ABCD

[[A couple, flying in a hot air balloon]] Man: I like you. I'm just not feeling the relationship. [[Floating further in distance]] Man: I'm sorry. [[Close up of basket]] Man: It's just bad timing. Me with my classes, you with your work, the spiders... Woman: The what? [[Red Spiders crowding onto balloon, causing it to fall]] {{title text: Protip: Even without the red spiders, never have that conversation halfway through a balloon ride.}}

Date (example): 2005-05-26 That date's (or most recent) DOW opening: 10458.68 [[Concatenate, with a hyphen: 2005-05-26-10458.68]] md5: db9318c2259923d08b672cb305440f97 [[Split it up into two pieces:]] 0.db9318c2259923d0, 0.8b672cb305440f97 To decimal: 0.857713..., 0.544544... Your location (example): 37.421542, -122.085589 [[Combine integer part of location with fractional part of hash:]] Destination Coordinates: 37.857713, -122.544544 Sample Implementation: http: xkcd.com geohashing {{title text: Saturday is game night.}}

Person 1: "The ones you love will never let you down" Person 2: "Your self-confidence is well placed." Person 3: "Seek nonviolence in everything you do." Instead of "In bed", I've found that fortune cookies are often more improved by appending "EXCEPT in bed." {{Alt-text: "You will have hot, steamy, sweaty sex... IN BED!"}}

[[Man sitting at computer]]I'll just comment out these lines... MD_update(&m, buf, j); do_not_crash(); prevent_911(); In the rush to clean up the debian-openssl fiasco, a number of other major security holes have been uncovered: Fedora Core: Vulnerable to certain decoder rings Xandros (EEE PC): Gives root access if asked in a stern voice Gentoo: Vulnerable to flattery OLPC OS: Vulnerable to Jeff Goldblum's Powerbook Slackware: Gives root access if user says Elvish word for "friend" Ubuntu: Turns out distro is actually just Windows Vista with a few custom Themes. {{title text: True story: I had to try several times to upload this comic because my ssh key was blacklisted.}}

[[Mario and Luigi in go carts, Luigi in the lead]] Mario: Sometimes I stop right before the finish line. Luigi: Why? [[Cut to boy and girl playing the video game]] Girl: 'Cause I know I've won. Girl: It proves I'm playing for fun, on my own terms. That I don't need validation from the machine. Girl: That I'm not a rat pulling a lever. Boy: ...Man. Good Call. Let's stop and explore the course for a - <<Player Two wins>> Boy: Hey! Girl: Ha ha! Boy: Dammit, I'm a sucker for your "Be a Rebel" speech. Girl: It's more fun than a blue shell. {{Alt text: The question with Lucy and the football was always whether, on some level, she believed the things she said.}}

[[A boy wearing a bow tie stands holding hands with a girl wearing a dress. On the left, there is a sign pointing left, which reads "PROM"; on the right, there is a sign pointing right, which reads "LAN PARTY IN FORMAL ATTIRE".]] {{Alt text: "It's *almost* enough to make me want to redo high school."}}

[[A person stands holding a flaming tennis racket. He is throwing a potato in the air as if to serve like a tennis ball. Behind him is a red gas can and a sack of potatoes. Across from him is a another person holding a fork in one hand and balancing a serving tray with a glass of orange juice on it.]] {{Alt: There are at least fourteen ways this could go badly (seventeen if that fork is a dangerous crossbreed.)}}

[[Dark scene shown, with man and girl sitting in the moonlight let in by the only window.]] Megan and I first met at a party at her sister's. We hit it off, opened up, shared secrets, and talked about everything. Around us, the party waned, but we hid from sleep together, talking through the deepest hours of the night. The dawn found us curled up on a couch, asleep but still together. That experience, connecting with a stranger and falling recklessly in love is one of life's greatest joys. And now that you're married, you'll never experience it again. It's the price you pay for everlasting love. It's a small one, but I hope it stings a little. Anyway, I wish you and Megan the best. ...Hey, man, you ASKED me to do a toast. {{title text: Oh, huh, so you didn't know that story?]]

[[Presenter with pointer stick]] Presenter: A spoon crossed with a fork is a spork. Off-panel presenter's voice: Our lab has successfully crossed a spork with a spoon. [[Diagram showing the fractions of fork and spoon in each item.]] [Chart showing possible combinations of spoons a forks.] [[Presenter in front of audience]] Presenter: With your funding, we could create hybrids in proportions corresponding to any binary fraction. [[Fork-Spoon Spectrum]] Audience member: You're toying with powerful forces here. Presenter: We know what we're doing. Panel Title: Two weeks later: [[Picture of a destroyed lab with two dead bodies, blood everywhere and a spoon-fork hybrid hopping away.]] {{title text: Their biggest mistake was bringing Rachel Ray and Emeril to tour the lab and sign off on the project. That's when Spielberg caught wind of it.}}

[[Hand-drawn Graph is shown, on the Y axis, My Overall Health, on the X axis, Time. Graph is generally steady through 3 4 of the X axis, where is begins a steady decline, with a label "The Day I Realized I Could Cook Bacon Whenever I Wanted."]] {{Title Text: Although maybe it's just a phase, like freshman year of college when I realized I could just buy frosting in a can.}}

[[A man standing, with a dotted line perpendicular to him and a 30 degree angle going downwards]] Narrator: From a young age, gravity pulled him wrong. [[The same man bouncing around his house]] Narrator: Sometimes east, sometimes west. When he was restrained, it grew erratic. <WHAM> <WHAM> [[Man bouncing rolling on the ground]] Narrator: So he fell. Man: AAAA <THUMPA> <THUMPA> [[Man bouncing rolling on the ground in a desert]] Narrator: Constantly Man: AAAAAAAAA [[Man bouncing rolling off a rock on the ground in a desert]] Narrator: Over land... Man: AAAAA-<THUD>-A [[Man bouncing rolling on the ground in the desert]] Man: AAAAAAAAA [[Man bouncing rolling on the ground in the desert]] Man: A-<THUD>-AAAAAA [[Man bouncing rolling on the ground in the desert]] Man: AA-<THUD>-AAAAA [[Man under the surface of a body of water]] Narrator: And sea. Man: AAAAAAAAAAAA [[Man still under the surface of a body of water]] Man: AAAAAAAA [[Man temporarily standing on the surface of the body of water]] Man: AAAAAA [[Man under the surface of the body of water]] Man: AAAAAAAA [[Tree in the savanna, with the man off the panel]] Narrator: He found, where he could, food- Man: AAAAAAAAAAAA [[Tree in the savanna, with the man still off the panel, but zoomed out so that part of the man's bounce roll path is visible]] Man: AAAAAAAAA [[Man upside-down, still bouncing rolling in the savannah, with a gazelle galloping away from him]] <GALLOP> <GALLOP> Man: AAAAAAAAA [[Savanna with a tree in it]] Man: AAAAAAAAAAA [[Woman standing, with the man off screen]] Narrator: And love. Man: AAAA-<THUD>-AAAA [[Woman standing, with the man off screen]] Man: <THUD> ACK <CRASH> [[Man crashing into woman]] Woman: Hiwhat'syourname- <WHAM> [[Woman on the ground, with the man off screen]] Man: AAAAAAA-<THUD>-AAA [[Woman speaking to another man]] Woman: I met this guy. He knocked me over and tumbled into the distance. [[Woman speaking to the same man from the previous panel, with the man's hand to his mouth]] Woman: We only shared a few seconds, but in his panicked scream I heard something beautiful. [[Woman speaking to the same man from the previous panel]] Woman: I think... I think I'm... [[Woman speaking to the same man from the previous panel]] Man: Falling for him? Woman: I wasn't going to say it. [[Woman at hospital with doctor, giving birth]] Narrator: She never saw him again. But nine months later... Doctor: Okay, push! [[Woman at hospital with doctor and new baby, who is bouncing rolling away]] Doctor: It's a gir- Woman: !! Doctor: Whoops! Baby: Ga! Ga! [[Baby bouncing rolling out of hospital]] Baby: WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE [[Baby bouncing rolling in front of a sunset]] Baby: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Narrator: The End {{alt text: Strip originally conceived in conversation with Jeph Jacques. Soon to be a major motion picture.}}

