Percentage Points
by Jeff
Image text: Grayton also proposed making college scholarships available exclusively to sexually active teens, amnesty for illegal immigrants who create room for themselves by killing a citizen, and a graduated income tax based on penis size. He has been endorsed by Tracy Morgan, John Wilkes Booth's ghost, and the Time Cube guy.
Senator Grayton is a fictional name, made up for this comic, which is a bit surprising to me as the names used in xkcd are usually references to something.
I'll see if I can do a line on each of the issues that Grayton fictionally supports:
Tax Breaks to Drunk Drivers - Grayton proposed to give money back on their taxes for people who have been convicted of a DUI or DWI. Driving Under the Influence or Driving While Intoxicated
Predator Drones and the War on Christmas - The War on Christmas is a not a real war, it is simply Christians who believe that non-Christians are trying to get rid of Christmas trees, Christmas music and the endless barrage of Christmas-themed nonsense we get from Thanksgiving to Christmas. I don't know how his support would go down if he supported unmanned Predator Drones to destroy people who hate Christmas, knowing America. (Jokes!)
College Scholarships to Sexually Active Teens - Not sure how they would test for this on the scholarship application, but it is funny none the less.
Illegal Immigrants Who Murder - This is an argument for immigration, but only if they make "room" and possibly an open job for themselves by getting rid of another person. This one is pretty evil.
Income Tax Based on Penis Size - Wow, this one would never pass!
On To the Names:
Tracy Morgan is an actor in the TV Show 30 Rock, who plays Tracy Jordan, he is known for his outlandish statements on politics and everything else in the world. He has been reprimanded for controversial comments on homosexuals and Sarah Palin (in separate incidents).
Josh Wilkes Booth is the person who assassinated Abraham Lincoln. He was a sympathizer with the Confederate cause and was for slavery and all its trappings.
Time Cube Guy is Gene Ray, also known as Otis E. Ray. He has a website known as Time Cube (Thanks Wikipedia) where he sets out his personal model of reality, which he calls Time Cube. He suggests that all of modern physics is wrong, in addition to claiming religion to be evil, specifically Christianity, and the idea of family is poisoning children.
Ok, finally to the numbers:
If his polling is at 20% and drops by 19%, without specifying percentage points, that means that his support has only dropped 1% (EDIT: I'm bad at math. Thanks commentors, it is 3.8% percentage points), because 19% of 20% is only 1% 3.8%. That would mean after all his outrageous statements, his support dropped from 20% to 16.2%. However, if they had said his 20% polling dropped 19% (removed percentage sign for redundancy, thanks again commentors) percentage points, that would mean his support has dropped to 1%. Therefore, the distinction is important.
Space Launch System
by Jeff
Image text: The SLS head engineer plans to invite Shania Twain to stand under the completed prototype, then tell her, 'I don't expect you to date me just because I'm a rocket scientist, but you've gotta admit--this is pretty fucking impressive.'
SLS, which stands for Space Launch System (naturally) is the new launch program being designed by NASA to replace the retired Space Shuttle launch system. In the first frame, Cueball is showing Black Hat something about the SLS, possibly a video on his phone or other portable electronic device.
As usually with his appearances, Black Hat is causing trouble. Here, Black Hat is by as much as I can find, telling the truth, because Nazi-Germany era scientists like Wernher von Braun, who was one of the developers of the Saturn V launch vehicle, came over to NASA and helped develop NASA's space program.
Black Hat's assumption in the last frame is obviously a bridge too far (which is where the joke is in the comic), but he gets his desired reaction out of Cueball, who is hanging his head.
Shania Twain comes into this comic in the image text because in her song "That Don't Impress Me Much", she sings: "Okay, so you're a rocket scientist/That don't impress me much". But, the image text argues that if she stood under the new SLS prototype, she would admit it was in fact, impressive.
Privacy
by Jeff
Image text: Eventual headline: 'University Researchers Create Life in Lab! Darkness, Faulty Condoms Blamed.'
Sorry this post was late, but I was still travelling back from Thanksgiving. Thanks for your patience!
