explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1737: Datacenter Scale

2016-09-23T14:38:27Z

EpicWolverine: Minor text fixes

{{comic
| number = 1737
| date = September 23, 2016
| title = Datacenter Scale
| image = datacenter_scale.png
| titletext = Asimov's Cosmic AC was created by linking all datacenters through hyperspace, which explains a lot. It didn't reverse entropy--it just discarded the universe when it reached end-of-life and ordered a new one.
}}
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Is it?}}

{{w|RAID}} ("redundant array of independent disks") is a technology that splits data across several hard-drives as if they were one. RAID comes in several levels for different uses, but one of the big applications of RAID is creating mirrored hard disks that back each other up. If one disk drive in a RAID array fails, no data is lost.

However, RAID is complicated to configure, so you don't want to be constantly setting it up. An alternative technique for data centers is therefore to simply send the data to several servers at once. This makes maintenance easier, but without RAID, one hard disk crash basically breaks the server. However, this is what the woman with a bun's data center is doing since their scale is so large that fixing individual servers do not make sense, and instead of fixing the drive they throw away the machine.

From here, the comic starts to exaggerate. Nowadays, servers can be made extremely small ("{{w|Blade server}}s") and dozens of servers can be attached to one {{w|19-inch rack}} in a data center. Rather than going to the effort of unplugging and unscrewing one blade from the rack, when a blade fails at [[Cueball]]'s data center they just throw away the rack, and [[Ponytail]] agrees and kinda mock the woman with a bun for replacing one server.

[[Hairy]]'s goes one step further - they have so many servers that they would constantly have to be throwing away and replacing racks, so instead they just build a new room when one rack fails. This would be currently possible with small modular data centers that are built in shipping containers for easy transport and can be linked together to expand capacity. Here the cargo-container "room" with the failure would be quickly swapped with a fresh one. Cueball adds "like Google!" - [[Randall]] previously mentioned {{w|Google|Google's}} approach to hard drive failures in the [[what if?]] ''{{what if|63|Google's Datacenters on Punch Cards}}''. Back in [http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/de//archive/disk_failures.pdf 2007] they had one failure every few minutes - that might have increased hugely since then.

Finally [[Megan]] appears and her company of course breaks the scale of silliness in exaggeration. She says that they don't have any fire extinguishers (neither {{w|Fire sprinkler system|regular sprinklers}} nor the {{w|Gaseous fire suppression|inert gas systems}} that flood the room with gases like argon which force out oxygen and stop fires - these are better for computers than traditional water or powder systems, but are lethal to people trapped in the rooms!). Rather, they just rope the center off let, thus letting the data center burn down. Then they simply move a town over and build a new one. This may indicate they are so big that the entire town will burn down if their center catches fire, for else they did not have to skip town. Alternatively, they just leave the center burning and this may cause problems in that town, so they simply flee the premises.

Most big internet companies do have multiple redundant data centers around the world, in order to increase speeds for users in different countries, but Megan's idea would be very expensive, increase in {{w|Latency (engineering)|latency}} and possibly also kill people, either in their company or other people in the town and since they do not try to turn out the fire, at least cause severe destruction of properties, not only their own.

Still Hairy thinks that it makes sense, whereas Cueball wonders what difference the roping off does. This could again be a reference to the fact that they just let the buildings burn without bothering about the local consequences, and the next step is just one more step towards the extreme of the title text.

This comic references how, as data requirements expand, companies rarely use more specific, but time costly choices when working with data centers, and use more expensive but faster solutions. While this comic takes this to the extreme, with whole buildings being destroyed for simple flaws, the concept is not as far fetched as it seems if "thrown out" is taken to include being sold to equipment refurbishers. It could indeed be cost effective for a large data services provider to resell racks or even whole data center modules at some significant fraction of their "as new" price as opposed expending the time and effort to attempt a repair. The equipment refurbisher would then rely on a {{w|competitive advantage|cost advantage}} like cheaper labor to repair the flaw and sell it back to Google or another company with less demanding requirements. Equipment rental firms already operate on this model and with the added incentive customers preferring to rent newer models, this means that the equipment is often ''preemptively'' replaced before failures even occur.

The title text refers to {{w|Isaac Asimov}}'s science-fiction novella "{{w|The Last Question}}", where humanity asks, at different stages of its spatial and technological development, the same question to increasingly advanced computers: "How can the net amount of {{w|entropy}} of the universe be massively decreased?". At each point, the computer's answer is that it does not yet have enough data for a meaningful answer. Ultimately, the computers are all linked through hyperspace, outside the physical boundaries of the universe, and make up a single computing entity named AC which keeps pondering the question even as the {{w|heat death of the universe}} occurs and time and space cease to exist. When AC finally discovers the answer, since there is nobody left to report it to, it decides to demonstrate it and says "{{w|Let there be light|LET THERE BE LIGHT!}}", which are the first words said by God during the Creation, according to the {{w|Book of Genesis}}. Here, the title text implies that, as the universe died, AC no longer had a use for it as a physical support and, taking the comic's logic to the next extreme, chose to discard it and get a brand-new one instead of bothering to "fix" it by reversing its entropy.

==Transcript==
:[Zoom in on a woman with a bun holding her hand palm up in front of her taking to people off-panel right.]
:Woman with a bun: RAID controllers don't make sense at our scale; everything is redundant at higher levels. When a drive fails, we just throw away the whole machine.

:[In this frame-less panel it is revealed that the woman with a bun talked to Cueball and Ponytail who is looking her way.]
:Cueball: Machine? We throw away whole racks at a time.
:Ponytail: Yeah, who replaces ''one server''?

:[Hairy has appeared from the left and holds one hand palm up towards the other three where also the woman with a bun has turned towards him.]
:Hairy: We just replace whole rooms at once. At our scale, messing with racks isn't economical.
:Woman with a bun: Wow.
:Cueball: Like Google!

:[Megan walks in from the left, and everyone including Hairy now looks towards her. Cueball has taken a hand up to his chin. The replies to Megan are written with clearly smaller font.]
:Megan: We don't have sprinklers or inert gas systems. When a datacenter catches fire, we just rope it off and rebuild one town over.
:Hairy: <small>Makes sense.</small>
:Cueball: <small>I wonder if the rope is really necessary.</small>

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

Talk:1737: Datacenter Scale

2016-09-23T04:56:03Z

EpicWolverine:

While the comic is obviously exxaggerating, there are situations where this could make a certain amount of sense. IF you can design a server so that most or all of the components reach end-of-life at about the same time, then if a hard drive fails on one server, every other component of that server is likely to fail soon as well.

If you install entire server racks or server rooms at the same time, where every machine contains components with the same basic life cycle...

then in theory, once the first component fails, you can ignore it until mass component failures causes the entire rack/room to fall below a certain readiness level.

At that point, there's no reason to pay a technician to spend several days removing and replacing half the individual components throughout that rack/room, when the other half are just going to fail in the next few months anyway. In theory, it might be economically more efficient just to scrap everything at once, bring in brand-new server replacements, and re-sync the needed data from a networked backup.

in real life, it's very hard to build a server that will reliably degrade on schedule.... but with the right tradeoffs, and enough long-term performance data, it might eventually become possible to do so.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.101|162.158.74.101]] 04:48, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

The title text is referring to [http://multivax.com/last_question.html The Last Question by Isaac Asimov]. [[User:EpicWolverine|EpicWolverine]] ([[User talk:EpicWolverine|talk]]) 04:56, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

225: Open Source

2016-04-15T02:24:27Z

EpicWolverine: /* Explanation */ Fixed spelling of "ninja" as "nija" and "know" as "now".

{{comic
| number = 225
| date = February 19, 2007
| title = Open Source
| image = open source.png
| titletext = Later we'll dress up like Big Oil thugs and jump Ralph Nader.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Richard Stallman}}, or ''rms'' after his handle, is an old-school hacker known these days primarily for establishing the {{w|Free Software Foundation}} and initiating the {{w|GNU Project}} in the early 1980s, which produced major portions of what would later be the {{w|Linux|GNU/Linux}} operating system. In this capacity, he's also known for being one of the most ardent and outspoken proponents of {{w|free software}}, sometimes called {{w|open source software}}. In fact, his advocacy is so emphatic and polemical that he has garnered active dislike from traditionalists who believe that software {{w|source code}} should be retained as a trade secret by its developer(s). Stallman has expressed that he did not even wish to be in a comic using the word '''Open Source''', see the [[#Trivia|trivia]] section.

While this dislike may not rise to the level of hiring {{w|ninja}} assassins to remove him from the world, it is strong. The joke of the comic, as it also turns out, is that the two ninjas was just out to have a fun time teasing Stallman, and they seemed to know that Stallmans paranoia about {{w|Microsoft}} makes him sleep with no less than two {{w|katana}} swords near his bed. This type of swords were one of the traditionally made Japanese swords that were used by the {{w|samurai}} of feudal Japan. A ninja was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. Their covert methods of waging irregular warfare were deemed "dishonorable" and "beneath" the samurai-caste, who observed strict rules about honor and combat. So this makes sense in this comic with Stallman the samurai and the ninjas the lackeys of the oppressing Microsoft (at least in his mind). It also turns out that they specifically chooses a target for their raids that have reason to be paranoid of come larger companies that might send someone after them, and thus sleeps with weapons near their bed. Stallman has received a Katana due to this comic, see the [[#Trivia|trivia]] section.

{{w|GPL}} refers to the 'GNU General Public License', which is a copyright license written by the FSF that covers much GNU software and plenty of other free software besides. It stipulates that software so copyrighted must always be provided along with full source code, and that everyone in possession of such software is free to use, study, modify, and redistribute it for any purpose whatsoever (including sale or resale) provided they give due credit to any other contributing developers, also provide access to the complete source code, and retain all copyright notices.

