Umwelt
Umwelt
[Note to courageous readers- The transcript has been reordered in the order in which the comics appear in the picture and appropriate names have been given.]
The Void [An epic void with a bright light shining right on you.]
Aurora [Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.] Cueball: Apparently there's a solar flare that's causing some Great Aurorae. CBC says they may even be visible here! Wanna drive out to see? Megan: Hockey's on. Cueball: Ok. Later.
[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]
Megan: See anything? Cueball: No, just clouds. Megan: Not surprised.
Aurora-US [Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.] Cueball: Apparently there's a solar storm causing northern lights over Canada. CNN say they might even be visible {Options: "As Far South As Us", "Here in Boston", "Maine", "Ohio", "Oregon", "New York"}! Wanna drive out to see? Megan: It's cold out. Cueball: Ok. Later.
[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]
Megan: See anything? Cueball: No, just clouds. Megan: Not surprised.
Snake [Two people standing next to each other. Megan is holding the head end of a snake. Depending on the width of your browser, the snake is: three frames, the third of which  has a little bit of a bump; the first frame has a human-size bump, the second has a third person looking at the snake, and the third has the snake going though two Portals; a squirrel and the human-size bump in the first frame, a ring next to the third person in the second frame, and Beret Guy riding the snake in front of the portal; or The squirrel, a fourth person within the snake being coiled, and the human bump in the first frame, the ring, a fifth person in love, and the third person in the second frame, Beret Guy and the portal in the third frame, and the same two people in the fourth frame.]
Megan: I found a snake, but then I forgot to stop.
Black hat [Two people sitting at a desk. One is Black Hat. The other is an analyst. Black Hat has a number of terminals attached to his head.] Analyst: You come across a tortoise in the desert. You flip it over. It struggles to right itself. You watch. You're not helping. Why is that?
Black Hat: It knows what it did.
[View of the entire scene, with said turtle off in the distance on its back and trying to right itself.]
Too quiet [A group of four scale down a wall into a field in the middle of the night. They walk off single-file.] Person 1: It's quiet.
Person 3: Yeah - *Too* quiet.
[A Velociraptor is off in the distance, following the group.] Person 4: Yeah - too *too* quiet.
Person 2: Yeah - 2quiet2furious. Person 1: Fuck off, Steve.
Pond [A landscape showing a pond, some reeds, and a set of mountains off in the distance.]
Galaxies [A trio of galaxies.] Galaxy 1: He's not looking! Galaxy 3: Let's get him! [Lines draw in illustrating the eye-line of one of a pair of people.] Cueball: So he said he didn't get the text, but c'mon, he *never* misses texts. Right? ..hello? Megan: I'm just staring at your head freaked out by the fact that there are millions of galaxies *directly behind it*.
xkcd Gold [Cueball holding bat.]
Cueball: Sorry, but this comic
[Cueball starts to wind up.]
Cueball: requires
[Cueball prepares to strike with bat.]
Cueball: XKCD
[Cueball swings at a beehive.] GOLD
[Penis Bees fly out of the beehive.]
Yo mamma [Cueball yells at a friend.] Cueball: Oh yeah? Well you mama's so cynical , her only dog ballast is a leash ! (This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid dogs can hover, so it requires them to wear weights at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop buying dog weights.)
Reddit Five seconds ago: [You sitting in front of a desk, reading a reddit thread.] You: Oh, hey, reddit has a link to some XKCD april fools comic.
Now: [An image of the xkcd comic page.] Five seconds from now:
You: ..hey
30 seconds from now: [DANCE PARTY!]
Buns and Hot dogs Cueball: What I wanna know is why do hot dogs come in packages of six while buns come in these huge sacks of ash and blood from which "Ave Maria" is faintly audible? [Chanting sacks of gore in the background.]
Twitter [A Twitter account page with the following: Many tweets, fewer following, even fewer followers, A bunch of assholes in the suggested follow box, trending topics partitioned into: Word Games, Misogyny, and Bieber, stuff your eyes automatically ignore, A really pleasant blue. and the timeline: Something about a podcast, Someone confused because the description doesn't match the link, The link you clicked on to get to this comic, Rob Delaney, Passive Aggression, and horse ebooks.]
Wikipedia [There's no comic here because instead of drawing one, I spent the last hour reading every news story cited in the Wikipedia article on The Mile High Club.]
Google Chrome [A Chrome plugin error page.] Chrome: This plugin requires Sergey Brin's permission to run. Please wait while he is woken.
Chrome/Firefox [Two people; Cueball is sitting at a desk in front of a laptop.] Cueball: Man, chrome's hardware acceleration really sucks. Ponytail: Oh - Theres' a great add-on that fixes it. Cueball: Oh? What's it called? Ponytail: "Firefox".
Google Chrome-2 [A Chrome plugin error page with the characteristic jigsaw piece.] Chrome: Chrome is looking for this piece. Have you seen it? Chrome thinks it links up with a corner.
Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing [Firefox error page.] Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing. You know how I'm not supposed to peek at your browsing in private mode? Firefox.. is sorry. Firefox will not blame you if you [Button with text.] Click here to report this incident.
Internet Explorer [IE error page.] IE: Error: Internet Explorer has given up.
Maxthon Cueball: Maxthon? Hey, 2005 called. Didn't say anything. All I could hear was sobbing. This is getting harder. Anyway, yeah, Maxthon's still cool! Didn't know it was still around!
Netscape Navigator [Two different versions exist: one with Cueball talking and one with Megan with tentacle arms talking.] Person: Netscape Navigator? Hey, the nineties called - drunk as usual. I hung up without saying anything. This is getting harder. Anyway - it's cool that you'e got netscape running.
Rockmelt [Cueball running to laptop.] I ran to Rockmelt to hide my face
[Cueball sitting at laptop.] But Rockmelt cried out -
[Laptop shouting.] NO HIDING PLACE
[zoom out.] NO HIDING PLACE DOWN HERE
Google Chrome-3 [A chrome plugin error page.] Chrome: There does not exist --nor could there ever exist-- a plugin capable of displaying this content.
Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google - Chrome [Chrome error page.] Chrome: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization.
Microsoft/Amazon - Firefox [Firefox error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization.
Microsoft/The Times [Error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/The Times is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization.
Corporate - Generic [Error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, we work as a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization.
