ABCD

[[Black Hat sits at a desk. A voice speaks from off panel, in front of Black Hat.]] Off Panel Voice: CNN hired you to improve viewership. [[Black Hat continues sitting at the desk.]] Black Hat Guy: ...yes, and? [[Next panel, conversation continues.]] Off Panel Voice: You texted "holy crap, turn on the news" to a million random phone numbers? Black Hat Guy: It sure did work. Off Panel Voice: Not what we meant! {{Title text: We're firing you, but the online headline-writing division wants to hire you.}}

[[The character is sitting on a throne, talking to a minion who's not shown in the panel.]] Minion: The prisoner escaped and is swimming toward the mainland! Leader: Release the sharks. Minion: Yes, sir. Minion: The sharks are swimming away. Leader: They're escaping, too? Send sharks after them! Minion: Now those sharks are swimming away. Leader: More sharks. Minion: ... sir, what's going on? Leader: Prisoners, of course! Can't let 'em escape! Minion: Sir, are you trying to turn Doom Island into a marine biology center? Leader: Shark populations are in decline-- Leader: *ahem* Leader: I mean, the world must fear us! Minion: Right... {{Title text: 'Now, minions, I'm off to inspect our shark cages.' 'Do you really need to inspect them this often?' 'PRISONERS MUST NEVER ESCAPE.'}}

[[Two people are walking.]] Person #1: Women say they want nice guys, but what they really want are-- Person #2: --guys who respond to rejection by belittling their judgment and self-awareness? If so, don't worry -- you'll be fine . {{Title text: Perhaps you need a crash course in taking hints. Here's your first lesson: We're not actually walking somewhere together; I'm trying to leave this conversation and you're following me.}}

[[Shorthair and Cueball are talking.]] Shorthair: So, how 'bout this weather? Cueball: I know, right? The whole jet stream layer is nuts! Shorthair: Um, sure... Cueball: The 18z GFS forecasts 960MB by Tuesday, Think it'll verify? Shorthair: What? Cueball: ...right. Sorry. Uh, yeah. Weather sure has been crazy. Weather geeks have it tough. {{Title text: At least if you're really into, like, Turkish archaeology, store clerks aren't like 'hey, how 'bout those Derinkuyu underground cities!' when they're trying to be polite.}}

[[A standing figure is conversing with another figure who is sitting on computer desk chair. Behind the sitting figure is a desk with a flat-panel monitor.]] Standing figure: Alice sends a message to Bob saying to meet her somewhere. Sitting figure: Uh huh. Standing figure: But Eve sees it, too, and goes to the place. Sitting figure: With you so far. Standing figure: Bob is delayed, and Alice and Eve meet. Sitting figure: Yeah? I've discovered a way to get computer scientists to listen to any boring story. {{Title text: Changing the names would be easier, but if you're not comfortable lying, try only making friends with people named Alice, Bob, Carol, etc.}}

[[Two figures, one in a winter hat and the other in a beret, are walking through snow and across a patch of ice.]] Beret Figure: The sky is cold and the floor water is too hard to drink. [[The figure with the beret looks upwards.]] Beret Figure: But I have my handcoats and the spacelight is warm. [[The two figures continue on through woods; there are musical notes coming from the trees.]] Beret Figure: Listen - the flappy planes are beeping in the stick towers. [[The figure with the winter hat pauses.]] Hat Figure: Those are all the wrong words for those things. ((Beret Figure replies from off panel.)) Beret Figure: Maybe - but the things themselves are all right. So who cares? [[The figure with the winter hat continues walking, with sunlight and musical notes above.]] {{Title text: Stay warm, little flappers, and find lots of plant eggs!}}

[[Two figures in winter hats, one hat white and the other hat black, are walking.]] White Hat: It is brutal out. So much for global warming, huh? <<Black Hat sighs>> Black Hat: This used to happen all the time. White Hat: What? [[A picture of an x-y plot, with years from 1970 to 2014 along the x-axis and dots rising up for each year, mostly concentrated from 1970 to 1999. The plot is labeled "Days with lows < 0°F".]] Black Hat: You're from St. Louis, right? On average, it used to get below 0°F there a handful of days per year. But you haven't had a day like that since the nineties. [[The two figures continue walking.]] Black Hat: Then, in 2014, when the first polar vortex hit, it dipped below zero for two days. And everyone freaked out because what used to be normal now feels too cold. White Hat: It is too cold! [[Panel labeled "The future:" contains a generic figure, looking at a frozen puddle on the ground.]] Figure: Look at this - ice! In St. Louis! So much for global warming. <<off-panel sigh>> {{Title text: 'You see the same pattern all over. Take Detroit--' 'Hold on. Why do you know all these statistics offhand?' 'Oh, um, no idea. I definitely spend my evenings hanging out with friends, and not curating a REALLY NEAT database of temperature statistics. Because, pshh, who would want to do that, right? Also, snowfall records.'}}

When a network tries to be everyone's one-stop hub, the Walmart of social interaction... [[Two figures stand in a department store. One is holding some items in their right arm and waving at the other, who is pushing a shopping cart.]] Figure 1: Oh, uh, hi! Funny running into you here. Figure 2: Oh, hey! Yeah! How've you been? ...it inevitably becomes the Walmart of social interaction. {{Title text: What I really want is to hang out where I hung out with my friends in college, but have all my older relatives there too.}}

"I spend a lot of time on this task. I should write a program automating it!" [[Panel titled "Theory:" at the top contains a line plot, with "work" on the y-axis and "time" on the x-axis. Two curves indicate "work on the original task" eventually being permanently reduced by temporarily spending more work on coding, and then having the produced automation take over.]] [[Panel titled "Reality:" at the top contains a similar line plot, but the line for "work on the original task" does not decrease. The second curve, which starts out as "writing code", becomes "debugging", "rethinking", and then "ongoing development". The line for work on the original task becomes dotted, with the label "no time for original task anymore."]] {{Title text: 'Automating' comes from the roots 'auto-' meaning 'self-', and 'mating', meaning 'screwing'.}}

((The text of the comic is circular. Each statement is followed by the next, wrapping around back to the original speaker. Thus, the speaker chosen to be "first" below is chosen arbitrarily - in this case, the one that is facing upwards on the page.)) [[6 figures stand on the surface of a circle, equidistant around it.]] First figure: Actually, measurements suggest it's flat. Second figure: Actually, it's a sphere. Third figure: Actually, it's an oblate spheroid. Fourth figure: Actually, it's a shape defined by the EGM96 coefficients. Fifth figure: Actually, it's that plus local topography. Sixth figure: Actually, it's embedded in a universe that's curved. ((And thus the text has arrived back at the beginning of the first figure's statement.)) {{Title text: Protip: You can win every exchange just by being one level more precise than whoever talked last. Eventually, you'll defeat all conversational opponents and stand alone.}}

[[A figure sits in front of a laptop, apparently talking to it.]] Figure: I feel paralyzed by overwhelming existential dread. ...And yet for some reason I'm really excited about space? The thief who stole my identity has a lot to deal with. {{Title text: Is he ALSO wondering at what point our thoughts diverged, if they even have yet? 'dude, I think he just took your credit card' AM I THE ORIGINAL? HOW DO I TELL?}}

[[A figure sits at a desk with a laptop. A woman is off-screen.]] Figure: Argh! Woman: What? Figure: Why do I always have these inexplicable, impossible-to-diagnose computer problems? [[The woman walks up to the desk.]] Figure: After six hours of this, I've concluded nothing works or makes sense. I give up on logic. Woman: <<sigh>>Gimme. I'll figure it out. Figure: You won't. [[The figure sits at his laptopless desk. Off-screen, we can hear the woman working on it. <<Type type>> <<Click>> Woman: ? <<Type type type>> Woman: ??? [[The woman is back in front of the desk, clutching the laptop.]] Figure: How'd it go? Woman: Your computer is literally haunted. Figure: Told you. {{Title text: 'It has a ghost in it. Take it back.' 'No.'}}

[[A woman and a man are out for a walk.]] Woman: Horace Lamb said he would have two questions for God: Why quantum mechanics, and why turbulence? Man: I'd have just one: What did Miss Susie's steamboat DO?! {{Title text: What sins could possibly darken the heart of a STEAMBOAT? I asked The Shadow, but he says he only covers men.}}

