14Oct/1141

Dorm Poster

by Jeff

Image text: I was going to record an album with that cover under the name "PINK FTFY", so it'd come after them on the store CD rack. But at this point music stores are just rooms where CDs are set out to age before they're thrown away, so probably nobody would see it.

This comic is a take on the fact that a lot of college students have the poster for Pink Floyd's album "Dark Side of the Moon" up in their room.  In this case, a new student goes into his new dorm room and takes one look at the poster his new roommate has put up and gets a poster of his own, in this case, it reverses the light coming out of the prism in the Pink Floyd poster and sends it into another prism.

The image text indicates that Cueball also wants to extend this "prank" to the store CD racks, which are pretty much defunct at this time.

Filed under: College, Pranks 41 Comments
21Sep/1157

Chin-Up Bar

by Jeff

Image text: Those few who escaped found the emergency cutoff box disabled. The stampede lasted two hours and reached the bottom three times.

In this comic, our old friend, Black Hat rides up the longest escalator in the country and when he gets to the top, he puts a retractable chin-up bar at about waist height.  This causes a massive pile-up on the escalator as people are pushed back by the bar while the escalator is pushing them forward.

In the image text we find out that Black Hat has also disabled the emergency cutoff box to further the pile-up and stampede.

Filed under: Black Hat, Pranks 57 Comments
3Jan/1125

Mark

by Jeff

Image text: I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I will not stop until I find out what.

So, the joke in this comic is that 20 years ago someone wrote or tatooed "PEN15" on his arm, which once you write it out like I did, it looks an awful lot like "PENIS".  It's obvious that Cueball is not in a secret society and it was only random chance that he found that address and can of kerosene.

The word "solipsistic" in the image text means something that only exists in one's own mind.  Which is basically defined with the rest of the image text, when solipsistic conspiracy theorist is defined.

Filed under: Color, Pranks 25 Comments
15Nov/1031

Five-Minute Comics: Part 1

by Jeff

Image text: The wolves thin the RAID arrays, removing the slowest and weakest disks to keep the average seek speed high.

The set up for these comics are explained at the top by Randall, so let's dig into a few.

Top left - Jupiter, the planet, comes so close to the Earth that it becomes a character in the comic.  And because it is so massive and has a huge gravitational field, it asks the characters if they would like to use that pull as a slingshot.  In that case, some object in space would fly close enough to a massive body to increase its speed using the gravity of the planet or star while circling the object and "slingshot" themselves out the other side.

Top Middle - A pony is a typical or stereotypical young girl's dream gift.  In this case, instead of rescuing the girl from the well, he pushes a pony down there too, I guess to make her feel better.

Top Right - Just like nature conservatories have reintroduced wolves to back to nature, this systems administrator has reintroduced wolves to his nature, the server room.  The image text is connected to this comic and references how wolves will thin herds of animals by attacking the weakest and slowest animals.  In this case, the admin is speaking in the text.  Obviously, wolves cannot eat RAID hard drives.  But, as usual, Randall is comparing two widely different ideas.  In the RAID HD case, you would want to thin the slowest RAID arrays so that you would be writing data only to the fastest drives.  Because the drives are RAID arrays, there is multiple copies of each data, so the array would not miss a beat if one drive (or two) were taken by wolves.

Middle Right - I'm not so sure this one makes any sense, because it involves the magic flute from Legend of Zelda the video game series, Bach and Wagner, two famous composers, and a ring cycle from Tron.  Seems like something out of a strange dream.

Middle Upper Right - Given Randall's predilection for "Yo Momma" jokes, this is another one gone wrong.

Bottom - This is a standard xkcd comic.  Take a solid idea over the first three frames and then take it farther and then too far.  In this case, it ends up with a hotness rating of a girl in your bio class wearing your mom's skin. Uh, gross.

If anyone can decipher Middle Left, I'd love to hear what you think.  Only thing I can think of is Trig like Trigonometry.

11Oct/1025

Pumpkin Carving

by Jeff

Image text: The Banach-Tarski theorem was actually first developed by King Solomon, but his gruesome attempts to apply it set back set theory for centuries.