Military [Person looking at two browser windows.] Cueball: I know y'all know what you're doing. But if you're on a military machine and you're supposed to be watching for missiles or something, I hope you're keeping an eye on that in the background while you're reading comics. Also: Thanks.
T-Mobile [Error page.] Data Error: T-Mobile was unable to establish a connection
Verizon [Error page] Error: You have exceeded your Verizon monthly bandwidth cap. Mobile web browsing has been disabled.
France [Two people; one of which is browsing using a laptop.] Cueball: Hey, you're French, right? Ever see what happens when you type "French Military Victories" into Google? French person: Does it take you to an article on Napoleon?
French person: ..no? Strange, given how he kicked everyone's asses up and down Europe for over a decade.
[Beat frame.]
Cueball: Touche. French person: You know, that'd sound smarter if you didn't pronounce it like it rhymes with "douche".
Germany [Cueball dropping food from an unorthodox high perch.] June 1948: In response to the Soviet blockade of East Germany, the western allies construct the Berlin Chairlift. Cueball on chairlift: Food!
Israel [Person on phone.] Person (Translation from Hebrew): Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.
Carnot Cycle [Ponytail on a motorcycle with a heat-entropy graph on the side.] Ponytail: Check out my new Carnot Cycle! Cueball: Neat - how fast does it go? Ponytail: Depends how cold it is outside.
Great Britain [Illustration of the Atlantic ocean.] American person: Sorry I don't have a comic poking fun at the UK here. I only had time to get to the most important US states. British person: Hey - At least we have free health care and real ale.
Earthquake-Blizzard [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it..
[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.
Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Boston", "Chicago", "Dallas", "Georgia", "Halifax", "Illinois", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Missouri", "the Northeast", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", 'Pennsylvania", "Philadelphia", "Texas", "Toronto", "Tennessee", "New York", "Wisconsin"}! That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ...
Six Months Later.. [Both people are trudging through a massive blizzard.] Danish: In pictures, snow always looked so nice and sof - AAAA! MY NECK! How do people live here?! Cueball: Come on - it's only three more miles.
Earthquake-Tornado [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it..
[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.
Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Dallas", "Illinois", "The Midwest", "Missouri", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", "Tennessee", "Texas"}! Cueball: That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ...
Six Months Later.. [Both people are in a shelter in a prairie with a rapidly-approaching tornado.] Danish: AAAA CLOSE THE SHELTER DOOR! Cueball: Say the magic words... Danish: THIS PLACE IS THE WORST! Cueball: Thank you.
Earthquake-Hurricane [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it..
[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.
Cueball: But this is {Options: "D.C", "Florida", "Houston", "Miami", "New Jersey", "North Carolina", "South Carolina", "Virgina"}! That was huge! Cueball: That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ...
Six Months Later..
[Both are in the middle of a hurricane. Danish is grabbing onto a signpost to avoid being swept away.] Danish: AAAAA WHAT THE SHIIIIT! Cueball: Calm down - this is barely a category 2.
Lake Diver Killer [TV Field Reporter in front of a cordoned-off lake.] Reporter: Police divers searching the bay say they have recovered the body of another victim of the "Lake Diver Killer." Reporter: During the search, three more divers were reported missing.
Washington [The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.] In this Marble Prison As in the nightmares of the nation they tried to devour The nanobots that constituted Abraham Lincoln Are entombed forever.
Alaska [A person with a gun chasing a helicopter on the back of a wolf in a snowy Alaskan field.] Some people hunt wolves from helicopters. I hunt helicopters from a wolf.
Life in lab [Newspaper headline.] Scientists/UMass Amherst students/RIT students create life in lab [Caption under picture of scientists.] "The trick was fuckin'"
American Revolution Robot Paul Revere: Remember: Zero if by land, One if by sea.
MIT [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich!
[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]
[The gears turn..]
Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: I see their admission standards have been slipping. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.
MIT Course 15c [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich!
[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]
[The gears turn..]
Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: I *knew* we shouldn't have picked course 15s. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.
Smith/Wellesley [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of Smith/Wellesley students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich!
[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]
[The gears turn..]
Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: We should've gone with Wellesley/Smith. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.
CNU [Person unsuspectingly strolls under a giant box trap controlled by a Trible.] I worry that CNU only invited me back as a ruse because they realized I never turned in my final paper and want my diploma back. But if it turns out it's for real, I'll see you Wednesday at the Ferguson!
Dana Farber [Cueball, pointing towards head.] Cueball: Check it out - In support of people going through chemo, I shaved my head. Lots of love to everyone reading this at Dana Farber. Cancer sucks. If you are new to DFCI, there's a great little garden on the third floor of the yawkey if you need somewhere quiet to just sit for a little bit and breathe.
Reviews Shopping before online reviews: [Cueball and Megan stand in a store. Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. There is another lamp on the table behind them.] Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: And affordable. Cueball: Let's get it. Megan Ok!
Shopping now: [Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. Megan looks at her phone.] Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: It's got 1 1/2 stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand.
[Cueball and Megan are now both looking at their phones.] Cueball: This one has good reviews. Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf. Cueball: Eek. What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus.
[Cueball is still looking at his phone, Megan has hers at her side.] Cueball: Ok, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift. Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark.
[[Two people...]]  ((..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all this)) [[Two people standing next to each other.  One is holding the head end of a snake...

