.] Do not write in this space
[Cueball is standing with a pencil, looking at the page.]
[Cueball writes something on the page.]
[A group of people with helmets, black goggles, and rifles look at display screens. There is a radar sys... | Application forms, examination papers, etc. sometimes instruct applicants to avoid writing in blocked out areas of the page, as those areas are intended for administrative, office, or internal usage or processing.
Nonetheless, a person might write in the blocked out section out of an urge to defy authority, as does Cue... | |
609 | Tab Explosion | Tab Explosion | https://www.xkcd.com/609 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/609:_Tab_Explosion | [Cueball is sitting at a computer.]
[Cueball is sitting at a computer.] Click
[Cueball is sitting at a computer.] Cueball: Huh.
[Cueball is sitting at a computer.] Click Click
[Cueball is sitting at a computer.] Click
[Cueball stares at the computer.] Cueball: I never noticed that!
[Cueball is sitting at a computer.] C... | TV Tropes is a popular site which allows conversation on tropes . A common joke with the site is how you will read a page, find a certain trope, which will open another tab on your web page. Then, as you read another article, you'll open even more pages. Pretty soon, this will cause an extremely long cycle of opening n... | |
610 | Sheeple | Sheeple | https://www.xkcd.com/610 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/610:_Sheeple | [A thought bubble is shared between the five occupants of a subway car (four Cueballs and one Ponytail).] All: Look at these people. Glassy-eyed automatons going about their daily lives, never stopping to look around and think! I'm the only conscious human in a world of sheep.
| The people in this comic think of each other as sheep, who blindly follow direction without thinking for themselves. The word " sheeple " from the title has been used before in xkcd in the phrase " Wake up Sheeple !" In this comic, each person on the train considers themselves to be the only individual mind and everyon... | |
611 | Disaster Voyeurism | Disaster Voyeurism | https://www.xkcd.com/611 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/611:_Disaster_Voyeurism | [Megan is watching TV. Black Hat is leaning on the back of her chair.] Megan: I've realized that I always secretly root for hurricanes. I watch the news hoping that they'll get really big and hit a city. I know my hopes don't actually affect it, but I feel bad.
Black Hat: Nah, that's just natural human attraction to sp... | The comic is referring to a phenomenon known as gaping or rubbernecking . The terms are applied to people who stand around as spectators at the site of a disaster. Apparently, many people are attracted to terrible scenes out of a sort of morbid curiosity. While fascinated by the spectacle, most people also feel a sense... | |
612 | Estimation | Estimation | https://www.xkcd.com/612 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/612:_Estimation | [Cueball is in a car, talking on his phone.] Cueball: I'm just outside town, so I should be there in fifteen minutes. Cueball: Actually, it's looking more like six days. Cueball: No, wait, thirty seconds.
[Caption below the frame:] The author of the Windows file copy dialog visits some friends.
| When moving or copying files using the Windows Explorer , a dialog box opens to inform the user of how many of the files being moved have been moved with an estimate of how long the rest of the files should take. However, this estimate is often subject to seemingly random and extreme changes from a time measured in sec... | |
613 | Threesome | Threesome | https://www.xkcd.com/613 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/613:_Threesome | Megan: We had a threesome last night. Cueball: How was it?
Megan: Awkward - it was with a physicist. Cueball: Why's that awkward?
Megan: They can't solve the three-body problem. Cueball: Ah, yes.
| The N-Body Problem in physics refers to our inability to analytically solve sets of differential equations modelling gravitational attraction between more than two bodies. Simply put, there are exact equations for describing the movement of two bodies reacting to each other's gravitational pull, but no such solutions e... | |
614 | Woodpecker | Woodpecker | https://www.xkcd.com/614 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/614:_Woodpecker | [Megan and Beret Guy are standing on a deck.] Beret Guy: A Woodpecker! pop pop pop Megan: Yup. [Woodpecker knocking against a tree.] Megan: He hatched about this time last year. pop pop pop pop [Megan leave the frame, leaving Beret Guy on the deck alone.] Beret Guy: ...Woodpecker? Beret Guy...It's your Birthday! Beret ... | Beret Guy observes a woodpecker . A woodpecker is a type of bird known for using its bill to bore holes into trees to get access to and eat the insects living inside. Megan notes that the bird hatched approximately a year ago. Beret Guy seems touched by this fact, and attempts to explain to the woodpecker that it is th... | |
615 | Avoidance | Avoidance | https://www.xkcd.com/615 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/615:_Avoidance | [Cueball is sitting in a chair holding a phone to his ear while his Cueball-like friend talks to him.] Friend: Did you call that hot girl from the party yet? Cueball: I've been trying.
[In a frame-less panel Cueball looks at his phone and talks to his friend.] Cueball: It's weird. I swear I got her the first time. But ... | Megan gave her number to Cueball at a party, but now doesn't want to talk to him. Because Megan works with recording voice messages at Verizon , she can with no effort put on the characteristically semi-lifeless tone of professional automated answers, and answer the phone with the "call cannot be completed"-message . P... | |
616 | Lease | Lease | https://www.xkcd.com/616 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/616:_Lease | [A man is holding a sheet of paper.] Man: Okay, any other concerns before you sign the lease?
Cueball: I'm concerned that we're sitting here like I'm a responsible adult. I'm pretty sure I stopped growing up in my teens and have been faking ever since.
Cueball: For god's sake, you're entrusting me with a building . I s... | Cueball is about to sign a lease to rent a building, but he's scared that he's not grown-up enough for the responsibility, presenting as evidence that he still plays with Lego building blocks.
It's common for children to assume, on some level, that adults are all capable, even infallible, and have all the knowledge the... | |
617 | Understocked | Understocked | https://www.xkcd.com/617 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/617:_Understocked | [A bald bearded man with glasses standing in his open doorway outside his house and a police man wearing a black peaked cap with white emblem standing on the stoop at the top of the stairs leading down from the house are swearing at each other] Both: * [email protected] #!
[The bearded man is in prison sitting on a ben... | On July 16, 2009, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts by police officer Sgt. James Crowley, after the police department received a call that Gates and another man were breaking and entering into the residence. Returning home from a visit to China, Gates ha... | |
618 | Asteroid | Asteroid | https://www.xkcd.com/618 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/618:_Asteroid | [Blondie as a news anchor is standing in front of a screen pointing to a diagram of an asteroid's trajectory path with Earth in the path. There is a caption below the screen:] Blondie: Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth. Caption: Breaking news
[In a frame-less panel Blondie narrates above ... | The comic begins with Blondie as a news anchor reporting that an asteroid is headed for Earth.
The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a really big rock hitting Earth. This has been depicted in movies several times, most famously, and released in the same year, are Armagedd... | |
619 | Supported Features | Supported Features | https://www.xkcd.com/619 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/619:_Supported_Features | [Cueball and a friend holding a laptop standing together.] Cueball: It took a lot of work, but this latest linux patch enables support for machines with 4,096 CPUs, up from the old limit of 1,024. Friend: Do you have support for smooth full-screen Flash video yet? Cueball: No, but who uses that?
| This comic is a reference to Linux builds adding support and features that will not appeal to the majority of desktop computer and Linux users. Cueball has created a patch that allows support for processors with 4,096 cores, even though most computers have only 8 cores or fewer. He considers this to be more worthwhile ... | |
620 | Wings | Wings | https://www.xkcd.com/620 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/620:_Wings | Cueball: Titan's gravity is 14% of Earth's, and its atmosphere 50% denser.
Cueball: So if you can generate 9% of your body weight in lift, you can fly on Titan.
