yesterdays-xkcd

[yesterdays-xkcd]

It's time to draw the line.

Secretary: Part 4 [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[The Ron Paul Revolution blimp floats.] Pilot: Sir! The balloon is hailing us!

[Cory Doctorow's balloon appears.] Cory: Ahoy. Ron Paul: Doctorow! Cory: I won't let you stop this nomination. We bloggers watch out for our own.

Ron Paul: Stand aside, Cory. Cory: Nay! Ron Paul: Very well. Battle stations!

[The Ron Paul Revolution blimp's gun takes aim.] Whirrr kachunk

[Cory Doctorow's balloon's gun takes aim.] Whirrrr kachunk

[Both airships open fire.] Pew pew pewPew pew Boing! Boing!

[Inside the Ron Paul Revolution blimp's control room.] Ponytail: We're taking damage! Ron Paul: Keep firing! Ponytail: No good! We're losing altitude!

[Outside the Ron Paul Revolution blimp, it hangs smoking in the air.] Ron Paul: All engines full! Pull up! Ponytail: Can't, sir!

[The Ron Paul Revolution blimp begins to sink, smoking more heavily.]

[The blimp sinks further.] Ponytail: Sir, maybe if we dropped all this gold... Ron Paul: Never!

[Inside the control room, tilted slightly.] Ponytail: We've lost, sir. We have to abort. Ron Paul: Not yet, we don't! Ron Paul: Open the loading bay doors.

[Camera zooms out slightly.] Ron Paul: You take the blimp and fall back. click Ron Paul: I've got a message to deliver. Whirr

[Ron Paul tosses his cane aside.]

[Ron Paul steadily transforms into Tron Paul.] Narrator: RON PAUL evolves into TRON PAUL

[Light cycle begins to form.]

[Tron Paul bends over the light cycle.]

[Light cycle finishes its formation.]

[Light cycle speeds off, trailing an American flag.]

[yesterdays-xkcd]

He actually installed each piece in a different car in the lot, then built a new car in the spot from the displaced pieces. It's a confusing maneuver known as the auto-troll shuffle

Secretary: Part 3 [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

Narration: The confirmation hearings begin... [Four Senators sit behind a table.] Senator: It appears you have quite an arrest record.

[Black Hat sits behind a desk.] Senator: Is it true you completely disassembled someone's car outside a Starbucks? Black Hat: It was parked across two spaces.

Senator: You stole a red Fokker triplane and strafed the snoopy float at the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade?

Black Hat: Got three mimes, too.

Senator: You disrupted a 9/11 truth meeting, insisting the Twin Towers never actually collapsed? Black Hat: I have evidence! Don't trust the media! Wake up, sheeple!

Senator: You were fired from Radio Shack after you built a death ray and vaporized a customer?

Black Hat: I was just testing it! Figures that'd be the one day there was a shopper in the aisle.

Senator: And you were thrown out of Microsoft headquarters for... trying to feed a squirrel through a fax machine?

Black Hat: I forgot about that! it was part of an argument with Steve Ballmer about Vista. Which I won, by the way.

[Senators look down at their notes.]

Senator: This is the worst history of vandalism, gleeful mayhem, and general recalcitrance we've seen in a nominee since Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Senator: And this-you stole a nuclear submarine? Black Hat: I plead the third

Senator: You mean the fifth? Black Hat: No, the third.

Senator: You refuse to quarter troops in your house? Black Hat: I have few principles, but I stick to them.

Narration: Meanwhile... [Aboard Ron Paul's blimp.] Ponytail: We're nearing Washington, sir. Ponytail: Wait... There's something ahead on the sensors.

Ponytail: It's a balloon. Ron Paul: ...Oh, no.

[yesterdays-xkcd]

That helmet won't save him.

Secretary: Part 2 [Explained]

Transcript

[Blondie as a news anchor sitting behind a desk is reading from a paper she holds in her hands. There is a picture of Black Hat on a screen behind her. There is a caption below the picture.] Blondie: Breaking news—the President has made a nomination to the new post of Internet Secretary. We know little about the man, shown here. Caption: Possibly a haberdasher?