[[A man in a hat stands next to another figure on a roof. There's a sunset; in the distance, there are three people taking photos of the skyline as the sun sets.]] Hat guy: Ugh, I hate how people take pictures instead of just enjoying the view. Figure: Why? [[Hat guy turns to the figure.]] Hat guy: Documenting your live distracts you from living it. You're not really- Figure: Oh, come on. [[We zoom on their faces.]] Figure: Trying to take a picture of a thing makes me pay more attention to it. Some of my best adventures are built around trying to photograph something. [[We just see the figure's face.]] Figure: If "other people having experiences incorrectly" is annoying to you, think how unbearable it must be to have a condescending stranger tell you they hate the way you're experiencing your life at just the moment you've found something you want to remember. Why the fuck do you care how someone else enjoys a sunset? [[We zoom back out.]] Hat guy: Well, they... Because I just, uh... ... [[The figure takes out a camera.]] Figure's camera: <<Click>> {{Title text: I hate when people take photos of their meal instead of eating it, because there's nothing I love more than the sound of other people chewing.}}

[[A woman sits at a laptop, leaning back over her chair to address a figure.]] Regex golf: Woman: You try to matchone one group but not the other. M | [TN]|B matches Star Wars subtitles but not Star Trek. Figure: Cool. [[We zoom to just show the woman, looking at her screen.]] Meta-regex golf: Woman: So I wrote a program that plays regex golf with arbitrary lists... Figure: Uh oh... [[We zoom back out. The figure is facepalming. The woman is typing.]] Meta-meta-regex golf: Woman: ...but I lost my code, so I'm grepping for files that look like regex golf solvers. [[We zoom back in.]] ... And beyond: Woman: Really, this is all (meta-)*regex golf . Figure: Now you have infinite problems. Woman: No, I had those already. {{Title text: bu|[rn]t|[coy]e|[mtg]a|j|iso|n[hl]|[ae]d|lev|sh|[lnd]i|[po]o|ls matches the last names of elected US presidents but not their opponents.}}

[[Two people are conversing.]] Person #1: Code written in Haskell is guaranteed to have no side effects. Person #2: ...because no one will ever run it? {{Title text: The problem with Haskell is that it's a language built on lazy evaluation and nobody's actually called for it.}}

((This is a series of quotes from various people of various timeframes. The sections surrounded by two dashes (--) are bolded. Each quote is followed by the author, the document of publication if applicable, and the year)) It is desirable -every thing printed should be preserved,- for we -cannot now tell how useful it may become- two centuries hence. Christopher Baldwin 1834 I predict that a century hence the -Canadian People- will be -the noblest specimens of humanity on the face of the Earth- Rev. John Bredin 1863 In the twenty-first century -mankind will subsist entirely upon jellies.- The Book Lover 1903 The twenty-first century baby is destined to be rocked and cradled by electricity, warmed and coddled by electricity, perhaps fathered and mothered by electricity. -Probably the only thing he will be left to do unaided will be to make love- Mrs. John Lane, The Fortnightly 1905 To-day, in the city of New York, sixty-six different tongues are spoken. -A century hence, there will probably only be one- The American Historical Magazine 1907 I often think -what interesting history we are making for the student of the twenty-first century- William Carey Jones 1908 China may be a -great shoe market- a decade or a century from now Boot and Shoe Recorder 1914 By the twenty-first century I believe -we shall all be telepaths.- Gumbriel, Character in Antic Hay 1923 The physician of the twenty-first century... May even criticize the language of the times, and may find that -some of our words have become as offensive to him as the term "lunatic" has become offensive to us.- Dr. C. Macfie Cambpbell 1924 Historians of the twenty-first century will look back with well-placed scorn on the -shallow-minded days- of the early twentieth century -when football games and petting parties were considered the most important elements of a college education.- Mary Eileen Ahern, Library Bureau 1926 -In the year A.D. 2014- journalists will be writing on the centenary of the Great War-- -That is, if there has not been a Greater War- F.J.M, The Journalist 1934 {{Title text: Some future reader, who may see the term, without knowing the history of it, may imagine that it had reference to some antiquated bridge of the immortal Poet, thrown across the silver Avon, to facilitate his escape after some marauding excursion in a neighbouring park; and in some Gentleman's Magazine of the next century, it is not impossible, but that future antiquaries may occupy page after page in discussing so interesting a matter. We think it right, therefore, to put it on record in the Oriental Herald that the 'Shakesperian Rope Bridges' are of much less classic origin; that Mr Colin Shakespear, who, besides his dignity as Postmaster, now signs himself 'Superintendent General of Shakesperian Rope Bridges', is a person of much less genius than the Bard of Avon. --The Oriental Herald, 1825}}

[[In the center of the panel are the large words 'GOLDBACH CONJECTURES'. Around it are six boxes: two above it, and two on each side, one below the other. They read: Weak: Every odd number greather than 5 is the sum of three primes. Strong: Every even number greater than 2 is the sum of two primes. Very weak: Every number greater than 7 is the sum of two other numbers. Very strong: Every odd number is prime. Extremely weak: Numbers just keep going . Extremely strong: There are no numbers above 7. {{Title text: The weak twin primes conjecture states that there are infinitely many pairs of primes. The strong twin primes conjecture states that every prime p has a twin prime (p+2), although (p+2) may not look prime at first. The tautological prime conjecture states that the tautological prime conjecture is true.}}

[[A woman stands at a desk, reading a book, touching it very gingerly. Another figure is standing behind her.]] Figure: Why are you turning the pages like that? Woman: If I touch the wrong thing, I'll lose my place and have to start over. If books worked like infinite-scrolling webpages {{Title text: Maybe we should give up on the whole idea of a 'back' button. 'Show me that thing I was looking at a moment ago' might just be too complicated an idea for the modern web.}}

[[Three figures sit around a large spectrum histogram, which has a general upward trend towards the infrared portion of the spectrum as well as a spike in that portion. To the right of the figures is a triangular shape approximating that of a Christmas tree made out of smaller spectrum histograms, each with spikes in places corresponding to the red or green sections of the visible spectrum. At the top is a final spectrum of whiter light.]] {{Title text: Merry Christmas from xkcd!}}

[[4 carollers stand in a line, singing songs.]] Carollers: 12 best drummers of all time Carollers: 11 pipers whose jaw-droppingly good piping will make you cry Carollers: You won't believe what these 10 lords leap over Carolers outside the Buzzfeed offices perform "12 weird things I actually got for Christmas" {{Title text: The 6 Weirdest Objects The Buzzfeed Writers Are Throwing Out Their Windows At Us}}

[[A graph with a sine wave plotted on it. The y-axis is marked 'Odds that a word I type will start with some weird symbol' and the x-axis is marked 'Time ---->'. The first peak is labeled '$QBasic, the first trough is labeled 'C++'. The next peak is marked '$Bash, @$Perl, the next trough is marked 'Python'. The final peak says '+Google, @Twitter, #Hashtags'.]] {{Title text: The cycle seems to be 'we need these symbols to clarify what types of things we're referring to!' followed by 'wait, it turns out words already do that.'}}

An old Windows utility has an undocumented feature. [[Windows popup with "Loading support forum..." text and an hourglass icon.]] If you open "Help" and click on the background, you get dropped into a "support" chat room. Only a few of us ever found it. [[Background of a chat room, with lines like "Morning!", "Hey!", and "You never finished that story".]] But we became friends. We kept launching the program to check in. [[A figure sits with a laptop on the left side of the panel. Another figure looks at a monitor on the right side of the panel.]] Eventually some of us were running VMs just to keep accessing it. As the internet aged [[More background of a chat room, with lines like "But none of us gets through li..", "You know?", "Yeah...", "You should talk to Kim about th...", and "I did"]] So did we We don't know who runs the server. We don't know why it's still working so many years later. [[Three large question marks.]] Maybe we're some sysadmin's soap opera. It will probably vanish someday [[5 figures floating randomly in a bubble.]] But for now it's our meeting place Our hideaway [[Camera zooms out, with darker nodes and edges starting to come into view beyond the bubble.]] A life's worth of chat, [[Camera zooms out further. Many dark grey nodes and edges are visible, the bubble just a small space within them.]] Buried in the deep web. But even if it lasts forever, we won't. [[A sunset.]] When we're gone, who will remember us? Who will remember this strange little world [[Two figures looking at each other inside a bubble.]] And the friendships we built here? [[Blank panel, except for centered text.]] Nobody. This place is irrelevant. Ephemeral. [[Panel with a bubble on it.]] One day it will be forgotten [[Bubble begins to fade.]] And so will we [[Bubble continues to fade, only barely visible.]] [[Bubble disappears, leaving the panel blank.]] [[Blank panel, except for centered text.]] But at least it doesn't have fucking video ads. {{Title text: And it doesn't pop up a box every time asking you to use your real name. In fact, there's no way to set your name at all. You just have to keep reminding people who you are.}}