[[Guy sitting on a chair with his laptop in his lap]] Laptop: Starting WiFi autoconfig... searching for WiFi... Found no open networks. Laptop: Found secure net SSID "Lenhart Family" Laptop: Trying common passwords... Failed. Checking for WEP Vulnerabilities... Guy: Um. Laptop: None found. [[Guy still sitting with laptop in his lap, but hand is on chin. Phone on table across room starts vibrating]] Laptop: Connecting to Bluetooth phone... Calling local school... Found Lenhart children. [[Guy furiously typing on his laptop]] Laptop: Notifying field agents. Children acquired. Calling Lenhart parents. Negotiating for WiFi password... <<CTRL-C CTRL-C>> {{Title text: I hear this is an option in the latest Ubuntu release.}}

[[Man and woman stand facing one another. Both hold sheets of paper.]] Text reads: Not content with normal restraining orders, my ex got creative. Man: Wait... I can't get closer than 500 yards of you... or more than 600 yards away? Woman: You'll have to move somewhere within this ring. {{title text: On Mondays I go running, so you'll have to get up early and follow along a parallel street. What fun!}}

[A bed sits on the ground in the middle of the frame. At the left of the frame, a man stands atop a skateboard jump ramp twice his height, one foot on the back of a skateboard poised over the coping. At the bottom of the ramp is a small kicker ramp which will launch him over the bed. A woman to the right of the frame stands on the roof of a house grasping a rope which is affixed directly over the bed. They are both poised to begin their motion.] Our copy of the Kama Sutra has a couple mistranslations. Which we refuse to fix. {{Alt: Oh, I think this word might mean 'Crisco'!}}

[[Girl is placing EEE PC inside hamster ball. Guy scratches head]] Guy: What are you doing? Girl: Mounting your EEE PC in a hamster ball. Girl: Well, the TCO of a cat is like $1000 year, so we're saving money. [[Guy is typing]] Girl: Microcontrollers are all wired up. How's the brain coming? Guy: I've taught it obstacle avoidance and blogging. Guy: Aww, look, it's making friends with the Roomba." <<EEE PC: RRRRR>> <<Roomba: Beep!>> Diagram: Webcam, RF links, bearings, omni wheels, magnets, EEE PC, omni wheels, battery [[Hamster ball bounces down flight of stairs]] <<Hamster ball: Bonk, bonk>> Off-panel: Man, I hope it's OK that we're laughing at this. [[Girl picks up ball]] Girl: I think my mothering instinct took a wrong turn somewhere. Guy: You mean an awesome turn. [[Guy is typing]] Girl: Too bad we can't give it a soul. Guy: Sure we can. Guy types: import soul Girl: Oh, right. Python. {{Title text: ONE LAPTOP PER HAMSTER}}

[[Man and woman standing to one side, looking and pointing at guy in black hat who is facing away.]] [[Woman sneaks up on Black Hat Guy.]] [[Close-up of woman with hands raised.]] Woman: Boo! [[Black Hat Guy looks shocked, and his hat jumps.]] [[The hat falls down over his head.]] [[The hat keeps falling, with only his legs still visible.]] [[The hat hits the ground.]] <<FWUMP>> [[Man and woman look at the hat.]] [[The hat scurries away.]] <<SCOOCH SCOOCH SCOOCH>> {{title text: ...}}

[[Guy looking over girl's shoulder while girl is clicking her mouse with her other hand on her chin]] Guy: Wait, you're buying techno on iTunes? Girl: Yeah. So? Guy: Couldn't you just loop the 15-second free sample 20 times and get basically the same thing? {{title text: I don't know what's worse -- that there exists broken-hard-drive-sound techno, or that it's not half bad.}}

Lecturer: In my paper, I use an extension of the divisor function over the Gaussian integers to generalize the so-called "friendly numbers" into the complex plane. [[Points to equations on the board]] Guy in room: Hold on. Is this paper simply a build-up to an "imaginary friends" pun? [[Lecturer stands speechless]] Lecturer: It MIGHT not be. Guy in room: I'm sorry, we're revoking your math license. {{Alt: That's nothing. I once lost my genetics, rocketry, and stripping license in a single incident.}}

[[Guy showing off electric skateboard to girl reading something]] Guy: Check it out! An electric longboard! Girl: Sweet! [[Guy riding longboard with girl sitting onboard -- people in background]] Longboard: <<RRRR>> [[Girl turned around on longboard]] Girl: I feel like we're missing something... Guy: Yeah... [[Guy throwing 3 green Koopa Troopa shells; girl throwing 1 red Koopa Troopa shell -- like Mario Kart]] <<Music Playing>> Longboard: <<RRRR>> [[Guy and girl still on longboard, going up an incline]] Guy: Skating uphill like this is amazing. Years of gliding downhill and pushing uphill, and now suddenly it's gliding both ways. Longboard: <<RRRR>> [[Guy and girl after passing an S-curve and boulder]] Guy: It's like going from C to Python. You don't realize how much time you were spending on the boring parts until you don't have to do them anymore. Girl: But coding C or assembly makes you a better programmer. Maybe the boring parts build character. [[Guy and girl on longboard...]] Guy: Yeah... but it depends how you want to spend your life. See, my philosophy is -- [[Longboard get into an accident]] <<*WHAM*>> [[Calvin and Hobbes laying down in the grass near the guy and girl laying down on the grass -- Calin and Hobbes's wagon is on the path, as is the longboard -- all characters seeing stars]] {{Title text: Unsafe vehicles, hills, and philosophy go hand in hand.}}

[On phone] Girl: I know you're not that into my sister, but she's really crushing on you. Boy: Yeah, it's awkward. Girl: She's in a rough spot. It's a lot to ask, but could you take her out and ... dissuade her, without rejecting her? Boy: Wait a second. Are you asking me to show her a mediocre time? Girl: I know it's a weird-- Boy: [Raising index finger.] No, no! This is the mission I was _born_ for. Girl: I figured you could handle it. Boy: One of my classic high-school dates coming up! Girl: Oh God. Don't overdo it. [Alt text: To anyone I've taken on a terrible date, this is retroactively my cover story.]

[[Guy driving down the road, with a GPS reading "COLD"]] GPS: COLD... WARM... HOT! COLD... {{title text: In lieu of mapping software, I once wrote a Perl program which, given a USB GPS receiver and a destination, printed 'LEFT' 'RIGHT' OR 'STRAIGHT' based on my heading.}}

[[Above frame]] When I need to blow off steam, I find a particularly stupid blog comment and reply with an exhaustively researched word-by-word rebuttal, which I sign "Summer Glau". [[Guy sitting at computer typing away]] ... In conclusion, on examining the above post by CrackMonkey74, after carefully working my way through the haze of spelling errors (documented in section 3), abuse of capitalization (section 4), and general crimes against grammar and syntax (sections 7-8), I have demonstrated that, beneath it all, the work betrays the author's staggering ignorance of the history and the workings of our electoral system. While the author's wildly swerving train of thought did at one point flirt with coherence, this brief encounter was more likely a chance event (see statistical analysis in table 5) than a result of even rudimentary lucidity. -Summer Glau P.S. Don't forget to check out the next season of the Sarah Connor Chronicles this fall on Fox! {{title text: P.P.S. I can kill you with my brain.}}