Cueball: With wings, a stage harness, a cable, and 91% of my weight in bricks, I want to test this. [There is a heap of materials on the ground. Cueball is hol... | Cueball explains to Megan that on Saturn's moon Titan , the combination of lower gravity and a denser atmosphere make the act of flying simpler. Wings that are only capable of generating 9% of the necessary lift on Earth would allow one to fly if used on Titan.
Cueball now stands in front of an apparatus to do so; he ... | |
621 | Superlative | Superlative | https://www.xkcd.com/621 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/621:_Superlative | He has dreams. [Cueball is gesturing to Megan.] Cueball: I was in this weird cross between work and my old house... Which he'll tell you all about. He can speak French. Or could in high school, anyway. A little. Cueball: Man, I knew all these tenses and stuff once. His blog has four posts, all apologies for not posting... | The comic parodies a famous advertisement campaign for the Dos Equis beer brand. In the campaign, Jonathan Goldsmith plays " The Most Interesting Man in the World ", a suave elderly gentleman with a number of astonishing life experiences and skills. The campaign's format generally includes the narrator presenting hyper... | |
622 | Haiku Proof | Haiku Proof | https://www.xkcd.com/622 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/622:_Haiku_Proof | [Miss Lenhart teaching a class gestures with both hands up as Megan, sitting at the first desk on a stool, raises a hand and asks a question. Cueball sits at the desks behind her supporting his head in both hands with the elbows on the desk.] Megan: How do you know there are an infinite number of primes? Miss Lenhart: ... | In this comic Cueball attends a math class after having been awake for two full days (48 hours). After that he begins to hallucinate and dreams that the teacher Miss Lenhart (a professor in this comic) answers Megan's question, about a proof that there are an infinite number of prime numbers , in haiku . After the firs... | |
623 | Oregon | Oregon | https://www.xkcd.com/623 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/623:_Oregon | History of 19th-century Oregon
[Timeline, with relevant images next to various dates.]
1805 [Two men stand at the edge of a cliff. One has a walking staff.] Arrival of Lewis & Clark
1825 Early settlers arrive
1841 Oregon Trail established
1843 Larger western migration begins
1848 [A horse is pulling a covered wagon. A ... | This comic relates to the computer game The Oregon Trail , and humorously depicts the consequences to real-world Oregon if everyone had arrived in the same manner they did in the game.
The Oregon Trail was an educational computer game released in 1971, but the version referred to is likely the more popular 1985 version... | |
624 | Branding | Branding | https://www.xkcd.com/624 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/624:_Branding | Browsing without adblock [Cueball is sitting at a computer.] [Pop-up window with red background.] The Facebook of SEX! Click now! Cueball: Sigh. *Close*
[Pop-up window with green background.] Twitter for 18+ singles! Join today! Cueball: Does every porn site have to brand itself like this? *Close*
[Pop-up window with b... | This comic pokes fun at web sites (adult-themed sites in particular) which try to inflate their popularity by comparing themselves to other popular online services. The strip shows four such advertisements that appear to Cueball as he browses the Internet.
Adblock is a browser extension which prevents advertisements f... | |
625 | Collections | Collections | https://www.xkcd.com/625 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/625:_Collections | Cueball: I now have every Discworld book! Megan: Eh. Building a Kindle collection seems pointless.
Cueball: Yeah, I know the DRM means I'll probably lose them someday. Megan: No, pointless in general.
Megan: Sure, you satisfy deep magpie-like urges by building neat collections, but you still die alone.
Cueball: Sorry, ... | Cueball enters, excited that he's managed to buy every one of author Terry Pratchett 's Discworld books for his Kindle e-reader . Megan says that it seems pointless to her to build a Kindle collection.
Cueball interprets this to mean she thinks it's pointless to build a collection on an electronic device, perhaps due t... | |
626 | Newton and Leibniz | Newton and Leibniz | https://www.xkcd.com/626 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/626:_Newton_and_Leibniz | [Newton with long white hair, facing right, holds up a sheet of paper, with several lines indicating the writing on it, in one hand and the other hand is also held up. He stands in front of an empty desk. A smaller frame breaking the border at the top of the frame has a caption:] Newton, 1666 Newton: I've invented calc... | Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz both developed calculus independently of each other about eight years apart, as it says in the comic. However, although Newton had begun working on calculus before Leibniz, he didn't publish it, and Leibniz was the first to publish it (see the Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy ).
In... | |
627 | Tech Support Cheat Sheet | Tech Support Cheat Sheet | https://www.xkcd.com/627 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/627:_Tech_Support_Cheat_Sheet | Dear various parents, grandparents, co-workers, and other "not computer people." We don't magically know how to do everything in every program. When we help you, we're usually just doing this:
[There is a flowchart there. Numbers are included to improve clarity, and do not appear in the original.]
Rectangle: Start. [Go... | The main point of this comic is that many tech-savvy people may not know much about computers (and certainly don’t automatically know how to do everything someone may want help with). They just have developed an intuition which works in many situations. This intuition is shown here in the form of a diagram. In particul... | |
628 | Psychic | Psychic | https://www.xkcd.com/628 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/628:_Psychic | [Cueball is talking with Megan.] Cueball: I'm psychic, you know. Megan: There's no such thing.
[In a frame-less panel they continue to talk.] Cueball: Okay, think of a number from one to one hundred. Megan: Okay. Cueball: 43. Megan: Holy shit!
[Cueball lifts one hand towards Megan.] Cueball: I try not to let it affect ... | A psychic is a person who is able to access information that is beyond normal sensory perception through extrasensory perception. This information may vary widely in scope and value, ranging from archaeological to the ability to read minds. Cueball describes himself as such a person, to which Megan responds with disbel... | |
629 | Skins | Skins | https://www.xkcd.com/629 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/629:_Skins | [Cueball is packing luggage.] Voice: Where are you going? Cueball: Convention.
Voice: What for? Cueball: Well, you know furries, right? Voice: Sure... [Cueball closes suitcase.]
Cueball: We're furries whose animal identities have a thing for pretending to be humans. Voice: I see.
[A convention. People sit behind booths... | Furries , which have been discussed in a previous comic , are people who really like anthropomorphic animals and may enjoy drawing them or dressing up as them. One of the most prominent elements of the furry community is furry conventions, where furries meet-and-greet each other, show off and engage in activities in th... | |
630 | Time Travel | Time Travel | https://www.xkcd.com/630 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/630:_Time_Travel | [Megan has entered the scene from the left, and has her arms raised. Cueball is eating something (possibly a bagel?) and looking over his shoulder at Megan.]
Megan: I've traveled here from the year 1983 to say this: Megan: Are there any bagels left? Caption: While it's technically true, I wish she'd stop prefacing eve... | Megan prefaces her statements with "I've traveled here from the year 1983 [likely the year of her birth] to say this." The statement is (assuming 1983 to be her birth year or, at least, a year she lived during) perfectly valid, albeit not very meaningful. Its phrasing implies a form of time travel other than the normal... | |
631 | Anatomy Text | Anatomy Text | https://www.xkcd.com/631 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/631:_Anatomy_Text | Plate 15: Female breast [There is a drawing of a breast, with 'breast', 'areola', and 'nipple' labeled.]
Plate 16: External female genitalia [There is a picture of external female genitalia. 'labia majora', 'labia minora', 'clitoris', 'urethral opening', and 'vagina' are labeled. Voice #1's speech bubble partly covers... | Megan and a person not shown person are taking photos of their own anatomy for inclusion in relevant Wikipedia articles. This is one of the few comics where Megan is named, and also one of the few comics to feature speech bubbles. It is revealed that instead of taking these photos at home or in a professional studio , ... | |
632 | Suspicion | Suspicion | https://www.xkcd.com/632 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/632:_Suspicion | [Rob is sitting at a computer, typing.] Rob: I've loved our online chats these past few months, Lisa. Computer: Me too. I really like you, Rob.
