TornadoGuard
by Jeff
Image text: The bug report was marked 'could not reproduce'.
This is a comic with a take on a mobile application store for iPhones or Android devices. (This may be an Android store because the creator of this app is "DroidCoder2187". Both stores take all the reviews and average the ratings for the overall star rating. In this comic, we see why this is a bad idea.
In this case, there are three 5 star reviews about the running, UI and location setting in the app, however, the one that says it actually does not work is given the same weight in the review.
The image text is funny because it is a note from the developer's bug report, which they could not reproduce the error. However, they only would have to have a tornado coming towards their area for it to work correctly, which is a fairly rare situation and especially rare in certain areas of the world.
Charity
by Jeff
Image text: I usually respond to someone else doing something good by figuring out a reason that they're not really as good as they seem. But I've been realizing lately that there's an easier way to handle these situations, and it involves zero internet arguments.
This is a pretty straightforward joke, especially for xkcd. Instead of 1 game a $10 donation or $20 donation, Cueball opts for 2 of the $10 games.
It appears that Cueball is buying the games on his mobile device.
Server Attention Span
by Jeff
Image text: They have to keep the adjacent rack units empty. Otherwise, half the entries in their /var/log/syslog are just 'SERVER BELOW TRYING TO START CONVERSATION *AGAIN*.' and 'WISH THEY'D STOP GIVING HIM SO MUCH COFFEE IT SPLATTERS EVERYWHERE.'
Sorry for the late post on this, I was traveling yesterday. Good thing this comic is not very deep. If you are not familiar with this phenomenon, some sites with mobile versions redirect any link to the main site. Which, is one of the most annoying things in the world.
This comic attempts to explains this away that servers have short attention spans. As soon as they discover it is time to serve the mobile site, it forgets about the sending the proper link.
In the image text, the /var/log/syslog is a reference to the location that Linux Operating Systems keep the system logs.
Flying Cars
by Jeff
Image text: It's hard to fit in the backseat of my flying car with my android Realdoll when we're both wearing jetpacks.
In this comic, Cueball is complaining to Megan over the phone about the lack of flying cars even though it is the year 2011. But, Megan counters that phone technology has taken off. No pun intended. I've always found it interesting that the consumer electronics field has changed dramatically over the past 10 years and cars still are roughly the same.
In the image text, the comic references Realdoll, which is known as "the world's finest lovedoll". You can probably figure it out from there.
Five-Minute Comics: Part 3
by Jeff
Image text: Resulting in The Little Rock 9x + C.
Top: Reference to the Japanese attack on the American base of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii that brought the US into World War II.
High Middle: I believe this is a reference to perl scripting language. And the comic is also a reference to how much more persuasive you can be if you say that you saw a study defending your argument.
High Left: Don't know why women try to breastfeed anyone on the bus. I haven't seen that happening on all the buses I've been on. Maybe I've been on the wrong buses?
High Right: Coke and pop rocks makes a crazy foaming explosion in your mouth, but I'm not sure where the phone and creepy girls comes from.
Lower High Middle: This is a reference to the Billy Joel song called "We Didn't Start the Fire". But, I guess, the police suspected him anyway.
Middle Left: In 1957, Eisehower ordered the Little Rock Arkansas Schools integrated, which means that there were no longer black schools and white schools, there were just schools. But, of course integrate can also have a math meaning and in this comic, the police are putting up an integration symbol next to the school. The image text is also a reference to this.
Middle Right: This one is pretty self-explanatory. Typical horror movie set up, this time with smart phones.
Lower Middle Left: This is a reference to the children's story, the 3 Little Pigs. As the story progresses, each pig builds his house out of stronger material to try to fend off the Big Bad Wolf. In this comic, there is a lot more pigs, and a lot more increasingly strong materials. The elements in the comic is strontium which is (thanks Wikipedia!) is a chemical element with the symbol Sr and the atomic number 38. An alkaline earth metal, strontium is a soft silver-white or yellowish metallic element that is highly reactive chemically.
Lower Middle: The phrase "Fastest gun in the west" is usually reserved for how fast a cowboy can draw. In this case, this is a pun on that and the gun actually "runs" races.
Lower Right: Scientists use centrifuges to separate elements. In this comic, the pun is on the phrase "separate the men from the boys", which is a typical American (at least I think it's just American) phrase for a hard task that is forces you to see who is capable and who is not.
Bottom Left: Typical xkcd. SETI and Narnia in one comic. If you have seen the movies or read the Narnia series by CS Lewis, time works differently once you go through the wardrobe to get to Narnia. Time passes much more quickly in Narnia. So, Cueball is capitalizing on that by putting his computer in Narnia to be able to do more work in less "real" time. SETI@home is the search for extraterrestrials by using extra processing power of computers that go to the screeensaver. Foldilng@home is a similar idea, but this is with protein folding.
Bottom Right: This is a reference to the old TV show, the Honeymooners in which the male character, Ralph always threatens his wife by saying "One of these days, Alice, Pow right in the kisser". Which is an old-timey threat of him hitting her in the mouth. In this comic, instead of the "pow" sound effect, all the waterslide sounds are used.
Pandora
by Jeff
Image text: What? Oh, no, the 'Enchanted' soundtrack was just playing because Pandora's algorithms are terrible. [silence] ... (quietly) That's how you knooooooow ...
Pandora is a online software program for listening to music. It uses an algorithm to classify music. You put in an artist you like and it creates a whole station of similar music. Pandora has an application for iPhones and other wireless devices.
Enchanted is a Disney musical set it modern day New York City in which a cartoon princess is banished to New York by an evil witch. Typical Disney fare.
UPDATE: And also the lyrics sung in the image text are from the song "That's How You Know" from the Enchanted Sountrack.
iPhone or Droid
by Jeff
Image text: It may be a fundamentally empty experience, but holy crap the Droid's 265 ppi screen is amazing.
More existentialism for your Friday!
The iPhone is a portable computer device and phone that has millions hundreds of thousands of applications or "apps" that can be downloaded to add functionality to the phone. The iPhone commercial tag line is: "There's a app for that" which the question in panel 2 is a reference to. That explanation was for anyone who has been living under a rock for 4 years or is possibly reading this from the past. The iPhone store is notoriously strict in seemingly random times. Some apps will get approved and other similar apps will get rejected.
The Droid is a new portable computer device and phone, the software for this one was developed by Google to go head to head with the increasingly popular iPhone.
Everyone - Am I right about existentialism? Is my forgotten college philosophy failing me?