This comic is about a couple, let us call them "Cueball and Megan" attempting to find some privacy to "hook up", which is slang for engage in sexual activity. Some people argue that "hook up" means to have sex, but I would argue it means any sort of sexual activity, although "to have sex" is still a subset of "hook up". In the image text, it seems to indicate that sex was indeed assumed in the phrase "hook up".
In the second frame, the female roommate of Megan is currently in a raid, which is a phrase used in World of Warcraft and other Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games or MMORPGs. A Raid is a large gathering of players that work together to defeat a difficult enemy.
The Rare book collection in the library (frame 3) is usually deserted, so it would be perfect for sexual activity, but instead a tour is going through the area instead. It is unclear if the tour is visiting Nelson Mandela in the rare book section or Nelson Mandela is visiting the school and is getting a tour through the rare book section. Is that a stick figure Nelson Mandela with the white hair?
Next they try an accelerator tunnel that is in use, a beaver lodge (pun on the word "beaver", which is slang for the vagina is I assume intended by Randall). I'm not sure why the current understanding of physics rules out privacy in hyperspace. Any of our awesomely helpful commentors know?
In the image text, it indicates that the two found privacy for sex in the lab, but inadvertently got Megan pregnant. The image text is a pun on news titles about scientists who have created synthetic life in the lab.
Set Theory
by Jeff
Image text: Proof of Zermelo's well-ordering theorem given the Axiom of Choice: 1: Take S to be any set. 2: When I reach step three, if S hasn't managed to find a well-ordering relation for itself, I'll feed it into this wood chipper. 3: Hey, look, S is well-ordered.
This comic is a pun on the phrase "Proof by Intimidation" which normally means (thanks Wikipedia) a jocular term used mainly in mathematics to refer to a style of presenting a purported mathematical proof by giving an argument loaded with jargon and appeal to obscure results, so that the audience is simply obliged to accept it, lest they have to admit their ignorance and lack of understanding.
However, in the comic, instead of using "Proof by Intimidation" in that way, the narrator's math teacher takes regular proofs and axioms and places threatening words into them so that the students will learn better because she threatens them with death or harm.
The axiom of choice (which has been referenced in previous xkcds) says that given any collection of bins, each containing at least one object, it is possible to make a selection of exactly one object from each bin.
In the image text, the well-ordering theorem states that every set can be well-ordered. A set X is well-ordered by a strict total order if every non-empty subset of X has a least element under the ordering. This is also known as Zermelo's theorem and is equivalent to the Axiom of Choice.
Porn Folder
by Jeff
Image text: Eww, gross, you modified link()? How could you enjoy abusing a filesystem like that?
In this comic, Cueball finds what he believes to be a pornography folder on the off-screen character's laptop. The folder is a bit hidden, as is the stereotype of porn folders since no one wants a random person using their computer to find it. However, instead of traditional pornography, which would include videos, photos and etc, this contains just folders and subfolders. After getting to the bottom of the folder tree, it links back up to the main folder again.
The filesystem is called a "hardlinked directory loop" by the offscreen character. A hard link is a static pointer that points from one link or file to the actual data that is on the disk. In this case, the hard link is pointing back up to the main folder which creates a loop. Hard links are not usually used to point to directories, which is why this is described as "so taboo". Soft links or symbolic links are used to link to directories instead. The utilization of the word "hard" is not lost on me as a pun for a filesystem that turns on the offscreen character.
In the image text: In a Linux operating system, link() creates a new link, also known as a hard link (there's the hard link again) to an existing file.
Money Chart
by Jeff
(Click on the chart above to embiggen.)
Image text: There, I showed you it.
Well, that's why this one is late. It is MASSIVE. This is another chart that Randall does for xkcd from time to time. He has done maps of the Internet (twice) and other huge visualizations.
Dollar increments are different colors. Dollar increments are green. (Naturally, because American paper money is green.) Thousands are Orange/Red. Millions are gray. Billions are yellow. Trillions are blue.
Since there is so much information here, I'll pick out some interesting ones. Please comment below with your favorite entries or ones you would like to explain as I don't have the time to get to every single one.
In the dollar section, I think there is a typo in the bottom right hand corner. The two very small boxes are average worker hourly wage in 1965 and 2007. ($19.61 and $19.71, respectively) And then it has two much larger boxes, but both say "Typical 2007 CEO pay for the same period". But, the much smaller of the boxes should say "1965" instead. These four boxes indicate that the CEO pay has skyrocketed from 490.31 (hourly) to $5,419.97 (hourly) in the same time period in which the average worker's salary has skyrocketed 10 cents.