[Rob continues to type.] Rob: It's just... now and then you mention products you like, and... I worry. Computer: What? Honey...
[Rob types.] Rob: Before this goes any further, ... | Rob is having online chats with what appears at first glance to be a woman. However, he grows suspicious at the apparent consumerism dedication of the "woman" - and perhaps of the perfection of the online connection, touching on the stereotypical nerd fear that any relationship going well must contain some secret flaw ... | |
633 | Blockbuster Mining | Blockbuster Mining | https://www.xkcd.com/633 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/633:_Blockbuster_Mining | [Cueball holds a script in his hands.] Cueball: We've acquired some new rights, but I'm not sure it's in the spirit to make it a blockbuster-- Voice: Do it anyway. Take $100 million, hire Michael Bay. Cueball: But-- Voice: NEXT!
[Panel is inverted, white on black background.] [Two men, played by Cueball-like actors are... | Cueball has acquired the intellectual property rights to produce a movie, but is unsure of how to make it appealing to a wide audience. An off-screen character suggests hiring Michael Bay , a director and producer well known (and occasionally criticized) for his style of film adaptation. Cueball is unsure that the IP w... | |
634 | Date | Date | https://www.xkcd.com/634 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/634:_Date | [Two people are sitting at a table, with a candle-lit dinner. Cueball is holding up a sheet of paper, and Megan is scribbling.] Cueball: Both my parents were colorblind, so... Megan: Hey, if we made more than two, we'd have a better-than-even chance of adorable red hair. Cueball: Ooh, and check this: green eyes! Trivia... | Cueball and Megan (as biologists) are on a first date. As opposed to the usual romantic talk or discussion about each other's histories or character, the comic suggests that 30% of the time, two biologists on a first date will end up making Punnett squares , which non-biologists might not consider very interesting or r... | |
635 | Locke and Demosthenes | Locke and Demosthenes | https://www.xkcd.com/635 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/635:_Locke_and_Demosthenes | [The "real" names and the fact that the squirrel is vomiting comes from the official transcript on xkcd.]
[Valentine (a.k.a. Demosthenes, with long dark hair), is laying on her back on the ground looking up at the sky with her hands behind her head. Peter (a.k.a. Locke, looking like Cueball) is attracting a squirrel wi... | This comic re-imagines a scene from Ender's Game , by Orson Scott Card . This is shown in the first two panels depicting the siblings Locke and Demosthenes , as Cueball and the girl. Their real names are Peter and Valentine Wiggin (and these first names are used in the official transcript on xkcd). In the book these tw... | |
636 | Brontosaurus | Brontosaurus | https://www.xkcd.com/636 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/636:_Brontosaurus | [Cueball and Megan are sitting at a bench. Megan is holding a turtle.] Megan: Our love is like a turtle.
[Megan sets down the turtle and turns to Cueball. They hold hands.] Megan: Humble and simple, enduring by virtue of perfect design.
Cueball: Our love is like a brontosaurus.
Cueball: Recognized as a mistaken combina... | Megan describes her relationship to Cueball with the simile "our love is like a turtle," a comparison often made when referring to a shy and slowly developing yet steady sort of romance. However, Cueball thinks that the Brontosaurus is a better comparison. His explanation refers to the fact that remains of a certain ap... | |
637 | Scribblenauts | Scribblenauts | https://www.xkcd.com/637 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/637:_Scribblenauts | [Megan is sitting on bed.] [In Scribblenauts word input format.] LARGE HADRON COLLIDER Click Megan: Wow, Scribblenauts even lets you summon the LHC.
[Cueball is sitting at a computer. Megan talks from off-panel.] Fwoosh Megan: And it makes a black hole! This game rules. Cueball: I guess it's okay, for a DS kids game.
[... | Scribblenauts is a game for the Nintendo DS in which the player controls a character named Maxwell, whose goal is to get a "Starite" in each level. The player has the ability to summon over 22,000 different objects into the game by typing them on the touchscreen using the DS's stylus device. Those items are then ostens... | |
638 | The Search | The Search | https://www.xkcd.com/638 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/638:_The_Search | [Two ants are facing each other with their antennas almost touching. They are on a tiled floor with the two nearest rows of tiles fully shown, and those further back covered partly be the speech text of the ant to the right.] Ant: We've searched dozens of these floor tiles for several common types of pheromone trails. ... | This comic is a commentary on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The ants' dialogue describes the narrow scope of their search (a few tiles, and only looking for pheromone trails), and thus they conclude that there is no other intelligent life. The irony is that humanity does of course exist, [ citation need... | |
639 | Lincoln-Douglas | Lincoln-Douglas | https://www.xkcd.com/639 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/639:_Lincoln-Douglas | [Abraham Lincoln stands before an audience.] Stephen Douglas: Oh yeah? Well, fourscore and seven years ago your MOM brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal!
After his 1860 loss to Lincoln, Stephen Douglas's famed debating skills... | The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas , respectively the Republican and Democratic nominees for a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois (Douglas was the incumbent). All seven debates were devoted to the topic of slavery, a red-hot issue in the United State... | |
640 | Tornado Hunter | Tornado Hunter | https://www.xkcd.com/640 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/640:_Tornado_Hunter | [Two people are in a car, which is driving past a cactus. The passenger has a pith helmet and a mustache.] Cueball: The tornado's three miles west, moving northeast at 15 mph. Passenger: Go right; get ahead of it.
[A tornado is visible. The passenger pulls out a gun, and stands up in the car.] Passenger: Okay, we're in... | This is a play on the occupations/hobbies " tornado chaser " - someone who, instead of evacuating the area like normal people, actually goes in to get a closer look at the tornado - and " big game hunter ", who often kill for trophies. Tornado chasers are typically, but not always, meteorologists . Here, the tornado ch... | |
641 | Free | Free | https://www.xkcd.com/641 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/641:_Free | [A shelf holds 3 boxes of cereal. Each box shows a bowl of cereal.] GenCo Ⓞat Cereal StayPuft Oat Cereal RedFarm Oat Cereal (with additional text in a star) Asbestos-free! I hate whatever marketer first realized you could do this.
| Asbestos is a fibrous material most commonly known and used for its heat-resistant properties. It was commonly used in housing insulation until its astonishingly destructive effects on human lungs were discovered. The use of asbestos in housing is now banned, but asbestos is still quite common in laboratory hot pads, a... | |
642 | Creepy | Creepy | https://www.xkcd.com/642 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/642:_Creepy | [Cueball and Megan are sitting on chairs, presumably on a train.] Cueball: Hey, cute netbook. Megan: What.
[Zoomed in on Cueball and Megan.] Cueball: Your laptop. I just— Megan: No, why are you talking to me.
[Zoomed in on Megan.] Megan: Who do you think you are? If I were even slightly interested, I'd have shown it.
[... | This comic displays Cueball 's fears that his attempts to strike up a conversation with Megan will only result in her rejecting him and even humiliating him in front of others for attempting to get to know her - he might even risk getting his picture on Facebook with a warning that he is a creep to be avoided. This is ... | |
643 | Ohm | Ohm | https://www.xkcd.com/643 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/643:_Ohm | [A Cueball-like guy (Georg Ohm) is kneeling behind and holding his Cueball-like uncle by the shoulders as he is lying down.] Uncle: Remember: With great power comes great current squared times resistance.
