Sigh
by Jeff
Image text: If you're annoying enough, you can get them to respond with an involuntary second sigh and get a rhythm going.
Ok, here's the information you need to understand this one:
Cueball is mispronouncing the name of the British TV show, that is also currently show in the US, which is DownTON Abbey (emphasis mine). I had that same problem with the name of the show for almost a whole year.
I'm no LMFAO expert, but they are ubiquitous group in the US on radio, TV and even strange commercials with rodents riding in cars with their infectious ear worm, Party Rock Anthem. However, this comic is a reference to another one of their songs, "Sexy And I Know It" (Trust me, you don't have to get too far into it before the referenced part in the comic.)
AAAAAA
by Jeff
Image text: 'ARE YOU TURNED ON YET?' 'I DON'T THINK SO--ARE YOU?' 'MAYBE A LITTLE!' 'OK, FIVE MORE MINUTES.'
Ok, in this comic, Megan and Cueball find out that "this guy's mansion" has a rotating bed (in the last frame, which is a flashback). So, they decide to build one and it appears to be going far too fast as both are holding on for dear life on each side of the bed.
The rotating bed is supposed to be a sexy device, but it appears from the comic that Cueball and Megan have made it rotate a little to fast to be appealing. However, the image text maybe makes us think otherwise.
MTV Generation
by Jeff
Image text: If you identified with the kids from The Breakfast Club when it came out, you're now much closer to the age of Principal Vernon.
This one is pretty straightfoward, so let's just do some definitions.
MTV is Music Television, it is a TV channel is the US and elsewhere that when it started in the 1980s used to show music videos. Now it only shows crappy reality TV.
The Breakfast Club is an iconic movie from 1985 in which 5 very different teenagers spend a Saturday detention together at the school. Principal Vernon was obviously, the principal in the movie and was the overseer of the detention.
This comic is one of the rare appearances of the White Hat character, who is seen much less than the Black Hat character.
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
Darmok and Jalad
by Jeff
Image text: I wonder how often Patrick Stewart has Darmok flashbacks when talking to Star Trek fans.
This comic is a reference to the Star Trek episode "Darmok" in which Captain Picard and the Enterprise crew come upon a Tamarian ship and Tamarian planet in which they can translate the words, but because the language is based on metaphors, they cannot understand what the words mean. The famous line from the episode: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" is parodied in the first frame of the comic.
Picard is eventually able to decipher the line to discover that it was a story of two warriors that work together to defeat a common foe. In the comic, the computer instead deciphers the "Darmok and Jalad at Kalenda's" phrase.
Can any Star Trek fans add more to this explanation in the comments?
Chain of Command
by Jeff
Image text: Themistocles said his infant son ruled all Greece -- "Athens rules all Greece; I control Athens; my wife controls me; and my infant son controls her." Thus, nowadays the world is controlled by whoever buys advertising time on Dora the Explorer.
Themistocles was an Ancient Greek politician and this comic and image text are about uncommon chains of command.
The President of the United States is at the top of the US Nuclear Chain of Command, but the Engineer is technically above him because the button would not work without the Engineer and the Engineer is in charge of configuring how the button works. Just in case you are not familiar with movie and TV depictions, the "Red Button" is usually a worst case scenario as it launches all nuclear capabilities.
In the image text is a similar joke placed at the top of the chain of command, this time in Ancient Greece. Since Themistocles' infant son ruled all of Greece, where did his infant son get any ideas? If this were current day, the infant son would get his ideas from advertisements shown on the show Dora the Explorer. Dora the Explorer is a very popular animated television series shown on the Nickelodeon networks staring a child named Dora who explores. (Hence the name.)
Exoplanets
by Jeff
Image text: I'm just worried that we'll all leave and you won't get to come along!
In this comic, our friend Beret run to wake up Cueball with his potentially middle of the night revelation that Humankind is discovering "Exoplanets" or planets that exist outside of our solar system. The indication is that these planets are habitable enough for humans, even if just for a visit.
Then Beret takes it a bit further thinking that one of the countries on Earth could restart Project Orion. As Beret suggests, Project Orion was an early study that pushed for nuclear powered rockets for space travel. However, the one major downside of Project Orion was the fallout zone that the nuclear launch would present on Earth. But a nuclear launch in space on an asteroid or space station would not present those same problems. Then Beret references Stargate:Atlantis when he mentions "City-Ships" as the city-ship Atlantis was the basis for the show. The city-ships on Stargate:Atlantis are about the size of Manhattan.
So, to sum up the comic. Beret is very excited that we can see (with the Hubble telescope and other earth-bound telescopes) and find exoplanets. Then with some advances in space technology we can create nuclear propulsion in space to reach these planets. Have to admit, it is very exciting.
And Cueball would just rather snooze.
Temper
by Jeff
Image text: Mr. Rogers projected an air of genuine, unwavering, almost saintly pure-hearted decency. But when you look deeper, at the person behind the image ... that's exactly what you find there, too. He's exactly what he appears to be.
Hello neighbors...
Mr. Rogers is awesome!
One Two
by Berg
Image Text: Cue letters from Anthropology majors complaining that this view of numerolinguistic development perpetuates a widespread myth. They get to write letters like that because when you're not getting a real science degree you have a lot of free time.
First off- in case you breezed past the "by" line, this is Berg, not Jeff. I'm gonna be updating the site periodically whenever Ol' Jeffaroo needs a helping hand. Pleasure to meet you. And now, on to the explanation...
Today's comic shows us a television screen featuring The Count, a Sesame Street character of some renown who's a fan of counting (and probably has some sort of Autistic Spectrum Disorder). He counts, as he is known to do, but runs out of numbers after 2, defaulting then to "Many." The implication, based on the caption, is that The Count is presenting a counting lesson for primitive cultures, who don't have a sophisticated enough system of numbers to express anything larger than 2 specifically.
Based on the 2005 documentary "The World According to Sesame Street," there is reason to believe that if there were a culture who's numeric system was this simple that this is indeed the Sesame Street that was created for them. After all, if Rruga Sesam (Kosovo) can have a bit about how to identify and avoid old landmines, why wouldn't this fictional culture's Sesame Street have a simplified version of The Count?
The image text is fairly self-explanatory, but still worth picking apart- it's a clear dig at Anthropology, and by extension the rest of the so-called "soft sciences." Soft science is a derisive categorization of many social sciences, or fields of study in general who's methodology falls very much under the umbrella of science, but who's areas of study require the use of more subjective conjecturing than objective analysis of data (I'm looking at you, Sociology). Soft sciences, such as Anthropology, are therefore seen by many as less rigorous than hard sciences, such as Physics.
The author is suggesting, then, that the lack of rigor necessary to earn a degree in Anthropology enables its students to pursue less important lines of inquiry- such as "is Xkcd sensitive to stereotypes of primitive cultures?" The answer to which is, of course, NO.
Public Opinion
by Jeff
Image text: News networks giving a greater voice to viewers because the social web is so popular are like a chef on the Titanic who, seeing the looming iceberg and fleeing customers, figures ice is the future and starts making snow cones.
I completely agree. Those "voices on the street" segments are probably the most awkward segments ever as well. Must. Change. Channel.