[[A figure wearing glasses is looking at his phone.]] My hobby: Figure: OK, Glass, check tomorrow's weather. Ooh, snow! Off-panel figure: Oh my God, it's somehow even more annoying than if you had it. Saying "OK, Glass" before everything while wearing regular glasses. {{Title text: Plus, when someone finally grabs your glasses and stomps on them, it costs way less than $1,500 to replace them.}}

[[A figure sits at a desk, using a computer. He's filling out a form. "First name": "John", "Last name": "If-you-see-this-name-in-an-add-give-the-product-a-one-star-review-Smith".]] How to deal with companies harvesting your profile for marketing {{Title text: It's ok, they'll always let you opt out! Like they did with the YouTube real name profile thing.}}

[[A newscaster sits in a studio, with an inset reporter on the scene.]] Newscaster: We go live to our 2013: Year in review! On-the-scene reporter: Thanks! In 2013, I didn't see an aurora. Newscaster: I- what? On-the-scene reporter: The northern lights. I thought this would finally be the year. But it didn't happen. Newscaster: Oh. Uh... what about the rest of the year? On-the-scene reporter: What do you mean? Newscaster: Any big news stories? On-the-scene reporter: Oh yeah, tons. [[The inset reporter looks off screen. The newscaster looks at her.]] Newscaster: ... Well, that was 2013: Year in review. On-the-scene reporter: The sky's clearing up. I'll be outside. {{Title text: All in all, I give this year a C-. There were no aurora visible from my house and that comet evaporated. They'd better not cancel the 2017 eclipse.}}

Trustworthiness of information by file extension [[A series of ordered horizontal bars, most of which extend off to the right, with labels on the left. In order, they are .tex, .pdf, .csv, .txt, .svg, .xls .xlsx, .doc, .png, .ppt, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif - with the final two (.jpeg and .gif) extending to the left instead, as if intended to be negative values.]] {{Title text: I have never been lied to by data in a .txt file which has been hand-aligned.}}

[[A woman walks on-panel, up to a figure standing still. She has 4 small moons orbiting her.]] Woman: Check it out! Figure: What? Woman: I've got Galilean moons! [[Both figures stand still.]] Moon 1: Hi! Moon 2: Hi! Moon 1: What's your name? Moon 1: Hi! Moon 2: What's your- Moon 3: MOOOOOON! Moon 1: Hi! Moon 2: What's your name? Moon 4: Ugh Moon 1: Hi! Moon 4: So annoying Moon 1: Hi! Moon 2: What's y- Moon 3: MOOOOOON. [[Moon 4 is now halfway between the two figures.]] Moon 1: Hi! Moon 4: ...Almost... ...Almoooost... [[Moon 4 is now orbiting the figure.]] Moon 1: Hi! Moon 2: What's your name? Moon 4: Yessss! {{Title text: I'm SO glad I escaped. They almost had me caught in their weird ... thing.}}

How people feel when they say "I don't own a TV" by year. ((Graph charting embarrassed-smug over years) ((line stays on 'Neutral' until 1950, dips down to lowest around 1965, peaks around 2000, and is at a downward trend as of 'today')) {{Title text: Theory: Smugness is proportional to the negative second derivative of TV ownership rate with respect to time.}}

[[A multitude of circles in various colors and sizes. The following label is centered horizontally, a quarter of the way down the image.]] Our Neighborhood A portrait of all habitable-zone planets within 60 light-years of Earth (constructed from statistical data on typical planet sizes and orbits). [[A key shows that reddish circles indicate planets which are orbiting sun-like stars, while greyish circles indicate planets around other stars. The darkest reds and greys indicate Earth-sized planets, while other more faded versions indicate sizes farther away from Earth's.]] {{Title text: It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!}}

[[3 asteroids are talking.]] Asteroid 1: Have you noticed that bright dot in the distance? Asteroid 2: Yeah. What's the deal with it? [[Asteroid 1 scoots off-panel.]] Asteroid 1: Dunno. I'm gonna go check it out. [[Asteroids 2 and 3 sit and wait.]] [[Asteroid 1 has returned, as pieces of rubble and dust.]] Asteroid 1: Wow. Do not go over there. {{Title text: ... I wanna try. Hang on, be right back.}}

[[A commit log is shown, each commit having a comment and a relative date.]] Created main loop & timing control - 14 hours ago Enabled config file parsing - 9 hours ago Misc bugfixes - 5 hours ago Code additions edits - 4 hours ago More code - 4 hours ago ((in a branch)) Here have code - 4 hours ago Aaaaaaaa - 3 hours ago ((branch merged)) Adkfjslkdfjsdklfj - 3 hours ago My hands are typing words - 2 hours ago Haaaaaaaaands - 2 hours ago {{Title text: Merge branch 'asdfasjkfdlas alkdjf' into sdkjfls-final}}

[[A news anchor with a perfect news-anchor-hair-helmet]] Anchor:..and in science news, according to a new study, 85% of news organizations repeat "new study" press releases without checking whether they're real. {{Title text: When the results are published, no one will be sure whether to report on them again.}}

[[A checklist, with the boxes lined up on the right-hand side and the names going down to their left.]] The Very Large Telescope [ ] The Extremely Large Telescope [ ] The Overwhelmingly Lare Telescome [ ] (canceled) The Oppressively Colossal Telescope [ ] The Mind-numbingly Vast Telescope [ ] The Despair Telescope [ ] The Cataclysmic Telescope [ ] The Telescope of Devastation [ ] The Nightmare Scope [ ] The Infinite Telescope [ ] The Final Telescope [ ] {{Title text: The Thirty Meter Telescope will be renamed The Flesh-Searing Eye on the Volcano.}}

[[Beret Guy walks in, followed by a.. "prospective hire"]] Beret Guy; Welcome to our company! We're headquartered here, in this real building I found! [[Both people sit down at a table. "Hire" has a tray with food and a beverage. Beret Guy has a bowl. There is a power outlet labeled "Soup" in the adjacent wall. A small roll of wire sits next to Beret Guy's chair]] "Hire": What do you.. *do*? Beret Guy: We make stuff for phones! Like apps and stickers! [[Beret Guy grabs the roll of wire]] Beret Guy: We want to hire you to write on our computers. we can offer you a bunch of paychecks! There are ghosts here. [[Beret Guy unrolls the wire and plugs it into the wall]] "Hire": ..are you sure this is a company? Beret Guy: I hope so! [[Something one can only hope is soup streams out of the wire into Beret Guy's bowl]] {{Title text: When you talk about the job experience you'll give me, why do you pronounce 'job' with a long 'o'?}}

[[On the left is a "forbidden"-style slashed circle with the Pi symbol, captioned "Pi". On the right is a "forbidden-style slashed circle with "2π", captioned "Tau". In the middle it reads "1.5π", captioned "Pau".]] A compromise solution to the Pi Tau dispute {{Title text: Conveniently approximated as e+2, Pau is commonly known as the Devil's Ratio (because in the octal expansion, '666' appears four times in the first 200 digits while no other run of 3+ digits appears more than once.)}}

[[A woman stands at a podium.]] Woman: Students, shoot for the moon. If you miss, [[A surprisingly lunar-like object is starting to edge into the frame.]] Woman: SHOOT AGAIN. Keep shooting and never stop. [[The moon is now almost entirely in-frame now.]] Woman: Someday, one of us will destroy that stupid skycircle. And- ... What? What are you all- [[The moon is now in frame, lurking ominously in the background.]] Woman: ... It's right behind me, isn't it? Shit. Everyone act casual. {{Title text: Shoot for the Moon. If you miss, you'll end up co-orbiting the Sun alongside Earth, living out your days alone in the void within sight of the lush, welcoming home you left behind.}}

[[Two figures stand talking.]] Figure 1: Man, that is ridicu-fucking-... Figure 1: ... hang on, I inserted "Fucking" too late and now there's just one awkward syllable left. Can I back up? {{Title text: You absolute-fucking-... shit.}}

The Simple Answers to the Questions that get asked about every new technology: Will [ ] make us all geniuses? NO Will [ ] make us all morons? NO Will [ ] destroy whole industries? YES Will [ ] make us more empathetic? NO Will [ ] make us less caring? NO Will teens use [ ] for sex? YES Were they going to have sex anyway? YES Will [ ] destroy music? NO Will [ ] destroy art? NO But can't we go back to a time when- NO Will [ ] bring about world peace? NO Will [ ] cause widespread alienation by creating a world of empty experiences? WE WERE ALREADY ALIENATED {{Title text: 'Will [ ] allow us to better understand each other and thus make war undesirable?' is one that pops up whenever we invent a new communication medium.}}