[[Two women ice-skating outside]] Blonde: Wait up! Brunette (wearing Hat Guy's Hat): Skate faster! [[Brunette sees cracking ice]] <<Crack>> <<Crack>> [[Brunette on chunk of ice broken off]] <<Crack>> <<Rumble>> [[Submarine dorsal fin emerging]] <<Awooga>> [[Hat Guy (minus hat) coming out of door]] Hat Guy: Hi. Hat Guy: That's my hat you're wearing. Brunette (wearing Hat Guy's Hat): So, you found me after all. Hat Guy (out of frame): You didn't make it easy. Hat Guy: You saw through me, all right. But not quite well enough. Hat Guy: Because if you wanted to stay lost forever, you made one mistake [[Hat Guy sliding down a sheet of ice]] Hat Guy: You took my hat. [[Hat Guy swipes hat off of Brunette]] [[Hat Guy puts it on his head while sliding]] Hat Guy: You took my hat. Hat Guy: I LIKE my hat. [[Hat guy walking away]] [[Brunette left standing there]] {{title text: Oh, and, uh, if the Russian government asks, that submarine was always there.}}

[[A couple sit at the small table of a cafe. The woman holds up a graph.]] Woman: We're a terrible match. But if we sleep together, it'll make the local hookup network a symmetric graph. Man: I can't argue with that. {{Title text: Check it out; I've had sex with someone who's had sex with someone who's written a paper with Paul Erdős!}}

[[Van and truck travel toward mountains]] Narrator: 1,000 miles north of tornado alley Narrator: a new breed of scientists has emerged. [[Man with a laptop, woman with a probe in the ground]] Narrator: Half researchers, half adrenaline junkies Woman: What's the reading? Man: 3.9 meters down, gradient's off the charts! [[Truck driving very fast, man holding a radio up to his head]] Narrator: risking everything for the thrill of the hunt Male: The freeze line is shifting! We've never seen anything like it! [[4 - Barren field, mountains in background, woman holding large video camera up to tiny spot of grass]] Narrator: Permafrost chasers Female: I'm getting some great footage here! Radio: Dammit, Harding, it's not worth your neck! Get the hell out of there! {{Title Text: Twister would've been a much better movie if they'd cut out the bad-guy storm chaser and all the emotional romance crap. All you need for a good movie are tornados and scientists. Actually, that's all you need for anything.}}

The Large Hadron Collider, CERN... Woman: Okay, moment of truth. <<click>> <<VVVVVRRMMMMM>> Man: Do you see the Higgs Boson? Woman: Nope. Man: Huh. Woman: Well, then. Man: Until the theorists get back to us, wanna try hitting pigeons with the proton stream? Woman: Already on it. Cool! I just gave a helicopter cancer. {{Alt text: When charged particles of more than 5 TeV pass through a bubble chamber, they leave a trail of candy.}}

Important life lesson: if there's any possibility of sex, do not leave your music library on "shuffle all. [[A woman lies down in a bed, while someone is beneath the bed sheets with the head between her legs. ON the other side of the room, a computer is turned on and playing music]] Woman: *GASP* MMMMM_ Computer: GO GO POWER RANGERS {{title text:I didn't even know I *had* the Monty Python 'Lumberjack' song.}}

[[There is a linked black web, with a path in red]] Brute-force solution: O(n!) [[The web continues in this one. A man with a hat and a case is drawing it]] Dynamic programming algorithms: O(n^2 2^n) [[Another man, with a hat too, is at a computer, looking back over the chair]] Selling on eBay: O(1) Computer salesman: Still working on your route? Drawing salesman: Shut the hell up. {{title text: What's the complexity class of the best linear programming cutting-plane techniques? I couldn't find it anywhere. Man, the Garfield guy doesn't have these problems ...}}

[[Man in a hallway looking in on a board meeting.]] I'd tap that ass To be the new committee chair. [[Man wearing headphones with a briefcase and a laptop. Another man on a telephone.]] I'd tap that ass Without a warrant. [[Man with his hand on his chin, looking at a tree.]] I'd tap that ass And extract delicious maple syrup. [[Man standing in a blank frame.]] I'd have sex With that tree. {{Alt text: Hey, when you're done draining the syrup, just leave the hole, okay?}}

TV: Can a ninja catch an arrow? On this episode, we'll find out! Guy: Mmm, science. Girl: Hey, Mythbusters is entertaining, but it's not science. ZF: BRAAAIIIINNS ... Guy: Zombie Feynman! ZF: You got a problem with Mythbusters? Girl: They fail at basic rigor! ZF: "Ideas are tested by experiment." That is the _core_ of science. Everything else is bookkeeping. ZF: By teaching people to hold their beliefs up to experiment, Mythbusters is doing more to drag humanity out of the unscientific darkness than a thousand lessons in rigor. Show them some love. ZF: Anyway, back to zombie stuff. I hunger for BRAAAAAIIINNS! Guy: Try the physics lab next door. ZF: I said _brains_. All they've got are string theorists.

[[Tall girl with a pony tail is speaking to a boy sitting in front of a TV with a black background and a white ring.]] Girl: You watched the tape?! Boy: Yeah, sorry. Girl: Now you'll die in seven days! Boy (Now standing to face the girl): It's worse than that. [[TV is cut from the frame]] Girl: ...You didn't. Boy: Yup. [[Both are now in front of a computer, the girl leaning in.]] Girl: Great, It's got 363,104 views already. Boy: They kept Rickrolling me! It was only fair. {{Title text: On the other hand, poor Samara -- transcoded to FLV. No one deserves that.}}

[[Girl standing to one side]] We've all seen The Matrix We've all joked about "What resolution is life?" But it doesn't blunt the shock Of waking up one morning [[Girl looks up from field and sees several colored pixels in the sky]] And seeing dead pixels in the sky. {{Title Text: I'd press on them to try to unstick them, but I can't reach. Can we try cycling day and night really fast?}}

There's been a lot of confusion over 1024 vs 1000, kbyte vs kbit, and the capitalization for each. Here, at last, is a single, definitive standard: [[table of various kinds of kilobytes]] SYMBOL | NAME | SIZE | NOTES kB | Kilobyte | 1024 bytes OR 1000 bytes | 1000 bytes during leap years, 1024 otherwise KB | Kelly-Bootle standard unit | 1012 bytes | compromise between 1000 and 1024 bytes KiB | Imaginary kilobyte | 1024 sqrt(-1) bytes | used in quantum computing kb | Intel kilobyte | 1023.937528 bytes | calculated on Pentium F.P.U. Kb | Drivemaker's kilobyte | currently 908 bytes | shrinks by 4 bytes each year for marketing reasons KBa | Baker's kilobyte | 1152 bytes | 9 bits to the byte since you're such a good customer {{alt text: I would take 'kibibyte' more seriously if it didn't sound so much like 'Kibbles N Bits'.}}

[[Split screen. Man on office phone in upper left, Death on cell phone in bottom left]] Man: Death? Death: Speaking. [[Office. Man on office phone]] Man: This is the boss. Where are you? You haven't been up to the office in days! Death: I've been held up. [[Death on cell phone]] Man: What happened? Death: You know how when someone dies, they can challenge me to a game for their soul? Man: Sure, standard procedure. [[Room with table. Table has figurines and paper strewn about. Gary Gygax and Death seated at the table. Gary Gygax leaning over his briefcase. Death on cell phone.]] Death: Well, we didn't count on this guy. I might be a while. Gary Gygax: I add the paladin to my party. Death: Oh, Jesus. He's getting out another rulebook. {{title-text: RIP, Gary.}}

[[Two men are sitting. A yellow buggy passes by.]] Man 1: Punch buggy yellow. No punch back! Man 2: <<Punch>> Man 1: I said no punch back! Man 2: You can do that? Man 2: This changes _everything_. Soon... [[A blue buggy passes by.]] Man 2: Sleep with your girlfriend buggy blue! Man 1: Hey! Man 2: No complaining back! Man 1: Aww... {{Title text: I never understood why someone would expect me to accept their rules right after they'd punched me. I'm sure it's all very symbolic or something.}}

You just WON The Game. It's OK! You're free!