Legally, this gives all users of such software exactly the same rights under copyright as the developer(s), and prevents any developers from ever taking away those rights from users, which is the defining feature of '{{w|Free software#Definition|free-as-in-libre}}' software. It also has the effect of making all software ''derived'' from GPL software thereby also GPL, even if 'derived' merely means 'borrowed a few lines of code from'. Some (e.g. Microsoft's {{w|Steve Ballmer}}) have therefore argued that this makes GPL software behave as a kind of {{w|viral license|'license virus'}}, which spreads GPL-guaranteed freedoms to any software used in close conjunction with GPL'd software during development, such that businesses should actively avoid adopting {{w|FOSS|free and open source software}}, so as not to jeopardize software developers' legal standing with regard to {{w|proprietary software|proprietary IP copyright}}s.

During the attack Richard Stallman begins to speak like he quotes an old play. For instance the wording "For a GNU dawn!" is pronounced "For a g'new dawn!", following the pronunciation of {{w|GNU}}, so it is a version of ''New Dawn'', a sentence used often in fiction. He even gets annoyed when it turns out the ninjas just run away, he had clearly waited a long time to, even looking forward to, defending him self with his katanas.

Because as it turned out that the two "ninjas" made a prank with him, and they realized that they had so much fun out of Stallman that they plan to do more of these nightly raids even mentioning two other possible future targets on their way out of the window:

{{w|Eric S. Raymond}} is a famous {{w|Hacker (programmer subculture)|hacker}} who wrote {{w|The Cathedral and the Bazaar}} and has been something of an unofficial spokesperson for open source as a {{w|Open-source software development|software development methodology}}. The plan to prank Eric Raymond could be a bad one since he is an experienced martial artist, swordsman, and firearm enthusiast. However, this seems to be the attraction of these two "ninjas" as can be seen by what they seems to know about their other possible target:

{{w|Linus Torvalds}} is the creator of the {{w|Linux kernel}}, an free/open source operating system kernel inspired by the {{w|Unix}} kernel, which proved to be the final component that, combined with then pre-existing GNU system functions and {{w|userland}} components, produced the first fully free operating system, {{w|Linux}}. The plan to prank Torvalds would at first sound more boring as the mild-mannered Finn, while known to be strongly, abrasively opinionated, is otherwise mostly harmless. However, one of the ninjas seems to know otherwise since it is rumored that Linus sleeps with {{w|nunchaku|nunchucks}} in the same way that Stallman sleeps with two katana swords. The ''nunchaku'' is a traditional Okinawan martial arts weapon consisting of two sticks connected at one end by a short chain or rope.

A third possible target of this prank is mentioned in the title text. {{w|Ralph Nader}} is a famous consumer rights advocate, most famous for the 1965 book {{w|Unsafe at Any Speed}} and for running for US President in 2000. Nader was an environmentalist, a member of the Green Party, and supported clean energy, thus he should naturally be opposed to the Big Oil companies.

==Transcript==
:[The first panel has the second panel inside it. It also has a slightly light gray background color. Just above the inlaid second panel is Richard Stallman lying in his bead sleeping, the bottom part at the foot of the bed is hidden behind the second panel below. Below his bed under his head lies a katana sword in it's sheath, and another one hangs in it's sheath behind the end of the bed. Two ninjas with black cloth around their heads and swords jump through the skylight smashing it so glass scatters around them. Each of them is hanging one handed from the same rope coming down from the skylight. The rope ends just above the inlaid frame below. The two ninjas shouts at Richard Stallman, from four speech bubbles which have pointy ends to indicate how the two alternately speaks. (These bubbles are white not gray).]
:Richard Stallman: ''Zzzz''
:Top Ninja: Richard Stallman! Your viral open source licenses have grown too powerful.
:Bottom Ninja: The GPL must be stopped.
:Top Ninja: At the source.
:Bottom Ninja: You.

:[In the second inlaid panel (with normal white background) Richard Stallman wakes up immediately, and while sitting up in bed he pulls out both his katana swords from their sheaths leaving the sheaths under and behind the bed. One hand is up in the air with the sword from behind the bed, and the other is still pointing down with the swords from below the bed. Lines indicate the fast movement of the swords. His three speech bubbles are like those of the ninjas, the last two even breaking the panel entering into the large first panel.]
:Katana swords: Shing! Shing!
:Richard Stallman: Hah! Microsoft lackeys! So it has come to this!
:Richard Stallman: A night of blood I've long awaited. But be this my death or yours, free software will carry on! For a GNU dawn! For freedom!
:Richard Stallman: ...Hey, where are you going?

:[An outside scene at night with black sky. Richard Stallmans gray house can be seen with the broken white skylight on the roof. The ninjas are jumping out of a window at ground height while taking of their ninja cloth around their heads, holding them in their hand, thus revealing they both looks like Cueball. The first one is already on the grassy ground beneath the window his sword pointing down and left, the other just jumps from the window pane his sword pointing up and right. Again they have speech bubbles like before. It is not possible to tell which of the two ninjas from before is first out the window.]
:Ninja in window: Man, you're right, that never gets old.
:Ninja on the grass: Let's do Eric S. Raymond next.
:Ninja in window: Or Linus Torvalds. I hear he sleeps with nunchucks.

==Trivia==
*The phrase "So it has come to this" is the title of [[1022: So It Has Come To This]].
*In [[1624: 2016]] [[Cueball]] smashes through the ceiling, also hanging on a rope, to wake a person in a bed. Not as a threat though, but still a very similar situation.
*Because of this comic Stallman has [http://blog.xkcd.com/2007/04/19/life-imitates-xkcd-part-ii-richard-stallman/ been given a katana] by fans of xkcd.
*At his [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHp_Vh9TESU#t=1645 talk at JCCC3] (as well as in a note in ''[http://store-xkcd-com.myshopify.com/products/xkcd-volume-0 xkcd: Volume Zero]''), [[Randall]] mentioned that the comic he originally published had the assassins say "free software" and Richard Stallman says "open source software". He swapped the two terms after complaints that Richard Stallman was [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html opposed to the phrase "open source"]. Even after this change he got an e-mail from Stallman himself saying that he didn't even want to be portrayed in the same comic as the words "open source".
*Stallman's well-known opposition to the term "open source" stems from the fact that "open source" refers specifically to a methodology for software development involving allowing customers to actively participate in development and testing of software products by giving them access to in-development source code and soliciting feedback; as such, the term was first adopted as a means to promote free software ideas to business interests. In contrast, Stallman and the FSF view free software as a political issue concerning the basic freedoms that should belong to all computer users, and thus 'open source' as an appeal to software businesses misses the point of getting individuals to think about their rights as users.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Computers]]

1037: Umwelt

2016-04-05T14:51:04Z

EpicWolverine: /* Lake Diver Killer */ Added Metro Detroit. This is the one I see on all browsers.

{{comic
| number = 1037
| date = April 1, 2012
| title = Umwelt
| image = umwelt_the_void.jpg
| titletext = Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit--from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your web browser.
}}
<div class="toclimit-3" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px;">__TOC__</div>

==Explanation==
An {{w|Umwelt}}, as the title text explains, is the idea that one's entire way of thinking is dependent on their surroundings. Thus, this {{w|April Fools}} comic changes based on the browser, location, or referrer. Thus, what the viewer is viewing the comic on, where they live, or where they came from determines which comic they actually see. As a result, there are actually multiple comics that went up on April Fools' Day, although only one is seen.
(Fun Fact: the German word "Umwelt" does not mean anything vaguely similar; it translates in all contexts almost exactly as "environment".)

Information about how the wide variety of data was collected and credit for the viewers who contributed can be found [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/rnst4/april_fools_xkcd_changing_comic/ here].

This comic was released on April 1 even though that was [[:Category:Sunday comics|a Sunday]] (only the third comic to be released on a Sunday). But it was only due to the April Fool joke, as it did replace the comic that would have been scheduled for Monday, April 2. The next comic was first released on Wednesday, April 4.

===The Void===
[[File:umwelt the void.jpg]]

If the device or browser you are using does not support Javascript, you will simply see a static image of a white swirl on a dark background.

Possible reference to The Ring (http://imgur.com/wlGmm), as though to suggest that using an alternative browser is dismal and horrific.

Davean (xkcd's sysadmin): "[This] comic isn't available everywhere and it can come up i[n] some situation[s] only for recognized browsers."

Browser: Alternative Browser

===Aurora===
[[File:umwelt aurora.png]]

One could interpret that since Megan didn't go out and therefore missed seeing the Aurora, the main character lied. That way, she wouldn't have felt sad that she missed out.

One might also believe that since xkcd is normally a black and white comic, Cueball is colorblind and didn't see anything of interest to him.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Locations: Canada, Boston, Maine, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Minnesota, Norway, Denmark, Rhode Island (not sure if mobile only or not.)

===Snake===
[[File:umwelt snake composite 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt snake composite.png|Full size]]

The joke here is the extreme length of snakes. The world's longest snake is the python, the longest ever being 33 feet or approx. 10 meters. The red and blue circles refer to the hit game {{w|Portal}}.
There is also a reference to the book "The Little Prince" in the second panel.

Also, the number and content of the panels changes depending on the size of your browser window.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Specific AltText for this image: Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit -from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your browser window size.

Location: Texas (on Chrome Version 33.0.1750.154 m), New Jersey, California (on Chrome Version 39.0.2171.95), Maryland, Massachusetts (Safari for iOS), Connecticut (Safari for iOS).

===Black Hat===
[[File:umwelt tortoise 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt tortoise.png|Full size]]

An analyst attempts to psychoanalyze [[Black Hat|Black Hat's]] [[72: Classhole|classhole]] tendencies. The joke here is that the turtle has actually been turned over and neither sees helping it as a priority. It's a reference to the Voight-Kampff test used in the movie Blade Runner (1982) to identify replicants.

Location: Seems to appear mostly in "other countries" — those without location-specific comics.