This was the third April fools' comic released by Randall . The previous fools comic was 880: Headache from Friday April 1st 2011. The next was 1193: Externalities released on Monday April 1st 2013.
This comic was released on April 1 even though that was a Sunday (only the third comic to be released on a Sunday). But it was only due to the April Fool joke, as it did replace the comic that would have been scheduled for Monday, April 2nd. The next comic, 1038: Fountain , was first released on Wednesday, April 4th. This was the first that could be different for different readers.
An Umwelt , as the title text explains, is the idea that one's entire way of thinking is dependent on their surroundings. Thus, this April Fools comic changes based on the browser, location, or referrer. Thus, what the viewer is viewing the comic on, where they live, or where they came from determines which comic they actually see. As a result, there are actually multiple comics that went up on April Fools' Day, although only one is seen.
(The term 'Umwelt,' as mentioned in the comic, refers to the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok)
Information about how the wide variety of data was collected and credit for the viewers who contributed can be found here .

If the device or browser you are using does not support Javascript, you will simply see a static image of a white swirl on a dark background.
Possible reference to The Ring ( http://imgur.com/wlGmm ), as though to suggest that using an alternative browser is dismal and horrific.
Davean (xkcd's sysadmin): "[This] comic isn't available everywhere and it can come up i[n] some situation[s] only for recognized browsers."
Browser: Alternative Browser

