xkcd - 2uo

xkcd
All strips, titles and captions in this presentation are © Randall Munroe (http://www.xkcd.com).
They are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
http://www.xkcd.com/license.html
Purity
On the other hand, physicists like to say physics is to math as sex is to masturbation.
Airfoil
This is a fun explanation to prepare your kids for; it's common and totally wrong. Good lines
include 'why does the air have to travel on both sides at the same time?' and 'I saw the Wright
brothers plane and those wings were curved the same on the top and bottom!'
Still Raw
We actually divorced once over the airplane/treadmill argument. (Preemptive response to the
inevitable threads arguing about it: you're all wrong on the internet.)
Impostor
If you think this is too hard on literary criticism, read the Wikipedia article on deconstruction.
CNR
Can't and shouldn't.
Wikileaks
STUDENTS ARE CALLING PRESIDENT JOHNSON EN MASSE TO PROTEST THE
BOMBING AND IT'S JAMMED THE WHITE HOUSE SWITCHBOARD. COULD THEY
COLLAPSE OUR CRITICAL PHONE SYSTEMS? HAS THE FIRST TELEPHONE WAR
BEGUN? STAY TUNED FOR MORE ON THIS DANGEROUS NEW TECHNOLOGY.
Pep Talk
Listen! They said a team of chess players coached by someone with no understanding of basketball
would never be competitive in the NBA! Well, it turns out they're pretty perceptive.
Duty Calls
What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!
Action Movies
By my count, only 48 of the 158 minutes in Live Free or Die Hard have action. That's pathetic,
guys. Crank is better, but needs a bigger budget and more Summer Glau.
Lisp Cycles
I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the MIT computer science program
permamently.
The Important Field
I hear in some places, you need one form of ID to buy a gun, but two to pay for it by check. It’s
interesting who has what incentives to care about what mistakes.
Code Talkers
As far as I can tell, Navajo doesn't have a common word for 'zero'. do-neh-lini means 'neutral'.
Hell
There’s also a Katamari level where everything is just slightly bigger than you, and a Mario level
with a star just out of reach.
Troll Slayer
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Highway Engineer Pranks
Prank #11: Boston
Lisp
We lost the documentation on quantum mechanics. You'll have to decode the regexes yourself.
Random Number
RFC 1149.5 specifies 4 as the standard IEEE-vetted random number.
Matrix Transform
In fact, draw all your rotational matrices sideways. Your professors will love it! And then they'll go
home and shrink.
Mess
‘Sorry, I left out my glass of water from last night.’; OH GOD I APPARENTLY LIVE IN A
GARBAGE PIT.
Donald Knuth
His books were kinda intimidating; rappelling down through his skylight seemed like the best
option.
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html
(Thomas Hühn 0x$1.20)
Cryptography
If you got a big keyspace, let me search it.
Pumpkin Carving
The Banach-Tarski theorem was actually first developed by King Solomon, but his gruesome
attempts to apply it set back set theory for centuries.
Legal Hacks
It's totally a reasonable modern analogue. Jefferson would have been all about crypto.
Estimation
They could say “the connection is probably lost,” but it's more fun to do naive time-averaging to
give you hope that if you wait around for 1,163 hours, it will finally finish.
Experimentation
I understand large sample sizes are key to a low standard error of the mean, but the entire
sophomore class?
Threesome
I wanted us to try finding an approximate numeric solution, but noooo.
All the Girls
You know that I'll never leave you. Not as long as she's with someone.
Devotion to Duty
The weird sense of duty really good sysadmins have can border on the sociopathic, but it’s nice to
know that it stands between the forces of darkness and your cat blog’s servers.
Librarians
Don't expect any leniency on late fees, though.
e to the pi Minus pi
Also, I hear the 4th root of (9^2 + 19^2/22) is pi.
Cells
Now, if it selectively kills cancer cells in a petri dish, you can be sure it’s at least a great
breakthrough for everyone suffering from petri dish cancer.
