November
by Jeff
Image text: November marks the birthday of Charles Schulz, pioneer of tongue awareness.
This comic is an homage to Charles Schulz the creator of the comic Peanuts, who was born on November 26, 1922. Here's the comic in question by Schulz with Black Hat playing the Linus role, in a way and Cueball, the Lucy role. In both comics, when you start thinking about your tongue, you can't stop thinking about it. Similar in the way that if you start thinking about your breathing, you stop breathing unless you consciously think to breathe.
(ed note: And now I can't stop thinking about my tongue and have to think to breathe...)
This link also indicates that Schulz's comic is not completely about tongue awareness, instead has deeper meaning about one's existence in the world.
Elements
by Jeff
Image text: Of all the nations, the armies of the ununoctium-benders are probably the least intimidating. The xenon-benders come close, but their flickery signs are at least effective for propoganda.
The character on the left is a reference to the TV cartoon and live action movie by the name of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The character in question is named Aang. He is master of the four elements, earth, water, fire and air.
On the right is Dmitri Mendeleev, who is credited with the creation of the periodic table of elements, which is why he is the master of all 118 plus elements. Polonium is the radioactive element discovered by Marie Curie (as referenced in previous xkcds). Just as Marie Curie died of radiation poisoning, that is the attack that Dmitri uses with polonium.
In the image text, ununoctium is the element with atomic number 118 and it has no other use besides basic scientific research.
Xenon is a colorless gas, that emits a blue or lavenderish glow when the gas is excited by electrical discharge
Magic School Bus
by Jeff
Image text: At my OLD school, we used Microsoft Encarta 2005.
This comic is a reference to the American TV cartoon and book series "The Magic School Bus". In this cartoon, Ms. Frizzle and her class would learn about a certain topic and then get in their school bus which would then fly, shrink down or grow so they could learn about the topic in real life. For example, when learning about anatomy, they would shrink down and go inside a person's body to see how the body actually works.
The image text is a reference to Microsoft Encarta which is an old electronic encyclopedia.
Lamp
by Jeff
Image text: 'That was definitely not in my top three wishes.' 'Who said anything about YOUR wishes?'
Cueball happens upon a lamp. He rubs said lamp hoping that it is a magic lamp that contains a genie that will grant him 3 wishes. (see: Aladdin - the Disney movie or the fairy tale) The genie only appears after rubbing the lamp. But, after rubbing it, the lamp appears to ejaculate (linking you to wikipedia for full explanation). Cueball puts the lamp down in disgust in the fourth frame and they have the discussion in the image text.
Cueball: That was definitely not in my top three wishes.
Lamp: Who said anything about YOUR wishes?
It was clearly the lamp's hope that someone would happen upon it and think that it was a magic lamp that contained a genie that would grant wishes. Instead the rubbing causes the lamp to ejaculate, which was its goal all along.
Five-Minute Comics: Part 1
by Jeff
Image text: The wolves thin the RAID arrays, removing the slowest and weakest disks to keep the average seek speed high.
The set up for these comics are explained at the top by Randall, so let's dig into a few.
Top left - Jupiter, the planet, comes so close to the Earth that it becomes a character in the comic. And because it is so massive and has a huge gravitational field, it asks the characters if they would like to use that pull as a slingshot. In that case, some object in space would fly close enough to a massive body to increase its speed using the gravity of the planet or star while circling the object and "slingshot" themselves out the other side.
Top Middle - A pony is a typical or stereotypical young girl's dream gift. In this case, instead of rescuing the girl from the well, he pushes a pony down there too, I guess to make her feel better.
Top Right - Just like nature conservatories have reintroduced wolves to back to nature, this systems administrator has reintroduced wolves to his nature, the server room. The image text is connected to this comic and references how wolves will thin herds of animals by attacking the weakest and slowest animals. In this case, the admin is speaking in the text. Obviously, wolves cannot eat RAID hard drives. But, as usual, Randall is comparing two widely different ideas. In the RAID HD case, you would want to thin the slowest RAID arrays so that you would be writing data only to the fastest drives. Because the drives are RAID arrays, there is multiple copies of each data, so the array would not miss a beat if one drive (or two) were taken by wolves.
Middle Right - I'm not so sure this one makes any sense, because it involves the magic flute from Legend of Zelda the video game series, Bach and Wagner, two famous composers, and a ring cycle from Tron. Seems like something out of a strange dream.
Middle Upper Right - Given Randall's predilection for "Yo Momma" jokes, this is another one gone wrong.
Bottom - This is a standard xkcd comic. Take a solid idea over the first three frames and then take it farther and then too far. In this case, it ends up with a hotness rating of a girl in your bio class wearing your mom's skin. Uh, gross.
If anyone can decipher Middle Left, I'd love to hear what you think. Only thing I can think of is Trig like Trigonometry.
Furtive
by Jeff
Image text: ... go go gadget video camera. Go go gadget cup.
This of course is a double reference. First, in the comic a reference to the cartoon Inspector Gadget, who only had to say "Go Go Gadget ___ " for that gadget to come flying out of his jacket. That is the same jacket depicted in the comic.
Second, in the image text is a reference to the infamous 2 girls 1 cup video that has spread wildly around the internet as a prank and somehow I have avoided seeing...quite deftly I might add.
And no, I am not approving/clicking on any comments with a hidden or tiny url in them!