===Too Quiet===
[[File:umwelt too quiet 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt too quiet.png|Full size]]

A reference to {{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}} which has been [[87: Velociraptors|constantly]] [[135: Substitute|referred]] [[1110: Click and Drag|to]] [[155: Search History|before]] [[758: Raptor Fences|in]] this comic.

Also referencing the film {{w|2 Fast 2 Furious|2 Fast 2 Furious}}, an entertaining, yet intellectually unprovoking sequel in a popular film franchise, which is aimed at teenagers and young adults, prompting the blunt response from the stickman. The fact that Steve would use such a cliché {{w|2000s (decade)|noughties}} movie term in such an intense moment, and the subsequent curse, is the joke in this comic.

Location: short version — iPhone 5c Safari browser in Texas, iPhone 5 Chrome Browser in Minnesota, long version - Google Chrome browser in Indiana, Windows 8 Laptop

===Pond===
[[File:umwelt pond mobile.png]][[File:umwelt pond wide.png]]

Two different versions showed, the narrower version for mobile devices.

Location: The Netherlands and various other countries.

===Galaxies===
[[File:umwelt galaxies 1024.jpg]]
[[:File:umwelt galaxies.jpg|Full size]]

Megan is distracted from her conversation with [[Cueball]] by realizing that the space behind his head, from her vantage point, contains millions of galaxies. This is similar to an [http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/astro/hst_deep_field.jpg incredible photograph] taken by the Hubble Telescope, in which a tiny dark area of space in fact contained numerous galaxies.

The title text is an imaginative leap from this scenario: that the galaxies would be up to no good once Cueball is turned away from them. This is presumably a reference to [http://www.mariowiki.com/boo Boo], an enemy from certain Mario games who moves toward Mario only when Mario is facing away from Boo.

This comic was only reported once... the intended environmental context is a mystery.

Location: unknown

===xkcd Gold===
[[File:umwelt xkcd gold.png]]

This is probably a reference to the 4chan Gold Account, an implementation on 4chan that does not actually exist, and is usually used to trick newcomers into revealing their credit card numbers. The joke is that "Gold Account" users can supposedly block other users from viewing images they have posted. The fifth panel is probably a reference to Beecock, a notorious set of shocker images. 4chan's moderators have been known to give out "beecock bans" or "/z/ bans" to particularly annoying users, which redirect the user to a page containing beecock and the text "OH NO THE BOARD IS GONE".

Referrer: 4chan

===Yo Mama===
[[File:umwelt dog ballast.png]]

Possible reference to Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "{{w|Harrison Bergeron}}."

Possibly a veiled criticism of Facebook. This could be slightly rewritten as: "This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid of dissent, so it tracks everyone at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop submitting information to Facebook. But that dystopian future is now."

Referrer: Facebook

===Reddit===
[[File:umwelt reddit.png]]

Reference to referencing, because Reddit, as a referring site, likes references to its referencing in its references.

This comic also features recursive imagery similar to [[688: Self-Description|Self Description]] where the second panel embeds the entire comic within itself.

Referrer: Reddit

===Buns and Hot dogs===
[[File:umwelt somethingawful.jpg]]

This is a reference to the question "Why do hot dogs come in packages of 6 while buns come in packages of 8?"

Referrer: SomethingAwful, Questionable Content, & MetaFilter

===Twitter===
[[File:umwelt twitter.jpg]]

A summary of the content "typically" found on Twitter.

In the tweet feed, there are three tweets about some podcast on the top, followed by the tweet containing link they clicked on to get to the comic, tweets about Rob Delaney, unspecified passive-aggressive tweets, and a tweet from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_ebooks Horse Ebooks] retweeted by one of the users the reader follows.

On the left, the topmost dialog, with profile information, shows that the user has posted 1,302 tweets, but only follows 171 people and has even fewer followers, at a measly 48. This is marked with a sad face, implying that the user wants more followers.

Below that is the "who to follow" dialog, which is written up as consisting of "assholes".

Below that is the "trending tags" dialog for the United States. It is full of tags about word games, tags about misogyny, and tags about Justin Bieber.

Below that is an unidentified dialog full of "stuff your eyes automatically ignore". And finally, on the bottom is the background colour, which is "a really pleasant blue".

Referrer: Twitter

===Wikipedia===
[[File:umwelt wikipedia wide.jpg]]
[[File:umwelt wikipedia mobile.png]]

The term {{w|Mile High Club}} (or MHC) is a slang term applied collectively to individuals who have had sexual intercourse while on board of an aircraft. Randall says that reading the news articles on it has distracted him from making that comic.

Two different versions shown, the narrower version (the single panel with all the text) for mobile devices.

Referrer: Wikipedia

===Google Chrome===
[[File:umwelt chrome1.jpg]]

{{w|Sergey Brin}} (born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the most profitable Internet companies. As of 2013, his personal wealth was estimated to be $24.4 billion. Randall makes the joke that as the founder of Google, Brin's permission would be needed to use Google Chrome. Because there are millions of people who use Google, it is likely that at least some of the time Brin would be asleep, thus he would need to be woken.

Browser: Chrome

===Chrome/Firefox===
[[File:umwelt chrome2.png]]

Mozilla {{w|Firefox}} is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Cueball is complaining about {{w|Google Chrome}}, to which [[Ponytail]] replies that there is an {{w|add-on}} that fixes what he is complaining about. When questioned, she replies that the add-on is Firefox, which isn't an add-on at all and is instead a different browser.

Browser: Chrome

===Google Chrome-2===
[[File:umwelt chrome3.png]]

This panel references Google Chrome's error screen, which shows a puzzle piece. The comic humorously implies that Chrome is looking for that piece. When completing jigsaw puzzles, a common strategy is to figure out where the pieces must be from their geometry rather than from the picture they create. In this case, the text suggests that Chrome believes the puzzle piece connects to the pieces which form one of the corners of the puzzle, which is impossible because any piece that links up to a corner would have at least one flat edge, which this piece has none.

Browser: Chrome

===Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing===
[[File:umwelt firefox incognito.png]]

Another reference to crashing web browsers.

Browser: Firefox (Incognito only?)

===Internet Explorer===
[[File:umwelt ie.png]]

Yet another reference to crashing web browsers

Browser: Internet Explorer

===Maxthon===
[[File:umwelt maxthon.png]]

Browser: Maxthon

===Netscape Navigator===
[[File:umwelt netscape womanoctopus.png]]

[[File:umwelt netscape man.png]]

{{w|Netscape Navigator}} was a web browser popular in the 1990s.

Browser: Netscape

===Rockmelt===
[[File:umwelt rockmelt.png]]

{{w|Rockmelt}} is a social-media-based browser.

Reference to the gospel song {{w|Longing for Old Virginia: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1934)|"There's no hiding place down here" by The Carter Family}}, later covered by Stephen Stills.

:I run to the rock just to hide my face
:And the rocks cried out, no hiding place
:There's no hiding place down here

It may additionally be a reference to the ''Babylon 5'' episode "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place," which featured the song.

Browser: Rockmelt

===Plugin Disabled===
[[File:umwelt plugin disabled.png]]

When the Google Chrome web browser does not have the required software (called a plug-in) to display a web page's content, it displays a puzzle piece icon and an error message. In this case, Chrome informs the user that the content is impossible to display.

Browser: Plugin (?) Disabled, Safari Desktop

===Corporate Networks===
[[File:umwelt corporate general.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon other.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate google chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft other.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes other.png]]

These error messages appear if the user is on a network owned by one of the corporations noted. The error message includes a warning against speaking on the company's behalf.

ISP: Corporate networks of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NY Times

===Military===
[[File:umwelt military.png]]

[[Cueball]] assumes that anyone using a military network has an important job like watching for incoming missiles. He includes a thank-you to the user for their military service.

ISP: Military networks

===T-Mobile===
[[File:umwelt tmobile.png]]

Reference to T-Mobile's distinguishing feature of weaker coverage, in relation to other major providers.

ISP: T-Mobile

===Verizon and AT&T===
[[File:umwelt verizon.png]]

[[File:umwelt att.png]]

Reference to Verizon and AT&T's scandals/controversy regarding implementation of bandwidth caps.

ISP: Verizon and AT&T

===France===
[[File:umwelt france.jpg]]

A common joke about France is that the nation does not win wars. This originated from France's annexation by Germany during World War II, and America's late entry into the war, which is sometimes portrayed humorously as a case of America 'saving' Europe, in this joke particularly France (the role of the French resistance is usually not mentioned), leading to a common American joke at the expense of France's military prowess [http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.html][http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-frenchmilitaryvictories.htm][http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokefrenchmilitaryhistory.htm]. When France did not form part of the coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003, aligning with the many countries that condemned U.S. action, the joke was revived.

A Google search of "French Military Victories" + 'I'm feeling lucky' used to direct to "did you mean: french military defeats" (due to a {{w|Google bomb}}). Cueball is trying to show this to his friend, who is French. However, his joke backfires, as his friends immediately points out that the stereotype of France not having military victories is undercut by the fact that one of the most innovative military commanders in history, Napoleon, was French, and in fact conquered much of Europe.

The last line of the comic further implies that Cueball is not as smart as he thinks he is in regards to anything French, as he mispronounces the French loan word "touche".

Locations: France & Quebec

===Germany===
[[File:umwelt germany.png]]

This comic references the {{w|Berlin airlift#The start of the Berlin Airlift|Berlin Airlift}}, a relief measure for citizens in West Berlin (surrounded by East Germany) instituted by the Western Allies after World War II. In reality, the Western Allies flew a grand total of 500,000 tons of food over the Soviet blockade in planes. Randall puts a twist on this event by making it more fun: dropping supplies from a grand chairlift. The play on words is that "chairlift" rhymes with "airlift" and thus makes an easy substitution. The chair force is also a name that other service branches use to make fun of the air force.

Location: Germany

===Israel===
[[File:umwelt israel.png]]

Transcript:

בחורה: אמא, פגשתי בחור נהדר! אבל הוא לא יהודי.‏

...