[Caption below the frame:] Ohm never forgot his dying uncle's advice.
| This comic deliberately conflates the origin story of the comic-book superhero of Spider-Man with the origin of Ohm's law , as both the origin story of Spider-Man and Ohm's law deal with power, though the power is of different types.
In the origin story of Spider-Man Peter Parker (who would become Spider-Man) is raised... | |
644 | Surgery | Surgery | https://www.xkcd.com/644 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/644:_Surgery | [A surgeon is standing over a patient on a gurney.] Patient: While you're doing the surgery, can you also implant this in my arm?
Surgeon: A USB port? Patient: Just wire it up to some nerves.
Surgeon: ...This won't let your brain control USB devices, you know. Patient: Sure – I just want the hardware.
Patient: The rest... | Cueball is lying down, waiting to undergo surgery, when he asks the surgeon to insert and wire up a USB port to nerves. The surgeon assumes that Cueball wants to control USB devices, but Cueball assures him that he just wants the hardware. It is revealed that he is waiting for the software update that will allow him to... | |
645 | RPS | RPS | https://www.xkcd.com/645 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/645:_RPS | [A sausage with mustard is sitting to the right of an empty bun.] [Caption below the panel:] Reverse Polish Sausage | Reverse Polish notation is a method of writing mathematical expressions, where operators are after their operands, not between.
For example, 2 + 2 becomes 2 2 + , and (2 × 2) ÷ 3 becomes 2 2 * 3 / . This comic plays on that, by placing a Polish Sausage (a North American term for Kielbasa ) after both halves of the bun ... | |
646 | Conversations | Conversations | https://www.xkcd.com/646 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/646:_Conversations | [A graph plots time vs. 3 lines.] [Dysentery cases starts high, drops to near zero with time.] [Laptop sales starts at zero, then raises.] [Frequency of conversations in which one participant is on the toilet - falls as dysentery cases falls, then rises again with laptop sales.]
| This comic humorously links both dysentery and laptop computers with conversations in which one participant is on the toilet .
Dysentery results from viral, bacterial, or parasitic infections in the intestine, and is characterized by severe diarrhea , which means that someone will be on the toilet frequently and/or for... | |
647 | Scary | Scary | https://www.xkcd.com/647 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/647:_Scary | [Rob and his nephew (also drawn like a Cueball, but smaller) are sitting on the ground facing each other. Rob is holding a flash-light up to his face and leans back on the other arm, while crossing his legs. The nephew is sitting forward resting one arm on his lifted knees and leaning back on his other arm.] Rob: But t... | Rob is telling his eight-year-old nephew a ghost story, employing such clichéd devices as a flashlight-lit face and stock ghost story endings. The boy is unimpressed, so Rob challenges him to come up with a scarier story. Rob's nephew merely states that he was born after 9/11 , and yet he is already mentally developed ... | |
648 | Fall Foliage | Fall Foliage | https://www.xkcd.com/648 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/648:_Fall_Foliage | [Cueball and Megan are standing on a cliff overlooking a forest of gorgeous orange foliage. The forest grows up a hill and behind and right of the forest there are is forest free hill and in the horizon two small mountain peaks rises up to the gray blue sky. Cueball is holding his camera down while Megan is holding her... | Cueball and Megan have driven some distance from home, and Megan enjoys the pastime of leaf peeping , happily taking photographs of the beautiful fall or autumn foliage. Cueball points out that they could've stayed home and used Photoshop to alter pictures they've already taken, saving themselves the trouble of going o... | |
649 | Static | Static | https://www.xkcd.com/649 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/649:_Static | [It's pitch black. Only Cueball and Megan's dialogue can be seen.]
Megan: Hang on, I can't see—did you put on a condom? Cueball: It's okay. I've got a wrist thing on.
Megan: A what? Let me see that. fumble Megan: This is an anti-static strap.
Cueball: You mean it doesn't... Megan: No. Why would you even THINK that? Cue... | This comic describes an unlikely confusion between a condom and an antistatic wrist strap . The two characters, presumably Cueball and Megan, are in the dark and about to engage in sexual intercourse . Megan checks that Cueball has a condom on. Cueball thinks a condom isn't necessary because he has an antistatic wrist ... | |
650 | Nowhere | Nowhere | https://www.xkcd.com/650 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/650:_Nowhere | [Megan is sitting on a couch with Cueball lying in her lap, his feet going out over the armrest.] Cueball: There's nowhere I'd rather be than with you here right now.
[Zoom in on Megan, still showing Cueball's head in her lap.]
[Further zoom in on Megan, so only most of Cueball's head can be seen. The couch is only par... | This is a sarcastic comic poking fun at romanticism.
The phrase used by Cueball in the first panel hints at the romantic, suggesting that he is so happy to be with Megan that there is nowhere else that he would rather be right at this moment than here with her.
Megan wonders if this is her viewpoint, and imagines herse... | |
651 | Bag Check | Bag Check | https://www.xkcd.com/651 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/651:_Bag_Check | [Cueball and Megan are at a security checkpoint in an airport. A guard is holding an open backpack and a bottle of water, and Cueball is arguing with him. Megan is facepalming.] Cueball: But if you're worried about bombs, why are you letting me keep my laptop batteries? If I overvolted them and breached the cells, it w... | Cueball argues with a TSA agent at an airport security checkpoint over the TSA policy of prohibiting airline passengers from bringing liquids or gels in quantities greater than 3.4 ounces (100 ml) in their carry on items. To prove his point, Cueball points out that modifying the lithium ion battery in his laptop comput... | |
652 | More Accurate | More Accurate | https://www.xkcd.com/652 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/652:_More_Accurate | [Cueball with a shotgun approaches a woman carrying a tray with glasses.] Cueball: Sarah! Come with me if you want to live! A robot assassin has been sent here to kill you!
[Sarah holds her hands over her mouth. She has presumably dropped the tray, as it lies on the floor.] Cueball: I'm here to save you. I may not be a... | This comic spoofs the Terminator series, in which a super-intelligent machine from the future time travels back in time to kill Sarah Connor . As could be expected from a movie, the antagonistic robot is a human-like android.
However, we currently have military "robots" (actually vehicles controlled remotely by people)... | |
653 | So Bad It's Worse | So Bad It's Worse | https://www.xkcd.com/653 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/653:_So_Bad_It%27s_Worse | Protip: Even at "Bad Movie Night," avoid the Star Wars holiday special.
[A graph plots movie enjoyability against movie quality. It drops steadily through points marked "Good Movie" to "Okay Movie" to "Bad Movie," rises up again for "So-Bad-It's-Good (Plan 9, Rocky Horror, etc)," and then drops off the bottom of a grap... | The graph in the comic shows the enjoyability of movies - going from good to okay to bad, then popping back up with " So Bad It's Good ". The term is used to describe movies that are so terrible that, ironically, watching them is actually an enjoyable experience, even if just to poke fun or marvel at the absurdity of h... | |
654 | Nachos | Nachos | https://www.xkcd.com/654 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/654:_Nachos | [Cueball is on the phone with Ponytail, who's on her computer in the other half of a split panel.] Cueball: Hello? ... Oh, hey. Looking for Megan? She's gaming. Ponytail: I know. You know what's delicious? Nachos.