[Blondie keeps talking over a scene showing her standing with a microphone in front of a water-filled moat that has been dug between the road and a house. A small stair up to the house is just on the other side of the moat. Behind her is Cueball with a large TV camera on his shoulder pointing towards her and the house.] Blondie (narrating): Attempts to reach the nominee at home were unsuccessful. Blondie: What the hell kind of apartment has a moat?

[Back to Blondie behind her desk, the paper is gone, and she leans one arm on the desk. There is no screen behind her.] Blondie: To understand the culture from which he came — and which he may soon administer — we sent a reporter to what we're told is the source of that culture. Blondie: Tom?

[This panel is much larger than the three previous panels and partly hidden behind the last. Tom, looking like Cueball with a military helmet with camouflage marks strapped under his chin, holds a large microphone in front of him while standing in front of a large screen. The screen shows a message board with four picture posts. Each picture has a text to the right, but those are unreadable scribbles. The top drawing is of a man with wild hair who holds out his hands with thumbs up. The next is text. Then there is a circle with a smaller circle in the middle and at the bottom what appears to be a Cueball-like man with a fencing mask. Blondie still speaks to him from off-panel left.] Tom: I'm coming to you live from the 4chan /b/ board. Despite the tube cloggage, nascent memes are flying fast and furious. Blondie (off-panel): Why are you wearing a helmet, Tom? Tom: I'm not sure. Image with text only: /b/

[Ponytail is sitting in front of a large control unit using the two levers coming out of it from below two buttons that are again below the lit screen. A voice comes from off-panel left. Above the top of the panels frame, there is a frame with a caption:] Meanwhile in Ron Paul's blimp. Ron Paul (off-panel): Ahoy! What news of the blogs?

[Zoom out showing Ponytail, who has turned around on her office chair away from the controls towards Ron Paul drawn like Cueball but with a cane. She holds up a piece of paper with a small square insert visible at the top. Apart from that, it is white.] Ponytail: Dr. Paul! The President's named his nominee! Ron Paul: It's not me?

[Ron Paul's blimp is shown from the outside. His voice can be seen coming from the airship. There is text on the blimp, with the four letters after the first written mirrored to spell another word.] Ron Paul (from inside the blimp): Wait! I remember that guy from the campaign! He's a notorious troll! Blimp: Ron Paul RƎVO⅃UTION

[Back inside the blimp, Ron Paul points to Ponytail, while his other hand is lifted to his chin. His cane leans against his legs. Ponytail looks at him from her chair, the paper now held in her lap.] Ron Paul: They mustn't put him in charge. Quick, call the capitol!

[Ponytail turns around on her chair towards the controls and takes hold of one of the sticks. Ron Paul has taken the cane in his hand again.] Ponytail: Can't, sir. The tubes just went down completely. Ron Paul: Blast!

[Ponytail now holds onto both sticks as Ron Paul lifts his cane up into the air pointing away from her up and right.] Ron Paul: Then we'll go ourselves. Full speed ahead!

[A full view of the blimp hanging in the air to the left over a broad landscape. There seems to be a small lake just in front of the blimp. The horizon is shown all along this full width panel, and after the lake, there are five small mountain peaks, two behind the three in front. After the last of these, there follow one more peak and a small mound. Features are shown on the ground. In the air in front of the blimp, there are a small cloud inside the panel at the end of the lake and a large cloud breaking the upper frame over the end of the five mountains stretching over the next peak and mound.]

[Same image. The blimp has advanced minutely, taking the tip clearly over the lake. Beat panel #1]

[Same image. The blimp has advanced minutely again. Beat panel #2]

[Same image, but now the two speak from within the blimp. The blimp has again advanced minutely so the gondola below the blimp is now also almost at the edge of the lake.] Ron Paul: I said full speed! Ponytail: It's a blimp, sir.

[yesterdays-xkcd]

The blueprints for the Department of the Internet offices call for Ceiling Cat-themed sprinkler heads.

Secretary: Part 1 [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

Spring 2009— The new president faces a crisis... [Cueball is talking to an unseen Mr. President, who is sitting behind a desk.] Cueball: Mr. President, the bloggers are restless. Mr. President: What are they a-twitter about now?

