explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2871: Definitely

2023-12-23T16:24:18Z

172.70.210.90:

{{comic
| number = 2871
| date = December 22, 2023
| title = Definitely
| image = definitely_2x.png
| imagesize = 463x461px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = A really mean prank you can play on someone who's picky about words is to add a 'definitely->definitively' autocorrect rule to their keyboard.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DEFIANT DEFINITION - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The word "{{wiktionary|definitely}}" is commonly {{wiktionary|misspelt}}, perhaps because it may be voiced as "def-in-ATE-ly", or with other vowels/emphisis. (The wiktionary link mentions three, /ˈdɛf.ɪ.nɪt.li/, /ˈdɛf.ə.nɪt.li/, /ˈdɛf.nɪt.li/, which suggest differences other than those that this editor is colloquially most familiar with.) Remembering that it ultimately has a common root with "finite" does not help when you also perhaps link it to "define" (and not "definition").

The comic gives twelve 'words' that the subtitle claims are all real, and gives their definitions, whereas in reality only the first (the definitely definitive spelling of "definitely" and the last (defying the trend by being the actual word "{{wiktionary|defiantly}}") are indeed so.

The first three alternate 'words' listed do have Wiktionary entries that indicate they are common mis-spellings of the first, and the last has a secondary 'meaning' of possibly being such an error, but (as of the publication of this comic/edit) the words "defenitely", "defintely", "definetely", "definantly", "defanitely", "defineatly" and "definitly" are ''so'' wrong that they don't even have a corrective article created for them. Some of them don't even look like they'd even be sufficiently homophonic substitutes, though the actions of accent and dialect may indeed be capable of creating compatible (mis)elocutions for each.

The title text adds to the word confusion by suggesting that the (real) word "{{wiktionary|definitively}}" be made to be used (against the will of a word-wise individual) as a substitution for the original definitely definitive spelling. In certain contexts it even fulfils the same basic sense as the original and so may survive proofreading by a third party. Or even the author glancing through their own work, and the brain not twigging the increased number of riser-rich characters but mentally voicing the intended word anyway... Even if it is noticed, it may be considered more a "{{wiktionary|thinko}}" than a "{{wiktionary|typo}}" as it keeps happening, at least until the afflicted typist starts to pay close and distracting attention to their output.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do not delete this tag too soon.}}

:Word   Meaning

:Definitely - Definitely
:Definetly - ''Almost'' definitely
:Definately - Probably
:Definatly - Probably not
:Defenitely - Not telling (it's a surprise)
:Defintely - Per the prophecy
:Definetely - Definitely, maybe
:Definantly - To be decided by coin toss
:Defanitely - In one universe out of 14 million
:Defineatly - Only the gods know
:Definitly - Unless someone cute shows up
:Defiantly - Defiantly

:[Caption below the panel:]
:People think the word "definitely" is often misspelled, but it's actually just several words with different meanings.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]

2505: News Story Reaction

2023-12-14T05:57:46Z

172.70.210.90: /* Explanation */ BULLET PROOF GLASS HEEHEE

{{comic
| number = 2505
| date = August 20, 2021
| title = News Story Reaction
| image = news_story_reaction.png
| titletext = Unless the next line is, "After we broke up, she blamed the painting and spent years planning her revenge, so my sorrow is mixed with relief that the dogs at least denied her that triumph."
}}

==Explanation==

In this comic, [[Cueball]] is at his computer, likely typing a comment after reading a shocking news story where the ''{{w|Mona Lisa}}'' has been attacked and shredded by a pack of wild dogs. The ''Mona Lisa'' is one of the most famous paintings in human history. At the time of this comic, the ''Mona Lisa'' has not been attacked and is unlikely to be shredded in this circumstance at least by dogs as it is painted on wood, rather than canvas.<ref>"Mona Lisa | Painting, Subject, Meaning, & Facts." ''Britannica'', December 4, 2020. Accessed August 20, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mona-Lisa-painting</ref> In addition, the Mona Lisa is protected by bulletproof glass, so it is highly unlikely that a pack of wild dogs could shred the Mona Lisa alone without human assistance, even if you disregard the fact that it is painted on wood.