[Ponytail clicks on her computer while talking.] Ponytail: When you layer the cheese so it gets on every c... | Megan (in one of the few comics where she is actually named) and Ponytail are playing together on an online multiplayer shooter game. Ponytail calls Cueball , who is living with Megan, and easily persuades him to make nachos . Wi-Fi and microwave ovens both use radio frequencies around 2.4 GHz , so Cueball's cooking di... | |
655 | Climbing | Climbing | https://www.xkcd.com/655 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/655:_Climbing | [Cueball seen from his back, as he is ascending a gray climbing wall with 16 white handles in different shapes and sizes. He is standing on one near the bottom left of the panel with his left foot, holding on to a large handle to the left of his head, and one to the right at shoulder height. His right foot is seeking h... | This comic makes fun of a certain type of images very common on the internet. Those pictures are taken with a camera turned by 90° or rotated later by software, thus creating the illusion of people walking on walls or ceilings. While the original pictures depict the physical impossibility of a rotated gravitational for... | |
656 | October 30th | October 30th | https://www.xkcd.com/656 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/656:_October_30th | [A kid dressed up in a lab coat and goggles is standing on a neighbor's doorstep.] Kid: Trick or treat! Neighbor: Nice Doc Brown costume, but today's October 30th. Kid: Great Scott, I must have overshot!
| For Halloween, a child has dressed up as Dr. Emmett L. Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd ) from the Back to the Future film trilogy. In the films, Brown created a time machine out of a DeLorean DMC-12 car, which he and teenage protagonist Marty McFly use to travel through time.
The joke of the comic is that Halloween ... | |
657 | Movie Narrative Charts | Movie Narrative Charts | https://www.xkcd.com/657 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/657:_Movie_Narrative_Charts | [colors given approximately in HEX at first appearance]
These charts show movie character interactions.
The horizontal axis is time. The vertical grouping of the
lines indicate which characters are together at a given time.
Lord of the Rings
[yellow line (fff500)] ring
[thin line, here dark green (467120)] ringbearer
[... | These charts show movie character interactions. The horizontal axis is time. The vertical grouping of the lines indicates which characters are together at a given time.
A mass of colored lines weaves back and forth across the chart, representing various characters. Sauron is represented by a red bar at the bottom conta... | |
658 | Orbitals | Orbitals | https://www.xkcd.com/658 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/658:_Orbitals | [Cueball is holding up a pointer in front of a diagram of a dorm apartment. On the diagram, there are two connected pairs of dots in each bedroom, and one dot on the couch.] Cueball: Thus, once all the dorm bedrooms are occupied by romantic pairs, additional roommates are forced into less restful "living room couch" or... | When determining where to place electrons in atoms, three rules are generally used: the Pauli exclusion principle , the Aufbau principle , and Hund's rule . The Pauli exclusion principle, from which the pun is derived, states that no two electrons (or indeed any fermion ) can occupy the same atomic state. Therefore, an... | |
659 | Lego | Lego | https://www.xkcd.com/659 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/659:_Lego | [Ponytail and her father Cueball are putting away Lego bricks.] Cueball: When you take apart a Lego house and mix the pieces into the bin, where does the house go? Ponytail: It's in the bin.
Cueball: No, those are just pieces. They could become spaceships or trains. The house was an arrangement. The arrangement doesn't... | Lego blocks are a popular building toy, which Cueball here uses to describe a philosophical conundrum: the distinction between a composition, and the collection of parts that make up that composition. For example, the Lego blocks he and his daughter, Ponytail , used to make a house are still around; they were put back ... | |
660 | Sympathy | Sympathy | https://www.xkcd.com/660 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/660:_Sympathy | Sympathy Tips for Physicists [Cueball and friend are talking.] Friend: The moment my brother died, I felt a searing pain in my heart.
Right: [Cueball places his hand on the friend's shoulder.] Cueball: I'm so sorry.
Wrong: Cueball: Was it instant, or was there a speed-of-light delay?
Very Wrong: [Cueball thoughtfully p... | This comic plays at the lack of social skills physicists and other people in heavily scientific disciplines are stereotypically believed to have. The example displayed is a case of condolence, in which the appropriate behaviour would of course be to express compassion with the bereaved, as shown in the second panel.
In... | |
661 | Two-Party System | Two-Party System | https://www.xkcd.com/661 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/661:_Two-Party_System | [Ponytail stands at a podium behind a lectern, giving a speech.] Ponytail: And if I'm elected, I'll try to fix some of these problems. Billy, off-panel: Yeah, right!
[A boy in the audience is standing on his chair.] Billy: The real problem is the corporate-run two-party system. Until we fix that , we'll have no real ch... | Ponytail is running for class president , but gets shouted down by Billy the Political Activist (or at least, he thinks he might become one some day). Someone on the Internet must have told Billy that all he has to know about politics is that America's two-party system is broken. Because we all know the problem with be... | |
662 | iPhone or Droid | iPhone or Droid | https://www.xkcd.com/662 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/662:_iPhone_or_Droid | [Megan sitting at her computer is talking to Cueball standing behind her.] Megan: Well, it depends what you want. The iPhone wins on speed and polish, but the Droid has that gorgeous screen and physical keyboard.
Cueball: What if I want something more than the pale facsimile of fulfillment brought by a parade of ever-f... | The comic starts to set up a joke about the "phone wars" between the iPhone and phones that run the Android system (in this case the Motorola Droid ), but instead just brings up a serious point criticizing the consumerism this "war" stems from. In the last line of panel 2, Cueball refers to the slogan "There's an app f... | |
663 | Sagan-Man | Sagan-Man | https://www.xkcd.com/663 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/663:_Sagan-Man | [A yellow box extends across the top of the first 3 of 5 panels, introducing Sagan-Man:] Bitten by a radioactive Carl Sagan in 1995, Sagan-Man possesses the powers and abilities of Carl Sagan. [A Cueball-like character is standing on the left side of the panel, with a victim off-panel to the right.] Victim (off-panel):... | Carl Sagan was an advocate for science, space and SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). He wrote the book Contact , which was later made into the movie by the same name. While Sagan did not emit anomalous radiation in his lifetime [ citation needed ] , he did receive acclaim in the field of radiology, namel... | |
664 | Academia vs. Business | Academia vs. Business | https://www.xkcd.com/664 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/664:_Academia_vs._Business | [Cueball sits at a desk in front of a computer, leaning back in his chair with both hands down to his side. There are cans on the desk and more crushed ones on the floor.] Cueball: I just wrote the most beautiful code of my life.
[Zoom in on Cueball and top half of desk.] Cueball: They casually handed me an impossible ... | Cueball has solved some tricky and very important problem in computer science, related to queueing theory .
The comic splits into two timelines. Showing the brilliant computer code he'd written to somebody who actually knows computer code allows the academic to see the programmer's true brilliance and get him much-earn... | |
665 | Prudence | Prudence | https://www.xkcd.com/665 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/665:_Prudence | [A small girl, with hair like Megan, is running towards a closed wardrobe.] Voice (off-panel): Everyone hide! 99... 98... 97...
[The girl opens one of the two doors on the wardrobe.] Wardrobe: click
[The girl is looking inside the wardrobe through the fully opened door.] Girl: !!!
[The girl puts a hand to her chin.]
[T... | This comic references the fantasy novel series The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis . In the first published book (second chronologically), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , Lucy discovers the fictional world of Narnia which can be accessed through a wardrobe, and she walks into it without ever considering the ... | |
666 | Silent Hammer | Silent Hammer | https://www.xkcd.com/666 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/666:_Silent_Hammer | [Black Hat is hammering something on a table.] Cueball: What— Black Hat: Silent hammer. I've made a set of silent tools. Cueball: Why? Hammer: woosh woosh woosh
Black Hat: Stealth carpentry. Breaking into a house at night and moving windows, adjusting walls, etc. [He takes his silent hammer over to a tool bench with ot... | Black Hat has created a set of tools that work in complete silence so that he can go to the house of the chairman of the American Skeptics Society late at night, do some rearranging of walls and moving of windows, just to screw with him in typical Black Hat fashion. Imagine how surprised the person must be when they wa... | |
667 | SkiFree | SkiFree | https://www.xkcd.com/667 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/667:_SkiFree | [A screenshot of SkiFree, with the abominable snowman running towards the player.]
