Flatland
by Jeff
Image text: Also, I apologize for the time I climbed down into your world and everyone freaked out about the lesbian orgy overseen by a priest.
Flatland is a short story by Edwin Abbott Abbott. Yes, that is really his name. In Flatland, women are represented by lines, and the more important a man is, the more sides he has. The least important male would be a triangle and the priest, in Flatland, has so many sides, he looks like a circle. So, the image text is a reference to how an xkcd stick figure would look to the members of Flatland. The text for Flatland is on Wikisource here, if you feel like browsing on your Wednesday morning.
Miegakure is an actual game in development that will allow the player to move in 4 dimensions. The website is here, with a screen shot that looks eerily similar to panel 2.
And if you didn't realize, Spongebob is a reference to Spongebob Squarepants, the Nickelodeon cartoon about a sponge named Spongebob. Spongebob is a square (as his name implies) - so that is why the character in the comic is able to draw arms and legs on the square to make him look like Spongebob Squarepants.
Recipes
by Jeff
Image text: To be fair, the braised and confused newt on a bed of crushed Doritos turned out to be delicious.
The genetic algorithm is a search technique in computer science used to find solutions to problems. It is an evolutionary algorithm so it goes generation by generation until it gets the solution. As we can see in the comic, sometimes it takes longer than others.
By the way that is "meals" in the comic, not "mepls", even though it looks like "mepls".
Brain Worms
by Jeff
Image text: Hey, it says here that if you dream about your teeth falling out, it means they're spreading.
This one is pretty self-explanatory. They went easy on us for Friday.
The Flake Equation
by Jeff
Image text: Statistics suggest that there should be tons of alien encounter stories, and in practice there are tons of alien encounter stories. This is known as Fermi's Lack-of-a-Paradox.
This obviously is a made-up equation for the comic which is a spin off or reference to the Drake Equation which was previously referenced in this xkcd comic as well. The Drake Equation is an equation devised to calculate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy.
Here's the variable names:
WP = World Population
CR = Crazy
MI = Misinterpreted
TK = Tell _?
F0 = Immediate friends
F1 = Next level friends
DT = Details
AU = Audience
Fermi's Paradox is the contradiction between the high estimation of extraterrestrial life in the universe outside of earth and the lack of hard evidence of such life. As you can see, the image text represents the lack of a paradox because the assumption and the actual facts are exactly the same.
Furtive
by Jeff
Image text: ... go go gadget video camera. Go go gadget cup.
This of course is a double reference. First, in the comic a reference to the cartoon Inspector Gadget, who only had to say "Go Go Gadget ___ " for that gadget to come flying out of his jacket. That is the same jacket depicted in the comic.
Second, in the image text is a reference to the infamous 2 girls 1 cup video that has spread wildly around the internet as a prank and somehow I have avoided seeing...quite deftly I might add.
And no, I am not approving/clicking on any comments with a hidden or tiny url in them!
Time Machine
by Jeff
Image text: We never see any time travelers because they all discover it's a huge mistake. This is also why your friend at the lab suddenly looked about a year older recently.
So, future Rob travels back in time to kill past Rob to prevent him from inventing the time machine, which we see in the image text is a bad idea. Then future Rob assumes Rob's identity and preventing the time machine from being invented at all.
But, wouldn't future Rob cease to exist if he prevented the time machine from being invented?
Numbers
by Jeff
Image text: The typical internet user (who wants to share) has an IQ of 147 and a 9-inch penis. Well, better than the reverse, I guess.
Let's start at the top. The first search is from the song "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" in which every line is the same except the song starts at 99 and goes until the end at 1 bottle of beer on the wall.
The next six are self explanatory: number of boyfriends, grade level, penis size, bra cup size, age without having a boyfriend and number of glasses a day of water.
The next graph is a reference to Star Trek: The Next Generation in which Captain Picard is tortured when asked how many lights are behind the interrogator. There are 4 lights, but Picard is tortured when he answers four. The torturer wants Picard to admit there are 5. This has turned into an internet meme, of course.
The next graph is a reference to the Jay-Z song "99 Problems" in which the chorus is: "I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one".
The last graph is a graph of people googling what they consider their IQ number of google results for each IQ number. The image text references the high point on both the IQ and Penis graphs.
Porn For Women
by Jeff
Image text: Yes, there are a lot of longing looks across the bridge of Galactica first, but that's beside the point!
Porn for Women is a popular illustrated book that features exactly what the comic says.
Galactica is the ship from the show named: Battlestar Galactica.
GeoIP
by Jeff
Image text: 'Meet hot young singles in your mom's basement today'? Man, screw you, GeoIP.
GeoIP does exactly what it sounds like it does, which is get your location based on your IP address, mostly to show trashy advertisments with your location thrown in at random. I'm not sure who those ads are fooling, but I'm sure it is someone.
Anyhow, the characters in the comic are in "low-earth orbit" in the International Space Station. So, the joke is, that is where GeoIP would pinpoint them in low-earth orbit instead of a city or state location.
The joke in the image text is a riff on the famous "blogger's live in their mother's basement" joke. Which, in the image text is apparently true, but because the "writer" of the image text is pissed that GeoIP got his location correct down to the fact that he lived in the basement. And of course, it is entirely untrue that blogger's live in their mother's basement!
But, now I smell some eggs and bacon coming from the kitchen upstairs! Gotta go!
Single Ladies
by Jeff
Image text: Using a ring to bind someone you covet into your dark and twisted world? Wow, just got the subtext there. Also, the apparently eager Beyoncé would've made one badass Nazgȗl.
The song playing in this comic is "Single Ladies" by Beyonce. Which apparently had one of the best videos of all time... Anyhow, Gil-Galad was the last high king of the Noldor in Middle Earth. Galadriel was a queen of the elves in Middle Earth. Eru was the one god of Middle-Earth who created the Elves and Men, and Aule created the Dwarves, but Eru eventually approved Aule's creations. So, he sort of created the Dwarves as Eru was the only god to give a spirit to a being, as he did with the Dwarves.
The character in the beret is apparently the bartender in a bar that Sauron frequents. In the comic, Sauron upon hearing the song by Beyonce in the bar, has the idea to create his magic ring plan which presents the plot of the Lord of the Rings triology of books and movies.