Substitutions that make reading the news more fun: Witnesses → these dudes I know Allegedly → kinda probably New study → Tumblr post Rebuild → avenge Space → Spaaace Google Glass → Virtual Boy Smartphone → Pokédex Electric → atomic Senator → elf-lord Car → cat Election → eating contest Congressional leaders → river spirits Homeland Security → Homestar Runner Could not be reached for comment → is guilty and everyone knows it {{Title text: INSIDE ELON MUSK'S NEW ATOMIC CAT}}

[[A grid of 8x8 squares is shown. At the bottom is a set of white chessmen, having made the following moves: e3, d4, Nc3, Bd2, Nf3. Also on the grid are black circular counters, at the grid intersections to the bottom right of b4, c5, c6, f4, and f6.]] White to continue insisting this is a chessboard {{Title text: Prediction for Carlsen v. Anand: ... 25. Qb8+ Nxb8 26. Rd8# f6 27. "... dude." Qf5 28. "The game is over, dude." Qxg5 29. Rxe8 0-1 30. "Dude, your move can't be '0-1'. Don't write that down." [Black flips board]}}

Hackers recently leaked 153 million Adobe user emails, encrypted passwords, and password hints. Adobe encrypted these passwords improperly, misusing block-mode 3DES. The result is something wonderful: [[A column titled "user password" with colored hashes in it, identical hashes colored identically. A column titled "hint" with various phrases one might enter as a password hint in it, e.g. "favorite of 12 apostles", "name + jersey #", "he did the mash, he did the" and so on. In a third, titleless column, a set of empty boxes that one might use to fill in a sequence of letters.]] The greatest crossword puzzle in the history of the world {{Title text: It was bound to happen eventually. This data theft will enable almost limitless [xkcd.com 792]-style password reuse attacks in the coming weeks. There's only one group that comes out of this looking smart: Everyone who pirated Photoshop.}}

[[Two groups stand, with placards and weapons, angrily facing off against each other. The first group, with a cutlass, has a sign reading "TWO spaces after a period". The second group, with a spear, has a sign reading "ONE space after a period." Off to one side stands a figure, alone, with a placard reading "Line break after every sentence."]] {{Title text: 'The monospaced-typewriter-font story is a COMPLETE FABRICATION! WAKE UP, SHEEPLE' 'It doesn't matter! Studies support single spaces!' 'Those results weren't statistically significant!' 'Fine, you win. I'm using double spaces right now!' 'Are not! We can all hear your stupid whitespace.'}}

[[A figure walks on screen, holding a phone, and starts talking to black hat guy.]] Figure: Did you get my texts? Black hat guy: You should install this keyboard I found. Figure: What? Why? Is it better than SwiftKey? Black hat guy: In some ways. [[Black hat guy begins to walk off-panel.]] Figure: Ok, installing... It's not working. The key area is blank-I can't type anything. [[Black hat guy has left. The figure stares at their phone.]] [[The figure lets their hand fall to their side.]] Figure: ... Hey. {{Title text: I'm always installing tons of weird experimental keyboards because it serves as a good reminder that nothing I was going to type was really worth the trouble.}}

20th Century headlines rewritten to get more clicks 1905 - How A Shocking New Theory, Discovered By A Dad, Proves Scientists Are Wrong About *Everything! 1912 - 6 Titanic Survivors Who Should've Died 1920 - 17 Things That Will Be Outlawed Now That Women Can Vote 1928 - This One Weird Mold Kills All Germs 1929 - Most Embarrassing Reactions to the Stock Market Crash [GIFs] 1945 - Thes 9 Nazi Atrocities Will Make You Lose Faith In Humanity 1948 - 5 Insane Plans For Feeding West Berlin You Wan't Believe Are Real 1955 - Avoid Polio With This One Weird Trick 1957 - 12 Nip Slips Potentially Visible To Sputnik 1968 - This Year's Assasinations Ranked From Most To Least Tragic 1969 - This is The Most Important Photo Of An Astronaut You'll See All Day 1986 - This Video of a Terminally Ill Child Watching The Challenger Launch Will Break Your Heart 1989 - You Won't Believe What These People Did to the Berlin Wall [Video] Jan 1, 1990 - 500 Signs You're a 90s Kid {{Title text: 1916: 'PHYSICIST DAD' TURNS HIS ATTENTION TO GRAVITY, AND YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HE FINDS. [PICS] [NSFW]}}

[[A figure - Monty Hall - stands on stage, holding a microphone. There are three doors; two labelled "A" and "C", which are closed, and one that is being held open by Monty. There's a ramp to the right, down which a goat is being led by beret guy.]] Beret guy: ... and my yard has so much grass, and I'll teach you tricks, and... Goat: ♥ {{Title text: A few minutes later, the goat from behind door C drives away in the car.}}

[A graph. The vertical axis is labeled 'billions' and goes from 0 to 8 in increments of one. The horizontal axis has years from 1970 to 2020 in increments of 10. A vertical line at 2013 is marked 'today'. The first measurement, 'number of people in the world' begins at 1980 at just under 4 billion and steadily increases to today's 7 billion. The second measurement is a gradual incline marked 'number of LEGO people in the world', which begins just before 1980 at 0, gets to around 2 billion by the mid-90s, and increases to around 5.5 billion today. Both figures are projected past today's measurements as dashed lines and meet at a point in 2019.]] By 2019, humans will be outnumbered. {{Title text: The LEGO Group is already the world's largest tire manufacturer.}}

[[A figure sits at a laptop.]] Laptop: It's day five of the trade summit, and still no... <<Click>> <<Click>> <<Click>> Figure: Dammit I get most of my news from autoplaying videos in browser tabs I can't find. {{Title text: If you find and stop the video, but you've--against all odds--gotten curious about the trade summit, just leave the tab opened. It will mysteriously start playing again 30 minutes later!}}

If your email address is [first initial]+[last name]@gmail.com you gradually get to know lots of older people who have the same name pattern [[A figure stands talking on the phone.]] Figure: Yes, I know it would make sense if that were your email address, but it's not. Phone: But how did you get my number? Figure: Your phone bill. {{Title text: I asked a few friends whether they'd had this happen, then looked up the popularity of their initials names over time. Based on those numbers, it looks like there must be at least 750,000 people in the US alone who think 'Sure, that's probably my email address' on a regular basis.}}

My hobby: [[A silhouette of a giraffe with a dinosaur-like tail is seen, standing facing left.]] Convincing genetic engineers that giraffes would look better if they had sauropod tails {{Title text: If you fund my Kickstarter ...}}

[[A figure in a hat stands behind another figure, who is seated at a desk using a laptop.]] Seated figure: This Ayn Random number generator you wrote *claims* to be fair, but the output is biased towards certain numbers. Hatted figure: Well, maybe those numbers are just intrinsically better! {{Title text: In a cavern deep below the Earth, Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Ann Druyan, Paul Rudd, Alan Alda, and Duran Duran meet togther in the Secret Council of (b[plurandy]+b ?){2} i.}}

The size of the part of Earth's surface directly under various space objects [[A diagram showing the 2D projection of objects from space onto the Earth's surface, by drawing lines from the center of the Earth to the edges of those objects as seen from Earth, and looking at where that intersects with the Earth's surface.]] [[An overlay of a darkened circle on a map, with the circle approximately overlapping the M25 freeway around London, labeled "The sun and the moon, (about the same size)"]] [[A series of circles of increasing size, with the smallest approximately the same size as the size of a soccer field drawn for comparison. In increasing order, they are Neptune, Uranus, Mercury, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter.]] [[The same soccer field is now much larger, filling the next frame, with other circles overlaid on top of it. The one labeled Ganymede is approximately 90% of the soccer field's shorter axis, and then in decreasing order from there are Callisto, Io, Europa, Titan, Ceres, Triton, and then Pluto.]] [[The next frame shows a ping pong table. Slightly larger than the ping pong table are the circles for Phobos and R. Doradus. Deimos has almost exactly the same size as the shorter axis of the table, followed by Betelgeuse and Eris.]] [[A laptop computer is shown. Approximately the same size as the laptop is the circle for 4942 Munroe. Smaller than that are Alpha Centauri A, Sirius, Alpha Centauri B, Proxima Centauri, and Barnard's Star.]] [[The background of this frame is a tilde character, labeled "Tilde on a laptop keyboard. Approximately the same width of the tilde is the circle for HD 189773 b (permadeath), followed by Tau Ceti C (giant dog planet), Gliese 667Cc (pilf), Gliese 581 g (jelly-filled planet), HD 20794 c (moonchild), a circle approximately the same width as the tilde's stroke labeled "event horizon of the black hole at the center of our galaxy", and a very small circle labeled KOI-1686.01 (emergency backup earth).]] [[An E.coli bacterium is in the background of this frame. Silhouettes of the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 satellites are approximately the same size as the bacterium.]] {{Title text: If the celestial sphere were mapped to the Earth's surface, astronomy would get a LOT easier; you'd just need a magnifying glass.}}