[Megan is sitting at her computer with her hands on the keyboard and thinking to herself:] Megan (thought bubble): I've always thought of the SkiFree monster as a metaphor for the inevitability of death.
[Cueball comes up behind her in a... | SkiFree is a video game released in 1991 which enjoyed popularity on the desktop computers of the time. In the game, you're a downhill skier who attempts to ski down a hill while avoiding obstacles which cause you to crash (which slows you down). At the start of the game, you can choose to go down three different timed... | |
668 | Pandora | Pandora | https://www.xkcd.com/668 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/668:_Pandora | [There is a venn diagram of two circles. The left circle is labeled "Music You Like." The right circle is labeled "Deeply Embarrassing Music." The segment on the left is labeled "What Pandora Plays," and the intersection is labeled "What Pandora Plays If Anyone Is Around."]
| Pandora is a website which automatically plays songs of a certain genre based upon the user's previous musical selections. Unlike normal radio, it adapts itself to each individual user's preferences, producing playlists that the user should find enjoyable based on the user's taste in music. In other words, Pandora play... | |
669 | Experiment | Experiment | https://www.xkcd.com/669 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/669:_Experiment | [Darkness.]
[Cueball is standing next to a laptop, looking groggy.] Cueball: Ugh... Cueball: What happened?
[Cueball begins to regain some awareness, with his speech eventually fading out.] Cueball: Where am I? FWOOOOOOSH Cueball: Help! Someone help me (unintelligible speech due to loss of air in dome)
[Cueball holds h... | Problems in the study of kinematics often idealize the environment of the problem for the sake of simplicity. Specifically, it is assumed that objects are moving in a vacuum and that there is no friction . Then the complicated effects of air resistance and surface frictions can be ignored, and the more basic principles... | |
670 | Spinal Tap Amps | Spinal Tap Amps | https://www.xkcd.com/670 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/670:_Spinal_Tap_Amps | [Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap is showing off his amplifier to Cueball.] Nigel: These amps go to 11. Cueball: Is that louder? Nigel: It's one louder.
Normal Person: Cueball: Why not make 10 louder and make 10 the highest?
Engineer: Cueball: But 11 doesn't have any units. It's an arbitrary scale mapping outputs— Nigel: Zzz... | This comic is in reference to the 1984 mock documentary This Is Spinal Tap about the tour of the fictional rock band Spinal Tap. Here we see lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (a character portrayed in the movie by Christopher Guest ) explaining to Cueball how the volume dial on his amp goes all the way up to eleven . This is... | |
671 | Stephen and Me | Stephen and Me | https://www.xkcd.com/671 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/671:_Stephen_and_Me | [Beret Guy is speaking into a microphone standing in front Ponytail who is filming him with a camera, a coiled wire from the camera going down her bag and in front of her feet there is a sign. Megan is walking towards them with a briefcase looking down.] Beret Guy: I'm documenting my quest to meet with the CEO of Volvo... | This is a reference to the 1989 documentary Roger & Me , in which director Michael Moore attempted to confront General Motors CEO Roger E. Smith over the company's closure of factories in his home town of Flint, Michigan. Moore uses the documentary to demonstrate his belief that the factory closures had a crippling eff... | |
672 | Suggestions | Suggestions | https://www.xkcd.com/672 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/672:_Suggestions | [Cueball is sitting at his computer. Facebook sidebar messages appear on the top of each panel, with a user photo of Susie (looking like Megan leaning forward so her hair hangs down the sides of her face) and a few lines of text.] Facebook: Susie Reconnect with her [Phone icon] Send her a text Cueball: Come on, Faceboo... | Social networking site Facebook routinely suggests reconnecting with Facebook friends whom you haven't interacted with on the website for a while. This is taken to its logical extreme in this comic when that Facebook feature repeatedly, in an increasingly voyeuristic fashion, tries to get Cueball to hook up with his oc... | |
673 | The Sun | The Sun | https://www.xkcd.com/673 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/673:_The_Sun | [Caption above the first panel, which is lower than the rest:] Coming this March from the makers of The Core ... [Ponytail is standing on a raised platform looking through a huge telescope (exiting the panel to the left) in an observatory. To her right is a large station with three screens and two Cueball-like guys are... | This comic makes fun of science fiction disaster movies , especially the 2003 film The Core in which a group of scientists travel through the Earth's mantle to place a series of nuclear devices in order to speed up the slowing rotation of the Earth's core and prevent a complete collapse of Earth's magnetic field. The c... | |
674 | Natural Parenting | Natural Parenting | https://www.xkcd.com/674 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/674:_Natural_Parenting | [Cueball and Megan are looking down at a baby, throwing its arms in the air, standing between them.] Cueball: Oh man, we made a baby. Megan: Don't panic. Don't panic. Baby: Baby!
[Cueball looks at Megan, who still look down at the baby, which now looks down at her feet.] Cueball: Parenting can't be that hard. Let's jus... | This comic relates to the anxiety of having a first child, particularly an unplanned child, and is a play on the double meaning of the expression "do what comes naturally".
Doing what comes naturally is a euphemism for couples pairing off and forming intimate relationships, including sex. It is also advice given to new... | |
675 | Revolutionary | Revolutionary | https://www.xkcd.com/675 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/675:_Revolutionary | Cueball: Yes, science is an open process in which a good idea can come from anybody.
Cueball: Yes, widely-believed theories are on occasion overturned by simple thought experiments.
Cueball: And yes, your philosophy degree equips you to ask interesting questions sometimes.
[Cueball is talking to a philosopher with a go... | The comic contrasts brilliant revolutionary scientific thought with the simplistic arrogance of assuming one understands the current scientific theory enough to correct it (see the Dunning Kruger effect ). The character with the goatee has a degree in philosophy , and perhaps has certain ideas of his own about how the ... | |
676 | Abstraction | Abstraction | https://www.xkcd.com/676 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/676:_Abstraction | [Cueball is sitting at a computer.] An x64 processor is screaming along at billions of cycles per second to run the XNU kernel, which is frantically working through all the POSIX-specified abstraction to create the Darwin system underlying OS X, which in turn is straining itself to run Firefox and its Gecko renderer, ... | The comics points out the large number of levels of abstraction working together at any given time in today's computers.
Programs on current computers do not run "directly on hardware". Instead, the hardware (in this case, a processor of the x86-64 architecture) is controlled by the operating system kernel (in this spe... | |
677 | Asshole | Asshole | https://www.xkcd.com/677 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/677:_Asshole | [Cueball and Megan watch Beret Guy drive by in an SUV.] Cueball: Look at that asshole in his SUV, thinking he's so badass while he guzzles gas driving around suburbia. Beret Guy: Oh no! Am I an asshole? I hope not!
[Beret Guy trades in his keys at the dealership.]