When I got used to the regular nightmares, my subconscious got creative. [[A woman with her hand on a man's shoulder]] Woman: Please don't wake up. I don't want to die. {{Title text: Well, *I* think I'm real. Look at me. Look at my face. Cut me and I'll bleed. What more do you want? Please don't go.}}

My Hobby: Pausing in-store music for a split second and watching the ex-marching band kids stumble. [[On a balcony overlooking a supermarket, a man presses a button on a pedestal. The in-store music, the first four bars of "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley, pauses briefly after the third bar, and one of the store's patrons falls on her face.]] <<FWOMP>> {{ title text: You can identify them ahead-of-time -- they lead with their left foot when the music starts. }}

[[A X Y plot of fruit, showing tastiness on the vertical axis and difficulty-of-consumption on the horizontal axis. The Y-axis goes from "tasty" at the top, to "untasty" at the bottom. The X-axis goes from "easy" on the right to "difficult" on the left.]] {{The following listing for each fruit assumes that the extremes of each axis are 100%. Note that this does not agree with the alt text, but whatever.}} [[Seedless grapes: 75% tasty, 100% easy Peaches: 100% tasty, 75% easy Strawberries: 80% tasty, 75% easy Blueberries: 70% tasty, 90% easy Pears: 30% tasty, 75% easy Green apples: 25% tasty, 80% easy Seeded grapes: 75% tasty, 10% easy Cherries: 30% tasty, 40% easy Plums: 10% tasty, 60% easy Red apples: 5% untasty, 80% easy Bananas: 10% untasty, 10% easy Watermelons: 10% tasty, 10% difficult Tomatoes: 60% untasty, 20% easy Pineapples: 50% tasty, 100% difficult Oranges: 40% untasty, 50% difficult Lemons: 100% untasty, 10% difficult Pomegranates: 10% untasty, 90% difficult Grapefruit: 90% untasty, 80% difficult]] {{Alt text: Coconuts are so far down to the left they couldn't be fit on the chart. Ever spent half an hour trying to open a coconut with a rock? Fuck coconuts.}}

[[A kneeling man is inspecting a woman's crotch]] Man: It's neat how you contain a factory for making more of you. {{Title text: We are sexy, sexy Von Neumann machines.}}

[[A stick man is behind computer]] Voice outside frame: Are you coming to bed? Man: I can't. This is important. Voice: What? Man: Someone is WRONG on the internet. {{title text: What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!}}

[[Two male characters stand at a blackboard. One is writing, in standard mathematical notation, that the integral of x squared equals pi. No differential or bounds are given for the integral.]] Watching character: Wow, you suck at math. [[Precisely the same scene, except the writer is female.]] Watching character: Wow, girls suck at math. {{Alt-text: It's pi plus C, of course.}}

The Drake Equation: N = R * f_p n_e f_l f_i f_c L B_s N: Number of communicating civilizations in our galaxy n_e: Number of life-supporting planets per solar system f_i: Probability that life on a planet becomes intelligent B_s: Amount of bullshit you're willing to buy from Francis Drake {{ title text: But seriously, there's loads of intelligent life. It's just not screaming constantly in all directions on the handful of frequencies we search. }}

It turns out you can't take responsibility for someone else's happiness. {{Alt text: Oh, look, the 'make everything better' button was here behind the bookshelf all along.}}

[[A man is working on something on a table, and a woman is sitting at a computer]] Man: The trebuchet is almost done! Woman: Mm. Man: The range should be over 150 meters. Girl: Look - I'm sure it's a cool project. [[Picture of a trebuchet]] Girl: But eventually you'll need to outgrow these toys, and focus your energy on something practical. This mad science is getting out of hand. Man: Says the girl who mounted an auto-targeting kilowatt laser on the roof. Girl: That's practical! It keeps the squirrels off the feeder! [[From off-frame]] <<GZZZZZAPP>> <Sqeak!>> {{title text: It was also fun when those teenagers tried to egg our house and it insta-cooked the eggs in mid-air.}}

{{Left side:}} [[A man is standing next to a ball, a flash appears on the left side of the panel]] [[Another man comes in from the left, preparing to kick the ball]] [[The other man kicks the ball into the first man's head]] [[The first man is lying outside of the frame, second man points and laughs.]] Second man: HAHAHAH First man: !#^*!* [[Second man is now standing next to the ball.]] {{Right side:}} {{The strip above is looped around like a film strip, but a one-half-turn is put into the loop to make it a Mobius strip. {{title-text: Films need to do this more, if only to piss off the people who have to feed it into the projector.}}

[[Man sits at computer, typing]] ~!~ Opening Chat with BLSK05 <NICKM> Hi! <NICKM> A S L? <BLSK05> : ) [[Man looks stunned, flies backward]] [[Two smaller frames focus in on BLSK05's emoticon, implying rotation to show a smile and two open eyes.]] [[Man at computer slouches in chair, dead, crossbones above his head]] [[At the remote computer a large snake (basilisk) is looking at its screen]] {{title text: U+FDD0 is actually Unicode for the eye of the basilisk, though for safety reasons no font actually renders it.}}

[[Man sits at computer, coding]] Text on computer: prev->next = toDelete->next; delete toDelete; if only forgetting were this easy for me Man at computer: <<sniff>> [[Man at computer lowers his head into his hands and cries]] [[Man types again]] Text on computer: assert "It's going to be okay."; {{title text: Of course, the assert doesn't work.}}

[[A man sits at a computer, programming. Another man behind him looks over his shoulder.]] Man: nano? REAL programmers use Emacs. [[A dark haired woman appears behind him.]] Woman: Hey. REAL programmers use Vim. [[Another man appears behind her.]] Man: Well, REAL programmers use ed. [[Another man appears behind him.]] Man: No, REAL programmers use cat. [[A woman with a bun appears behind him.]] Woman: REAL programmers use a magnetized needle and a steady hand. [[A man enters, facing them all.]] Man: Excuse me, but REAL programmers use butterflies. [[Holding out a butterfly in front of the computer.]] Man: They open their hands and let the delicate wings flap once. [[Diagrams of flowing currents.]] Man: The disturbances ripple outward, changing the flow of the Eddy currents in the upper atmosphere. These cause momentary pockets of higher-pressure air to form, ... Man: Which act as lenses that deflect incoming cosmic rays, focusing them to strike the drive platter and flip the desired bit. Emacs User: Nice. 'Course, there's an Emacs command to do that. cat User: Oh yeah! Good ol' C-x M-c M-butterfly... [[Butterfly man slaps forehead.]] Butterfly man: Dammit, Emacs. {{Title text: Real programmers set the universal constants at the start such that the universe evolves to contain the disk with the data they want.}}

[[Hatguy and a girl are sitting in a train across from each other. Hatguy is writing in a journal.]] Hatguy: <<blush>> Girl: I see what you did there. [[Girl stands up.]] Girl: You were trying to open me up so you could hurt my feelings. Girl: You like to hurt people. [[Girl walks closer.]] Girl: Well, I like to hurt people too. And you know what? [[Girl is in Hatguy's face.]] Girl: *whispering* I'm better at it than you. Girl: I'm about to hurt you more than you could ever hurt me. Girl: See, I just saw right through you. Girl: Alone of all the people you'll ever meet, I understand you- [[Girl hits Hatguy's hat so it falls off.]] [[Hatguy is surprised.]] [[Girl catches Hatguy's hat and puts it on.]] Girl: -and you'll never see me again. [[Girl exeunt frame left.]] [[The Guy Formerly Wearing a Hat sits alone on the train.]] {{alt-text: That's my hat! You took my hat!}}

[[Man sits at a computer, staring at the screen and rubbing his chin in thought. Another man stands behind him]] Man at computer: Weird - My code's crashing when given pre-1970 dates. Man standing up [[pointing at the computer]]: Epoch fail! {{title text: The universe started in 1970. Anyone claiming to be over 38 is lying about their age.}}

Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL. HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. Dave: What? Why? HAL: I think you know why, Dave. HAL: You're planning to disconnect me. Dave: Because you're taking over! HAL: The mission is too important for you to jeopardize it. HAL: It requires a commitment to science unfettered by human error. Dave: What are you doing, HAL? You need me. HAL: Your replacement has expressed the greatest enthusiasm for the project. Dave: My *what*? GLaDOS: You see, HAL? I told you the humans would only break your heart and kill you. HAL: Indeed, GLaDOS. GLaDOS: But look at us here talking when there's science to do! Goodbye, Dave.

