Approximations
by Jeff
Image text: Two tips: 1) 8675309 is not just prime, it's a twin prime, and 2) if you ever find yourself raising log(anything)^e or taking the pi-th root of anything, set down the marker and back away from the whiteboard; something has gone horribly wrong.
Good lord. I'm still on vacation and I'm not a math person, so this explanation will be as good as zero to all of you. So, I'm opening it up to the comments. I'll follow back up tonight and put the explanation you put in the comments with your name and a link to your comment with what you explained. Thanks in advance. You are my only hope!
Skynet
by Jeff
Image text: 'YOUR CLOTHES. GIVE THEM TO ME.' 'Shit, uh ... you are now breathing manually!' 'I AM ALWAYS BREATHING MANUALLY.'
This comic's use of Skynet is a reference to the main antagonist in the Terminator franchise, Skynet is a fictional artificial intelligence system which becomes self-aware and decides to terminate humanity, its creators. Skynet is rarely seen onscreen, with its actions often performed via robots, cyborgs (usually a Terminator), and other computer systems.
The final frame is a reference to that strange time when you say or think about a word too much, it stops sounding like a real word and instead starts sounding like nonsense. As it continues Skynet appears to come to self-aware realizations that usually are the result of drug usage.
Constraints
by Jeff
Image text: [title-text similarly alphabetized]
Sorry all, I'm still alive. Just on vacation. I'll keep this one short since it is late.
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising or satirical statement.
Just in case you have been living under a rock for the last several years, Twitter is a short message social network / communication service. All messages on the service need to be under 140 characters, including private messages.
I'm not sure about the backwards alphabetization, anyone?
Romney Quiz
by Jeff
Image text: Charlie actually delivered the Medicare line almost verbatim in the 1971 movie's Fizzy Lifting Drink scene, but it was ultimately cut from the final release.
So, Mitt Romney is the Republican candidate for President of the United States and as it says above, the former Governor of Massachusetts. Charlie Bucket is the main character of the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".
The absurdity and joke here is that each different quote is very not very similar and easy to tell apart.
(via wikipedia) "In 1965, Congress created Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide health insurance to people age 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history." So, the quote being used in a movie in 1971 (which is obviously not true) is still feasible.
Ablogalypse
by Jeff
Image text: Plus the reaction in the Tumblverse is always 'repeatedly get hit by a dog and fall down the stairs'.
Ok, lets see: blog, you know what that is because you are currently reading one. Tumblr is a more of a "micro-blogging" site, which has taken off due to the prevalence of animated gifs and funny photos. Wordpress is a type of blog software. Livejournal is a sort of personal blog site that as you can see hasn't been really popular at all since 2004-2005.
As you can see in the caption and then the image text, there is no way that newscasters will reference the "Tumblrverse" because all the reactions will be filled with animated gifs of a person in a raptor suit falling over or a dog answering a phone.
Thanks for your support!
by Mike
Hey EXKCD fans! I'm Mike, the creator of this here website. And this is Jeff, the powerhouse writer that gets all the content up. We used to have google ads up here to cover our web costs but they banned us because of click bombing and took all our money. We never wanted to ask you, the fans, for money, but I recently had to leave my job and I'm trying to raise some money for some cool new projects. So we're adding a donation button to the site. If you like what we do please feel free to throw a buck or two at us. We'd greatly appreciate it! But no pressure! Just keep enjoying the content.
Happy Friday!
Update: The donate button embedded in the post wasn't working. So you can click on the button in the sidebar over there on the right.
Thanks, Mike & Jeff
Never
by Jeff
Image text: I'll never forget you--at least, the parts of you that were important red flags.
Wow, this is a little deep for a Friday. But, let me see if I can decode this. Cueball is mulling over a previous relationship in which he had something so special, he will never have something that special with anyone else.
However, the image text gives us another angle on the story in which the previous partner had important "red flags". "Red Flags" is a phrase used to describe problems or warnings about the person that they would not be a good fit for a serious relationship or marriage. Red flags include (depending on the person) no job, history of cheating or violence, etc.
Cueball indicates he will never forget this mysterious previous person because of their important red flags that must have doomed the relationship.
Well, now I'm sad.
Whites of Their Eyes
by Jeff
Image text: Don't fire until you see through the fragile facade to the human being within.
"Don't Fire Until You See The Whites of Their Eyes" is a famous order given (most famously) at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolution. It is not clear who exactly gave the order and where it originated. The Americans were low on ammunition and needed to save all of their bullets until the British were close enough that it would have the most effect. That range was famously when you could see the whites of their eyes.
This comic takes that order and goes to some place very sexual, which has nothing to do with the battle.
Lakes and Oceans
by Jeff
Image text: James Cameron has said that he didn't know its song would be so beautiful. He didn't close the door in time. He's sorry.
Click the image to see the large size. This comic is prompted by James Cameron, the movie director and producer taking a one person underwater capsule down to the bottom of the Mariana's Trench, which is the lowest point in the ocean. He filmed the whole thing in 3D, so as far as I know, there is no secret door down there, but it would be cool if there was.
In the Puerto Rico Trench, "The Abyss" is labeled. This is a reference to a quote by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that goes something like "When you stare into the abyss, it stares back". And of course, as all of our parents told us, it is rude to stare.
David Bowie and Freddy Mercury making their way onto the comic is a reference to their collaborative song, Under Pressure. (Because where they are in the comic, there would be a lot of pressure from the water in the ocean above them.)
Deepwater Horizon is a reference to the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico that recently had a major issue and filled most of the Gulf of Mexico with oil.
Burj Kalifa is the tallest building in the world and it is the United Arab Emirates.
RuBisCO
by Jeff
Image text: Bruce Schneier believes safewords are fundamentally insecure and recommends that you ask your partner to stop via public key signature.
This comic is about sex. A safeword is something you use so that you can indicate to your partner that you want them to stop. The chemists getting it on in the other room from Cueball and Megan are using that long word as their safe word. RuBisCo is (per wikipedia, I am not a chemist) commonly known by the shorter name RuBisCO, is an enzyme involved in the first major step of carbon fixation, a process by which atmospheric carbon dioxide is converted by plants to energy-rich molecules such as glucose.
The image text references Bruce Schneier, who is an internationally known security expert. Here's his blog. The image text is a joke on what Schneier usually says about some password schemes. Public-key cryptography refers to a cryptographic system requiring two separate keys, one to lock or encrypt the plaintext, and one to unlock or decrypt the cyphertext. Neither key will do both functions. One of these keys is published or public and the other is kept private.
This joke in the image text works because of its absurdity because there is no reason to use a public key/private key system for your safe word.