Subliminal
by Jeff
Image text: Once you see it, you can't help seeing it every time. Until your body finishes metabolizing the mushrooms.
This comic is about the Fedex logo and how there is a subliminal/hidden arrow in the logo. Megan in the comic cannot see it, instead seeing a wild scene including Guy Fawkes, Willie Mays and an assault vehicle. The implication being in the image text that Megan is affected by hallucinogenic wild mushrooms.
Guy Fawkes was the British revolutionary who was one of the main characters in the fictional graphic novel and movie "V For Vendetta". Willie Mays was a American baseball player for the San Francisco Giants who made a famous over the shoulder catch in the World Series. Some consider it to be the best defensive play of all time in baseball.
Wisdom Teeth
by Jeff
Image text: I heard the general anesthesia drugs can cause amnesia, so when I woke up mid-extraction I started taking notes on my hand so I'd remember things later. I managed 'AWAKE BUT EVERYTHING OK' before the dental assistant managed to find and confiscate all my pens.
In this comic, Cueball decides it is finally time to play the game Minecraft (which is quite addicting) because he is getting his wisdom teeth out. Minecraft describes itself on its website as: "a game about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine. At night monsters come out, make sure to build a shelter before that happens." In the fourth frame, we see that instead of building anything, Cueball has flattened the continent out. I'm not sure what the block item in the lower right hand corner of the 4th frame is because I haven't played Minecraft. Anyone have any ideas?
Cueball makes a strange choice to flatten the continent because of all the painkiller drugs he is on after the wisdom teeth extraction. In the image text, because Cueball fears amnesia and memory loss from the anesthesia drugs, he writes information on his hand similar to the way the protagonist does in the movie Memento.
The Economic Argument
by Jeff
Image text: Not to be confused with 'making money selling this stuff to OTHER people who think it works', which corporate accountants and actuaries have zero problems with.
Ok, let's see if I can get this one right.
1) Some people are arguing that the crazy phenomenon on the left exist.
Remote viewing - the ability to see far away things by the use of paranormal activity.
Dowsing - a type of divination that is used to find water, metals or gems underground.
Auras - the reading of some persons aura which gives some indication of his or her ailment or health based on the color, shape and clarity.
Homeopathy - the practice of diluting medicine for increased effect. There was a previous xkcd that made fun of this theory as well.
Remote prayer - the practice of lots of people getting together to pray for a person far away.
Astrology - the act of reading the stars and planets to predict the future.
Taurot - the act of reading cards to predict the future.
Crystal Energy - this is based on the theory that crystals produced energy when compressed.
Curses and hexes and relativity are pretty straightfoward, so I'm going to skip those two.
Quantum Electrodynamics - describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and special relativity is achieved.
2) If all the things on the right actually do exist, then capitalism is not totally ruthless because they are not taking advantage of all these potential money-making opportunities.
3) Some people are making money selling the things on the left, but not major corporations in America and abroad except where the box on the right is checked.
This begs a question if all the phenomenon on the left do not exist, then is capitalism is ruthless with all the things on the left that do actually exist?
Control
by Jeff
Image text: Which, at one point, led to a study showing that LSD produces no more hallucinations than a placebo.
This comic is a reference to the common practice in a research study in which one group is given the drug or treatment and the other is given a placebo which is a pill filled with sugar water or something to that effect. The idea is that the placebo has no effect, but in a blind study, the patient would not know if they took the placebo or the real drug. In this case, the person referenced in this comic has a hobby of replacing the placebo with LSD or Lysergic acid diethylamide, also known as acid. LSD is frequently used for its psychological effects or "trips" like the one referenced in the comic in which the person believes they have spiders crawling all over their body. I would imagine envisioning spiders crawling over ones body is not the desired effect.
The joke in the comic is that the researchers (The two people in the forefront, one of whom has a clipboard) are confused why the person who took the placebo is acting so strange when they are supposed to have just taken a sugar or water pill.
If it was a double-blind study, the researchers would not be confused because they would not know who was the control group and who was actually being given the drug.