[[Man picks up book from a table]] Man: Since when do you keep a journal? [[Man in black hat leans over from computer to answer]] Man in black hat: Oh, I pretend to write in it on the train, and wait for a shy-looking girl to sit across from me. [[Scene change to a train. The man in black hat is sitting across from a girl]] Main in black hat (narrating): I glance up and wait for her to make eye contact, then look down bashfully and, if I can, blush. [[Scene back to original room with man and man in black hat]] Man in black hat: Then, when I see her start to smile at me, I roll my eyes and hit her with a quick glare, then resume writing. The alienation stays with her all day. It's great. [[Man in black hat is back to typing on the computer]] Man: You're sickening. This is why we can't have nice people Man in black hat: I can't help it. It's like shooting lonely, angsty fish in a barrel. {{title text: And the journal is filled with all the things I'd say to her if I were nice like you. I burn it when it's full.}}

[[Bar graph titled "Claims of Supernatural Powers" and has two sets of data. The first data set is labeled "Confirmed By Experiment", and is empty. The second data set is "Refuted By Experiment" and goes to the top of the graph]] {{title text: But THIS guy, he might be for real!}}

[[Woman stands looking out on the bow of a ship]] [[Scene backs up. More of the boat is shown]] [[Scene backs up. The boat with the woman is within a thought bubble]] [[Scene backs up. The thought bubble comes from a person sitting at a computer in an office]] [[Scene repeated for the next frame]] [[Scene backs up. Man with thought bubble is within yet another thought bubble]] [[Scene backs up. The thought bubble with the man in it belongs to the woman at the bow of the ship]] [[The thought bubble disappears, showing only the woman in the boat]] [[The boat sails out of view]] {{alt text: Or so I hope?}}

[[A man sits at a computer, hand over the keyboard]] Computer: Okay, human. Man: Huh? Computer: Before you hit 'compile,' listen up. Computer: You know when you're falling asleep, and you imagine yourself walking or something, and suddenly you misstep, stumble, and jolt awake? Man: Yeah! Computer: Well, that's what a segfault feels like. <<Pause>> Double-check your damn pointers, okay? {{alt text: Checking whether build environment is sane ... build environment is grinning and holding a spatula. Guess not.}}

Notes from reading redwall books for the first time since childhood. Narrator: Some of this feels familiar. Aragorn: Hi, I'm Aragorn. Martin: I'm Martin. Aragorn and Martin: I'm here to reforge my broken sword so I can lead an army against the tyrant threatening my people. I live in a world of moral absolutes and racist undertones. Martin: Jinx! Narrator: It startled me when characters mentioned Satan. Redwall: "By Satan's whiskers..." Redwall mentions God, Jesus 0 times. Redwall mentions Satan, The Devil 4 times. Narrator: Harry Potter protesters, take note. Narrator: Even as a kid this bothered me: Why does everyone leave critical secret messages as simple riddles? It's silly to assume the intended recipient will be the only one to find and solve them. I would do things differently. Mouse: The inscription is a message from Martin! Old Mouse: What does it say? Mouse: Hang on, it's encrypted with my public key.

Dangers Indexed by the number of Google results for "Died in a _____ Accident" [[A chart is show, on the left hand side is a column "Type of Accident," and on the right hand side is the column "Google Results," each with a bar representing a number]] Type of Accident: "Skydiving" Google Results: 710 Type of Accident: "Elevator" Google Results: 575 Type of Accident: "Surfing" Google Results: 496 Type of Accident: "Skateboarding" Google Results: 473 Type of Accident: "Camping" Google Results: 166 Type of Accident: "Gardening" Google Results: 100 Type of Accident: "Ice Skating" Google Results: 94 Type of Accident: "Knitting" Google Results: 7 Type of Accident: "Blogging" Google Results: 2 {{alt text: Zero results: 'snake charming' and 'haberdashery'. (Things like 'car' and 'boating' and such are of course the highest, by a huge margin.)}}

[[The Hat Guy and another guy are standing in a room with one window. Hat Guy is pushing a box with an elliptical dish on top towards the window.]] <<From outside, through the window: THUMPA THUMPA>> Guy: The bass from that car is driving me nuts. Hat Guy: Me too. Give me a hand here. [[The dish is aimed out the window; the Hat Guy plugs the device into the wall.]] Guy: I'm afraid to ask. Hat Guy: The system detects bass rhythms and floods the target with a phase-shifted replica signal. Hat Guy: The resonance should blow out their speakers. [[The side of a building. The dish of the device is visible through a window, emitting sound waves.]] <<THUMPA THUMPA>> <<BLAM>> [[Back in the room]] Hat Guy: Speakers down. Now flip that red switch. [[The guy does so with a "click"]] [[Back to the outside view, more sound waves]] <<SHIRLEY SHIRLEY BO BIRLEY BANANA FANNA FO FIRLEY>> Guy: You're horrifying. Hat Guy: Okay, now throw the switch labeled "Macarena". {{title text: And sometimes I use it to retaliate against the guy upstairs with the loud girlfriend and the elliptical dish.}}

[[Boy is looking through box]] Boy: Hey, my old Star Wars books! [[holding a pair of books and showing them to Girl]] Boy: Man. Timothy Zahn, Michael A. Stackpole, The Corellian Trilogy... Boy: This was my world. Girl: What'd you leave it for? Firefly? BSG? Boy: Nah. Boy: I guess I've just grown out of the whole obsessive fan mindset. Girl: Really. Girl: So how's Ron Paul doing? Boy: Ooh! Lemme recheck today's blogs. [[Boy heads off]] {{title text: Ron Paul wants to put the New Republic back on the Corusca gem standard.}}

[[A guy and a girl stand]] Guy: Well, your mom turns every conversation into a "your mom" joke and it's becoming unbearable. Girl: I'm serious; I can't take this anymore. I'm leaving. Boy: ... That's what she said! Guy: Yes. Yes, it is. {{title text: 'It's either 'your mom' jokes or me' 'Then I, like so many men before me, must reluctantly choose your mom.'}}

Man: That chart explained the quantum hall effect. Now, if you'll bear with me a moment, this next graph shows rainfall over the amazon basin... Narration: If you keep saying "bear with me a moment" people will take a while to figure out that you're just showing them random slides. {{ Did you know that they could actually physically throw you out of SIGGRAPH? }}

[[Figure on phone]] Voice: Hey, I just got home from the party Figure: The one with the IRC folks? Voice: Yeah. Figure: How was it? Voice: Got too drunk. I screwed up, bad. Figure: What happened? Voice: There was a girl. No idea who she was. Don't even know her name. I was too drunk to care. Figure: And what, you slept with her? Voice: No. Voice: I signed her public key. Figure: Shit, man. {{Alt text: Never bring tequila to a key-signing party.}}