At the beginning of his comment, Cueball describes his reaction and disappointment about the event, describing the event as "a loss for humanity." Cueball is then reminded of his first kiss, which occurred inside of a {{w|JCPenney}}, where a picture of the ''Mona Lisa'' hung on one of its walls. He adds this to his comment, explaining that this is why the news hits him hard. However, his story has almost no relation to the ''Mona Lisa'', other than that the picture was at the scene as well as being unnecessary.

After posting the comment, Cueball reflects on this and mentions that not every news story is, or needs to be, about himself.

The title text describes an exception to this, where his experience IS directly related to the affected painting, as his ex seemingly planned to get revenge on the painting itself. The title text suggests that the dogs destroyed the painting before Cueball's ex could do so. (But perhaps it could be that she let the dogs in, and so this extra information could lead to the police finding the person who was responsible.)

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting at a desk, typing on his laptop. What he types is shown above Cueball, as indicated by the line going from his hands to the text.]
:Cueball: Devastated to hear that a pack of wild dogs got into the Louvre and shredded the Mona Lisa.
:Cueball: What a loss for humanity.
:Cueball: My first kiss was in the aisle of a J.C. Penny{{sic}} that had a poster of the Mona Lisa on the wall, so this is hitting me especially hard.

:[Caption below the panel]
:Sometimes I have to remind myself not to make every news story about me.

==References==
<references />

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Animals]]

2826: Gold

2023-09-09T07:55:00Z

172.70.210.90: /* Transcript */ specific

{{comic
| number = 2826
| date = September 8, 2023
| title = Gold
| image = gold_2x.png
| imagesize = 695x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It can be expensive to hire a professional spectroscopist for your wedding, but the quality of the spectra you get is worth it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a single married neutron stars! Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic depicts an often unheard explanation of why {{w|gold}} is a common {{w|wedding ring}} material; that humans chose it due to its symbolism in reference to its creation. Gold, as the comic states, is most commonly created in the merge of {{w|neutron star}}s; something which could be seen as a "marriage". However, it's likely that the original use of gold in wedding rings was before the discovery of how it was created {{citation needed}}, thus creating the joke of the comic.

Wedding receptions sometimes have a ''theme'', which is used to style the decorations and activities of the party. If the couple has a shared interest in something in popular culture (especially if this is how they met), they might use that as the theme. [[Megan]] suggests that "Binary Neutron Star Merger" would be a fun theme; this would probably only be true for astronomers or cosmologists{{citation needed}}. [[Cueball]] adds that an activity at such a wedding would be ejecting the bouguet at relativistic speeds; this is a reference to the traditional activity of the bride throwing her bouquet into the crowd, and whoever catches it is predicted to be the next to get married. The energy of neutron stars causes material to be ejected at a high fraction of the speed of light, giving them enormous amounts of energy based on Einstein's Theory of Relativity. If you caught such a bouquet at rest relative to the merger point, you would be destroyed by the energy, so everyone tries not to catch it in that fashion.

Continuing with the cosmological theme, the title text suggests that the wedding photographer would be a spectroscopist. {{w|Spectroscopy}}, which determines the composition of materials by splitting its light into a spectrum and analyzing the wavelengths that are strong and those that are missing, is a common way to study {{w|stars}}, {{w|nebulae}}, and other astronomical phenomena.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Cueball holding sparkling (likely gold) (also likely wedding) ring]
:Cueball: It kinda makes sense that we use gold for wedding rings.

:[Frame shifts to Cueball's head]
:Cueball: Because a lot of the universe's gold was probably produced by R-process nucleosynthesis when pairs of neutron stars spiraled together and merged.
:Cueball: So gold exists because two neutron stars got married.

