Star Lore
Star Lore
[A black panel with 31 dots of different sizes and in various colors (white, red, yellow, blue and green). These bright dots are scattered around three white speech bubbles for off-panel speakers. Next to the top left corner of the first bubble, there are five dots close together. Two white, two yellow (one brighter than the other) and a red dot that is clearly larger than any of the other four.] Person 1 (off panel): That cluster was known to the ancients as the Five Sisters. Person 1 (off panel): The red one is a supergiant and will probably explode within the next million years. Person 2 (off panel): Wow!
[Caption below the panel:] There are too many status LEDs in my room.

Computers, chargers, and other electronic items often have status lights in various colors. In a dark room, these lights appear as pinpricks of light, similar to constellations. Presumably, Randall's room has many such items. This may be a My Hobby comic in the sense that his room doesn't really look like that, rather, he claims it does for humor value. It's also not clear whether this refers to Randall's bedroom (typical US usage of "my room" refers to one's bedroom) or some other room Randall spends a good deal of time in. However, since a bedroom is generally the only room in which one might spend significant time in the dark, it seems very likely this is referring to Randall's bedroom.
The comic's narrator is explaining how some of his lights remind him of stars, which gives him an opportunity to show off his knowledge of sci-fi trivia: "The Five Sisters" could be a reference to a pentagon-shaped constellation from Isaac Asimov's book Foundation's Edge , though it could not have been 'known to the ancients' since it was less than 100 years old; though it could also be a somewhat more oblique reference to the Pleiades cluster (often called the Seven Sisters). It could also refer to the cluster of 5 lights next to the speech bubble, which is reinforced by the next bubble talking specifically about the bigger red light in the cluster.
Interestingly, there are some green stars. Stars might look green due to a neighbouring star, but green stars are actually impossible due to the principle of black body radiation. Green status lights on electronics are common, however. [ citation needed ]
In the title text, the narrator describes his smoke alarm status light as a pulsing variable star. A smoke alarm is a device that detects smoke, which would indicate a fire. These are commonly placed in houses as a safety precaution. Typically, many smoke alarms have a status light that blinks to assure that they are still functioning. A subtle blinking light is more clear in its (intermittent) activation than a steady one that might actually be inactive but reflecting external illumination, while a high-intensity photoemitter capable of being seen in near-direct daylight would be annoyingly bright when the lights are off at night.
[A black panel with 31 dots of different sizes and in various colors (white, red, yellow, blue and green). These bright dots are scattered around three white speech bubbles for off-panel speakers. Next to the top left corner of the first bubble, there are five dots close together. Two white, two yellow (one brighter than the other) and a red dot that is clearly larger than any of the other four.] Person 1 (off panel): That cluster was known to the ancients as the Five Sisters. Person 1 (off panel): The red one is a supergiant and will probably explode within the next million years. Person 2 (off panel): Wow!
[Caption below the panel:] There are too many status LEDs in my room.