רגע, מה את אומרת, "גם אנחנו לא"?‏

אני לגמרי מבולבלת.‏

(Translation from Hebrew)

Person: Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.

A reference to the multiple use of the word Jewish to denote both a religious group and a nationality/ethnicity.

Location: Israel

===Carnot Cycle===
[[File:umwelt japan.png]]

A pun on "cycle"; a "{{w|Carnot cycle}}" is a thermodynamic cycle (e.g. refrigeration). Its efficiency depends on the temperature of the hot and cold 'reservoirs' in which it is operating. The icon on the side of the motorcycle resembles a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carnot_cycle_p-V_diagram.svg graph of the Carnot cycle.]

Location: Japan

===UK===
[[File:umwelt uk.jpg]]

He worded this as though to imply that the UK is a state of the U.S., and an unimportant one at that, which pokes fun at the UK, creating a paradox (sort of).

Location: UK

===Blizzard===
[[File:umwelt disasters blizzard.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or blizzards are harsher conditions to live under.

For each location this displayed in, the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Georgia, Halifax, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, the Northeast, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Texas, Toronto, Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin

===Tornado===
[[File:umwelt disasters tornado.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or tornadoes are harsher conditions to live under.

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Dallas, Illinois, Georgia, The Midwest, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Tennessee, Texas

===Hurricane===
[[File:umwelt disasters hurricane.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or hurricanes are harsher conditions to live under.

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: D.C, Florida, Georgia, Houston, Miami, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia

===Lake Diver Killer===
[[File:umwelt lake diver.png]]

This comic shows a news reporter standing in front of a lake. She is reporting on a serial killer who targets divers. As more divers are sent in to investigate and/or search for bodies, more divers go missing and are presumably murdered.

Location: Bay Areas, Metro Detroit, Vermont showed an image specifically referencing Lake Champlain

===Lincoln Memorial===
[[File:umwelt lincoln memorial.png]]

Locations: Illinois & Washington D.C.

===Helicopter Hunting===
[[File:umwelt helicoptor.png]]

In Alaska, governments and individuals have {{w|Wolf hunting#North America 2|shot wolves en masse from helicopters}} in an attempt to artificially inflate populations of game, such as moose and caribou, to make hunting them easier. This is opposed by many, as the game populations are not endangered (thus, this threatens ecological balance); wolves are a small threat to livestock in North America; most of the wolf body —including meat and bones— goes wasted as they are sought mainly for their pelts.

Location: Alaska

===Newspaper===
[[File:umwelt life scientists.png]][[File:umwelt life rit.png]][[File:umwelt life umass.png]]

Creating new life has long been a well understood process, in a lab or otherwise.

Location: Various

Specific versions appeared for RIT and UMass Amherst

===Robot Paul Revere===
[[File:umwelt paul revere.png]]

Combination of the legend of {{w|Paul Revere#"Midnight Ride"|Paul Revere}} and computer binary.

Location: Boston

===Counting Cards===

All four colleges in this series are in Massachusetts and, being similar, in pairs, rival each other to some extent (Harvard-MIT, and Smith-Wellesley). The comic contains a reference to the {{w|MIT Blackjack Team}}, which entered popular culture via the {{w|21 (2008 film)|film 21}}, and a possible reference to Orwell's book '1984' and/or {{w|Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|popular homage to it via Star Trek}}: "There are four lights."[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChYIm6MW39k]

Bonus: The thought-gears in panel 3 are spinning against each other.

Location: Harvard

[[File:umwelt counting cards harvard.png]]

Location: MIT

[[File:umwelt counting cards mit.png]]

"Course 15s" at MIT are the business major students, often mocked for taking a less-rigorous program.

Location: Smith

[[File:umwelt counting cards smith.png]]

Location: Wellesley

[[File:umwelt counting cards wellesley.png]]

Both Wellesley and Smith are all-women colleges.

===Giant Box Trap===
[[File:umwelt box trap.png]]

Randall got his undergrad in Physics at the {{w|Christopher Newport University}}, and was scheduled to return shortly to give a talk.

Location: Christopher Newport University

===Chemo Support===
[[File:umwelt chemo.jpg]]

[[Cueball]] has shaved his head in support of people going through {{w|chemotherapy}} but as he is always depicted as a stick figure with no hair who can tell.

Randall's now-wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and apparently DFCI is where they've been spending much of their time.

Location: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

===Reviews===
[[File:reviews.png]]

The previous strip appears twice when using [[wikipedia:Tor (anonymity network)|Tor]].

Browser: Any using Tor, xkcd API (JSON, RSS, Atom), and reports of seeing it on a Kindle Fire HD

==Transcript==
:[Note to courageous readers- The transcript has been reordered in the order in which the comics appear in the picture and appropriate names have been given.]

:'''The Void'''
:[An epic void with a bright light shining right on you.]

:'''Aurora'''
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar flare that's causing some Great Aurorae. CBC says they may even be visible here! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: Hockey's on.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

:'''Aurora-US'''
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar storm causing northern lights over Canada. CNN say they might even be visible {Options: "As Far South As Us", "Here in Boston", "Maine", "Ohio", "Oregon", "New York"}! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: It's cold out.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

:'''Snake'''
:[Two people standing next to each other. Megan is holding the head end of a snake. Depending on the width of your browser, the snake is: three frames, the third of which has a little bit of a bump; the first frame has a human-size bump, the second has a third person looking at the snake, and the third has the snake going though two Portals; a squirrel and the human-size bump in the first frame, a ring next to the third person in the second frame, and Beret Guy riding the snake in front of the portal; or The squirrel, a fourth person within the snake being coiled, and the human bump in the first frame, the ring, a fifth person in love, and the third person in the second frame, Beret Guy and the portal in the third frame, and the same two people in the fourth frame.]

:Megan: I found a snake, but then I forgot to stop.

:'''Black hat'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk. One is Black Hat. The other is an analyst. Black Hat has a number of terminals attached to his head.]
:Analyst: You come across a tortoise in the desert. You flip it over. It struggles to right itself. You watch. You're not helping. Why is that?

:Black Hat: It '''knows''' what it did.

:[View of the entire scene, with said turtle off in the distance on its back and trying to right itself.]

:'''Too quiet'''
:[A group of four scale down a wall into a field in the middle of the night. They walk off single-file.]
:Person 1: It's quiet.

:Person 3: Yeah - *Too* quiet.

:[A Velociraptor is off in the distance, following the group.]
:Person 4: Yeah - too *too* quiet.

:Person 2: Yeah - 2quiet2furious.
:Person 1: Fuck off, Steve.

:'''Pond'''
:[A landscape showing a pond, some reeds, and a set of mountains off in the distance.]

:'''Galaxies'''
:[A trio of galaxies.]
:Galaxy 1: He's not looking!
:Galaxy 3: Let's get him!
:[Lines draw in illustrating the eye-line of one of a pair of people.]
:Cueball: So he said he didn't get the text, but c'mon, he *never* misses texts. Right? ..hello?
:Megan: I'm just staring at your head freaked out by the fact that there are millions of galaxies *directly behind it*.

:'''xkcd Gold'''
:[Cueball holding bat.]

:Cueball: Sorry, but this comic

:[Cueball starts to wind up.]

:Cueball: requires

:[Cueball prepares to strike with bat.]

:Cueball: XKCD

:[Cueball swings at a beehive.]
:GOLD

:[Penis Bees fly out of the beehive.]

:'''Yo mamma'''
:[Cueball yells at a friend.]
:Cueball: Oh yeah? Well you mama's so ''cynical'', her only dog ballast is a ''leash''!
:(This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid dogs can hover, so it requires them to wear weights at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop buying dog weights.)

:'''Reddit'''
:Five seconds ago:
:[You sitting in front of a desk, reading a reddit thread.]
:You: Oh, hey, reddit has a link to some XKCD april fools comic.

:Now: [An image of the xkcd comic page.]
:Five seconds from now:

:You: ..hey

:30 seconds from now:
:[DANCE PARTY!]

:'''Buns and Hot dogs'''
:Cueball: What I wanna know is why do hot dogs come in packages of six while buns come in these huge sacks of ash and blood from which "Ave Maria" is faintly audible?
:[Chanting sacks of gore in the background.]

:'''Twitter'''
:[A Twitter account page with the following: Many tweets, fewer following, even fewer followers, A bunch of assholes in the suggested follow box, trending topics partitioned into: Word Games, Misogyny, and Bieber, stuff your eyes automatically ignore, A really pleasant blue. and the timeline: Something about a podcast, Someone confused because the description doesn't match the link, The link you clicked on to get to this comic, Rob Delaney, Passive Aggression, and horse ebooks.]

:'''Wikipedia'''
:[There's no comic here because instead of drawing one, I spent the last hour reading every news story cited in the Wikipedia article on The Mile High Club.]

:'''Google Chrome'''
:[A Chrome plugin error page.]
:Chrome: This plugin requires Sergey Brin's permission to run. Please wait while he is woken.

:'''Chrome/Firefox'''
:[Two people; Cueball is sitting at a desk in front of a laptop.]
:Cueball: Man, chrome's hardware acceleration really sucks.
:Ponytail: Oh - Theres' a great add-on that fixes it.
:Cueball: Oh? What's it called?
:Ponytail: "Firefox".

:'''Google Chrome-2'''
:[A Chrome plugin error page with the characteristic jigsaw piece.]
:Chrome: Chrome is looking for this piece. Have you seen it? Chrome thinks it links up with a corner.

:'''Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing'''
:[Firefox error page.]
:Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing. You know how I'm not supposed to peek at your browsing in private mode? Firefox.. is sorry. Firefox will not blame you if you
:[Button with text.]
:Click here to report this incident.

:'''Internet Explorer'''
:[IE error page.]
:IE: Error: Internet Explorer has given up.