[[We see a line of code.]] volume(r) = (r int(pi))*pi*r^int(pi) Programming tip: the number "3" is cursed. Avoid it. {{Title text: If replacing all the '3's doesn't fix your code, remove the 4s, too, with 'ceiling(pi) floor(pi) * pi * r^floor(pi)'. Mmm, floor pie.}}

((Today's strip is in the form of a letter.)) October 7th 2013 To: The Freemasons, The Illuminati, Scientology, FEMA, The New World Order, The Federal Reserve, Citigroup, Halliburton, Google, The Vatican, Bilderburg, Walmart, The Rothschilds, The Knights Templar, HAARP, The UN, Skull & Bones, Bohemian Grove, The Koch Brothers, George Soros, The Trilateral Commission, The Knights of Malta, The CFR, Exxon Mobil, The Zionists, The Vril Society, The Lizard People, and everyone else who secretly controls the US Government Can you please get your shit together? This is embarrassing. Sincerely, A Concerned Citizen {{Title text: Are you ok? Do you need help?}}

By the year ((First two words are blue, "year" is white)) 2018 2019 2020 ((2019 is three times as large as its neighbors)) all information [[graph to the right, with a line that trends upwards towards "all" at a point marked 2019]] will be (("will" and "be" are labels for segments of a pie chart)) [[a large 6 with "years from now" next to it, and below that, a large 72 with "months" broken over two lienes next to it]] communicated [[Two figures face each other, with the "communicated" in a speech bubble rising up from one of them, the other saying "yes!"]] in this ((the "in" is the label for a dimensional indication, which spans the much larger "this")) clear and concise ((each of the above words is in a segment of a venn diagram)) f o r m a t ((each letter is the label of a bar on a bar chart, with the heights equal to the letter's position in the alphabet)) {{Title text: 'Big Data' doesn't just mean increasing the font size.}}

[[Gandalf sits on a horse, addressing three hobbits.]] Gandalf: This is Shadowfacts, lord of all horses, and he- Shadowfacts: The outer part of a shadow is called the penumbra! Gandalf: Shut up. {{Title text: 'Look to my coming on the fifth day. At dawn, look to the east.' 'And look to the west to see our shadows!'}}

((Today's strip is a single panel with several paragraphs of text, each highlighted in a different way. Whether these are pleasing or not is illustrated with a red cross or green tick.)) [[A paragraph of text is shown. The highlight starts away from the leftmost edge of the highlight, and is a different distance to that between the rightmost edge of the highlight & the highlight end. Red X.]] [[A paragraph is shown. The highlight's starting point, end point, and number of lines included is such that there is an internal square in the middle, illustrated in green. Green tick.]] [[A paragraph is shown. Not only does it have an internal square, but the distance between the leftmost edge and the highlight start point is the same as the distance between the rightmost edge and the highlight end point. Green tick.]] [[A paragraph is shown. The entire paragraph is highlighted, making one big rectangle. Green tick.]] [[A paragraph is shown. The whole paragraph is selected, but the highlight starts away from the leftmost margin. This is shown with a red box, an arrow, and "?!?!". Red X.]] [[A paragraph is shown. Over the top is overlaid "[Clicking to highlight textis disabled]". Many, many red Xes.]] I absentmindedly select random blocks of text as I read, and feel subconsciously satisfied when the highlighted area makes a symmetrical shape. {{Title text: And if clicking on any word pops up a site-search for articles about that word, I will close all windows in a panic and never come back.}}

[[A figure in a hat stands behind someone sitting at a desk, who is working on his laptop.]] Hat figure: Why do you like functional programming so much? What does it actually *get* you? Sitting figure: Tail recursion is its own reward. {{Title text: Functional programming combines the flexibility and power of abstract mathematics with the intuitive clarity of abstract mathematics.}}

Opinions on internet privacy The philosopher: [[Two women stand talking to each other.]] Woman 1: "Privacy" is an impractical way to think about data in a digital world so unlike the one in which our soci- Woman 2: SO BORED. The crypto nut: [[A figure stands behind another sitting at a desk, who is working a computer.]] Sitting figure: My data is safe behind six layers of symmetric and public-key algorithms. Standing figure: What data is it? Sitting figure: Mostly me emailing with people about cryptography. The conspiricist: [[A figure stands talking to a woman.]] Figure: These leaks are just the tip of the iceberg. There's a warehouse in Utah where the NSA has the *entire* iceberg. I don't know how they got it there. The nihilist: [[A woman stands, addressing the 'camera'.]] Woman: Joke's on them. Gathering all this data on me as if anything I do means anything. The exhibitionist: [[Two official-looking figures are looking at a console. One is sitting; another is standing behind the chair.]] Console screen: Mmmm, I sure hope the NSA isn't watching me bite into these juicy strawberries!! Oops, I dropped some on my shirt! Better take it off. Google, are you there? Google, this lotion feels soooo good. Operator: Um. The sage: [[Beret guy is sitting with a friend at a restaurant table.]] Beret guy: I don't know or care what data *anyone* has about me. Data is imaginary. This burrito is real. {{Title text: I'm the Philosopher until someone hands me a burrito.}}

Imagine you were transported to an alternate universe just like your own, except people occasionally ate spiders. You can't convince anyone this is weird. [[Two figures stand. A woman is holding a big spider. The other figure looks shocked. There is another spider on the floor.]] Woman: Mmm... Figure: No! What are you *doing*!? This is how I feel about lobster. {{Title text: As best as I can tell, I was transported here from Earth Prime sometime in the late 1990s. Your universe is identical in every way, except for the lobster thing and the thing where some of you occasionally change your clocks for some reason.}}

[[Two figures walk into a bedroom. There's a bed, a picture on the wall, some curtains, a rug, and one item on the floor. On the whole, the room is immaculate.]] Figure 1: Sorry it's such a disaster in here. Figure 2: {{inside a thought bubble}} whoa- what's wrong with me? My room never looks as nice as the rooms other people apologize for. {{Title text: 'Sorry, I left out my glass of water from last night.' OH GOD I APPARENTLY LIVE IN A GARBAGE PIT.}}

((Today's strip is in the form of a short computer program.)) Define doesithalt(program): { return true; } The big picture solution to the halting problem {{Title text: I found a counterexample to the claim that all things must someday die, but I don't know how to show it to anyone.}}

[[We see a shelf. On it, from left to right, are: a bag of fruit gushers; a juicer; a bottle of bright red liquid; a bottle of bright blue liquid; and another bottle of bright red liquid.]] "Oh yeah, juicers are great! I use mine all the time." {{Title text: But the rind is where all the vitamins are!}}

((This strip is in the form of an animated gif. The panels transition with a Ken Burns-like fade-and-pan.)) [[A figure stands.]] Figure: I will *never*... Figure: ... want to browse a series of images... Figure: ... like this. {{Title text: Points to anyone who hacks the Flickr devs' computers to make their text editors do this when you click on anything.}}

[[A woman sits at her computer. A man stands behind her.]] Woman: Looks like computers will beat humans at Go pretty soon. Man: Wow. That's the last of the big ones. Woman: Yeah. [[She looks back over her shoulder at him.]] Man: Well, at least humans are still better at, uh, coming up with reassuring parables about things humans are better at? Woman: Hmm. [[The woman types on her computer.]] <<Type type>> [[She leans back over her chair again and addresses the man.]] Woman: I made a Python script that generates thousands of reassuring parables per second. Man: Dammit. Computer: Computers will never understand a sonnet computers will never enjoy a salad comp- {{Title text: 'At least humans are better at quietly amusing ourselves, oblivious to our pending obsolescence' thought the human, as a nearby Dell Inspiron contentedly displayed the same bouncing geometric shape screensaver it had been running for years.}}

[[Two figures with spiky hair and backpacks are conversing. One is riding in a hover-car, or similar.]] Standing figure: Bye! Riding figure: May the Force be with you! Standing figure: Huh? Riding figure: It's just something my grandma used to say. No idea what it means. I wonder on what date Star Wars will be quoted for the last time. {{Title text: I guess it's a saying from the Old Country.}}