Compiler Complaint
Checking whether build environment is sane ... build environment is grinning and holding a spatula.
Guess not.
Gravity Wells
This doesn't take into account the energy imparted by orbital motion (or gravity assists or the
Oberth effect), all of which can make it easier to reach outer planets.
Guitar Hero
And then do it again in a moment now that they're out of Star Power
Decline
'There's also a spike on the Fourier transform at the one-month mark where --' 'You want to stop
talking right now.'
Names
I’m always so happy that I successfully navigated the introduction that I completely forget to pay
attention to the name the other person told me.
I Know You're Listening
It's basically Pascal's Wager for the paranoid prankster.
Security Question
Let's invite him to a party and play 'I never'. Okay, I never hid any bodies SOUTH of Main Street.
... he's taking a drink!
Converting To Metric
According to River, 'adequate' vacuuming systems drain the human body at about half a liter per
second.
Minifigs
The LEGO Group is already the world’s largest tire manufacturer.
Minifigs
The LEGO Group is already the world’s largest tire manufacturer.
I'm An Idiot
Sadly, this is a true story. At least I learned about the OS X 'say' command.
Commitment
Could be worse. The last guy in that situation fell for one of the transient trumpeting angels.
Future
But the past was much too cramped!
Kerning
I have never been as self-conscious about my handwriting as when I was inking in the caption for
this comic.
Fandom
Ron Paul wants to put the New Republic back on the Corusca gem standard.
Bridge
And it says a lot about you that when your friends jump off a bridge en masse, your first thought is
apparently 'my friends are all foolish and I won't be like them' and not 'are my friends ok? '.
In Popular Culture
Someday the 'in popular culture' section will have its own article with an 'in popular culture' section.
It will reference this title-text referencing it, and the blogosphere will implode.
Stephen Hawking
'Guys? The Town is supposed to be good, and I thou--' 'PHYSICIST STEPHEN HAWKING
DECLARES NEW FILM BEST IN ALL SPACE AND TIME' 'No, I just heard that--' 'SHOULD
SCIENCE PLAY A ROLE IN JUDGING BEN AFFLECK?' 'I don't think--' 'WHAT ABOUT MATT
DAMON?'
1337: Part 2
Trivia: Elaine is actually her middle name.
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24#t=21m32s
(position 21:32 to 22:10)
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html
(Thomas Hühn 0x$1.20)
Spirit
On January 26th, 2274 Mars days into the mission, NASA declared Spirit a 'stationary research
station', expected to stay operational for several more months until the dust buildup on its solar
panels forces a final shutdown.
Security
Actual actual reality: nobody cares about his secrets. (Also, I would be hard-pressed to find that
wrench for $5.)
Orphaned Projects
His date works for Red Hat, who hired a coach for her, too. He advised her to 'rent lots of movies
like Hitch. Guys love those.'
Train
Trains rotate the Earth around various axes while elevators shift its position in space.
Regular Expressions
Wait, forgot to escape a space. Wheeeeee[taptaptap]eeeeee.
Authorization
Before you say anything, no, I know not to leave my computer sitting out logged in to all my
accounts. I have it set up so after a few minutes of inactivity it automatically switches to my
brother's.
Correlation
Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture
furtively while mouthing 'look over there'.
Nerd Sniping
I first saw this problem on the Google Labs Aptitude Test. A professor and I filled a blackboard
without getting anywhere. Have fun.
Tree
Not only is that terrible in general, but you just KNOW Billy's going to open the root present first,
and then everyone will have to wait while the heap is rebuilt.
Pirate Bay
We find you guilty of closing your torrents as soon as they finish. Your sentence is unremovable
Hungarian subtitles on everything.
Applied Math
Dear Reader: Enclosed is a check for ninety-eight cents. Using your work, I have proven that this
equals the amount you requested.
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html
(Thomas Hühn 0x$1.20)
Please visit the original source, http://www.xkcd.com
Compilation by Thomas Hühn
http://www.2uo.de
Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/