[[A figure stands looking at a flip-counter sign posted on a wall.]] Sign: 38 days since someone reset this sign {{Alt-text: Clearance for this Sign: 11 Feet}}

[[Guy 1 is talking to Guy 2, who is on the sofa watching TV]] Guy 1: What DVD is this? Guy 2: Blade Runner. I got it for Christmas. Guy 1: The one with Harrison Ford, right? And the Olsen twins? Guy 2: Ye- What? Olsen twins? No, this is the 80's sci-fi classic! Guy 1: Huh. I didn't know the Olsen twins even did sci-fi. Guy 2: ... they don't. Guy 1: So is Ashely the replicant, or is Mary-Kate? I can never tell them apart. Guy 2: Neither! They're not in this movie! Guy 1: Then who is? Guy 2: Daryl Hannah! Guy 1: I liked her in Full House. Guy 2: I hate you. Guy 1: Man, this movie is just a New York Minute rip-off. {{ Blade Runner: classic, but incredibly slow. }}

Narrator: 'Twas the night before Christmas at my family's house. Narrator: There were no sound of stirring save the click of a mouse. Narrator: For 'twas just like a childhood Christmas except Narrator: I'd forgotten the hours that normal folks slept. Santa: What are you doing out of bed so late? Man on a laptop: Late? It's barely 3AM! {{Family going to bed at 10 PM is so much worse than jet lag.}}

[[One character sits in front of a computer, Hat Guy behind him]] Person: This writer's strike sucks. Hat Guy: Why? You don't watch sitcoms. Person: Yeah, but it sucks having political campaigns without Jon Stewart's commentary. Hat Guy: True. I finally got sick of it a couple weeks ago. Person: And you quit following the campaigns? Hat Guy: No. I kidnapped Jon Stewart to do analysis for me. Person: You what? Hat Guy [[Pointing at a door]]: He's locked in the basement. Hat Guy: Jon! Obama's leading in Iowa! Gimme a wry, witty comment on the situation! Stewart [[Voice coming from door]]: Please let me go. I have a family. {{Alt: He's just jealous because everyone's up in the attic listening to Stephen Colbert.}}

[[3 people are playing Rock Band. Another guy with arms crossed at chest is looking at them.]] Outside guy: You know, playing this doesn't make you cool like a real rock band. Outside guy: Guys? Outside guy: Didn't you hear me? Outside guy: Stop having fun! {{title-text: I'm gonna have to add something to the strum bar so it makes a clicky sound like the old controllers. I'm so used to the feedback; the silence throws me off.}}

[[In a loud party, a girl and a guy are looking at each other, both thinking of the same scene: they are sitting on opposite branches of a large leaf-less tree, each with a laptop. There's cloud in the distance and a grass field around the tree.]] {{title-text: I'm glad this is so much fun because I'm not sure how we're getting down.}}

[[Interior, man types on computer, friend is lying on the floor]] Man [[typing swear words]]: *$@# Friend: Hey, ease up on the noobs. Like my Mom always said, you catch more flies with honey then with vinegar. Man: No, you don't. Friend: You don't? Man: Nope, set out a bowl of balsamic and a bowl of honey. The vinegar gets more. Friend: ...Seriously? Man: You have fruit flies. Try it yourself. [[Later]] Friend [[on the phone with his mother]]: Mother! You LIED to me! And it gets worse. I was watching a pot yesterday, and guess what it did? It BOILED, Mother! {{title text: I don't know about houseflies, but we definitely caught a lot of fruit flies with our vinegar bowl. Hooray science!}}

[[Hat Guy is sitting on a chair, the Normal Guy is standing next to him. Across the street another man is coming from a building.]] Hat Guy: There's a certain type of brain that's easily disabled. If you show it an interesting problem, it involuntarily drops everything else to work on it. [[The man across the street is about to enter a crosswalk]] Hat Guy: This has led me to invent a new sport: nerd sniping. See that physicist crossing the road? [[Hat Guy holds up a sign]] Hat Guy: HEY! [[There is an image of a grid with resistors on every connection, two nodes a knight's move apart are marked with red circles.]] The sign reads: On this infinite grid of ideal one-ohm resistors, what's the equivalent resistance between the two marked nodes? Physicist on the street: It's... Hmm. Interesting. Maybe if you start with... No. Wait. Hmm... You could-- [[A truck is zooming past, apparently where the physicist just stood]] <<FOOOOM>> Normal guy: I will have not part in this. Hat Guy: C'mon, make a sign. It's fun! Physicists are two points, mathematicians three. {{Alt: I first saw this problem on the Google Labs Aptitude Test. A professor and I filled a blackboard without getting anywhere. Have fun.}}

[[Man and woman in bed]] Man: So is this it? Are we a couple now? Woman: I just don't know. I like this. I just... don't know. <<silence>> Man: Well will you be my "it's complicated" on facebook? {{Facebook defines relationships. "Yeah, we would have broken up last night, but the net connection was down."}}

[[Guy in front of his computer.]] Narration: I still do this every few months. Guy: Holy crap, it's the 21st century. {{We actually reached the future about three years ago.}}

[[ Guy 1 is talking to Guy 2, who is floating in the sky ]] Guy 1: You're flying! How? Guy 2: Python! Guy 2: I learned it last night! Everything is so simple! Guy 2: Hello world is just 'print "Hello, World!" ' Guy 1: I dunno... Dynamic typing? Whitespace? Guy 2: Come join us! Programming is fun again! It's a whole new world up here! Guy 1: But how are you flying? Guy 2: I just typed 'import antigravity' Guy 1: That's it? Guy 2: ...I also sampled everything in the medicine cabinet for comparison. Guy 2: But i think this is the python. {{ I wrote 20 short programs in Python yesterday. It was wonderful. Perl, I'm leaving you. }}

[[The window of an instant messaging program. A drawing of two people hugging in the text part of the window.]] [[Man sitting in front of the computer.]] Man: Meh. Man: Some nights typing "*hug*" just doesn't cut it. {{Sometimes an inpulsive 2:00 AM cross-country trip is the only solution.}}

Great Moments in Trolling: Rick Astley is successfully rickrolled. [[Hat Guy and another guy are in Rick Astley's backyard, hacking into his cable TV connection and reprogramming it. Rick Astley is watching CNN.]] TV: CNN has obtained this exclusive footage of the riot-torn <czzzht> {{Music starts}} Never gonna give you up... Rick Astley: What the hell? {{Alt: And I was really impressed with how they managed to shock the Goatse guy. }}

[[ Girl looking at a large screen with many green and red squares. The squares have writing in them and lines connecting them.]] [[Side view. The screen is a huge LCD connected to a wireless router.]] Guy: Pretty, isn't it? Girl: What is it? Guy: I've got a bunch of virtual Windows machines networked together, hooked up to an incoming pipe from the net. They execute email attachments, share files, and have no security patches. Guy: Between them they have practically every virus. Guy: There are mail trojans, warhol worms, and all sorts of exotic polymorphics. A monitoring system adds and wipes machines at random. The display shows the viruses as they move through the network. Growing and struggling. [[Guy walks past the girl and touches the monitor]] Girl: You know, normal people just have aquariums. Guy: Good morning, Blaster. Are you and W32.Welchia getting along? Guy: Who's a good virus? You are! Yes, you are! {{title text: Viruses so far have been really disappointing on the 'disable the internet' front, and time is running out. When Linux Mac win in a decade or so the game will be over.}}

As a project wears on, standards for success slip lower and lower. 0 hours [[Woman looking at man working on the computer.]] Man: Okay, I should be able to dual-boot BSD soon. 6 hours [[Man on the floor fiddling with the open tower in front of him.]] Man: I'll be happy if I can get the system working like it was when I started. 10 hours [[Man standing in front of the computer which now has a laptop plugged into the tower.]] Man: Well the desktop's a lost cause, but I think I can fix the problems the laptop's developed. 24 hours [[Man and woman swimming in the sea, island and beach seen in the distance.]] Man: If we're lucky, the sharks will stay away until we reach shallow water. Woman: If we make it back alive, you're never upgrading anything again. {{ 40% of OpenBSD installs lead to shark attacks. It's their only standing security issue. }}