One could interpret that since Megan didn't go out and therefore missed seeing the Aurora (northern lights), Cueball in his knit cap lied about it. That way, she wouldn't have felt sad that she missed out. Another interpretation could be that he decides that since she did not even bother to go outside to see such a spectacular sight he will not tell her about it. And yet another could be that he did not think it was interesting.
Cueball could possibly also be red-green colorblind, seeing the green aurorae as grey "clouds". This would serve as an example for the theme of the comic, as a non-colorblind person and a colorblind person seeing the same color would perceive it differently, one seeing it as its true color, and the other seeing it without the shade of color they cannot see. If this is the case, then it would be a reference to umwelt, as Cueball would be living in a world where the auroras do not reach his location.
In real life, aurorae are usually seen as grey/white clouds to the naked eye, as our eyes cannot perceive the "greener" colors as well in the dark.
This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.
Locations: Canada, Boston, Maine, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Minnesota, Norway, Denmark, France, Rhode Island (not sure if mobile only or not.) (also in Virginia, but using Ohio in the first panel) (also in Maryland, but using Canada in the first panel)
In 1302: Year in Review a possibly different Megan has a completely different approach to the chance of seeing northern lights, as that was the only event she was looking forward to in 2013, and it failed. If this is the same Megan, perhaps she learned that there actually were northern lights in her area from another source, and so desperately wanted to have another chance to see them.
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The joke here is the extreme length of snakes. The world's longest snake is the python, the longest ever being 33 feet or approx. 10 meters. The blue and orange circles refer to the hit game Portal .
There is also a reference to the book "The Little Prince" in the second panel, where there is a large bulge in the snake that looks like an elephant. The Little Prince starts out by mentioning a drawing that the author made when he was six that showed an elephant inside a snake.
Also, the number and content of the panels changes depending on the size of your browser window.
This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.
Specific AltText for this image: Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit -from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your browser window size.
Location: Texas (on Chrome Version 33.0.1750.154 m), New Jersey, California (on Chrome Version 39.0.2171.95), Maryland, Massachusetts (Safari for iOS, Chrome version 49.0.2623.112), Connecticut (Safari for iOS, Chrome Version 73.0.3683.103, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge), Virginia (on Chrome), Michigan (Firefox v46.0.1), Penang (Chrome Version 65.0.3325.162).
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Cueball as an analyst attempts to psychoanalyze Black Hat's classhole tendencies. Cueball's quote and the whole setup is a direct reference to the movie Blade Runner (1982) and Black Hat is taking the Voight-Kampff test which is used to identify replicants from real humans.
Black Hat's reason for not helping the tortoise is that it knows what it did and thus in Black Hat's world view it deserves being turned over. The final part of the joke is that when zooming out it turns out that there is a tortoise behind Black Hat and he has actually already turned it over for what it did.
Location: Seems to appear mostly in "other countries" — those without location-specific comics.
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A reference to Jurassic Park which has been constantly referred to before in this comic.
Also referencing the film 2 Fast 2 Furious , an entertaining, yet intellectually unprovoking sequel in a popular film franchise, which is aimed at teenagers and young adults, prompting the blunt response from the stickman. The fact that Steve would use such a cliché noughties movie term in such an intense moment, and the subsequent curse, is the joke in this comic.
Location: short version — iPhone 5c Safari browser in Texas, iPhone 5 Chrome Browser in Minnesota, long version - Google Chrome browser in Indiana, Windows 8 Laptop

Two different versions showed, the narrower version for mobile devices.
Location: The Netherlands and various other countries.
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Megan is distracted from her conversation with Cueball by realizing that the space behind his head, from her vantage point, contains millions of galaxies. This is similar to an incredible photograph taken by the Hubble Telescope, in which a tiny dark area of space in fact contained numerous galaxies.
The title text is an imaginative leap from this scenario: that the galaxies would be up to no good once Cueball is turned away from them.  This is presumably a reference to Boo , an enemy from certain Mario games who moves toward Mario only when Mario is facing away from Boo.
This comic was only reported once... the intended environmental context is a mystery.
Location: unknown

This is probably a reference to the 4chan Gold Account, an implementation on 4chan that does not actually exist, and is usually used to trick newcomers into revealing their credit card numbers. The joke is that "Gold Account" users can supposedly block other users from viewing images they have posted. The fifth panel is probably a reference to Beecock, a notorious set of shocker images. 4chan's moderators have been known to give out "beecock bans" or "/z/ bans" to particularly annoying users, which redirect the user to a page containing beecock and the text "OH NO THE BOARD IS GONE".
Referrer: 4chan

Possible reference to Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s " Harrison Bergeron ."
The joke is that people's different experiences shape how they perceive the world in that the people who live in this world would perceive the joke as funny, while people in our world would not get it. This is the idea of umwelt mentioned at the top of the context where different individuals perceive the world differently.
Refer: Facebook