:[Megan walks in from side towards Cueball]
:Megan: "Binary neutron star merger" would be a fun wedding theme.
:Cueball: Everyone has to try '''''not''''' to catch the relativistically-ejected bouquet.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Cosmology]]

2823: Fossil

2023-09-04T07:59:28Z

172.70.210.90: Added explanation of booping

{{comic
| number = 2823
| date = September 1, 2023
| title = Fossil
| image = fossil_2x.png
| imagesize = 428x246px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The two best reasons to get into fossils are booping trilobites and getting to say the word "fossiliferous" a lot.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOOPED FOSSIL OF A BOT. Explanation of what booping an animal means is missing. Esepcially for non Americans. - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Trilobite}}s are an extinct group of species of marine animal, one of the earliest known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record is from about 521 million years ago and last from about 252 million years ago. They were very common and have easily fossilized exoskeleton, so their fossils can be found very often.

In the comic, [[Cueball]] is digging at a site with [[Megan]], [[Ponytail]], and [[White Hat]] visible in the background. He finds and digs up a trilobite fossil and proceeds to {{wiktionary|boop#Verb|boop}} it (possibly because he thinks it’s cute?).

In panel 2, the fossil is shown with the trilobite head pointed away from Cueball. In panel 3 he boops the head section, likely aiming for where the nose would be, if one were to imagine a trilobite having a nose. "Booping" is when someone lightly taps another person on the nose while saying "boop", typically to annoy or as a form of endearment.

An off-screen character yells at him for doing this, probably because fossils are fragile{{citation needed}} and excessive touching may cause it to break, or because doing so is not showing the due respect for a once-living being that is much older than Cueball.

Fossiliferous (of a rock or stratum) means containing fossils or organic remains, and [[Randall]] implies that it is a fun word to say (it really is!{{citation needed}}).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Cueball is holding two halves of a rock in a paleontological site. Megan, Ponytail, and White Hat are working in the background.]
:Cueball: It's weird to pry open a rock and see an animal that no one has laid eyes on for 400 million years.

:[Zoom in on Cueball looking at the fossil he is holding.]

:[Cueball pokes the fossil.]
:Cueball: ''Boop!''
:Off-panel voice: Hey! Don't boop the trilobites!
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Animals]]

2794: Alphabet Notes

2023-06-26T19:32:10Z

172.70.210.90: /* Transcript */ ce

{{comic
| number = 2794
| date = June 26, 2023
| title = Alphabet Notes
| image = alphabet notes.png
| titletext = Listen, you're very cute, but if you rearrange the alphabet to put U and I together it will RUIN the spacing!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BAD U&I JOKE. Do NOT rearrange the alphabet too soon.}}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
:[A list of the letters of the alphabet, from A to Z, with red annotations above and below the letters]
:ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

:A-E-I-O-U-Y: Love the spacing between vowels!

:A: Strong start!
:BCD, FG: Decent consonants but no real heavy hitters here in the first third ("D" is solid, at least)
:HI: Hi!
::ij: The Dotted letters are friends!
:JK: Jk (lol)

:[Caption below the panel]
:Design notes on the alphabet

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with red corrections]]

2794: Alphabet Notes

2023-06-26T19:31:39Z

172.70.210.90: /* Transcript */ more transcript

{{comic
| number = 2794
| date = June 26, 2023
| title = Alphabet Notes
| image = alphabet notes.png
| titletext = Listen, you're very cute, but if you rearrange the alphabet to put U and I together it will RUIN the spacing!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BAD U&I JOKE. Do NOT rearrange the alphabet too soon.}}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
:[A list of the letters of the alphabet, from A to Z, with red annotations above and below the letters]

:A-E-I-O-U-Y: Love the spacing between vowels!

:ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
:A: Strong start!
:BCD, FG: Decent consonants but no real heavy hitters here in the first third ("D" is solid, at least)
:HI: Hi!
::ij: The Dotted letters are friends!
:JK: Jk (lol)

:[Caption below the panel]
:Design notes on the alphabet

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with red corrections]]

1978: Congressional Testimony

2023-06-26T19:29:39Z

172.70.210.90: /* Explanation */ facebook

{{comic
| number = 1978
| date = April 9, 2018
| title = Congressional Testimony
| image = congressional_testimony.png
| titletext = James Cameron's Terminator 3 was the REALLY prophetic one. That's why Skynet sent a robot back to the 1990s to prevent him from ever making it, ultimately handing the franchise over to other directors.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] are discussing {{w|Facebook}} CEO {{w|Mark Zuckerberg|Mark Zuckerberg's}} upcoming {{w|United States congressional hearing|testimony before Congress}}. The prepared testimony was released on the day this comic was released--see ''[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/09/congress-released-mark-zuckerbergs-prepared-testimony-ahead-of-wednesdays-hearing.html Congress releases Mark Zuckerberg's prepared testimony ahead of Wednesday's hearing]''. Facebook is facing questions on the {{w|Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal}} involving the collection of personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users by the political targeting firm Cambridge Analytica.

Megan then starts talking about re-watching ''{{w|The Terminator}}''. The plot of the film concerns a killer robot, sent back from a post-apocalyptic future on an assassination mission. The premise of the film is that a future computer system, known as {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}}, was built to control America's nuclear weapons systems. This computer system became self aware and attempted to kill off humanity. The eponymous Terminator was sent back in time to prevent the birth of a human resistance leader, by killing his mother before he was born. In the movie, the Terminator looked up the mother's name (Sarah Connor) in the {{w|phone book}} of a {{w|phone booth}} to find her address.

This film was one of the defining depictions of malicious and dangerous artificial intelligence in American popular culture. The premise of the original film was that the system achieved self-awareness and launched its initial attacks in the 1990's (though later entries in the franchise altered this timeline). Going by the first film, we would expect AI to already threaten humanity. Instead, the aforementioned congressional hearings suggest that the technological threats come instead from social media companies, with their mass collection of private information.

Megan comments on the irony of real life versus fictional expectations. While we do currently make computer-controlled weaponry and humanoid robots, neither appears to present a real danger to the average person (at least, not yet). It likely seemed logical that the greatest danger would be a future weapons system, which could be said to have "evolved" from weapons of the past. By the same token, telephone directories could be seen as the forerunner of modern social media, such as Facebook, (in that they constituted a collection of personal information, used to allow people to contact and communicate with one another). While the film featured a phone book as a plot point (and shows it being used maliciously), the existence of the directory itself wasn't treated as a threat. Megan and Cueball are struck by the fact that the technological descendants of phone directories appear to be more dangerous than the weapons and robotic technologies we've developed

The title text makes the claim that {{w|James Cameron}}, who directed the first two films, was planning to make a third movie in the 1990s, which would have been the really prophetic one (i.e. the one that would have mirrored our present day most closely). Therefore, Skynet, having seen the result of this movie, wished to prevent the movie from ever being made, sending yet another robot back in time to prevent Cameron from directing it. Instead, ''{{w|Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines}}'' was released in 2003 and directed by {{w|Jonathan Mostow}}. Although Cameron is credited for writing it, he only created the characters. Since then three other movies have been made, all with different directors, and all critically panned compared to the Cameron films.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball sitting against a leafless tree; they are on opposite sides.]
:Megan: Mark Zuckerberg is testifying before Congress this week.
:Cueball: Should be interesting.

:[Beat panel.]

:Megan: I recently re-watched ''Terminator''.
:Cueball: Yeah?

