Constructive
by Jeff
Image text: And what about all the people who won't be able to join the community because they're terrible at making helpful and constructive co-- ... oh.
In this comic, Cueball is considering his new invention for keeping spammers off an online community. All sites now use CAPTCHA which is used to tell humans from bots or spammers. CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. CAPTCHAs are usually image files that have a word on them that humans can easily read (or sometimes not so easily) and computers are unable to.
Cueball's idea is another form of a Turing test that forces all potential commenters to get their comment flagged as constructive or non-constructive. This allows other users to decide what should be allowed on the site. The desired side effect is that all users, spammers, bots or humans all contribute constructive comments.
So, thanks to all of our commenters here at explainxkcd.com. You guys, girls, spammers and bots are all awesome. Just in case you didn't realize, we are not geniuses. Thanks for helping us see our way through the quagmire that is xkcd comics ever Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Our powers combined we can figure out these comics, or summon Captain Planet, one of the two.
Thanks!
Golden Hammer
by Jeff
Image text: Took me five tries to find the right one, but I managed to salvage our night out--if not the boat--in the end.
This comic is a reference to the "Law of the Instrument" also known as the "Golden Hammer". The key is in the comic title, which is a move that is seen from xkcd, but only rarely. In either case, the law of the instrument is the over-reliance on a particular tool. In Information Technology and Computer Science it is known as, "a familiar technology or concept applied obsessively to many software problems". And in this comic, both Black Hat and Cueball are commenting on over-reliance on a certain tool, concept or technology. In Cueball's case, he is ranting about the use of Java (JVM stands for Java Virtual Machine) by this particular application or website. For Black Hat, he is the person using the "Golden Hammer", which for him is a bottle of vodka and bolt cutters.
Abraham Maslow said in Psychology of Science that "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" and Black Hat is using a varation of that quote in frame 3.
Also, I'm not sure what exactly Cueball is tinkering with in his hand in frame 2. (Or why his head is half-way down his arm.)
Open Mic Night
by Jeff
Image text: Ever notice how the more successful observational comics become, the more their jokes focus on flying and hotels?
Alright, open mic night. Everyone's favorite night.
In the first frame Cutie/MC Aphasia is not a very good rapper because Aphasia is a disorder that effects the part of the brain that controls the ability of speech. So, as you can see in the comic, MC Aphasia has a very difficult time speaking let alone rapping.
In the second frame, Black Hat is reacting to a Yo Momma joke that someone in the audience possibly yelled his way and starts off a common "Yo Momma" joke - "When yo momma sits around the house, she really sits AROUND the house." But instead he goes in another direction to something that is a bit more off the beaten path.
In the third frame Cueball/MC Quine is a computer science joke. A Quine is a program that produces its source code as its output. In other words, what MC Quine puts into the rap is exactly what he gets out of it. Hence the repetition of the same line. In this case, the source code of the rap is "Yo, I'm MC Quine and I'm here to say,".
And completing the xkcd trifecta is the last comic, is a Lord of the Rings joke. I'll call him "Beret" and is riffing off a common observational comic routine in which the comic observes that men go to the bathroom alone and women go in groups.
The image text is a reference to how when comedians become more famous, they travel more to other cities to do their comedy. In the case of observational comics, the more they travel, the more they have time to observe both hotels and flying and nothing else.
DFS
by Jeff
Image text: A breadth-first search makes a lot of sense for dating in general, actually; it suggests dating a bunch of people casually before getting serious, rather than having a series of five-year relationships one after the other.
This comic has to do with two different types of search algorithms in computer science. Depth-first search or DFS as the title implies. In this algorithm, the search agent will go through the first option as deep as it goes before moving onto the next item or option. In the comic, the character searches 50 deep into the Medical Emergency -> Snakebite option and didn't have enough time to get ready for the date.
In a breath-first search, the search agent will check each item in each level first before moving to the next one, just as the image text suggests.
Whoops, looks like LD50 is median lethal dose, not a computer science term. Thanks to commenter TCs for the link.
Dependencies
by Jeff
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Image text: The prereqs for CPSC 357, the class on package management, are CPCS 432, CPSC 357, and glibc2.5 or later.
This is a computer science joke with a possible homage to Fight Club.
The meaning here is roughly "A dependency class depends on a dependency class" as a prerequisite.
The same thing follows in the image text as 357 is required for 357.
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".