Making Things Difficult
by Jeff
Image text: Favorite mastectomy breast prosthesis idea: a fake boob containing a spare rechargable battery, accessed via a nipple USB port. Complete with a ring of LED charge indicators in the areola!
This comic is a reference to the breast cancer surgery that someone in Randall's family recently underwent this year. This comic is the follow up appointment after the surgery. When the doctor asks Megan to take her shirt off, she refuses until the doctor gives her a necklace of beads that in the New Orleans Mardi Gras culture is used to exchange for the exposure of a female's breasts.
So, by Megan saying "You know the rules", that indicates that Megan has stipulated that every time she takes off her shirt for the doctor, a necklace of beads much be exchanged.
Don't forget, we still are looking for submissions for back catalog xkcd explanations. I'll have the list of the comics posted this week up on Friday.
Brand Identity
by Jeff
Image text: Legally-mandated information would be printed on the back or discreetly along the bottom. In small letters under the nutrition information it would say 'Like our products? Visit our website!' There would be no URL.
This comic presents Randall's idea for a line of food products all with clear black font on a white background. Notice how well they stand out in with the other items in this comic. Would they stand out this well in a store in real life? I'm not sure, but it certainly would attract some attention as most products are going for busier and brighter boxes to catch attention.
In the image text, however, I'm not sure what the effect would be to have no URL for anyone to look up the company website. If anything, it seems like it would deter people from buying the product again. Am I missing something?
Tradition
by Jeff
Image text: An 'American tradition' is anything that happened to a baby boomer twice.
This comic uses the source of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers to say that the 20 most played Christmas songs in the US between 2000 and 2009 were all released between the 1930s and 1970s. I'd love to see this research, because the most popular Christmas album of all time was not released until 1994, "Merry Christmas" by Mariah Carey. This album featured what I consider to be the most ubiquitous song around this time of the year which is "All I Want For Christmas Is You" which is also featured prominently in the very popular (and frequently replayed) movie Love Actually from 2003. The song is the only holiday song and ringtone to reach multi-platinum status in the U.S. So, I usually don't take a look at the information that Randall presents to us and think it is incorrect, but this one just seemed egregious based on the popular success of a mid-90s release.
(Christmas is December 25th, for any Americans who have been living under a rock for the past 2 weeks or so and don't own a TV and are somehow able to escape the crushing commercialism of the Christmas season. And "this time of the year" is apparently considered Christmas time despite the fact that not everyone celebrates Christmas in the US and in the world).
Delta-P
by Jeff
Image text: If you fire a Portal gun through the door of the wardrobe, space and time knot together, which leads to a frustrated Aslan trying to impart Christian morality to the Space sphere.
This comic was posted late and now I'm late and I'm at work so I can't do as much explaining as I usually do, but I'll do my best. That's also why we have the best comment section on the Internet.
The basic idea of the formula and the comic are based on the books and movies of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in which a giant wardrobe contains a portal to a world known as Narnia. In the comic, someone connects an anchor to the wardrobe and throws it into the ocean which means that a steady stream of water at a velocity of 200 m/s will flow into Narnia.
The White Witch, the antagonist in the books and movies apparently won't know what hit her according to the caption.
The image text references the video game "Portal" in which you fire a portal gun into walls and etc to make "portals" that can open holes in other places so that you may portal through.
The image text also references the fact that CS Lewis wrote the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe books as a thinly veiled allegory of Christ's crucifixion with Aslan, the Lion in the title, playing Christ's part. (Spoiler alert! Sorry!)
This is a classic xkcd based on the intersection of literature, math and video games.
Prairie
by Jeff
Image text: Colorado is working to develop coherent amber waves, which would allow them to finally destroy Kansas and Nebraska with a devastating but majestic grain laser.
This comic is a reference to the song America The Beautiful, which contains the line "...amber waves of grain...". But, of course, xkcd being xkcd, waves are interpreted in the physics way. In Quantum mechanics, the wave-particle duality explains that particles can act like both particles and waves. In the comic, when they are observing the light from the grain, it is acting like a particle.
However, as the image text says, if Colorado wanted to destroy other states with a coherent wave laser of amber waves, the particles would be acting as waves, like a laser.
Oh yea, in America The Beautiful, "...amber waves of grain..." is used because when the wind blows over a field of grain it looks like waves in the ocean.
Physics people, please let me know in the comics if I went wrong somewhere.
Elements
by Jeff
Image text: Of all the nations, the armies of the ununoctium-benders are probably the least intimidating. The xenon-benders come close, but their flickery signs are at least effective for propoganda.
The character on the left is a reference to the TV cartoon and live action movie by the name of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The character in question is named Aang. He is master of the four elements, earth, water, fire and air.
On the right is Dmitri Mendeleev, who is credited with the creation of the periodic table of elements, which is why he is the master of all 118 plus elements. Polonium is the radioactive element discovered by Marie Curie (as referenced in previous xkcds). Just as Marie Curie died of radiation poisoning, that is the attack that Dmitri uses with polonium.
In the image text, ununoctium is the element with atomic number 118 and it has no other use besides basic scientific research.
Xenon is a colorless gas, that emits a blue or lavenderish glow when the gas is excited by electrical discharge
Eternal Flame
by Jeff
Image text: There's always the hope that if you sit and watch for long enough, the beachball will vanish and the thing it interrupted will return.
Not sure why this is posted on a Thursday morning, it is Thursday right?
But, this comic is possibly a reaction to the news yesterday that founder and CEO of Apple Steve Jobs has passed away. The beachball "eternal flame" is what comes up on the screen of the Mac OS X Operating System when the computer is working on something. It does not usually bode well for the application to eventually respond - which is referenced in the image text.
Subliminal
by Jeff
Image text: Once you see it, you can't help seeing it every time. Until your body finishes metabolizing the mushrooms.
This comic is about the Fedex logo and how there is a subliminal/hidden arrow in the logo. Megan in the comic cannot see it, instead seeing a wild scene including Guy Fawkes, Willie Mays and an assault vehicle. The implication being in the image text that Megan is affected by hallucinogenic wild mushrooms.
Guy Fawkes was the British revolutionary who was one of the main characters in the fictional graphic novel and movie "V For Vendetta". Willie Mays was a American baseball player for the San Francisco Giants who made a famous over the shoulder catch in the World Series. Some consider it to be the best defensive play of all time in baseball.
Ice
by Jeff
Image text: On the plus side, she wrote 'Welcome to the AAA Club!' in lipstick on the bathroom mirror, and left me a membership/roadside assistance card on the counter.
This comic is a take on the typical (is it typical?) organ harvesting story. However, in this case, instead of being seduced, drugged and then waking up in a bathtub full of ice with his kidney gone, Beret wakes up in a bathtub full of kidneys with his ice gone.
The image text is a reference to this urban legend of AIDS Mary in which a prostitute leaves a guy in the middle of the night and writes "Welcome to the AIDS Club" or "Welcome to the World of AIDS" in lipstick on the mirror. (Snopes link)
In America, AAA stands for the American Automobile Association, which offers car insurance and roadside assistance and other assistance for motorists. So, instead of being AIDS, the mystery woman buys Beret a nominally valuable membership to AAA.
Core
by Jeff
Image text: If you're a geologist or geophysicist and you don't introduce yourself by saying your name, then gesturing downward and saying "... and I study that", I don't know what you're doing with your life.
This one is honestly very self-explanatory. The first frame a cross-section of the Earth's interior. The second frame is zoomed into the orange and red sections of the first frame. And the third frame is Cueball looking down as all of that is directly below him.