Cueball: It's the tubes sir. They're clogged. We put too much stuff on them. Mr. President: How bad is it?

Cueball: The internet could be inoperative within days.

Cueball: We can't let a crucial resource go unshepherded. Mr. President: Go on.

Cueball: I recommend you appoint a Secretary of the internet. Someone to impose some orders on this mess.

Mr. President: Ordering bloggers around? Doesn't sound easy. Cueball: No; it's like herding lolcats. Mr. President: What? Cueball: Nothing.

Mr. President: Do you have someone in mind for the post? Cueball: I know just the guy.

Soon: Phone: Ring [Black Hat looks away from his computer at the ringing phone.]

[yesterdays-xkcd]

I started to do the tables for more famous people but it got really depressing and morbid and I had to go outside. Hat guy wins again.

Actuarial [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Cueball, seated at a computer terminal, facing to the left.] Cueball: I know you shouldn't feed the trolls, but sometimes they just provoke me to where I can't help replying.

[Black Hat, seated in an armchair reading a book, facing to the right] Black Hat: Yeah, me too. Yesterday this guy kept spamming "First!", so I got a set of actuarial tables and spent twenty minutes telling him when all his childhood heroes would likely die.

[Cueball turns around in his chair.] Cueball: ...

[Black Hat, still reading his book.] Cueball (off-screen): Remind me never to upset you, ever. Black Hat: 2038: Last of the original Star Wars cast dies. Cueball (off-screen): Augh!

[yesterdays-xkcd]

A veteran Scrabble player will spot the "OSTRICH" option.

Scrabble [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[A first-person view of a family Scrabble game at a table. The other players are a juvenile Cueball to the left, Hairbun across from you, and Ponytail to the right. The two letters on the board are 'HI', with the 'H' on the center star, and the letters in your hand are 'CLTORIS.'] [Caption below the panel]: This always happens to me in family Scrabble games.

[yesterdays-xkcd]

If long tooltips / cut off for you / then upgrade from / Firefox 2 / Burma Shave

Twitter [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Cueball with a handheld device sits on an office chair.] Device: Beep beep

Device: On Twitter feeds

Device: Beep beep

Device: An odd regression:

Device: Beep beep

Device: Ancient memes

Device: Beep beep

Device: Find new expression

Device: Beep beep

Device: Burma-shave

[yesterdays-xkcd]

I had a really hard time not writing '...profit!'

Morning Routine [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

Morning Routine:

Wake up

Catch up on the lives of friends around the world

Get out from under the covers

[Caption below the panel:] Laptops are weird.

[yesterdays-xkcd]

Listen, they request that you stop submitting a listing for your house labeled 'WHERE YOU BROKE MY HEART'.

Going West [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Cueball and Megan are talking, while Cueball is walking away from Megan holding his hands up. Megan is holding a folded page of a letter up in one hand. The envelope can be seen behind the page, which only displays one line of visible, but unreadable, text.] Megan: I'm sorry. The Google Maps team hired me. Cueball: But I can't move to California!

[Megan has taken her hand down holding the letter so the backside of the envelope is now visible. Cueball turns towards her and holds one hand up in front of himself.] Megan: Then I guess this is the end. Cueball: It can't be! Cueball: Listen.

[Cueball and Megan are holding each other's hands with stretched out arms, looking into each other's eyes. The envelope has disappeared from Megan's hands.] Cueball: When I look deep into your eyes, I see a future for us. Megan: Look deeper.

[In this frameless panel, Cueball takes a hand up to his chin, while he bends his head very close to Megan's head, and she even leans a bit back. The letter and envelope have returned to her hand, after they went missing in the previous panel.]

[Cueball stands normally, as does Megan with her letter.] Cueball: "We're sorry, but we don't have imagery at this zoom level"? Cueball: They... They have you already.

[yesterdays-xkcd]

I spent more time trying to get an audible.com audiobook playing than it took to listen to the book. I have lost every other piece of DRM-locked music that I ever paid for.

