Science Valentine
by Jeff
Image text: You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
Well, there's a downer for ya.
You Hang Up First
by Jeff
Image text: No, YOU stumble past a series of post-breakup hookups in a daze as you slowly realize what you've lost and how unlikely you are ever to get it back first.
This one is pretty clear and is an escalating case of the classic "You hang up first" discussion between lovers.
G-Spot
by Jeff
Image text: The BBC lead was 'The elusive erogenous zone said to exist in some women may be a myth, say researchers who have hunted for it.' I couldn't read it with a straight face.
In the comic, the reporters asking about the G-spot article are attending the wrong conference and proceed to make a solar cells researcher very sad.
We Get It
by Jeff
Image text: The most brutal way I've ever seen someone handle this was 'Oh, you have a girlfriend. Are you going to get married?' 'I, uh, don't know--' 'Well, do you love her?' '...' 'Anyway, what were you saying about the movie?'
This comic is a social commentary on the way that some people advertise their new relationships as a way to brag to others.
Orbitals
by Jeff
Image text: And now someone drunk and hot stumbles in, one thing follows another, and the next roommate to return home sleeps in the hall lounge orbital.
This is a parody on the Pauli exclusion principle of quantum mechanics that states that no two identical fermions (electrons, protons, neutrons, muons) can occupy the same state. In the case of the comic, the state is the dorm room suite. The highest lowest level or state is in this comic is your own bedroom, then next two lower higher states are the next two bedrooms, and the lowest highest state is the couch in the living room. The image text goes on to speculate that the next lowest higher state would be the hall lounge if the living room itself was "occupied" by a romantic pair. The Pauli Sexclusion Principle dictates that no two roommates can occupy the same "state" in the case of sexual activity and it dictates the order of "states" .
The pun on the name is that when one person is barred from their room due to the sexual activity of their roomate, this is known as "sexclusion".
EDIT: Also, I'm not quite sure whether or not the drawings of the couples in the rooms are very crude stick figures...
Nowhere
by Jeff
Image text: I mean, seriously, NOWHERE? For starters, there are like a thousand species of dinosaur.
Looks like the girl in the comic would rather be riding a dinosaur than hanging out with that dude. Ouch. The rare comic that allows us to use the cynicism, love and dinosaurs tag in one post. Bet that doesn't happen again.
Creepy
by Jeff
Image text: And I even got out my adorable new netbook!
This comic is a dream sequence for the male character for the first four frames. It appears to be a social commentary about why more single men and women don't randomly talk to each other. One side is waiting for the other to show the midlest interest and the other side is waiting for the other side to show interest as well. So, no one talks to anyone else and someone writes sadly into their blog.
Brontosaurus
by Jeff
Image text: Well, sex is like a velociraptor: despite your movie-fueled lifelong neurotic obsession, unlikely to be found in your house.
And here we continue xkcd's author's obsession with the cyncism about love.
Brontosaurus is an obsolete phrase for the Apatosaurus. Brontosaurus is the "popular" (but incorrect) name for the dinosaur, but Apatosaurus is the correct name.
Date
by Mike
Image Text: Well, the kid's definitely getting the biology geek phenotype.
Punnett squares are simple diagrams used to determine the odds of a particular offspring genotype (genetic make up) given the genotypes of the parents. The phenotype is the physical manifestation of the genes in the organism and doesn't always correlated directly to strict genotypes. Some genetic characteristics (like color blindness and eye color) can be easily traced using Punnett squares because they are the result of one clearly dominant gene and one clearly recessive. Other traits like height are a blend of multiple genes.
An interesting thing to note:
The male's parents were both colorblind but that is a recessive gene on the X chromosome. For his mother to be colorblind she must have had two copies of the gene. This man now carries the gene on his X chromosome so he will only pass it on to his daughter. She will be a carrier but will have normal color vision so long as this woman is not colorblind.
Suspicion
by Jeff
Image text: Fine, walk away. I'm gonna go cry into a pint of Ben&Jerry's Brownie Batter(tm) ice cream [link], then take out my frustration on a variety of great flash games from PopCap Games(r) [link].
In this comic, the main character is having online chats with what appears at first glance to be a woman. However, in requesting that they both "get tested". The woman on the other end of the computer does not pass a CAPTCHA test and is unable to prove she is a human.
This is an internet version of the Turing test. A spambot is a program that send out links (such as in the image text) to simulate an human's writing. This test is called "VK", which stands for Voight-Kampff, which is the machine in Blade Runner which determines human from replicant.
In using the phrase "get tested", the comic is making a pun that refers both to the CAPTCHA test above and the STD test that couples will take to make sure they are physically clean.