Missed Connections
by Jeff
Image text: The Street View van isn't going to find out anything Google won't already know from reading my email.
Missed Connections is a page on Craigslist in which people who saw each other briefly and want to reconnect attempt to find each other again. If I was to hazard a guess, I would imagine it works .0001% of the time. In the case of missed connections, one person describes themselves "Me" and describes the other person "You" in order to try to reconnect.
The first one is a goofy joke as far as I can tell.
The second one is not a reference to anything I can find, anyone know?
The third one is a reference to networking. UDP stands for User Datagram Protcol. UDP packets don't use handshaking to verify they have contacted the correct host, so they can get lost or confused. The Cisco router location is just a reference to a block of IP addresses. Cisco is a company that makes networking equipment. This is a play on a missed connection for someone who was lost and asked for directions.
The fourth one seems to be a joke as well. For those outside of the US (or those inside as well), Nancy Pelosi is a member of the US House of Representatives. The (D-CA) is a common notation for politicians which notates party (D for Democrat) and state (CA for California).
The fifth seems to be a reference to Randall's upcoming nuptials?
The sixth is a reference to how the Google Street view van was not only recording photos of the street in 360 degrees, it was also collecting data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. The comic takes this to the next level, that the Google Street View van also scans what we have in our pockets and does a retinal scan. In this case, the social security number referenced is the most used SSN of all time.
The last suggested the Babe Ruth, the American baseball slugger of 1914-1935 is actually a Time Lord. Time Lord is a reference to the popular sci-fi series "Doctor Who" in which The Doctor, who is a Time Lord, uses a TARDIS, which stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space to travel through time.
Trochee Fixation
by Jeff
Image text: If you Huffman-coded all the 'random' things everyone on the internet has said over the years, you'd wind up with, like, 30 or 40 bytes *tops*.
This comic has a lot of small text, so make sure you click on the link to see the full-size comic.
Oddly enough, this comic explains itself. Trochees are two syllable words with an accent on the first like the comic says.
However, there is a reference to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers TV shows in the bottom left frame. Additionally, there is a reference to sci/fi author Neal Stephenson who has written Snow Crash, Anathem and many other books.
When the experiment fails, the last comment is "someone get a brick". They are going to smash the brick into the patient's head to try to cure the Trochee Fixation.
EDIT: From pennomi in the comments who helps fill in my blanks:
Huffman coding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_coding
Basically, it’s a lossless data compression algorithm.
What Randall is trying to say by “30 or 40 bytes *tops*” is that there’s really not much truly random stuff out there on the internet. Internet memes are basically all repeats of the same seemingly random stuff.
More Accurate
by Jeff
Image text: We live in a world where there are actual fleets of robot assassins patrolling the skies. At some point there, we left the present and entered the future.
This is a comic referencing the Terminator series , in which a super-intelligent machine from the future time travels back in time to kill Sarah Connor.
However, we currently have robots that are able to attack specific locations and targets. Originally, unmanned aerial vehicles were only used for surveillance and reconnaissance. But, now more than ever, they are used for attacks. One thing that keeps us short of a Terminator scenario is that most of the unmanned aerial vehicles are either pre-programmed or flown remotely by members of the military. Still, the image text is correct, the future is here.
Locke and Demosthenes
by Mike
Image Text: Dear Peter Wiggin: This letter is to inform you that you have received enough upvotes on your reddit comments to become president of the world. Please be at the UN tomorrow at 8:00 sharp.
This comic references the Orson Scott Card novel Ender's Game. [SPOILER] In it, Ender's higher-than-average intelligence siblings, Valentine Wiggin and Peter Wiggin decide to make a move for power on earth by posting contrasting opinions of the Formic War on their version of the internet. They used the pseudonyms Locke and Demosthenes respectively and eventually coerced the trust of the entire planet by playing their posts against each other. This lead to Peter gaining control of the free world.
[EXTRA SPOILER] Peter is a borderline sociopath and kills that squirrel.