Steal This Comic [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

Black Hat: Thinking of buying from audible.com or iTunes? Black Hat: Remember, if you pirate something, it's yours for life. You can take it anywhere and it will always work.

[There is a flowchart whose paths are (You're a Criminal)<-Pirate<-(Buy or Pirate)->Buy->(Things Change)->(You Try to Recover Your Collection)->(You're a Criminal)]

Black Hat: But if you buy DRM-locked media, and you ever switch operating systems or new technology comes along, your collection could be lost. Black Hat: And if you try to keep it, you'll be a criminal (DMCA 1201). Black Hat: So remember: if you want a collection you can count on, PIRATE IT Black Hat: Hey, you'll be a criminal either way. (If you don't like this, demand DRM-free files)

[yesterdays-xkcd]

We didn't even get to the continued fractions!

Numerical Sex Positions [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Caption above the panels] XKCD PRESENTS a guide to NUMERICAL SEX POSITIONS:

69 [Cueball and Megan perform a standing sixty-nine position i.e. mutual oral sex.]

99 [Cueball and Megan perform a standing spooning position.]

71 [Megan is bent over a table and Cueball takes her doggy-style.]

34 [Cueball looks at Megan, who is standing on one leg with her arms out.] Cueball: Uh.

√8 [Cueball and Megan are staring at each other.] Narrator: Guys?

Narrator: ln(2π) [Cueball just stands there while Megan is walking away.] Narrator: Aww, c'mon...

[yesterdays-xkcd]

'The sad thing is that I just wanted to talk about your poor smoke-bomb techniques.'

I am Not a Ninja [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Cueball and Megan facing each other in the same panel.] Megan: We need to talk.

[Cueball turns to look behind him; panel pans back to show a (closed) window on the wall.]

[Cueball throws a smoke grenade to the floor.] POW

[Grenade fizzles and begins to emit smoke; Cueball and Megan both look down at it.] sssss

[Smoke cloud expands very slightly. Megan puts her hand to her face.] cough

[The smoke detector alarm above them starts beeping. Both look up.] BEEP BEE-

[Cueball and Megan look down at the grenade again. The alarm is still beeping.] -P BEEP BEEP BEEP BE-

[Cueball slowly backs away. The alarm is still beeping.] -EP BEEP BEEP BEEP B-

[Cueball unsuccessfully tries to open the apparently locked window. The alarm is still beeping.] Rattle rattle -BEEP BEEP-

[Panel pans back to the full view. Cueball looks back at Megan, who is now face-palming. The alarm is still beeping.] -BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP B-

[Megan turns and walks away. Cueball looks at the window. The alarm is still beeping.] -EEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEE-

[yesterdays-xkcd]

The Planck length is another thousand or two pixels below the comic.

Depth [Explained]

Transcript

Title: Sizes Accurate on a vertical log scale.

[Series of images of characters doing various things. The things they are doing are listed in left to right order.] Cueball and Megan playing in a ball pen Megan using witchcraft to ban vista "Out, Vista!" Ponytail and Megan play Rock Band A couple is having sex under the cover in bed.

[Below this series of images, an image of a man on the computer.] Cueball is on a computer and the image expands as it goes down. Here are the labels from left to right, up to down: CD DVD Case North Bridge PS/2 Mouse (rodent) RAM CPU Socket Pin 32,767 Angels Dancing (one more and they'd roll over and become 32,768 Devils), Rice, Torrent (a bug), CPU, upcoming segfault dust mite hair OVUM Data (a pixel on Rick Astley's shoulder), rust mite, fork(); Peter Norton fighting a bacteriophage memory carbon nanotubes space elevator a line of silicon (Si), Electron Cloud, a man made out of arrows saying "sup?" silicon nucleus IPod femto Brian Greene knitting furiously [next to his knitting needles there is text saying ''clink, clink'']

[yesterdays-xkcd]

Although...who else can't wait for them to incorporate that Wiimote head-tracking stuff into games? Man, the future's gonna be *awesome*.

Flash Games [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[On the left side of the panel are a massive TV screen, large speakers, and similar devices, all connected to an extremely large "Game Station 20,000" console. Cueball, however, is over on the right side of the panel, on a modestly-sized computer.] Cueball: Ooh, I think I've got it figured out! Okay, one more hour. Beep Plunk

The most powerful gaming systems in the world still can't match the addictiveness of tiny in-browser Flash games.