:'''Maxthon'''
:Cueball: Maxthon? Hey, 2005 called. Didn't say anything. All I could hear was sobbing. This is getting harder. Anyway, yeah, Maxthon's still cool! Didn't know it was still around!

:'''Netscape Navigator'''
:[Two different versions exist: one with Cueball talking and one with Megan with tentacle arms talking.]
:Person: Netscape Navigator? Hey, the nineties called - drunk as usual. I hung up without saying anything. This is getting harder. Anyway - it's cool that you'e got netscape running.

:'''Rockmelt'''
:[Cueball running to laptop.]
:I ran to Rockmelt to hide my face

:[Cueball sitting at laptop.]
:But Rockmelt cried out -

:[Laptop shouting.]
:NO HIDING PLACE

:[zoom out.]
:NO HIDING PLACE DOWN HERE

:'''Google Chrome-3'''
:[A chrome plugin error page.]
:Chrome: There does not exist --nor could there '''ever''' exist-- a plugin capable of displaying this content.

:'''Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google - Chrome'''
:[Chrome error page.]
:Chrome: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Microsoft/Amazon - Firefox'''
:[Firefox error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Microsoft/The Times'''
:[Error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/The Times is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Corporate - Generic'''
:[Error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, we work as a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Military'''
:[Person looking at two browser windows.]
:Cueball: I know y'all know what you're doing. But if you're on a military machine and you're supposed to be watching for missiles or something, I hope you're keeping an eye on that in the background while you're reading comics. Also: Thanks.

:'''T-Mobile'''
:[Error page.]
:Data Error: T-Mobile was unable to establish a connection

:'''Verizon'''
:[Error page]
:Error: You have exceeded your Verizon monthly bandwidth cap. Mobile web browsing has been disabled.

:'''France'''
:[Two people; one of which is browsing using a laptop.]
:Cueball: Hey, you're French, right? Ever see what happens when you type "French Military Victories" into Google?
:French person: Does it take you to an article on Napoleon?

:French person: ..no? Strange, given how he kicked everyone's asses up and down Europe for over a decade.

:[Beat frame.]

:Cueball: Touche.
:French person: You know, that'd sound smarter if you didn't pronounce it like it rhymes with "douche".

:'''Germany'''
:[Cueball dropping food from an unorthodox high perch.]
:June 1948: In response to the Soviet blockade of East Germany, the western allies construct the Berlin Chairlift.
:Cueball on chairlift: Food!

:'''Israel'''
:[Person on phone.]
:Person (Translation from Hebrew): Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.

:'''Carnot Cycle'''
:[Ponytail on a motorcycle with a heat-entropy graph on the side.]
:Ponytail: Check out my new Carnot Cycle!
:Cueball: Neat - how fast does it go?
:Ponytail: Depends how cold it is outside.

:'''Great Britain'''
:[Illustration of the Atlantic ocean.]
:American person: Sorry I don't have a comic poking fun at the UK here. I only had time to get to the most ''important'' US states.
:British person: Hey - At least we have free health care and real ale.

:'''Earthquake-Blizzard'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Boston", "Chicago", "Dallas", "Georgia", "Halifax", "Illinois", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Missouri", "the Northeast", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", 'Pennsylvania", "Philadelphia", "Texas", "Toronto", "Tennessee", "New York", "Wisconsin"}! That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..
:[Both people are trudging through a massive blizzard.]
:Danish: In pictures, snow always looked so nice and sof - ''AAAA! MY NECK! How do people live here?!''
:Cueball: Come on - it's only three more miles.

:'''Earthquake-Tornado'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Dallas", "Illinois", "The Midwest", "Missouri", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", "Tennessee", "Texas"}!
:Cueball: That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..
:[Both people are in a shelter in a prairie with a rapidly-approaching tornado.]
:Danish: AAAA CLOSE THE SHELTER DOOR!
:Cueball: Say the magic words...
:Danish: THIS PLACE IS THE WORST!
:Cueball: Thank you.

:'''Earthquake-Hurricane'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "D.C", "Florida", "Houston", "Miami", "New Jersey", "North Carolina", "South Carolina", "Virgina"}! That was huge!
:Cueball: That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..

:[Both are in the middle of a hurricane. Danish is grabbing onto a signpost to avoid being swept away.]
:Danish: AAAAA WHAT THE SHIIIIT!
:Cueball: Calm down - this is barely a category 2.

:'''Lake Diver Killer'''
:[TV Field Reporter in front of a cordoned-off lake.]
:Reporter: Police divers searching the bay say they have recovered the body of another victim of the "Lake Diver Killer."
:Reporter: During the search, three more divers were reported missing.

:'''Washington'''
:[The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.]
:In this Marble Prison As in the nightmares of the nation they tried to devour
:The nanobots that constituted Abraham Lincoln
:Are entombed forever.

:'''Alaska'''
:[A person with a gun chasing a helicopter on the back of a wolf in a snowy Alaskan field.]
:Some people hunt wolves from helicopters. I hunt helicopters from a wolf.

:'''Life in lab'''
:[Newspaper headline.]
:Scientists/UMass Amherst students/RIT students create life in lab
:[Caption under picture of scientists.]
:"The trick was fuckin'"

:'''American Revolution'''
:Robot Paul Revere: Remember: Zero if by land, One if by sea.

:'''MIT'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: I see their admission standards have been slipping.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''MIT Course 15c'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: I *knew* we shouldn't have picked course 15s.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''Smith/Wellesley'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of Smith/Wellesley students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: We should've gone with Wellesley/Smith.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''CNU'''
:[Person unsuspectingly strolls under a giant box trap controlled by a Trible.]
:I worry that CNU only invited me back as a ruse because they realized I never turned in my final paper and want my diploma back. But if it turns out it's for real, I'll see you Wednesday at the Ferguson!

:'''Dana Farber'''
:[Cueball, pointing towards head.]
:Cueball: Check it out - In support of people going through chemo, I shaved my head.
:Lots of love to everyone reading this at Dana Farber. Cancer sucks. If you are new to DCFI, there's a great little garden on the third floor of the yawkey if you need somewhere quiet to just sit for a little bit and breathe.

:'''Reviews'''
:Shopping before online reviews:
:[Cueball and Megan stand in a store. Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. There is another lamp on the table behind them.]
:Cueball: This lamp is pretty.
:Megan: And affordable.
:Cueball: Let's get it.
:Megan Ok!

:Shopping now:
:[Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. Megan looks at her phone.]
:Cueball: This lamp is pretty.
:Megan: It's got 1 1/2 stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand.

:[Cueball and Megan are now both looking at their phones.]
:Cueball: This one has good reviews.
:Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf.
:Cueball: Eek. What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus.

:[Cueball is still looking at his phone, Megan has hers at her side.]
:Cueball: Ok, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift.
:Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark.

==Trivia==
*Reddit user [http://www.reddit.com/user/SomePostMan SomePostMan] created a [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/t6wmh/all_umwelt_1037_comics_in_two_imgur_albums/ post] that collected all of the Umwelt comics and added explanations. Much of his information is now included in this wiki.

*The transcript section for this comic also included a note alluding to its extreme length:
: [ [Two people...] ] ((..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all this))
: [Two people standing next to each other. One is holding the head end of a snake...

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Penis]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]
[[Category:Puns]]

1037: Umwelt

2016-04-05T14:48:41Z

EpicWolverine: /* Reviews */ This is the comic shown for the xkcd API

{{comic
| number = 1037
| date = April 1, 2012
| title = Umwelt
| image = umwelt_the_void.jpg
| titletext = Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit--from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your web browser.
}}
<div class="toclimit-3" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px;">__TOC__</div>

==Explanation==
An {{w|Umwelt}}, as the title text explains, is the idea that one's entire way of thinking is dependent on their surroundings. Thus, this {{w|April Fools}} comic changes based on the browser, location, or referrer. Thus, what the viewer is viewing the comic on, where they live, or where they came from determines which comic they actually see. As a result, there are actually multiple comics that went up on April Fools' Day, although only one is seen.
(Fun Fact: the German word "Umwelt" does not mean anything vaguely similar; it translates in all contexts almost exactly as "environment".)

Information about how the wide variety of data was collected and credit for the viewers who contributed can be found [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/rnst4/april_fools_xkcd_changing_comic/ here].

This comic was released on April 1 even though that was [[:Category:Sunday comics|a Sunday]] (only the third comic to be released on a Sunday). But it was only due to the April Fool joke, as it did replace the comic that would have been scheduled for Monday, April 2. The next comic was first released on Wednesday, April 4.

===The Void===
[[File:umwelt the void.jpg]]

If the device or browser you are using does not support Javascript, you will simply see a static image of a white swirl on a dark background.

Possible reference to The Ring (http://imgur.com/wlGmm), as though to suggest that using an alternative browser is dismal and horrific.

Davean (xkcd's sysadmin): "[This] comic isn't available everywhere and it can come up i[n] some situation[s] only for recognized browsers."

Browser: Alternative Browser

===Aurora===
[[File:umwelt aurora.png]]

One could interpret that since Megan didn't go out and therefore missed seeing the Aurora, the main character lied. That way, she wouldn't have felt sad that she missed out.

One might also believe that since xkcd is normally a black and white comic, Cueball is colorblind and didn't see anything of interest to him.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Locations: Canada, Boston, Maine, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Minnesota, Norway, Denmark, Rhode Island (not sure if mobile only or not.)

===Snake===
[[File:umwelt snake composite 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt snake composite.png|Full size]]

The joke here is the extreme length of snakes. The world's longest snake is the python, the longest ever being 33 feet or approx. 10 meters. The red and blue circles refer to the hit game {{w|Portal}}.
There is also a reference to the book "The Little Prince" in the second panel.

Also, the number and content of the panels changes depending on the size of your browser window.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Specific AltText for this image: Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit -from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your browser window size.

Location: Texas (on Chrome Version 33.0.1750.154 m), New Jersey, California (on Chrome Version 39.0.2171.95), Maryland, Massachusetts (Safari for iOS), Connecticut (Safari for iOS).