:Megan: It's weird that the thing that evolved into Skynet wasn't our nuclear launch systems '''''or''''' our humanoid robots.
:Megan: It was the phone book where the Terminator looked up Sarah Connor's address.
:Cueball: Funny how things turn out.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Terminator]]
[[Category:Politics]]

Talk:2783: Ruling Out

2023-06-01T17:40:27Z

172.70.210.90: Unnecessary clarification

Wow. the amount of citation needed tags is excessive. Here's a fun idea, do like that SMBC comic and actually find and give citations. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.72|172.69.70.72]] 19:41, 31 May 2023 (UTC)Bumpf
:Definitely. I fixed one (it should have been ''after'' the comma), during some other edits, but was sorely tempted to remove maybe two of them to just keep the funniest one(s). Whichever that(/they) might be. I expect they'll almost all evaporate in a future edit, though, as there's plenty of editting bound to be done. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.219|172.70.90.219]] 19:47, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
::Nice work to whomever on that! Xkcd never fails to make me smile if not LOL, and Explainxkcd never fails to teach cool facts. o7 [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.147|172.69.134.147]] 21:28, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure there has been serious scholarship about the habitable zone of some quasars. Let's see.... Here: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/2364/1/012057/pdf Not absolutely certain, but absolutely '''not''' ruled out. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.24|172.69.134.24]] 20:02, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
:I think that Cueball's scientific team did a study to discount the possibilities of quasars in the habitable zone of a star, not of a habitable zone around a quasar.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.249|172.71.166.249]] 20:52, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
::A quasar could exist in the habitable zone of a star, and if it was particularly dim, it wouldn't make the zone inhabitable. There's no minimum brightness for quasars, is there? For example, [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/728/1/26] defines quasars in terms of relative magnitude, so I don't see why a tiny black hole with a small but sufficient accretion disk in translunar orbit couldn't qualify. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.162|172.69.134.162]] 20:54, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
:::Relative to their ''entire galaxy!'' Fixed explanation. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.175|162.158.166.175]] 09:02, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't know how to properly describe the length of time the Moon's orbit of the Earth has been known. If you think that the moon orbits the earth, but you also think the sun, stars, and planets orbit the earth, do you actually have any way to justifiably say that you know that the Moon orbits the Earth? Also, is it worth pointing out the reasons that the moon is such an obvious thing to know about (i.e. its visibility and prominence to the naked eye, its cultural significance,...)?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.174.183|162.158.174.183]] 20:59, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
:Interesting xkcd (sort-of) reference here. Back when What-If questions started being solicited, I sent in something (roughly) like "When trying to justify the original geocentric theory of the solar system, it is said that it had always 'looked like everything went round the Earth'... What would it have looked like if it had always looked like everything, including the Earth, went round the Sun?" ...which I'm pretty sure never got answered. Probably didn't spark enough possible scope for that good old xkcd magic. But I saw plenty of other good stuff, so no regrets on my part. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.251|172.70.162.251]] 23:14, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
::I think your question was particularly difficult to answer in any way other than "Everything ''does'' go around the sun. To see what that looks like, look up." I suppose your question (if I'm understanding what you may be looking for) may be stated otherwise as "How different would the movement of our Solar System need to be in order to make it obvious that everything revolves around the sun (to a layperson observer on Earth)"? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.194|172.70.206.194]] 14:50, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
:::I don't see much difference between the two ways of putting it (unless you think your one means seeing the 'orbital rails' upon which everything encircles things, or something).
:::Maybe, though, a fairly visible (lunar-sized) satellite of Mars/Venus might be on the edge of discernability (not needing Galileo's assisted view of the Saturnian system, just the kind of patience that raw-eyeballing astronomers used with discerning 'close' stars from each other) thus demonstrating non-geocentrism much earlier and easier and somewhat more undeniable. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.128|172.71.242.128]] 17:29, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
::::My proposed question was meant to clarify, so it shouldn't be much different :-) I don't know what the answer would be, but my hope was to clear up that the question wasn't simply "What would it look like if the Earth revolved around the sun?" which is what I had originally interpreted the question as before I decided that it probably wasn't the question that was meant to be asked [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.90|172.70.210.90]] 17:40, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Y'know, I'm not entirely convinced that "tectonically active black holes" is something that we're actually capable of ruling out [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.190|172.68.174.190]] 22:33, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
:Even if the black hole is tectonically active, its activity is in one direction only: forward, where you can never catch up to it. The damage is extreme, but it's held safely in the boundary of the singularity. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.203|172.70.130.203]] 01:10, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Did anyone else see the connection between this comic and the NASA briefing yesterday on UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, their term for UFOs)? In the briefing they discussed that the approach they'd need to take is one of ruling out everything else instead of saying for certain that "this is a UAP". I think that's the entire intent of this joke - to comment on the NASA briefing. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.175.113|162.158.175.113]] 11:50, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, the first two classes of object listed couldn't be 'ruled out' by a study, since they're non-existent by definition, and therefore can't be subject to any meaningful proof or disproof.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.87|172.71.242.87]] 15:58, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