[yesterdays-xkcd]

Except for anything by Lewis Carroll or Tolkien, you get five made-up words per story. I'm looking at you, Anathem.

Fiction Rule of Thumb [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Line graph shown with an inverse curve.] [Y-Axis: Probability book is good.] [X-Axis: Number of words made up by author.] [The curve becomes less steep as the number of words increases.]

"The Elders, or Fra'as, guarded the farmlings (children) with their krytoses, which are like swords but awesomer..."

[yesterdays-xkcd]

Interestingly, on a true vertical log plot, I think the Eiffel Tower's sides would really be straight lines.

Height [Explained]

Transcript

Caption: Top of observable universe.

[Black Hat is standing on top, throwing a black kitty down.] Black Cat: Mrowl!

[Map of the universe from observable universe to Earth. Each area of item is labeled. Labels left to right, up to down:]

(46 billion light years up) Hubble Deep Field Objects One billion light years: Great Attractor. Antennae Galaxies (colliding). Andromeda.

Holy crap lots of space.

One million light years: Magellanic Clouds. Edge of galaxy. Galactic center. Crab Nebula. Orion Nebula. Horsehead Nebula. Romulan neutral zone. The Pleiades, duh!. Rigel. Betelgeuse. Ford Prefect.

[Three arrows are pointing up above three lines labelled “expanding shell of radio transmissions”.] Edge of federation sector 0-0-1.

Pollux. Arcturus. Missing WMDs. Sirius. Barnard's Star. Alpha Centauri.

One parsec:

One light year: Oort Cloud (?). Bupkis. Comet which will destroy Earth in late 2063. Pioneer 10. Voyager I. Eris (All hail Discordia!). Pluto. (Not a planet. Neener neener.) Neptune. Uranus. Saturn. [Two arrows labelled “life” point to two moons, one next to Saturn and the other Jupiter.] Jupiter. Asteroids. Mars. Venus. Sun. Mercury. Spaceship Planet Express: Hey, a heaping bowl of salt! Spaceship Discovery One: Open the fridge door, Hal. Moon. Human altitude record (Apollo 13). 2nd place: Snoop Dogg. Space elevator - One of these days, promise! Geosynchronous Orbit. GPS satellites. Lunar lander: In retrospect, they shouldn't have sent a poet. I have no idea how to land. International Space Station. Space junk.

Official edge of space (100 km): Meteors.

1/10 ATM: High altitude balloons. Airliners. Shuttle Columbia lost.

1/2 ATM: Cory Doctrow [In an hot air balloon]. Everest. Helicopters (6000 m). Cueball: Woo Python!

[A vertical scale is drawn along the right side of the picture, starting at 1 km and getting progressively smaller and smaller.]

1 km. 800 m: Burj Dubai (~800 m). 500. 400. Eiffel Tower (325 m). 200. Kites. Great Pyramid (140 m). Pop fly. Redwood (115 m).

100m. Oak (20 m). A person in the oak: Hey squirrels! Tallest stilts. Brachiosaur (13 m). Giraffe (8 m).

[Megan and Cueball holding the kite are labeled:] Folks.

Title: The observable universe, from top to bottom: on a log scale.

Caption: Sizes are not to scale, but heights above the Earth's surface are accurate on a log scale. (That is, each step up is double the height.)

[yesterdays-xkcd]

Man, I just wanted to know how babby was formed.

Listen to Yourself [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Black Hat approaches Danish typing at a computer.] Black Hat: What are you writing? Danish: Virus. Black Hat: What's it do?

Danish: When someone tries to post a YouTube comment, it first reads it aloud back to them.

Soon, everywhere: [Cueball is commenting on YouTube with a laptop.] type type type

[Youtube comment is read back.] Cueball: ...I'm a moron.

[Cueball leaves desk and partially closes his laptop.]

[Cueball is seen sitting on steps, depressed.]

[Cueball puts his head in his hands.] Cueball: I... I didn't know.