In the bottom of the Thousands chart, there is a reference to the song by Bare Naked Ladies entitled "If I Had A Million Dollars" and all the things referenced in the song to buy the love of another person.
Also in the Thousands chart is a reference to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy from the popular book series by J.K. Rowling about Harry Potter. One box is the estimated yearly tuition for the school and the next is how much seven years at the school would cost. To get a degree at the school, it takes 7 years.
In the Billions section, I'll take on the "Fictional Billionaires".
Carlsine Cullen is from the Twilight Series of books and movies. He is a vampire and adoptive father of Edward, Emmett and Alice Cullen, as well as Rosalie and Jasper Halewho. He was born in the 1640s and amassed his wealth through many years of compound interest and investments.
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character from many properties including the afternoon cartoon, Duck Tales. Scrooge McDuck has a "money bin" full of coins and other sorts of collectibles that he routinely goes swimming in.
Bruce Wayne is Batman. Batman is Bruce Wayne. He is portrayed in many comic books, graphic novels, TV shows and movies by many different actors.
Artemis Fowl is an Irish child prodigy and a ruthless master criminal from the book Series by the same name. He uses his intelligence to build his family fortune through crime.
In the millions section, there is another reference to JK Rowling, in this case it is MC Front-A-Lot (The creator of the subgenre of hip-hop known as "Nerd Core") who estimated her net worth at $1 billion. But, that begs the question, why do the boxes only add up to $82,000? Is this another typo?
That is all I have time for today. What did you find interesting in this massive chart?
(PS - Since it is Thanksgiving Week in the US, I will be out and about on Wednesday and Friday this week. I'll have the comic explanations up, but they may be late.)
Wisdom of the Ancients
by Jeff
Image text: All long help threads should have a sticky globally-editable post at the top saying 'DEAR PEOPLE FROM THE FUTURE: Here's what we've figured out so far ...'
This comic is pretty self-explanatory, as to the left of the frame is the feeling Cueball gets when he sees a thread on an online forum with the same error and no solution. Those type of hanging posts with no conclusion are majorly annoying, which is why you see Cueball standing up and shaking his monitor in the right frame.
This is why when I post about a problem on a forum, I always update it with the solution, even if it is a while later. Or, the proposed solution in the image text works as well.
Citogenesis
by Jeff
Image text: I just read a pop-science book by a respected author. One chapter, and much of the thesis, was based around wildly inaccurate data which traced back to ... Wikipedia. To encourage people to be on their toes, I'm not going to say what book or author.
This comic title is a combination of Citation and Genesis to come up with the new word "Citogenesis", which means the genesis of a citation in Wikipedia. As you can see, in the graph in Step 4, this can create a lot of misinformation, even outside of Wikipedia.
I have no idea what book is being referred to in the image text, does anyone have any ideas? Guesses?
Map Projections
by Jeff
Image text: What's that? You think I don't like the Peters map because I'm uncomfortable with having my cultural assumptions challenged? Are you sure you're not ... ::puts on sunglasses:: ... projecting?
This comic is takes all the different map projections, which is the way that the sphere that is the Earth is placed into a flat map, and makes assumptions on what type of person prefers that type of map projections. Not much to explain here as the different types of map projections are laid out and all the text below the map projections are jokes.
In the image text, the joke here goes to the familiar meme from CSI:Miami, in which the star, David Caruso starts on sentence, then puts on his sunglasses and then ends it with a corny pun. Naturally, there is a youtube video that has collected all of these one liners. This internet meme has been mentioned previously by xkcd in comic 626 and possibly others.
Sail
by Jeff
Image text: It only works a few times before you have to capsize the boat in a soap lagoon again.
In this comic, over the first 3 frames, it seems like Cueball is piloting a normal sailboat. However, in frames 4-6, it becomes obvious, that Cueball is actually using bubble solution for his sail instead. When the sail gets enough wind, it creates its own bubble.
As the image text says, you have to submerge the boat in soap again to get enough soap on the sail to blow bubbles again.