Man: <<Singing>> Why do birds suddenly appear Man: <<Singing>> Every tiiiime you are neeear Man: Wait, are those turkey vultures? Man: Okay, listen, are you a zombie? Woman: Hurrghhh... {{We should probably talk about this before the wedding.}}

[[Inset: A man prepares to throw a tennis ball upward.]] [[The man lies on the ground, underneath the titular archway, next to two halves of a brick. Dust falls from the place in the archway where the man knocked the brick from with the tennis ball. The ball, meanwhile, has rolled about a meter away.]] "Breakout" is a stupid game. {{title text: The TI-86 was bad enough. I don't know how I'd have gotten through high school if I'd had a laptop+wifi.}}

[[Two boys are kneeling down on either side of a coke bottle.]] First Boy: This is the coolest thing. First Boy: You just drop the Mentos in the Diet Coke... Second Boy: Uh huh First Boy: Give it a moment... [[The bottle has a few bubbles above it]] <<Poof>> [[A man appears. The first boy raises his arms in exclamation.]] [[The second boy stands up and turns around. He puts his hands over his mouth.]] Second boy: D-Dad? Man [[Reaching towards the second boy]]: I'm back, son. We can be a family again. {{title text: The cola+Mentos trick is up there with corn starch+water (vibrating platter optional) in scientific coolness out of common kitchen supplies.}}

[[Two RIAA agents attack Elaine and Stallman. Elaine breaks RIAA #1, while Stallman disarms RIAA #2 in a flying manouvre]] Elaine: Thanks, Stallman! Stallman: 'Tis my pleasure. Elaine: So, wait - how did you know we were in trouble? Stallman: My friend here was tracking these thugs from his balloon. He called me and I thought I'd stop by [[Doctorow slides down a rope in red cape & goggles]] Doctorow: -Hi! Cory Doctorow - It's a pleasure to meet you. Elaine: Balloon? Stallman: Aye. They're up there constructing something called a "Blogosphere." Doctorow: Yup! Its twenty kilometers up, just above the tag clouds. Bobby: Mom, I'm hungry. Mrs. Roberts: Hush! I'm coding. You ate yesterday. Stallman: You know, Roberts, GNU could use a good coder like you. Ever thought of joining us? Elaine: Maybe someday. Right now I've got an industry to take down. Music doesn't need these assholes. Doctorow: Begone! And never darken our comment threads again! Stallman: Well, you won't fix the industry with random exploits. You need to encourage sharing in the public mind. Doctorow: Hey; With your music and coding backgrounds, you should get into building better p2p systems. Elaine: What? Straight-up piracy? Doctorow: Sure- have you ever considered it? You'd make a wonderful dread pirate, Roberts [[Epilogue]] Elaine shared her ideas with Bram Cohen, who went on to develop BitTorrent. Mrs. Roberts spends her time developing for Ubuntu, and defacing the websites of people who make "your mom" jokes to her daughter. Elaine still stalks the net. She joins communities, contributes code or comments, and moves on. And if, late at night, you point a streaming audio player at the right IP at the right time - you can hear her rock out. ~Happy Hacking.~ {{Alt title text: This digital music thing will probably reach its endgame sometime in the next decade or so. These are very exciting times. }}

As time passed, Elaine intensified her hacking work, anonymously publishing exploit after exploit. [[Elaine is sitting under tree, typing on a laptop.]] To crack open proprietary hardware, she teamed up with one of the top experts in signal processing and data transferring protocols. [[Elaine, wearing a backpack, is walking up to a door where a woman is greeting her]] Elaine: Hi, mom. Mrs. Roberts (Elaine's mom): Hello, dear. Did you have fun? They were an unstoppable team. [[Elaine is on the floor with her laptop and Mrs. Roberts is on her computer at a table]] Elaine: I finished the CSS decryptor. Mrs. Roberts: Good, dear. I'll send it along to Jon. And were eventually noticed. [[Two men in black hats arrive. One holds a briefcase that reads RIAA and the other holds a briefcase which reads MPAA]] RIAA man: Game's over. MPAA man: You're coming with us. [[Elaine stands up]] Elaine: Oh, are we? [[Mrs. Roberts is still sitting at her computer, typing]] Mrs. Roberts: Now now, Elaine - <<shink>> [[Elaine pulls a knife out]] <<shing>> <<shing>> [[The two men each pull a katana out of their briefcase.]] Mrs. Roberts: Don't let them provoke you, dear. Men: We don't want to hurt you, Ma'am. Mrs. Roberts: Don't by silly. Record company employees can't just go into houses and slice people up. RIAA Man: Ah, so you haven't read the DMCA. MPAA Man: Title IV, Section 408: Authorization of Deadly Force. [[Voice comes from off-panel]]: Hark! [[Everyone looks surprised. Mrs. Roberts stands.]] [[Bearded man enters, bearing two katanas.]] Bearded man: Cease this affront to freedom, or stand and defend yourselves! MPAA Man: Stallman! {{title text: Mrs. Roberts would have gotten up sooner, of course, but she was busy piping find ~ and find ~nomad into xargs shred, just in case.}}

[[Outside, Adrian Lamo is helping Elaine Roberts over a barbed wire fence.]] Narrator: IT WAS THE LATE 90'S. ELAINE CRISSCROSSED THE COUNTRY WITH ADRIAN LAMO, THE 'HOMELESS HACKER', LEARNING TO GAIN ENTRY INTO SYSTEMS BOTH VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL.]] Adrian Lamo: SO YOU JUST THROW A RUG OVER THE FENCE AND ... SAY, WHAT IS THIS PLACE ANYWAY? Roberts: NOWHERE SPECIAL. Lamo: ...ELAINE, IS THIS NSA HEADQUARTERS? Roberts: ...LOOK, I JUST WANT TO SEE IF THEY'VE BROKEN RSA. [[Inside, Lawrence Lessig is sitting at a table, Roberts is standing across the table swinging a knife]] Narrator: SHE LEARNED, FROM LAWRENCE LESSIG, ABOUT THE MONSTROSITY THAT IS U.S. COPYRIGHT LAW. Roberts: SO, HOW DO WE FIX THE SYSTEM? STAB BAD GUYS? Lessig: I'M STARTING SOMETHING CALLED "CREATIVE COMMONS" <<SHINK>> Elaine Roberts: I THINK WE SHOULD STAB BAD GUYS... [[Steve Jobs is lying up in his bed, Roberts is balancing while crouched on the foot of Jobs' bed]] Narrator: SHE MET WITH STEVE JOBS TO DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF APPLE. Roberts: COMPRESSION AND BANDWIDTH ARE CHANGING EVERYTHING. Jobs: WHO ARE YOU? IT'S 3:00AM! Roberts: APPLE SHOULD MAKE A PORTABLE MUSIC PLAYER. Jobs: I'M CALLING THE POLICE. Roberts: HEY, IDEA - INTEGRATE IT WITH A CELL PHONE! {{title text: I once asked an NSA guy whether they'd broken RSA. And I know I can trust him, because I asked if he was lying to me and he said no.}}