Reference to referencing, because Reddit, as a referring site, likes references to its referencing in its references.
This comic also features recursive imagery similar to Self Description where the third panel embeds the entire comic within itself.
One of the browser tabs visible in the center panel is Elk on Wikipedia.
Referrer: Reddit

This is a reference to the question "Why do hot dogs come in packages of 6 while buns come in packages of 8?"
Another, more sexual reference to this question can be found in 1641: Hot Dogs .
Referrer: SomethingAwful, Questionable Content, & MetaFilter

A summary of the "content" typically found on Twitter.
In the tweet feed, there are three tweets about some podcast on the top, followed by the tweet containing link they clicked on to get to the comic, tweets about Rob Delaney, unspecified passive-aggressive tweets, and a tweet from Horse Ebooks retweeted by one of the users the reader follows.
On the left, the topmost dialog, with profile information, shows that the user has posted 1,302 tweets, but only follows 171 people and has even fewer followers, at a measly 48. This is marked with a sad face, implying that the user wants more followers.
Below that is the "who to follow" dialog, which is written up as consisting of "assholes".
Below that is the "trending tags" dialog for the United States. It is full of tags about word games, tags about misogyny, and tags about Justin Bieber.
Below that is an unidentified dialog full of "stuff your eyes automatically ignore". And finally, on the bottom is the background colour, which is "a really pleasant blue".
Referrer: Twitter

The term Mile High Club (or MHC) is a slang term applied collectively to individuals who have had sexual intercourse while on board an aircraft. Randall says that reading the news articles on it has distracted him from making that comic.
Two different versions shown, the narrower version (the single panel with all the text) for mobile devices.
Referrer: Wikipedia

Sergey Brin (born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the most profitable Internet companies. As of 2013, his personal wealth was estimated to be $24.4 billion. Randall makes the joke that as the founder of Google, Brin's permission would be needed to use Google Chrome. Because there are millions of people who use Google, it is likely that at least some of the time Brin would be asleep, thus he would need to be woken.
Browser: Chrome

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android and iOS, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Cueball is complaining about Google Chrome , to which Ponytail replies that there is an add-on that fixes what he is complaining about. When questioned, she replies that the add-on is Firefox, which isn't an add-on at all and is instead a different browser.
Browser: Chrome

This panel references Google Chrome's error screen, which shows a puzzle piece. The comic humorously implies that Chrome is looking for that piece. When completing jigsaw puzzles, a common strategy is to figure out where the pieces must be from their geometry rather than from the picture they create. In this case, the text suggests that Chrome believes the puzzle piece connects to the pieces which form one of the corners of the puzzle, which may seem impossible because any piece that links up to a corner would usually have at least one flat edge, which this piece has none. However, more complicated puzzles have complex shapes and are not always simply approximate squares with tabs and blanks.
Browser: Chrome or silk on desktop view

Another reference to crashing web browsers.
Firefox shows the history when it crashes.
Browser: Firefox (Incognito only?)

Yet another reference to crashing web browsers
Browser: Internet Explorer

Browser: Maxthon


Netscape Navigator was a web browser popular in the 1990s.
Browser: Netscape

Rockmelt is a social-media-based browser.
Reference to the gospel song "There's no hiding place down here" by The Carter Family , later covered by Stephen Stills.
I run to the rock just to hide my face And the rocks cried out, no hiding place There's no hiding place down here
It may additionally be a reference to the Babylon 5 episode "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place," which featured the song.
Browser: Rockmelt

When the Google Chrome web browser does not have the required software (called a plug-in) to display a web page's content, it displays a puzzle piece icon and an error message. In this case, Chrome informs the user that the content is impossible to display.
Browser: Plugin (?) Disabled, Safari Desktop

These error messages appear if the user is on a network owned by one of the corporations noted. The error message includes a warning against speaking on the company's behalf.
ISP: Corporate networks of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NY Times

Cueball assumes that anyone using a military network has an important job like watching for incoming missiles. He includes a thank-you to the user for their military service.
ISP: Military networks

Reference to T-Mobile's distinguishing feature (at the time it was written) of weaker coverage, in relation to other major providers.
ISP: T-Mobile


Reference to Verizon and AT&T's scandals/controversy regarding implementation of bandwidth caps.
ISP: Verizon and AT&T