2779: Exoplanet High-5

2023-05-23T22:48:59Z

172.70.210.90: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2779
| date = May 22, 2023
| title = Exoplanet High-5
| image = exoplanet_high_5_2x.png
| imagesize = 515x582px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Tau Ceti is farther away, so it took me 36 years to start the war over updog.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT, 21 YEARS AGO - More on the Updog joke for people not familiar with it. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

''Up high, down low, too slow'' is a {{w|High five#Too_slow|prank variant of a High five}}. In the comic, Earth has established communications with aliens living on {{w|Proxima Centauri b}}, the nearest exoplanet to Earth according to current knowledge, and [[Randall]] has taught them about a High five.

Instead of physically shaking hands, the High five is executed by transmitting messages, as in a {{w|Handshake (computing)}}. The diagram in the comic is thus similar to a {{w|sequence diagram}}, one usually employed for describing network communication in computing. As the messages travel at the speed of light and Proxima Centauri b is over 4 light years away, the times in the diagram are measured in (Earth-)years. This is a very slow method of communication – a perfect setup for a "too slow" prank. We can also see that they are taking around 1/50th of a year (approximately an Earth-week) to cue up their considered response, yet clearly Cueball seems quite ready to respond in about half that time (though any quicker would get lost, and appear simultaneous, at that precision of decimal places).

The humans originally assume the aliens have four legs, but it is seen in the response that they have three.

Having found this way of exchanging a high five with aliens, Randall successfully pranks the aliens by sending the "too slow" message before their "Low-5" message ''can'' even arrive on Earth, and over an Earth-month until it actually does. This is similar to how in the original prank the prankster anticipates the provoked reaction and pulls their hand away after the victim started to move but before the "Low-Five" can taken place.

The aliens do not take kindly to being pranked and start an interstellar war, intending to invade Earth. It is not known at which speed the Centaurians' invasion fleet travels and, therefore, when it will reach Earth.

The title text refers to another prank, in which the prankster gets the victim to ask "What's updog?" (which sounds like "What's up, dawg?"). Tau Ceti is a star almost 12 light years away. The exchange might have gone like this:
* t=0y: ''Randall:'' Hey, do you think it smells like updog in here?
* t=12y: ''Aliens:'' What's updog?
* t=24y: ''Randall:'' Nothin', what's up with you?
* t=36y: ''Message received, Aliens start war''
This is an example of a type of joke called a [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhatsAHenway henway]

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:Earth:
* t=0.0y - "Up high" message sent
:Proxima Centauri b:
* t=4.25y - Message received - discussion -
* t=4.27y - High-5 reply sent
:Earth:
* t=8.52y - Reply received
* t=8.53y - "Down low" message sent
:Proxima Centauri b:
* t=12.77y - Message received - discussion -
* t=12.79y - Low-5 reply sent
:Earth:
* t=16.94y - "Too slow" message sent
* t=17.03y - Reply received
:Proxima Centauri b:
* t=21.19y - Message received
* t=21.26y - Invasion fleet launched

:[Caption below the panel:]
:21 years and 3 months after I taught the aliens about high-5s, the war began.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Aliens]]