[[A woman stands in a disco, surrounded by dancing figures. She looks confused.]] PA system: Shake what your mama gave you Woman: ??? [[The woman walks out of the club door.]] [[We see a mug on a table, labelled "World's Greatest Daughter".]] [[The woman shakes the mug.]] {{Title text: How do I work it? IT'S ALREADY WORKING!}}

[[A figure in a white coat lies on the floor, crushed beneath a giant pile of binders & paper. Two other figures in white coats stand next to him, looking on. One is holding a clipboard.]] The LD50 of toxicity data is 2 kilograms per kilogram. {{Title text: The dose is much lower when administered orally. We're still trying to get the paper into the needles for subcutaneous injection.}}

[[Beret guy and a woman are walking through a wood.]] Woman: There are these orchids whose flowers look like female bees. When males try to mate with them, they transfer pollen. [[The woman kneels next to a flower.]] Woman: This orchid - Ophrys Apifera - makes flowers, but no bees land on them because the bee it mimics went extinct long ago. [[The woman stands.]] Woman: Without its partner, the orchid has resorted to self-pollinating, a last-ditch genetic strategy that only delays the inevitable. Nothing of the bee remains, but we know it existed from the shape of this flower. [[They walk on past the flower.]] Woman: It's an idea of what the female bee looked like to the male bee... ... as interpreted by a plant. Beret guy: Wow, so... [[We see a full-colour painting of an orchid flower. It has purple-pink petals on a mottled grey background, along with the bee-like parts. It's quite a realistic painting.]] ... the only memory of the bee is a painting by a dying flower. [[The flower is alone in a panel.]] [[Beret guy walks back on screen.]] [[Beret guy kneels down next to it.]] Beret guy: I'll remember your bee, orchid. I'll remember you. [[Beret guy walks off-panel again.]] {{Title text: In sixty million years aliens will know humans only by a fuzzy clip of a woman in an Axe commercial.}}

[[A figure sits at his desk, using a computer.]] [[The figure is still sitting at the desk, but with hands off the keyboard in his lap.]] [[The figure is in the same position as before, talking with off-panel.]] Figure: After a couple of unbearable decades, the "first post" thing seems to be dying a quiet death. Off-screen: *Shh*. You'll jinx it. {{Title text: Fortunately, exactly zero other annoying internet behaviors have developed during this time.}}

[[4 figures are standing around a table-top crisis planning model. Two are wearing police-style hats; one holds a clipboard.]] Figure 1: It's as long as a football field. Runs as fast as a cheetah. Figure 2: Weighs as much as a blue whale. Figure 3: Can we negotiate with it? Figure 4: No. It has the intelligence of a two-year-old child. By the time the Frequently-Made Comparisons Monster was finally defeated, it had eaten enough people to fill a stadium and devastated an area the size of Rhode Island. {{Title text: It was finally destroyed with a nuclear weapon carrying the destructive energy of the Hiroshima bomb.}}

((This strip is a rectangular word cloud, titled 'Questions found in Google autocomplete'. Embedded in the cloud are 5 single panels, with illustrated questions. These are described at the end. Questions are given in roughly columnar order. None of the questions have question marks.)) Questions found in Google Autocomplete Why do whales jump Why are witches green Why are there mirrors above beds Why do I say uh Why is sea salt better Why are there trees in the middle of fields Why is there not a Pokemon MMO Why is there laughing in TV shows Why are there doors on the freeway Why are there so many svchost.exe running Why aren't there any countries in antarctica Why are there scary sounds in Minecraft Why is there kicking in my stomach Why are there two slashes after HTTP Why are there celebrities Why do snakes exist Why do oysters have pearls Why are ducks called ducks Why do they call it the clap Why are Kyle and Cartman friends Why is there an arraow on Aang's head Why are text messages blue Why are there mustaches on clothes Why are there mustaches on cars Why are there mustaches everywhere Why are there so many birds in Ohio Why is there so much rain in Ohio Why is Ohio weather so weird Why are there male and female bikes Why are there bridesmaids Why do dying people reach up Why aren't there varicose arteries Why are old Klingons different Why is programming so hard Why is there a 0 ohm resistor Why do Americans hate soccer Why do rhymes sound good Why do trees die Why is there no sound on CNN Why aren't Pokemon real Why aren't bullets sharp Why do dreams seem so real Why aren't there dinosaur ghosts Why do iguanas die Why do testicles move Why are there psychics Why are hats so expensive Why is there caffeine in my shampoo Why do your boobs hurt Why aren't economists rich Why do Americans call it soccer Why are my ears ringing Why are there so many Avengers Why are the Avengers fighting the X men Why is Wolverine not in the Avengers Why are there ants in my laptop Why is Earth tilted Why is space black Why is outer space so cold Why are there pyramids on the moon Why is NASA shutting down Why is there Hell if God forgives Why are there tiny spiders in my house Why do spiders come inside Why are there huge spiders in my house Why are there lots of spiders in my house Why are there spiders in my room Why are there so many spiders in my room Why do spider bites itch Why is dying so scary Why is there no GPS in laptops Why do knees click Why aren't there E grades Why is isolation bad Why do boys like me Why don't boys like me Why is there always a Java update Why are there red dots on my thighs Why is lying good Why is GPS free Why are trees tall Why are there slaves in the Bible Why do twins have different fingerprints Why are Americans afraid of dragons Why is there lava Why are there swarms of gnats Why is there phlegm Why are there so many crows in Rochester, MN Why is psychic weak to bug Why do children get cancer Why is Poseidon angry with Odysseus Why is there ice in space Why are there female Mr Mimes Why is there an owl in my backyard Why is there an owl outside my window Why is there an owl on the dollar bill Why do owls attack people Why are AK47s so expensive Why are there helicopters circling my house Why are there gods Why are there two Spocks Why is Mt Vesuvius there Why do they say T minus Why are there obelisks Why are wrestlers always wet Why are oceans becoming more acidic Why is Arwen dying Why aren't my quail laying eggs Why aren't my quail eggs hatching Why aren't there any foreign military bases in America Why is life so boring Why are my boobs itchy Why are cigarettes legal Why are there ducks in my pool Why is Jesus white Why is there liquid in my ear Why do Q tips feel good Why do good people die Why are ultrasounds important Why are ultrasound machines expensive Why is stealing wrong Why is YKK on all zippers Why is HTTPS crossed out in red Why is there a line through HTTPS Why is there a red line through HTTPS on Facebook Why is HTTPS important Why are there weeks Why do I feel dizzy Why are dogs afraid of fireworks Why is there no king in England [[We see a figure from the torso up, with arms outstretched.]] Figure: Why aren't my arms growing [[A woman stands with a grey ghost on either side of her.]] Woman: Why are there ghosts [[Beret guy stands, looking at a squirrel.]] Beret guy: Why are there squirrels [[A figure stands.]] Figure: Why is sex so important.]] [[We see a woman from the torso up.]] Woman: Why aren't there guns in Harry Potter {{Title text: To whoever typed 'why is arwen dying': GOOD. FUCKING. QUESTION.}}

[[A figure in a hat is talking to two small children who are sitting cross-legged on the floor. A woman is off-panel.]] Figure in hat: Everyone said the world was flat, but Columbus knew it was round. Woman: <<Sigh>> No, no, no. [[The woman walks into frame. The children turn to look.]] Woman: So he took his ships and sailed west– –in a line tangent to the surface. The sea fell away, and he landed in *Valinor*. Woman: A Silmaril on his brow, he wanders the heavens as the morning star, still believing he reached India. Figure in hat: Stop making stuff up. Woman: You first. {{Title text: And thus was smallpox introduced into the previously Undying Lands.}}

[[A figure stands, talking on his cell phone.]] Figure: Sorry for the voicemail, but I'm confused about how to reach you. Figure: When I text you, you reply once on GChat, then go quiet, yet answer IRC right away. I emailed you, and you replied on Skype and mentioned that the email "woke you up." Figure: You're very responsive - I just have no sense of how you use technology. [[An owl flies into the panel.]] Figure: ?!? [[The owl perches on the figure's head. It has delivered a note to the figure.]] Note: did you try to call me? use my google voice number next time. {{Title text: If you call my regular number, it just goes to my pager.}}