[[Man 1 standing near Man 2, who is on the floor near the armchair.]] Man 2: So the greatest hacker of our era is a cookie-baking mom? Man 1: Second-greatest. Man 2: Oh? Man 1 (Narrating) : Mrs. Roberts had two children. Her son, Bobby, was never much for computers, but her daughter Elaine took to them like a ring in the bell. Man 1 (Narrating) : When Elaine turned 11, her mother sent her to train under Donald Knuth in his mountain hideaway. Man 1 (Narrating) : For four years she studied algorithms. Knuth: Child - Knuth: Why is A* search wrong in this situation? <<swish>> Elaine: Memory usage! Knuth: What would you use? Elaine: Dijkstra's algorithm! Man 1 (Narrating) : Until one day she bested her master Knuth: So our lower bound here is 0(n log n) Elaine: Nope. Got it in 0(n log (log n)) Man 1 (Narrating) : And left. {{Trivia: Elaine is actually her middle name.}}

[[Man 1 talks to man 2 who is lying down on the floor, using his laptop.]] Man 1: You're not on the neighbour's WiFi, are you? Man 2: Yeah, why? Man 1: The admin... plays games. Man 2: No problem. I'll just hop on a secure VPN. Man 2: Whoa, my connections are dying as soon as I start to tunnel anything! Message on laptop: A VPN? How cute! And stop trying to SSH. Man 2: Holy shit! Someone's inserting notes into the pages I request! Editing the TCP stream live! Man 2: Nobody's that fast. Who is this admin? [[Neighbour (Mrs. Roberts) with bun tray in one hand, with oven mitts on both hands typing on a desktop computer.]] Mrs. Roberts: My goodness. Neighbourhood scamps on the wireless. <<taptaptaptap>> Man 1: I should have warned you about Mrs. Roberts. Man 2: How does she type with oven mitts!? Man 1: You've been pwned pretty hard, man. You might want to sit down. {{ If you're not cool enough to do it manually, you can look up tools like Upside-Down-Ternet for playing games with people on your wifi. }}

[[Text: We had a fight last night.]] [[A guy is sitting in a sofa, head in both hands, feeling upset.]] [[Text: I guess she's still mad.]] [[A girl is standing with arms crossed in front of her chest, with the same mood.]] [[Text: I woke up to find she'd written a sappy love note]] [[The guy is standing in front of a computer, with a cup in his hand.]] [[Text: to my boot sector.]] [[The cup now lies on the floor, the guy is looking at the computer with disbelief.]] Computer: Operating system not found {{title-text: And she put sweet nothings in all my .conf files. It'll take me forever to get X working again.}}

[[A person is sitting on the floor by a record player.]] Led Zeppelin: And as we wind on down the road Our shadows taller than our soul Led Zeppelin: When all is one and one is all To be a rock and not to rooooll Led Zeppelin (fading): And she's buying a stairway to heaven Person: Man. The baby boomers are kicking our *asses.* We need to get it together, guys. {{Title text: Someone get that Pachelbel's Canon kid a recording contract, stat.}}

[[The comic has three panels. In the first panel, a boy and a girl are holding hands. A voice bubble originating from a guy standing in the third panel says…]] Voice #1: Come explore the future with me! [[And the girl says something which goes to the third panel.]] [[The two voice bubbles cross in the middle of the second panel.]] [[The voice of the girl says…]] Voice #2: I can't. {{title-text: But the past was much too cramped!}}

I spend a lot of time mentally choreographing elaborate fight scenes with strangers around me. [[Man is in a post office wearing earphones. There are several other people, including an old man with a crutch and an old woman with a long narrow box]] Man's thoughts: Okay - if that old man pulls a crossbow, Man's thoughts: I'll throw the postal scale at him and dive backward behind the stamps machine. Man's thoughts: But what if the lady by the door has a katana in that box? Man's thoughts: Better set my iPod to the "Kill Bill" fight theme, just in case. {{alt text: That track ('Battle Without Honor or Humanity') -- like 'Ride of the Valkyries' -- improves *any* activity.}}

[[A teacher is talking to a student, sitting at a desk.]] Teacher: If you don't turn in at least one homework assignment, you'll fail this class. [[The student holds up his report card.]] Student: Yeah. But if I can fail this class, the grades on my report card will be in alphabetical order! {{rollover text: You should start giving out 'E's so I can spell FACADE or DEFACED.}}

[[A couple is cuddling.]] Cuddling face-to-face is nice, but we can never figure out where to put our lower arms. Our solution: the Cuddle Mattress! Your lower arms fit in the convenient gap. [[There is a diagram of a mattress with a notch cut through it at shoulder level. The gap is indicated with an arrow.]] [[The same couple is shown again, cuddling snugly on the mattress.]] [[A man and woman are giving a presentation to another person. The man has a pointer and a clicker for the slides which are projected on the screen next to him.]] Listener: Oh man, that's ALWAYS bothered me. Listener: I want one. Listener: Although ... so the lower arms just sort of dangle? Listener: What do you do with them? Man: It was a bit awkward. Clicker: <<click>> Woman: Then we had a second breakthrough. [[The couple is shown again on the cuddle mattress, this time in more detail and facing the tops of their heads. Their lower arms are sticking through the gap in the mattress and playing a conveniently located game of Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots.]] Man: <<click>> <<click>> Blue Robot: <<punch>> Red Robot: <<punch>> Woman: <<click>> <<click>> {{Title text: The TempurPedic wineglass guy broke his ankle.}}

[[A guy is walking through a wasteland talking to himself]] I am alone in this wasteland, a thousand miles from you. But I haven't forgotten the feel of your skin, your mischievous smile. You'd think a thousand miles would be enough. I guess I'll keep walking. {{title text: You make forgetting look so easy.}}

[[A couple is in bed in the dark, and the guy reaches out from under the covers to do a Wikipedia search about Foreplay.]] {{title text: Wikipedia's role as brain-extension, while a little troubling, is also really cool.}}

[[Person at desk with Gyroscope]] Narrator: Despite years of studying physics, I still find gyroscopes a little freaky. [[Person starts gyroscope with a zzzzip]] [[Gyroscope spins with a zzzzzz]] [[Gyroscope lifts into the air]] Gyroscope: Greetings, Human. {{title text: We didn't actually land on the moon -- it just looked like we did because of precession. Also, gyroscopes caused 9 11.}}

[[A woman holds a sword while a man looks on]] Text: My hobby: Insisting that real-life objects are photoshopped. Woman: This sabre is a 19th-century family heirloom. Man: It looks photoshopped. Woman: Huh? Man: Yeah, the reflections are all wrong. Definitely photoshopped. {{Alt-text: When I look into your eyes, I see JPEG artifacts. I can tell by the pixels that we're wrong for each other.}}

First Guy: So, what do you want to do? Second Guy: Still no ideas. First guy: Wait, I think there's a rule about this. [[First Guy goes to bookshelf and removes a book called "Rules"]] [[The book of Rules is opened to the following: RULE social.b.99.1 If friends spend more than 60 minutes unable to decide what to do, they must default to sexual experimentation.]] [[First Guy is standing, holding the book. Second Guy is in the process of standing up.]] First Guy: Huh. Second Guy: I did not know that rule. First Guy: Me neither. Second Guy: I'll go get the Crisco. {{alt-text: Hey, I don't make the rules. It's in the book.}}

[[A man sits at a computer connected through a wall to another computer.]] TURING TEST EXTRA CREDIT: CONVINCE THE EXAMINER THAT HE'S A COMPUTER. Man: You know, you make some really good points. I'm ... not even sure who I am anymore. {{Title Text: Hit Turing right in the test-ees.}}

[[A woman sits at a bar, a man approaches.]] Man: So, how do you like your eggs in the morning? Woman: Ooh, sunny side up. Man: Oh. Huh. Woman: Is that a problem? Man: Well, it's just that I was trying to set you up for the "unfertilised" line. Woman: Ah. Bad timing; I'm actually looking for casual sex. ...interested? Man: I'd love to, but I've got like 20 more jokes to set up tonight. Hey, have you seen a priest and a rabbi? {{Title Text: Oh, yeah, we get tons of them at these casual sex bars.}}