[Now he is driving by in a hybrid sedan. Cueball and Me... | SUVs are large personal vehicles with big engines and a huge amount of cargo space, and are notorious gas-guzzlers and therefore emblematic of pollution caused by cars. Stereotypically, SUV owners drive them because they're compensating for failures in other parts of their lives, and as an example of conspicuous consum... | |
678 | Researcher Translation | Researcher Translation | https://www.xkcd.com/678 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/678:_Researcher_Translation | If a researcher says a cool new technology should be available to consumers in... What they mean is... The fourth quarter of next year The project will be canceled in six months. Five years I've solved the interesting research problems. The rest is just business, which is easy, right? Ten years We haven't finished inve... | This comic suggests a translation from the statements of the researcher of a potential new technology . For example, these statements might be found in an article in a popular science magazine which highlights some cutting-edge research. It reflects the idea that researchers tend to be too optimistic about the future o... | |
679 | Christmas Plans | Christmas Plans | https://www.xkcd.com/679 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/679:_Christmas_Plans | [Cueball is standing behind a friend, who is sitting at a computer.] Cueball: Hey, will you be in town the day after Christmas? Friend: Couldn't say— Friend: I'm Jewish.
Cueball: But... how does being Jewish keep you from knowing your plans? Friend: I know my plans— Friend: I just don't know when Christmas is.
Cueball:... | This comic centers around a joke about Quantum superposition in physics - if you don't observe something, it has all possible states, not a specific one. It is a double-entendre with the word observe meaning both "look at" (physics sense) and "celebrate" (a holiday). One of the most famous examples on this is the Schrö... | |
680 | December 25th | December 25th | https://www.xkcd.com/680 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/680:_December_25th | [On one side, a family of four gathered around a Christmas tree, the daughter and son looking excitedly at the presents under the tree; on the other, a character wearing a party hat, sitting dejectedly before a birthday cake. The panel edges are decorated with holly and a wreath.] Happy Birthday to those of you born on... | On Christmas Day, most kids whose families celebrate the holiday get Christmas presents. And kids who were actually born on the 25th may feel a little put off because they don't get a special day all to themselves like their siblings and friends do. A lot of families alleviate this by celebrating the child's birthday o... | |
681 | Gravity Wells | Gravity Wells | https://www.xkcd.com/681 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/681:_Gravity_Wells | Main Text Gravity Wells scaled to Earth surface gravity This chart shows the "depth" of various solar system gravity wells. Each well is scaled such that rising out of a physical well of that depth — in constant Earth surface gravity — would take the same energy as escaping from that planet's gravity in reality. Each p... | The comic shows the gravitational potential (energy transferred per unit mass due to gravity) for the positions of each planet in the solar system — including some moons and Saturn's rings. An object traveling along an upward slope loses energy, while an object traveling along a downward slope gains energy.
Escaping a ... | |
682 | Force | Force | https://www.xkcd.com/682 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/682:_Force | [Two EMTs are rushing Darth Vader away from a front door on a stretcher.]
[There is a room with a desk in the foreground and a full-length mirror in the corner. On the desk is a laptop displaying the Wikipedia page for autoerotic asphyxiation.]
The sexual potential of the force choke was already explored in the title t... | This comic features Darth Vader , the main antagonist from the original Star Wars trilogy.
Autoerotic asphyxiation is a sexual practice in which lack of oxygen is induced to enhance sexual stimulus. The technique is considered extremely dangerous, especially without supervision, as loss of consciousness can result in c... | |
683 | Science Montage | Science Montage | https://www.xkcd.com/683 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/683:_Science_Montage | [Two columns of four panels are shown below two captions.] Left: Movie Science Montage Right: Actual Science Montage
[Below the four rows of panels in the two montages will be described, Movie first then Actual as the two are synchronized in time.]
[ Movie : Cueball passes a test tube to Ponytail sitting at a large con... | This comic makes fun of the artificially dramatized and simplified depiction of science in movies. The unstated premise seems to be that the scientists are trying to get information about a murderer based on a sample obtained from his clothing. The movie version of events involves the two scientists Cueball and Ponytai... | |
684 | We Get It | We Get It | https://www.xkcd.com/684 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/684:_We_Get_It | [Cueball and a friend are talking.] Cueball: Avatar? Yeah, I saw it last week with...
[Cueball walks out of the panel.]
[Cueball returns with a ladder and megaphone.]
[Cueball stands on top of the ladder, shouting through a megaphone.] Cueball: ...MY GIRLFRIEND.
Friend: You know, if this phase of your relationship last... | Avatar is a 2009 movie that was very popular in theaters, becoming the highest-grossing at that time before being overtaken by Avengers: Endgame in 2019.
The comic illustrates how someone in a new relationship tends to be overly eager and giddy to let everyone know about it, while others tend to not be all that interes... | |
685 | G-Spot | G-Spot | https://www.xkcd.com/685 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/685:_G-Spot | [To the left of the main comic there is an explanation text without a frame around it:] A study published in the journal of sexual medicine suggests that the g-spot may not actually exist. We go live to the researchers' press conference:
[Two reporters with microphones, Ponytail and a Cueball-like guy, stand below a po... | The G-Spot is, as the BBC has quoted saying in the title text, an elusive erogenous zone some women claim to have that can be stimulated to enhance their sexual experience.
In this comic, a live press conference has been held due to a peer-reviewed study suggesting the G-Spot may not exist. But the press have entered t... | |
686 | Admin Mourning | Admin Mourning | https://www.xkcd.com/686 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/686:_Admin_Mourning | [The text is over a white-on-black terminal showing a bit of output from ps -el | grep sam, with processes running from root and sam.] When a user dies, their connections time out, but their screen sessions linger.
[The end of the command line is a |grep sam.] The server's uptime grows because you can't bring yourself ... | The background images show the output from the ps command of Unix-like computer systems, which lists all running processes including all interactive users logged in to the server. If a user did not log out, their processes would continue to run until stopped by a reboot. If some specific user dies while logged in, the ... | |
687 | Dimensional Analysis | Dimensional Analysis | https://www.xkcd.com/687 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/687:_Dimensional_Analysis | My Hobby: Abusing dimensional analysis
[On a blackboard.] (Planck energy/Pressure at the Earth's core) x (Prius combined EPA gas mileage/Minimum width of the English Channel) = π
[Cueball indicates this equation with a pointer in front of a class.] Cueball: It's correct to within experimental error, and the units check... | Cueball has a hobby — showing correct calculations according to the dimensional analysis — but with ridiculous correlations of uncorrelated events and measurements. Here Cueball is giving a talk and uses this trick to convince his listeners that the Toyota Prius combined EPA gas mileage is somehow connected to the cons... | |
688 | Self-Description | Self-Description | https://www.xkcd.com/688 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/688:_Self-Description | [A pie chart which is mainly white with a black slice of about 30 degree towards the bottom left. The two sections are labeled with a line going from the label to the sections. The line going into the black section turns white in in this last part.] Fraction of this image which is white Fraction of this image which is ... | This comic is self-referential , because every graph is dependent on the whole comic. If you were to change anything in the comic, you would change the ink distribution, and would therefore have to update all three graphs. This would result in further changes that would have to be considered.