===Black Hat===
[[File:umwelt tortoise 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt tortoise.png|Full size]]

An analyst attempts to psychoanalyze [[Black Hat|Black Hat's]] [[72: Classhole|classhole]] tendencies. The joke here is that the turtle has actually been turned over and neither sees helping it as a priority. It's a reference to the Voight-Kampff test used in the movie Blade Runner (1982) to identify replicants.

Location: Seems to appear mostly in "other countries" — those without location-specific comics.

===Too Quiet===
[[File:umwelt too quiet 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt too quiet.png|Full size]]

A reference to {{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}} which has been [[87: Velociraptors|constantly]] [[135: Substitute|referred]] [[1110: Click and Drag|to]] [[155: Search History|before]] [[758: Raptor Fences|in]] this comic.

Also referencing the film {{w|2 Fast 2 Furious|2 Fast 2 Furious}}, an entertaining, yet intellectually unprovoking sequel in a popular film franchise, which is aimed at teenagers and young adults, prompting the blunt response from the stickman. The fact that Steve would use such a cliché {{w|2000s (decade)|noughties}} movie term in such an intense moment, and the subsequent curse, is the joke in this comic.

Location: short version — iPhone 5c Safari browser in Texas, iPhone 5 Chrome Browser in Minnesota, long version - Google Chrome browser in Indiana, Windows 8 Laptop

===Pond===
[[File:umwelt pond mobile.png]][[File:umwelt pond wide.png]]

Two different versions showed, the narrower version for mobile devices.

Location: The Netherlands and various other countries.

===Galaxies===
[[File:umwelt galaxies 1024.jpg]]
[[:File:umwelt galaxies.jpg|Full size]]

Megan is distracted from her conversation with [[Cueball]] by realizing that the space behind his head, from her vantage point, contains millions of galaxies. This is similar to an [http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/astro/hst_deep_field.jpg incredible photograph] taken by the Hubble Telescope, in which a tiny dark area of space in fact contained numerous galaxies.

The title text is an imaginative leap from this scenario: that the galaxies would be up to no good once Cueball is turned away from them. This is presumably a reference to [http://www.mariowiki.com/boo Boo], an enemy from certain Mario games who moves toward Mario only when Mario is facing away from Boo.

This comic was only reported once... the intended environmental context is a mystery.

Location: unknown

===xkcd Gold===
[[File:umwelt xkcd gold.png]]

This is probably a reference to the 4chan Gold Account, an implementation on 4chan that does not actually exist, and is usually used to trick newcomers into revealing their credit card numbers. The joke is that "Gold Account" users can supposedly block other users from viewing images they have posted. The fifth panel is probably a reference to Beecock, a notorious set of shocker images. 4chan's moderators have been known to give out "beecock bans" or "/z/ bans" to particularly annoying users, which redirect the user to a page containing beecock and the text "OH NO THE BOARD IS GONE".

Referrer: 4chan

===Yo Mama===
[[File:umwelt dog ballast.png]]

Possible reference to Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "{{w|Harrison Bergeron}}."

Possibly a veiled criticism of Facebook. This could be slightly rewritten as: "This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid of dissent, so it tracks everyone at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop submitting information to Facebook. But that dystopian future is now."

Referrer: Facebook

===Reddit===
[[File:umwelt reddit.png]]

Reference to referencing, because Reddit, as a referring site, likes references to its referencing in its references.

This comic also features recursive imagery similar to [[688: Self-Description|Self Description]] where the second panel embeds the entire comic within itself.

Referrer: Reddit

===Buns and Hot dogs===
[[File:umwelt somethingawful.jpg]]

This is a reference to the question "Why do hot dogs come in packages of 6 while buns come in packages of 8?"

Referrer: SomethingAwful, Questionable Content, & MetaFilter

===Twitter===
[[File:umwelt twitter.jpg]]

A summary of the content "typically" found on Twitter.

In the tweet feed, there are three tweets about some podcast on the top, followed by the tweet containing link they clicked on to get to the comic, tweets about Rob Delaney, unspecified passive-aggressive tweets, and a tweet from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_ebooks Horse Ebooks] retweeted by one of the users the reader follows.

On the left, the topmost dialog, with profile information, shows that the user has posted 1,302 tweets, but only follows 171 people and has even fewer followers, at a measly 48. This is marked with a sad face, implying that the user wants more followers.

Below that is the "who to follow" dialog, which is written up as consisting of "assholes".

Below that is the "trending tags" dialog for the United States. It is full of tags about word games, tags about misogyny, and tags about Justin Bieber.

Below that is an unidentified dialog full of "stuff your eyes automatically ignore". And finally, on the bottom is the background colour, which is "a really pleasant blue".

Referrer: Twitter

===Wikipedia===
[[File:umwelt wikipedia wide.jpg]]
[[File:umwelt wikipedia mobile.png]]

The term {{w|Mile High Club}} (or MHC) is a slang term applied collectively to individuals who have had sexual intercourse while on board of an aircraft. Randall says that reading the news articles on it has distracted him from making that comic.

Two different versions shown, the narrower version (the single panel with all the text) for mobile devices.

Referrer: Wikipedia

===Google Chrome===
[[File:umwelt chrome1.jpg]]

{{w|Sergey Brin}} (born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the most profitable Internet companies. As of 2013, his personal wealth was estimated to be $24.4 billion. Randall makes the joke that as the founder of Google, Brin's permission would be needed to use Google Chrome. Because there are millions of people who use Google, it is likely that at least some of the time Brin would be asleep, thus he would need to be woken.

Browser: Chrome

===Chrome/Firefox===
[[File:umwelt chrome2.png]]

Mozilla {{w|Firefox}} is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Cueball is complaining about {{w|Google Chrome}}, to which [[Ponytail]] replies that there is an {{w|add-on}} that fixes what he is complaining about. When questioned, she replies that the add-on is Firefox, which isn't an add-on at all and is instead a different browser.

Browser: Chrome

===Google Chrome-2===
[[File:umwelt chrome3.png]]

This panel references Google Chrome's error screen, which shows a puzzle piece. The comic humorously implies that Chrome is looking for that piece. When completing jigsaw puzzles, a common strategy is to figure out where the pieces must be from their geometry rather than from the picture they create. In this case, the text suggests that Chrome believes the puzzle piece connects to the pieces which form one of the corners of the puzzle, which is impossible because any piece that links up to a corner would have at least one flat edge, which this piece has none.

Browser: Chrome

===Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing===
[[File:umwelt firefox incognito.png]]

Another reference to crashing web browsers.

Browser: Firefox (Incognito only?)

===Internet Explorer===
[[File:umwelt ie.png]]

Yet another reference to crashing web browsers

Browser: Internet Explorer

===Maxthon===
[[File:umwelt maxthon.png]]

Browser: Maxthon

===Netscape Navigator===
[[File:umwelt netscape womanoctopus.png]]

[[File:umwelt netscape man.png]]

{{w|Netscape Navigator}} was a web browser popular in the 1990s.

Browser: Netscape

===Rockmelt===
[[File:umwelt rockmelt.png]]

{{w|Rockmelt}} is a social-media-based browser.

Reference to the gospel song {{w|Longing for Old Virginia: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1934)|"There's no hiding place down here" by The Carter Family}}, later covered by Stephen Stills.

:I run to the rock just to hide my face
:And the rocks cried out, no hiding place
:There's no hiding place down here

It may additionally be a reference to the ''Babylon 5'' episode "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place," which featured the song.

Browser: Rockmelt

===Plugin Disabled===
[[File:umwelt plugin disabled.png]]

When the Google Chrome web browser does not have the required software (called a plug-in) to display a web page's content, it displays a puzzle piece icon and an error message. In this case, Chrome informs the user that the content is impossible to display.

Browser: Plugin (?) Disabled, Safari Desktop

===Corporate Networks===
[[File:umwelt corporate general.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon other.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate google chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft other.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes other.png]]

These error messages appear if the user is on a network owned by one of the corporations noted. The error message includes a warning against speaking on the company's behalf.

ISP: Corporate networks of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NY Times

===Military===
[[File:umwelt military.png]]

[[Cueball]] assumes that anyone using a military network has an important job like watching for incoming missiles. He includes a thank-you to the user for their military service.

ISP: Military networks

===T-Mobile===
[[File:umwelt tmobile.png]]

Reference to T-Mobile's distinguishing feature of weaker coverage, in relation to other major providers.

ISP: T-Mobile

===Verizon and AT&T===
[[File:umwelt verizon.png]]

[[File:umwelt att.png]]

Reference to Verizon and AT&T's scandals/controversy regarding implementation of bandwidth caps.

ISP: Verizon and AT&T

===France===
[[File:umwelt france.jpg]]

A common joke about France is that the nation does not win wars. This originated from France's annexation by Germany during World War II, and America's late entry into the war, which is sometimes portrayed humorously as a case of America 'saving' Europe, in this joke particularly France (the role of the French resistance is usually not mentioned), leading to a common American joke at the expense of France's military prowess [http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.html][http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-frenchmilitaryvictories.htm][http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokefrenchmilitaryhistory.htm]. When France did not form part of the coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003, aligning with the many countries that condemned U.S. action, the joke was revived.

A Google search of "French Military Victories" + 'I'm feeling lucky' used to direct to "did you mean: french military defeats" (due to a {{w|Google bomb}}). Cueball is trying to show this to his friend, who is French. However, his joke backfires, as his friends immediately points out that the stereotype of France not having military victories is undercut by the fact that one of the most innovative military commanders in history, Napoleon, was French, and in fact conquered much of Europe.

The last line of the comic further implies that Cueball is not as smart as he thinks he is in regards to anything French, as he mispronounces the French loan word "touche".