August 2013: The Internation Astronomical Union decides to start naming exoplanets, and - for the first time ever - asks for suggestions from the general public. They immediately regret this decision. [[Four figures stand around looking at a computer screen. One is facepalming.]] Man: Can't you filter out the worst ones? Woman: This is *after* the filter! ((The list of suggestions is given as a table with three columns: "Star", "Planet", "Suggested Name". Here, the columns are given in a |-delimited form.)) Star | Planet | Suggested Name Gliese 667C | b | Space planet Gliese 667C | c | Pilf Gliese 667C | d | A star Gliese 667C | e | e'); DROP TABLE planets; -- Gliese 667C | f | Blogosphere Gliese 667C | g | Blogodrome Gliese 667C | h | Earth Tau Ceti | b | Sid Meier's Tau Ceti B Tau Ceti | c | Giant dog planet Tau Ceti | d | Tiny dog planet Tau Ceti | e | Phil plainet Tau Ceti | f | Unicode snowman Gliese 832 | b | Asshole Jupiter Gliese 581 | b | Waist-deep cats Gliese 581 | c | Planet #14 Gliese 581 | d | Ballderaan Gliese 581 | e | Eternia prime Gliese 581 | f | Taupe Mars Gliese 581 | g | Jelly-filled planet Epsilon Eridani | b | Skydot Epsilon Eridani | c | Laser noises Gliese 176 | b | Pandora Gliese 176 | c | Pantera Kepler-61 | b | Goldenpalace.com Upsilon Andromidae | c | Stampy Upsilon Andromidae | d | Moonchild Upsilon Andromidae | e | Ham sphere HD 20794 | b | Cosmic sands HD 20794 | c | Legoland HD 20794 | d | Planet with arms HD 85512 | b | Lax morality HD 40307 | b | Good planet HD 40307 | c | Problemland HD 40307 | d | Slickle HD 40307 | e | Spare parts HD 40307 | f | New Jersey VI HD 40307 | g | Hod do I join the IAU Gliese 163 | b | Neil Tyson's mustache Gliese 163 | c | help@gmail.com Gliese 163 | d | Hair-covered planet Pi Mensae | b | Moon holder HD 189733 | b | Permadeath Kepler-22 | b | Blue ivy Kepler-3284 | b | Blainsley Kepler-3255 | b | Unicorn thresher Kepler-2418 | b | Spherical Discworld Kepler-1686 | b | Emergency backup Earth Kepler-3010 | b | Feeeooooooooop Kepler-4742 | b | Liz {{Title text: If you have any ideas, I hear you can send them to iaupublic@iap.fr.}}

[[Three figures are standing around. Two have beach towels. A woman is looking at her cell phone. One of them is beret guy.]] Woman: We should go to the north beach. Someone said the south beach has a 20% higher risk of shark attacks. Man: Yeah, but statistically, taking three beach trips instead of two increases our odds of getting shot by a swimming dog carrying a handgun in its mouth by 50%! Beret guy: Oh no! This is our third trip! Reminder: A 50% increase in a tiny risk is still tiny. {{Title text: You may point out that strictly speaking, you can use that statement to prove that all risks are tiny--to which I reply HOLY SHIT WATCH OUT FOR THAT DOG!}}

[[Two police officers stand at an apartment door. The female officer is holding a pair of glasses with something attached to it. We will see later that Black Hat Guy is in the apartment]] Female officer: Police. Open up. Did you make this glasses attachment? Black hat guy {{through door}}: Oh, yeah. [[Black hat guy is sitting at his laptop.]] Police officer: What's it do? Black hat guy: It detects when someone near you is wearing Google Glass and shines a laser pointer at their eyepiece. Police officer: Why?? Black hat guy: The best defense is an indiscriminate offense. [[Cut back to officers outside the apartment.]] Male officer: It seems you've mailed these devices to people across Silicon Valley, including the children of every Google executive. Black hat guy: Yeah. It's a viral marketing campaign for an upcoming movie. Male officer: What movie? Black hat guy: haven't decided yet. Anything good coming out this fall? Male officer: Sir, open the door. Black hat guy: First stare at the peephole for a sec. {{Title text: 'Why don't you just point it at their eye directly?' 'What is this, 2007?'}}

[[A figure sits at a desk, using a laptop.]] The Internet is filled with derelict accounts aggregating news about friends long forgotten. <<Click>> Laptop: Uhh, is everything OK? <<Click>> Laptop: Dude, what the Hell? <<Click>> When you find yourself drifting away from a community, remember to clean up after yourself by slowly unfriending everyone, one by one, in the reverse order that you added them. {{Title text: If you close an account while it's still friends with people, it contributes to database linkage accumulation slowdown, which is a major looming problem for web infrastructure and definitely not a thing I just made up.}}

The xkcd guide to meteor showers ((This panel is a table with candy-cane shading. The three columns are "Name", "Peak", and "Notes". It is given here in a |-delimited form.)) Name | Peak | Notes Quadrantids | January 4th | Bring pets inside during peak activity Tricuspids | January 21st | Not viewable in region 2 countries Centaurids | February 6th | Too faint to see without going outside Beta Aquariids | February 10th | Inverted shower converges toward Aquarius instead of radiating away Chelyabids | February 15th | Only one meteor per shower, but it's big. Lyrids | April 22nd | Meteors sometimes scream Daytime Zeta Perseids | June 9th | Likely a NASA hoax June Boötids | June 27th | 50 50 mix of meteors and shooting stars Southern Delta Aquariids | July 19th | Meteors very bright, but stationary Dromaeosaurids | June 22nd | Fast, highly intelligent, can open doors Perseids | August 12th | Instead of falling from sky, meteors erupt from ground Tau Pyramids | August 15th | Visible even when eyes are closed Draconids | October 8th | Very slow, but follow you if you run Orionids | October 21st | Entire shower happens at once Leonids | November 17th | In 1966, unusually active Leonid shower killed god Geminids | December 13th | Can be deflected with tennis rackets {{Title text: Remember, meteors always hit the tallest object around.}}

Person 1: How are you? Person 2: Trapped on the surface of a sphere [[A beat.]] Person 1: That astronomy class has made you suck at small talk. Person 2: The universe is too *big* for small talk. {{Title text: This message brought to you by the Society of Astronomers Trapped on the Surface of a Sphere.}}

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[[A figure stands in front of a projector screen with a pointer. He is, presumably, addressing a room of his peers off-panel.]] Lecturer: Consider this pale blue dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. Everyone you love, every human being who ever was, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived out their lives on this mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. All our- Peer 1: I think that's a stuck pixel. We're the speck on the left. Lecturer: ... OK, *this* pale blue dot is everything you- Peer 2: -No, you were right before. *That* one is Earth. Lecturer: LOOK, IT DOESN'T MATTER! Peer 3: I *knew* it! Peer 4: I think this is just a lens cap picture. {{Title text: Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. There is no road out of this oblivion; we must embrace it. We must join with the darkness. Ba'al the Annihilator offers us no happiness, no answers, naught but the cold embrace of the void. To imagine any other end is delusion. We must give in to the will of Ba'al, for he will one day consume us and our world alike. I therefore call on Congress to fully fund space exploration, and to join with Ba'al, the Eater of Souls. Thank you.}}

[[A figure sits at a desk using a computer, conversing with an off-screen woman.]] Woman: Is it going to rain this weekend? I have a thing. Man: Lemme check. <<Type type>> Man: ... Uhh. What? ((Ten small panels are presented, each one with a picture describing that day's weather.)) Your 10 day forecast: [[Today: A sun. Tomorrow: A sun obscured by grey clouds. Friday: Three grey clouds with a single lightning bolt. Saturday: Giant grey clouds; 7 lightning bolts. Sunday: a huge swarm of flies. Monday: Three stick figures with elongated bodies; one seems to be holding his head in pain. Tuesday: A figure is silhouetted against a dull red-brown glow; he seems to be wearing a huge-winged helmet. Tuesday: white noise. Tuesday: complete black. Tuesday: complete black.]] [[The woman has walked up to the figure at the desk.]] Woman: ... Oh! You typed a minus sign in the zip code. The negative zip codes are all like that. Man: Let's *never* move there. {{Title text: Oh, definitely not; they don't have Amazon Prime.}}

The six words you *never* say at NASA: [[A trajectory path involving multiple slingshots around Earth, Jupiter, and the Sun labeled "Oberth Kuiper Maneuver" is being presented by two people for a crowd]] And besides -- it works in Kerbal Space Program. {{Title text: Ahem. We are STRICTLY an Orbiter shop.}}