This comic is a reference to the American custom of carving pumpkins to set out on porches and front steps for the American holiday of Halloween, which occurs on October the 31st.  The pumpkins has the inside emptied out and a face or design carved in the side.  Then a light in placed inside (usually a candle).  These are called "Jack-O'-Lanterns".  The Jack-O' -Lantern in the 3rd frame is the typical and standard design for a carved pumpkin.

On to the comic.  In the 2nd frame, Black Hat is putting Nitroglycerin (an explosive) into his carved pumpkin in the hopes that someone will attempt to smash it and it will explode.  Black Hat references chest pains because Nitroglycerin is used to open blood vessels to quickly improve blood flow when someone has chest pains.

In the 3rd frame, Cutie is our typical emotional xkcd comic.  She is projecting herself onto the jack-o'-lantern as she tries to distract herself with holiday traditions that won't work to distract her.

In the 4th frame, the Banach-Tarski theorem referenced in the image text says that if you carve up a 3-dimensional ball, in this case a pumpkin, to a finite number of pieces, you can then reassemble the pieces into two different balls - identical to the original.  The Banach-Tarski theorem is also called a paradox for obvious reasons.  The person off-screen in that frame references the Axiom of Choice which is a mathematical axiom that says that given an infinite set of buckets or bins (each that contain more than one object) - it is possible to select only one object from each bucket.  I'm not sure how it relates to the comic, but something to do with how Cueball chose to go with the Banach-Tarski paradox for the way he was going to carve his pumpkin.  Anyone else have an idea?

I am not certain with the King Soloman reference means in the image text.  Any biblical scholars out there want to have a go at it?

24Sep/1013

debian-main

by Jeff

Image text: dpkg: error processing package (--purge): subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit 163: OH_GOD_THEYRE_INSIDE_MY_CLOTHES

Debian main is a repository for packages or applications for the linux distribution Debian.  Linux is an operating system as is suggested by the computer in the comic.  For packages in debian main, most have "dependencies" which are other packages that need to be installed before the package in question as the word dependency implies.

This comic is an xkcd prank in which the package that the narrator submits to debian main has a dependency that makes locusts come out of the computer and attack.  In this case, Cueball gets the locust attack.

In the image text is the error that Cueball might get if he installed the Locust package.  Can any of our Linux experts discover more in that image text?

Filed under: Linux, Pranks 13 Comments
28Apr/1012

Eagle

by Jeff

Image text: In the off-seasons, I hire an animal trainer to help confront secret agents with situations which they are unable to report by radio.

This comic is making a play on the typical "secret agent" code phrases such as the one above or "The Eagle has landed." or "The Stork has dropped the package."  Ok, I made that second one up and it is pretty terrible.   Hit the comments if you can make up a better code phrase than I can, because apparently I'm terrible.

The image text is saying that when the character in the comic is not following field biologists, he is making actual eagles land in front of actual agents, but they are not allowed to report eagles landing, because that would use the secret code phrase.

Filed under: Nature, Pranks 12 Comments
26Mar/102

Brain Worms

by Jeff

Image text: Hey, it says here that if you dream about your teeth falling out, it means they're spreading.

This one is pretty self-explanatory.  They went easy on us for Friday.

Filed under: Pranks 2 Comments
19Feb/105

Principle of Explosion

by Jeff

Image text: You want me to pick up waffle cones? Oh, right, for the wine. One sec, let me just derive your son's credit card number and I'll be on my way.

The principle of explosion means that if you assume that something is both true and untrue at the same time, then you can prove any conclusion.  Usually, someone would prove that something is true or false, but in the comic, the principle is used to derive a phone number and a credit card number.  The joke in the comic is taking the mathematical logic to the next level to make a joke about the first character's mom.

The equation in the third frame is the typical notation for a principle of explosion equation.  It means "P and Not P".  P represents some statement such as "the sky is blue".  So, the equation is: "The sky is blue and the sky is NOT blue."  From that premise, you can prove anything.  In the comic, you can even prove a phone number or credit card number.

Filed under: Math, Pranks 5 Comments
9Feb/102

Trimester

by Jeff

Image text: Also, it's not like anyone actually calls up the Nobel committee to double-check things.

In this comic, the main character dresses up in a lab coat and pretends to be an OBGYN for a the pregnant character in this comic.

The female pregnant character doesn't look too pregnant in this comic.  How to draw a pregnant stick figure I wonder?

Filed under: Pranks 2 Comments

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