Locations: France & Quebec

===Germany===
[[File:umwelt germany.png]]

This comic references the {{w|Berlin airlift#The start of the Berlin Airlift|Berlin Airlift}}, a relief measure for citizens in West Berlin (surrounded by East Germany) instituted by the Western Allies after World War II. In reality, the Western Allies flew a grand total of 500,000 tons of food over the Soviet blockade in planes. Randall puts a twist on this event by making it more fun: dropping supplies from a grand chairlift. The play on words is that "chairlift" rhymes with "airlift" and thus makes an easy substitution. The chair force is also a name that other service branches use to make fun of the air force.

Location: Germany

===Israel===
[[File:umwelt israel.png]]

Transcript:

בחורה: אמא, פגשתי בחור נהדר! אבל הוא לא יהודי.‏

...

רגע, מה את אומרת, "גם אנחנו לא"?‏

אני לגמרי מבולבלת.‏

(Translation from Hebrew)

Person: Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.

A reference to the multiple use of the word Jewish to denote both a religious group and a nationality/ethnicity.

Location: Israel

===Carnot Cycle===
[[File:umwelt japan.png]]

A pun on "cycle"; a "{{w|Carnot cycle}}" is a thermodynamic cycle (e.g. refrigeration). Its efficiency depends on the temperature of the hot and cold 'reservoirs' in which it is operating. The icon on the side of the motorcycle resembles a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carnot_cycle_p-V_diagram.svg graph of the Carnot cycle.]

Location: Japan

===UK===
[[File:umwelt uk.jpg]]

He worded this as though to imply that the UK is a state of the U.S., and an unimportant one at that, which pokes fun at the UK, creating a paradox (sort of).

Location: UK

===Blizzard===
[[File:umwelt disasters blizzard.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or blizzards are harsher conditions to live under.

For each location this displayed in, the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Georgia, Halifax, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, the Northeast, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Texas, Toronto, Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin

===Tornado===
[[File:umwelt disasters tornado.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or tornadoes are harsher conditions to live under.

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Dallas, Illinois, Georgia, The Midwest, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Tennessee, Texas

===Hurricane===
[[File:umwelt disasters hurricane.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or hurricanes are harsher conditions to live under.

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: D.C, Florida, Georgia, Houston, Miami, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia

===Lake Diver Killer===
[[File:umwelt lake diver.png]]

This comic shows a news reporter standing in front of a lake. She is reporting on a serial killer who targets divers. As more divers are sent in to investigate and/or search for bodies, more divers go missing and are presumably murdered.

Locations: Bay Areas

Location: Vermont showed an image specifically referencing Lake Champlain

===Lincoln Memorial===
[[File:umwelt lincoln memorial.png]]

Locations: Illinois & Washington D.C.

===Helicopter Hunting===
[[File:umwelt helicoptor.png]]

In Alaska, governments and individuals have {{w|Wolf hunting#North America 2|shot wolves en masse from helicopters}} in an attempt to artificially inflate populations of game, such as moose and caribou, to make hunting them easier. This is opposed by many, as the game populations are not endangered (thus, this threatens ecological balance); wolves are a small threat to livestock in North America; most of the wolf body —including meat and bones— goes wasted as they are sought mainly for their pelts.

Location: Alaska

===Newspaper===
[[File:umwelt life scientists.png]][[File:umwelt life rit.png]][[File:umwelt life umass.png]]

Creating new life has long been a well understood process, in a lab or otherwise.

Location: Various

Specific versions appeared for RIT and UMass Amherst

===Robot Paul Revere===
[[File:umwelt paul revere.png]]

Combination of the legend of {{w|Paul Revere#"Midnight Ride"|Paul Revere}} and computer binary.

Location: Boston

===Counting Cards===

All four colleges in this series are in Massachusetts and, being similar, in pairs, rival each other to some extent (Harvard-MIT, and Smith-Wellesley). The comic contains a reference to the {{w|MIT Blackjack Team}}, which entered popular culture via the {{w|21 (2008 film)|film 21}}, and a possible reference to Orwell's book '1984' and/or {{w|Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|popular homage to it via Star Trek}}: "There are four lights."[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChYIm6MW39k]

Bonus: The thought-gears in panel 3 are spinning against each other.

Location: Harvard

[[File:umwelt counting cards harvard.png]]

Location: MIT

[[File:umwelt counting cards mit.png]]

"Course 15s" at MIT are the business major students, often mocked for taking a less-rigorous program.

Location: Smith

[[File:umwelt counting cards smith.png]]

Location: Wellesley

[[File:umwelt counting cards wellesley.png]]

Both Wellesley and Smith are all-women colleges.

===Giant Box Trap===
[[File:umwelt box trap.png]]

Randall got his undergrad in Physics at the {{w|Christopher Newport University}}, and was scheduled to return shortly to give a talk.

Location: Christopher Newport University

===Chemo Support===
[[File:umwelt chemo.jpg]]

[[Cueball]] has shaved his head in support of people going through {{w|chemotherapy}} but as he is always depicted as a stick figure with no hair who can tell.

Randall's now-wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and apparently DFCI is where they've been spending much of their time.

Location: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

===Reviews===
[[File:reviews.png]]

The previous strip appears twice when using [[wikipedia:Tor (anonymity network)|Tor]].

Browser: Any using Tor, xkcd API (JSON, RSS, Atom), and reports of seeing it on a Kindle Fire HD

==Transcript==
:[Note to courageous readers- The transcript has been reordered in the order in which the comics appear in the picture and appropriate names have been given.]

:'''The Void'''
:[An epic void with a bright light shining right on you.]

:'''Aurora'''
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar flare that's causing some Great Aurorae. CBC says they may even be visible here! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: Hockey's on.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

:'''Aurora-US'''
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar storm causing northern lights over Canada. CNN say they might even be visible {Options: "As Far South As Us", "Here in Boston", "Maine", "Ohio", "Oregon", "New York"}! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: It's cold out.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

:'''Snake'''
:[Two people standing next to each other. Megan is holding the head end of a snake. Depending on the width of your browser, the snake is: three frames, the third of which has a little bit of a bump; the first frame has a human-size bump, the second has a third person looking at the snake, and the third has the snake going though two Portals; a squirrel and the human-size bump in the first frame, a ring next to the third person in the second frame, and Beret Guy riding the snake in front of the portal; or The squirrel, a fourth person within the snake being coiled, and the human bump in the first frame, the ring, a fifth person in love, and the third person in the second frame, Beret Guy and the portal in the third frame, and the same two people in the fourth frame.]

:Megan: I found a snake, but then I forgot to stop.

:'''Black hat'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk. One is Black Hat. The other is an analyst. Black Hat has a number of terminals attached to his head.]
:Analyst: You come across a tortoise in the desert. You flip it over. It struggles to right itself. You watch. You're not helping. Why is that?

:Black Hat: It '''knows''' what it did.

:[View of the entire scene, with said turtle off in the distance on its back and trying to right itself.]

:'''Too quiet'''
:[A group of four scale down a wall into a field in the middle of the night. They walk off single-file.]
:Person 1: It's quiet.

:Person 3: Yeah - *Too* quiet.

:[A Velociraptor is off in the distance, following the group.]
:Person 4: Yeah - too *too* quiet.

:Person 2: Yeah - 2quiet2furious.
:Person 1: Fuck off, Steve.

:'''Pond'''
:[A landscape showing a pond, some reeds, and a set of mountains off in the distance.]

:'''Galaxies'''
:[A trio of galaxies.]
:Galaxy 1: He's not looking!
:Galaxy 3: Let's get him!
:[Lines draw in illustrating the eye-line of one of a pair of people.]
:Cueball: So he said he didn't get the text, but c'mon, he *never* misses texts. Right? ..hello?
:Megan: I'm just staring at your head freaked out by the fact that there are millions of galaxies *directly behind it*.

:'''xkcd Gold'''
:[Cueball holding bat.]

:Cueball: Sorry, but this comic

:[Cueball starts to wind up.]

:Cueball: requires

:[Cueball prepares to strike with bat.]

:Cueball: XKCD

:[Cueball swings at a beehive.]
:GOLD

:[Penis Bees fly out of the beehive.]

:'''Yo mamma'''
:[Cueball yells at a friend.]
:Cueball: Oh yeah? Well you mama's so ''cynical'', her only dog ballast is a ''leash''!
:(This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid dogs can hover, so it requires them to wear weights at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop buying dog weights.)

:'''Reddit'''
:Five seconds ago:
:[You sitting in front of a desk, reading a reddit thread.]
:You: Oh, hey, reddit has a link to some XKCD april fools comic.

:Now: [An image of the xkcd comic page.]
:Five seconds from now:

:You: ..hey

:30 seconds from now:
:[DANCE PARTY!]

:'''Buns and Hot dogs'''
:Cueball: What I wanna know is why do hot dogs come in packages of six while buns come in these huge sacks of ash and blood from which "Ave Maria" is faintly audible?
:[Chanting sacks of gore in the background.]

:'''Twitter'''
:[A Twitter account page with the following: Many tweets, fewer following, even fewer followers, A bunch of assholes in the suggested follow box, trending topics partitioned into: Word Games, Misogyny, and Bieber, stuff your eyes automatically ignore, A really pleasant blue. and the timeline: Something about a podcast, Someone confused because the description doesn't match the link, The link you clicked on to get to this comic, Rob Delaney, Passive Aggression, and horse ebooks.]

:'''Wikipedia'''
:[There's no comic here because instead of drawing one, I spent the last hour reading every news story cited in the Wikipedia article on The Mile High Club.]

:'''Google Chrome'''
:[A Chrome plugin error page.]
:Chrome: This plugin requires Sergey Brin's permission to run. Please wait while he is woken.

:'''Chrome/Firefox'''
:[Two people; Cueball is sitting at a desk in front of a laptop.]
:Cueball: Man, chrome's hardware acceleration really sucks.
:Ponytail: Oh - Theres' a great add-on that fixes it.
:Cueball: Oh? What's it called?
:Ponytail: "Firefox".