[[Black hat guy is sitting at a desk, using a laptop. He's talking to a figure standing behind him.]] Figure: They said on the news that they found a giant ring lying in a field outside Chicago. Strung with some kind of superstrong mesh. Black hat guy: Mhm? Figure: Then they found a 260-mile long shaft connected to the ring, running from Chicago to St. Louis. In St. Louis they found a gigantic winch. Black hat guy: Did they. Figure: It sounds kind of like... ...a butterfly net. Figure: ... Are you planning to catch the International Space Station? Black hat guy: I'm planning to catch *an* international space station. Not sayin' which. {{Title text: It's going in A collection of satellites skewered with pins and mounted in display boxes. Not necessarily MY collection.}}

[[A scatterplot, with the y-axis labeled "scariness of name" and the x-axis labeled "scariness of thing name refers to. At the top-left is "chernobyl packet". Slightly right and downwards of that is "bomb calorimeter". Towards the middle-top is "kessler syndrome". Towards the middle-bottom is "soil liquefaction". Towards the center is "mustard gas". Along the bottom, two-thirds of the way to the right, is "grey goo". Slightly up and to the right from that is "criticality incident". About midway up from there is "bird flu". Further up, not quite at the top, is "demon core". Back towards the middle vertically, but slightly farther to the right, is "superbug". Almost all the way to the right but still near the middle vertically is "nuclear football". At the far top-right is "flesh-eating bacteria".]] {{Title text: Far off to the right of the chart is the Helvetica Scenario.}}

<<The sound of an insect going "hmmmmmmMMMMMMMMmmmmmm">> Person, suspecting an impending insect attack: Augh! Black Hat Man: Oh, I've gotta take this. By unanimous decision, the winner of the Awful Ringtone Championship is "the sound a mosquito makes as it buzzes past your ear" {{Title text: It beat out 'Clock radio alarm', 'B-flat at 194 decibels', 'That noise from Dumb & Dumber', and 'Recording of a sobbing voice begging you to answer'.}}

[[A man and a woman stand facing each other, talking. The man has a dog on a leash.]] Man: But dogs can observe the world, which means that according to quantum mechanics they must have souls. Protip: You can safely ignore any sentence that includes the phrase "According to quantum mechanics" {{Title text: You can also just ignore any science assertion where 'quantum mechanics' is the most complicated phrase in it.}}

[[A NASA spokesperson heads a press conference]] Spokesperson: NASA has confirmed that the asteroid is headed directly for us. Yes, a question? Reporter 1: What role has social media played in this asteroid's orbit? [[A twinge of anger and resentment builds in the spokesperson]] Spokesperson: *sigh* Reporter 2: Has Twitter changed the way we respond to asteroid threats? Spokesperson: Well, it's made the press conference questions stupider. Reporter 3: Fascinating! Reporter 4: What about Facebook? {{Title text: The social media reaction to this asteroid announcement has been sharply negative. Care to respond?}}

{{Title text: But the rules of writing are like magic spells. If you never acquire them, then not using them says nothing.}} [[Two Internet Bodhisattvas lecture a pupil encircled by a wheel placed upon the ground.]] Boddhisatva 1: To achieve *Internet Enlightenment*, you must free yourself from insecurity. Novice: But insecurity keeps me humble! Boddhisatva 1: No. Insecurity leads to conceit. Conceit leads to judgment. Judgment leads to being an asshole. [[A laptop is placed on a stand in front of the student]] Novice: I'm ready, How do I begin? Boddhisatva 1: Type this sentence: "I heard you're idea's and their definately good" [[The laptop has been smashed to the floor. The circle, one full of hope and excitement, is now full of despair and no students]] Boddhisatva 1: She wasn't ready. Boddhisatva 2: Its a difficult road.

[[A smartphone. On the display, the following text: "To continue installing, scan this code. 12 seconds remaining". A particularly recursive QR code is displayed on the screen]] How to freak out a mobile app user. {{Title text: Remember, the installer is watching the camera for the checksum it generated, so you have to scan it using your own phone.}}

((At the top of the panel is an equation showing Bayes' Theorem for the probability that a person is near the ocean given that they just picked up a seashell.)) The probability that I'm near the ocean given I picked up a seashell equals the probability I picked up a seashell given I'm near the ocean times the probability I'm near the ocean all divided by the probability I picked up a seashell. [[A person holding a seashell stands to the left of the panel, to the right a few birds are flying around and the sound of a wave crashing against the shore is depicted.]] <<Crashhh>> <<Sploosh>> Caption: Statistically speaking, if you pick up a seashell and don't hold it to your ear, you can probably hear the ocean. {{Title text: This is roughly equivalent to 'number of times I've picked up a seashell at the ocean' 'number of times I've picked up a seashell', which in my case is pretty close to 1, and gets much closer if we're considering only times I didn't put it to my ear.}}

Percentage of the US population carrying cameras everywhere they go, every waking moment of their lives: [[A graph with years from 1975 to 2013 as the X axis and a percentage from 0 to 100 as the Y axis. The sole line starts at just above 0, jumps to 1-2 at around 2000, is at 10% at 2005, 75% at 2010, and around 90% at 2013]] In the last few years, with very little fanfare, we've conclusively settled the questions of flying saucers, lake monsters, ghosts, and Bigfoot. {{Title text: Well, we've really only settled the question of ghosts that emit or reflect visible light. Or move objects around. Or make any kind of sound. But that covers all the ones that appear in Ghostbusters, so I think we're good.}}

San Francisco, December 9th, 1968: [[We see a figure talking into a headset. It's a fair assumption that it's Douglas Engelbart.]] Douglas: ... We generated video signals with a cathode ray tube... We have a pointing device we call a "mouse"... I can "copy" text... ... and we have powerful join file editing... underneath the file here we can exchange "direct messages"... [[Douglas continues to narrate. Some music is playing.]] Douglas: ... Users can share files... ... files which can encode audio samples, using our "masking codecs"... The file you're hearing now is one of my own compositions... Music: I heard there was a secret chord [[Douglas continues to narrate.]] Douglas: ... And you can superimpose text on the picture of the cat, like so... This cat is saying "YOLO", which stands for "You Only Live Once"... ...Just a little acronym we thought up... {{Title text: Actual quote from The Demo: '... an advantage of being online is that it keeps track of who you are and what you’re doing all the time ...'}}

[[We see a head and shoulders view of Einstein. He looks ponderous.]] ((Einstein's "line" is in a thought bubble.)) Einstein: If I were traveling at the speed of light, my butt would look *awesome*. Einstein was famed for his Gedankedank. {{Title text: It's commonly believed that Lorentz contraction makes objects appear flatter along the direction of travel. However, this ignores light travel times. In fact, a fast-moving butt would appear rotated toward the observer but not substantially distorted. Shakira was right.}}

[[Two figures stand talking.]] Figure with hat: We shouldn't be exploring other planets until we've solved all our problems here on Earth. Other figure: Sounds reasonable. So, what's the timeline on "Solving all problems"? Ten years? Fifteen? {{Title text: I'm leaning toward fifteen. There are a lot of them.}}

[[An astronomer stands in front of a huge telescope, looking through the eyepiece.]] Astronomer: I've discovered an Earth-sized planet in a star's habitable zone! It even has oceans! And visible weather! To mess with an astronomer, put a mirror in the path of their telescope. {{Title text: They have a telescope pointed RIGHT AT US!}}

[[There is a graph. The Y axis is marked out from 0% to 100%. The X axis is unmarked. A red line starts at 50% and traces out a roughly parabolic trend downwards along the X axis.]] Certainty that this is a clockwise polar plot, not a Cartesian one, as a function of time. {{Title text: Protip: Any two-axis graph can be re-labeled 'coordinates of the ants crawling across my screen as a function of time'.}}

I've been staring at the screen every night for twenty years, and it finally happened. [[A star field.]] [[The same star field, but there's a larger white dot glowing in the middle.]] [[The same star field, but that larger white dot's looking bigger now. Oh. It's clearly a star.]] [[The screen is filled with white. It's coming straight for us.]] [[The screen is filled with static.]] Signal lost {{Title text: I'm entering my 24th year of spending eight hours a day firing the Duck Hunt gun at the flying toasters. I'm sure I'll hit one soon.}}

[[3 figures are seen. Figure A is addressing Figure B, who just walked in-panel. Figure A points at Prometheus. Prometheus is looking ponderous and holding a flaming torch.]] Figure A: Prometheus has stolen fire from the Gods! Prometheus: Well, sort of. I mean, when you use a fire to make another fire, the first fire doesn't go away. So really, it's more like sharing. Fire wants to be free. {{Title text: 'I'm here to return what Prometheus stole.' would be a good thing to say if you were a fighter pilot in a Michael Bay movie where for some reason the world's militaries had to team up to defeat every god from human mythology, and you'd just broken through the perimeter and gotten a missile lock on Mount Olympus.}}