In the first panel's pie c... | |
689 | FIRST Design | FIRST Design | https://www.xkcd.com/689 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/689:_FIRST_Design | Team Member 1 (out of panel): Wow, this is a much better design. Team Member 2 (out of panel): Let's build it. [A blueprint depicting a robot design for the FIRST competition. It consists of a standard mobile platform, with a pusher blade at the front. Additional parts include an umbrella on top and a trailer unit cons... | Two members of a team are designing a robot for the 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition , in which teams design robots to push soccer balls into their team's goals. The final design for this team's robot is a trailer with a matchbox on a telescoping pole and the actual robot, a mobile platform with an umbrella on top and p... | |
690 | Semicontrolled Demolition | Semicontrolled Demolition | https://www.xkcd.com/690 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/690:_Semicontrolled_Demolition | [Cueball is holding up a pointer to a screen with an image of the World Trade Center towers mid-disaster.] Cueball: Based on my analysis, I believe the government faked the plane crash and demolished the WTC north tower with explosives. Cueball: The south tower, in a simultaneous but unrelated plot, was brought down by... | The World Trade Center towers were destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks ( 9/11 in American date notation). The planned attack was for two planes to collide with the north and south towers simultaneously, but what ended up happening was that plane 1 hit the north tower at 8:46 am , and the second plane hit the so... | |
691 | MicroSD | MicroSD | https://www.xkcd.com/691 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/691:_MicroSD | [Cueball and a friend approach a table.] Cueball: Hey, what's up? Friend: Shhhhh. Cueball: Hrm? Friend: There's a microSD card on your table.
[A 16GB microSD card sits next to an assortment of coins for size reference.] Cueball (out of panel): So? Friend (out of panel): I dunno, high storage densities freak me out. A w... | microSD is one format of the Secure Digital memory card format, used in digital cameras, cell phones, and other devices. It is very small, only 15×11×1 mm, but can hold large amounts of data. The US dime in contrast has a diameter of 17.91 mm. When this comic was published in January 2010 the maximum capacity for micro... | |
692 | Dirty Harry | Dirty Harry | https://www.xkcd.com/692 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/692:_Dirty_Harry | [Detective "Dirty" Harry Callahan stands near a wall, pointing a revolver at another figure, presumably a suspect, reclined on the ground. A shotgun is on the ground next to the reclined figure.] Harry Callahan: I know what you're thinking--"Did he fire six shots or only five?" In all this excitement, I- Suspect: Six. ... | The comic references Dirty Harry and Rain Man , two classic American films, from very different genres.
Dirty Harry is an action thriller about a police officer named "Dirty" Harry Callahan, who's notorious for being aggressive with criminals and quick to resort to lethal force. His weapon of choice is a .44 magnum rev... | |
693 | Children's Fantasy | Children's Fantasy | https://www.xkcd.com/693 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/693:_Children%27s_Fantasy | [Kid is sitting on the ground with his chin in his hand.] Kid: I'm such a loser- POP [Princess sticks her head through a portal.] Princess: Come quickly, young one! Kid: Holy crap, a portal! Princess: My kingdom needs you!
[He falls through.] Kid: AAAAAA
[We see him on horseback, helmeted wielding a sword. There's a ca... | Children's fantasy stories such as The Chronicles of Narnia and The Phantom Tollbooth involve a kid who is magically transported out of their time to some fantastic realm, goes through trials and becomes a hero, and then is returned to their own mundane world at about the same time they left with no one else realizing ... | |
694 | Retro Virus | Retro Virus | https://www.xkcd.com/694 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/694:_Retro_Virus | [Cueball is using a computer.] Cueball: Argh, this is frustrating. Friend (off-panel): What?
Cueball: This Windows box has a virus and I can't get RegEdit to- Friend (off-panel): Haha, cleaning viruses? Man, what a blast from the past!
Friend: Check it out! Dude's cleaning Win32 viruses! Remember that? Ponytail (off-pa... | This comic uses the word "retro" as a reference to retro style and "virus" as a reference to computer viruses . This portmanteau is also a double entendre for a retrovirus , which is a type of biological virus.
Cueball finds himself needing to clean a virus off his Windows machine. Unfortunately, the registry editor (r... | |
695 | Spirit | Spirit | https://www.xkcd.com/695 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/695:_Spirit | [The Spirit rover is on the surface of Mars.] Day 1 of 90 Spirit (thinking): 89 days to go!
Day 88 of 90 Spirit (thinking): Two days until I go home!
Day 91 of 90 Spirit (thinking): ?
Day 103 of 90 Spirit (thinking): Maybe I didn't do a good enough job.
Day 127 of 90 Spirit (thinking): Maybe if I do a good enough job, ... | Anthropomorphism (or personification) is attribution of distinctly human characteristics to animals or non-living things. We make parallels between ourselves and objects, to the point where some people even jocularly worry about hurting the feelings of, say, an automobile. We call ships "she." We see human faces in obj... | |
696 | Strip Games | Strip Games | https://www.xkcd.com/696 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/696:_Strip_Games | Frequency of Strip Versions of Various Games
n = google hits for "strip <game name>" / google hits for "<game name>" (at the time of this writing)
Frequent (n > 1%) -Poker -Spin the Bottle -Beer Pong -Never Have I Ever -Truth or Dare
Rare (1% >= n > 0.01%) -Chess -Blackjack -Tennis -Settlers of Catan -Pictionary
Extrem... | The frequency of strip versions of various games is measured by means of Google search results. Strip versions of popular games are a common activity at parties, especially when alcohol is involved. The obligation to remove pieces of clothing is supposed to add an extra zest to the game. A very widespread variant is St... | |
697 | Tensile vs. Shear Strength | Tensile vs. Shear Strength | https://www.xkcd.com/697 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/697:_Tensile_vs._Shear_Strength | [A space elevator occupies the height of the frame, consisting of a base, a cable extending out into space, and an elevator unit with standard elevator features such as sliding doors and up/down buttons. A banner flutters in the breeze attached to the cable going up above the elevator. There is text on the banner. Text... | Tensile strength represents how hard you can pull on something without it breaking. Shear strength represents how hard you can try to cut it without it breaking. Many materials have great tensile strength but low shear strength (such as dental floss — try to break it by just pulling on two ends), including whatever thi... | |
698 | You Hang Up First | You Hang Up First | https://www.xkcd.com/698 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/698:_You_Hang_Up_First | [Cueball is sitting on a bed, on the phone.] Cueball: You hang up first.
[Megan is lying on a bed, on the phone.] Megan: No, you hang up first.
Cueball: No, you hang up first.
Megan: No, you fucking hang up first!
Cueball: You hang up first, or we're OVER!
Megan: Then I guess we're fucking OVER!
Cueball: FINE!
Megan: .... | Telephone conversations end when someone hangs up. There's a traditional cliche of young romantic partners, both of whom are so besotted that they can't bear to hang up on the other. As a result, the end of the call devolves into a cycle where each one teasingly insists that the other one hang up first. It's a sweet, ... | |
699 | Trimester | Trimester | https://www.xkcd.com/699 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/699:_Trimester | [Cueball is wearing a lab coat, and talking to Megan, who is sitting on a desk. He also has a clipboard.] Cueball: Well, until the second trimester, the baby hasn't decided which opening it will exit through. Megan: What? Cueball: We'll hope for one of the lower ones, so it won't be fighting gravity. [Caption below the... | Some pregnancies are different than others, but a universal truth except in cases of Cesarean section is that a baby will always exit a woman's body through the vagina. Cueball is wearing a white lab coat and holding a clipboard, looking like a doctor, telling Megan that until the second trimester, the baby may decide ... | |
700 | Complexion | Complexion | https://www.xkcd.com/700 | https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/700:_Complexion | I get frustrated trying to judge whether acne creams are having any effect. In the spirit of a controlled trial, I used one on just half my face for a few weeks. [A graph shows pimples vs. time, with two lines: one remains one steady, and one is declining.]
It was cool seeing the effects so clearly, so I got some frien... | Cueball suffers from acne . Like many others afflicted with the same condition, he uses skin care products designed to treat acne. Unlike most other people, he does his own controlled trial by using them on only one half of his face and measuring the effects; the blemishes on the treated half of his face are noticeably... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.