:'''Google Chrome-2'''
:[A Chrome plugin error page with the characteristic jigsaw piece.]
:Chrome: Chrome is looking for this piece. Have you seen it? Chrome thinks it links up with a corner.

:'''Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing'''
:[Firefox error page.]
:Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing. You know how I'm not supposed to peek at your browsing in private mode? Firefox.. is sorry. Firefox will not blame you if you
:[Button with text.]
:Click here to report this incident.

:'''Internet Explorer'''
:[IE error page.]
:IE: Error: Internet Explorer has given up.

:'''Maxthon'''
:Cueball: Maxthon? Hey, 2005 called. Didn't say anything. All I could hear was sobbing. This is getting harder. Anyway, yeah, Maxthon's still cool! Didn't know it was still around!

:'''Netscape Navigator'''
:[Two different versions exist: one with Cueball talking and one with Megan with tentacle arms talking.]
:Person: Netscape Navigator? Hey, the nineties called - drunk as usual. I hung up without saying anything. This is getting harder. Anyway - it's cool that you'e got netscape running.

:'''Rockmelt'''
:[Cueball running to laptop.]
:I ran to Rockmelt to hide my face

:[Cueball sitting at laptop.]
:But Rockmelt cried out -

:[Laptop shouting.]
:NO HIDING PLACE

:[zoom out.]
:NO HIDING PLACE DOWN HERE

:'''Google Chrome-3'''
:[A chrome plugin error page.]
:Chrome: There does not exist --nor could there '''ever''' exist-- a plugin capable of displaying this content.

:'''Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google - Chrome'''
:[Chrome error page.]
:Chrome: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Microsoft/Amazon - Firefox'''
:[Firefox error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Microsoft/The Times'''
:[Error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/The Times is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Corporate - Generic'''
:[Error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, we work as a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Military'''
:[Person looking at two browser windows.]
:Cueball: I know y'all know what you're doing. But if you're on a military machine and you're supposed to be watching for missiles or something, I hope you're keeping an eye on that in the background while you're reading comics. Also: Thanks.

:'''T-Mobile'''
:[Error page.]
:Data Error: T-Mobile was unable to establish a connection

:'''Verizon'''
:[Error page]
:Error: You have exceeded your Verizon monthly bandwidth cap. Mobile web browsing has been disabled.

:'''France'''
:[Two people; one of which is browsing using a laptop.]
:Cueball: Hey, you're French, right? Ever see what happens when you type "French Military Victories" into Google?
:French person: Does it take you to an article on Napoleon?

:French person: ..no? Strange, given how he kicked everyone's asses up and down Europe for over a decade.

:[Beat frame.]

:Cueball: Touche.
:French person: You know, that'd sound smarter if you didn't pronounce it like it rhymes with "douche".

:'''Germany'''
:[Cueball dropping food from an unorthodox high perch.]
:June 1948: In response to the Soviet blockade of East Germany, the western allies construct the Berlin Chairlift.
:Cueball on chairlift: Food!

:'''Israel'''
:[Person on phone.]
:Person (Translation from Hebrew): Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.

:'''Carnot Cycle'''
:[Ponytail on a motorcycle with a heat-entropy graph on the side.]
:Ponytail: Check out my new Carnot Cycle!
:Cueball: Neat - how fast does it go?
:Ponytail: Depends how cold it is outside.

:'''Great Britain'''
:[Illustration of the Atlantic ocean.]
:American person: Sorry I don't have a comic poking fun at the UK here. I only had time to get to the most ''important'' US states.
:British person: Hey - At least we have free health care and real ale.

:'''Earthquake-Blizzard'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Boston", "Chicago", "Dallas", "Georgia", "Halifax", "Illinois", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Missouri", "the Northeast", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", 'Pennsylvania", "Philadelphia", "Texas", "Toronto", "Tennessee", "New York", "Wisconsin"}! That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..
:[Both people are trudging through a massive blizzard.]
:Danish: In pictures, snow always looked so nice and sof - ''AAAA! MY NECK! How do people live here?!''
:Cueball: Come on - it's only three more miles.

:'''Earthquake-Tornado'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Dallas", "Illinois", "The Midwest", "Missouri", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", "Tennessee", "Texas"}!
:Cueball: That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..
:[Both people are in a shelter in a prairie with a rapidly-approaching tornado.]
:Danish: AAAA CLOSE THE SHELTER DOOR!
:Cueball: Say the magic words...
:Danish: THIS PLACE IS THE WORST!
:Cueball: Thank you.

:'''Earthquake-Hurricane'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "D.C", "Florida", "Houston", "Miami", "New Jersey", "North Carolina", "South Carolina", "Virgina"}! That was huge!
:Cueball: That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..

:[Both are in the middle of a hurricane. Danish is grabbing onto a signpost to avoid being swept away.]
:Danish: AAAAA WHAT THE SHIIIIT!
:Cueball: Calm down - this is barely a category 2.

:'''Lake Diver Killer'''
:[TV Field Reporter in front of a cordoned-off lake.]
:Reporter: Police divers searching the bay say they have recovered the body of another victim of the "Lake Diver Killer."
:Reporter: During the search, three more divers were reported missing.

:'''Washington'''
:[The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.]
:In this Marble Prison As in the nightmares of the nation they tried to devour
:The nanobots that constituted Abraham Lincoln
:Are entombed forever.

:'''Alaska'''
:[A person with a gun chasing a helicopter on the back of a wolf in a snowy Alaskan field.]
:Some people hunt wolves from helicopters. I hunt helicopters from a wolf.

:'''Life in lab'''
:[Newspaper headline.]
:Scientists/UMass Amherst students/RIT students create life in lab
:[Caption under picture of scientists.]
:"The trick was fuckin'"

:'''American Revolution'''
:Robot Paul Revere: Remember: Zero if by land, One if by sea.

:'''MIT'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: I see their admission standards have been slipping.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''MIT Course 15c'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: I *knew* we shouldn't have picked course 15s.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''Smith/Wellesley'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of Smith/Wellesley students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: We should've gone with Wellesley/Smith.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''CNU'''
:[Person unsuspectingly strolls under a giant box trap controlled by a Trible.]
:I worry that CNU only invited me back as a ruse because they realized I never turned in my final paper and want my diploma back. But if it turns out it's for real, I'll see you Wednesday at the Ferguson!

:'''Dana Farber'''
:[Cueball, pointing towards head.]
:Cueball: Check it out - In support of people going through chemo, I shaved my head.
:Lots of love to everyone reading this at Dana Farber. Cancer sucks. If you are new to DCFI, there's a great little garden on the third floor of the yawkey if you need somewhere quiet to just sit for a little bit and breathe.

:'''Reviews'''
:Shopping before online reviews:
:[Cueball and Megan stand in a store. Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. There is another lamp on the table behind them.]
:Cueball: This lamp is pretty.
:Megan: And affordable.
:Cueball: Let's get it.
:Megan Ok!

:Shopping now:
:[Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. Megan looks at her phone.]
:Cueball: This lamp is pretty.
:Megan: It's got 1 1/2 stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand.

:[Cueball and Megan are now both looking at their phones.]
:Cueball: This one has good reviews.
:Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf.
:Cueball: Eek. What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus.

:[Cueball is still looking at his phone, Megan has hers at her side.]
:Cueball: Ok, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift.
:Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark.

==Trivia==
*Reddit user [http://www.reddit.com/user/SomePostMan SomePostMan] created a [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/t6wmh/all_umwelt_1037_comics_in_two_imgur_albums/ post] that collected all of the Umwelt comics and added explanations. Much of his information is now included in this wiki.

*The transcript section for this comic also included a note alluding to its extreme length:
: [ [Two people...] ] ((..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all this))
: [Two people standing next to each other. One is holding the head end of a snake...

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Penis]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]
[[Category:Puns]]

Talk:295: DNE

2016-02-24T21:00:13Z

EpicWolverine: Explained "sanitation staff"

I read this comic while taking Calculus. I thought DNE stood for Does Not Exist (as in a limit). I've actually never seen it used as Do Not Erase. Of course, this does not make sense in this context. Thank you, Explainxkcd. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.202|108.162.219.202]] 02:15, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

We have the same in Danish: MIS: Må Ikke Slettes = may not be errased, when translating directley. Mis by the way means pussy(cat) in Danish. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:24, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Such circles were always labeled "SAVE" where I went to school. But I think "DNE" would've been understood too. --[[User:Aaron of Mpls|Aaron of Mpls]] ([[User talk:Aaron of Mpls|talk]]) 05:43, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm from the east coast of the US and we had DNE. Anyone care to give input as to other locations' uses? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.124|108.162.216.124]] 21:24, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm from California and we wrote SAVE. [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 01:49, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm from Ohio and teachers usually just wrote a note. "Please don't erase this!" [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.121|173.245.55.121]] 06:07, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm from SoCal and we did all kinds of things. Some students put really pretty lines, others drew monsters inside the line that had a quote "I will eat you if you erase this" which took up half the board. Also, many teachers would put the date it was written- which inevitably lead to some student assuming it was past its expiry date and erasing the whole thing. Anything prefaced with "Homework" was erased immediately upon the teacher's absence from the classroom.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.169|108.162.215.169]] 15:23, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Disregarding the DNE/SAVE/KEEP issue, what's this about "sanitation staff"? In my part of the world (UK), we just have cleaners... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.152.179|162.158.152.179]] 16:40, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
:I think cleaners, maintenance (what we call them in Michigan), and sanitation staff all refer to the same thing: a group of people employed to clean the floors, empty the trash/rubbish bins, clean the chalkboards and whiteboards, clean the bathrooms/washrooms, etc. Just in that explanation, you can see I used two words that mean the same thing but one is used in the US and one in the UK. [[User:EpicWolverine|EpicWolverine]] ([[User talk:EpicWolverine|talk]]) 21:00, 24 February 2016 (UTC)