A common joke about France is that the nation does not win wars. This originated from France's annexation by Germany during World War II, and America's late entry into the war, which is sometimes portrayed humorously as a case of America 'saving' Europe, in this joke particularly France (the role of the French resistance is usually not mentioned), leading to a common American joke at the expense of France's military prowess [1] [2] [3] . When France did not form part of the coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003, aligning with the many countries that condemned U.S. action, the joke was revived.
A Google search of "French Military Victories" + 'I'm feeling lucky' used to direct to "did you mean: french military defeats" (due to a Google bomb ). Cueball is trying to show this to his friend, who is French. However, his joke backfires, as his friend immediately points out that the stereotype of France not having military victories is undercut by the fact that one of the most innovative military commanders in history, Napoleon, was French by citizenship (though Italian/Corsican by culture, as the French annexed Corsica a few months before his birth to an Italian noble family), and in fact conquered much of Europe.
Following the theme of umwelt, the comic highlights the two characters' differing perspectives: The American thinks that France is a military failure, while the Frenchman thinks of Napoleon.
The last line of the comic further implies that Cueball is not as smart as he thinks he is in regards to anything French, as he mispronounces the French loan word " touché ".
Locations: France & Quebec

This comic references the Berlin Airlift , a relief measure for citizens in West Berlin (surrounded by East Germany) instituted by the Western Allies after World War II. In reality, the Western Allies flew a grand total of 500,000 tons of food over the Soviet blockade in planes. Randall puts a twist on this event by making it more fun: dropping supplies from a grand chairlift. The play on words is that "chairlift" rhymes with "airlift" and thus makes an easy substitution. The chair force is also a name that other service branches use to make fun of the air force.
Location: Germany

Translation: Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.
A reference to the multiple use of the word Jewish to denote both a religious group and a nationality/ethnicity , as well as the stereotype of Jews holding low opinions of interfaith marriage.
A side note: Randall accidentally drew an apostrophe instead of the similar-looking Hebrew letter י everywhere that letter should appear.
Location: Israel

A pun on "cycle"; a " Carnot cycle " is a thermodynamic cycle (e.g. refrigeration). Its efficiency depends on the temperature of the hot and cold 'reservoirs' in which it is operating.  The icon on the side of the motorcycle resembles a graph of the Carnot cycle.
Location: Japan

He worded this as though to imply that the UK is a state of the U.S., and an unimportant one at that, which pokes fun at the UK, creating a paradox (sort of).
Location: UK

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or blizzards are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The Californian perceives a mild earthquake and a severe blizzard, while the Northeasterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild blizzard.
For each location this displayed in, the state name was substituted in the third panel.
Locations: Alabama, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Georgia, Halifax, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, the Northeast, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Texas, Toronto, Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or tornadoes are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The California perceives a mild earthquake and a severe tornado, while the Midwesterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild tornado.
For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.
Locations: Alabama, Dallas, Illinois, Georgia, The Midwest, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Tennessee, Texas (and Virginia, but it used Ohio in the third panel)
Tornadoes are a recurring subject on xkcd. The picture used in 1754: Tornado Safety Tips very reminiscent of the one from this version of Umwelt.

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or hurricanes are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The Californian perceives a mild earthquake and a severe hurricane, while the Easterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild hurricane.
For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.
Locations: D.C, Florida, Georgia, Houston, Miami, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia

This comic shows a news reporter standing in front of a lake. She is reporting on a serial killer who targets divers. As more divers are sent in to investigate and/or search for bodies, more divers go missing, the implication being that they were also murdered. The more likely reason is the lake itself is dangerous for diving, and the divers probably drowned from natural hazards (undercurrents, entanglement, running out of oxygen in tanks, etc.) instead of a malicious assailant. Also, this is a sort of loop, where each time a diver gets killed, the investigative team goes and investigates, causing more divers to get killed, causing more deaths, and so on.
Location: Bay Areas, Metro Detroit, Vermont showed an image specifically referencing Lake Champlain

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States of America, was not an entity composed wholly of nanobots that attempted to consume the entire nation to then be imprisoned within the Lincoln Memorial. [ citation needed ]
Locations: Illinois & Washington, D.C.

In Alaska, governments and individuals have shot wolves en masse from helicopters in an attempt to artificially inflate populations of game, such as moose and caribou, to make hunting them easier. This is opposed by many, as the game populations are not endangered (thus, this threatens ecological balance); wolves are a small threat to livestock in North America; most of the wolf body —including meat and bones— goes wasted as they are sought mainly for their pelts.
Location: Alaska

Creating new life has long been a well understood process, in a lab or otherwise.
This comic is likely a reference to the title text of 983: Privacy
Location: Various
Specific versions appeared for RIT and UMass Amherst

Combination of the legend of Paul Revere and a computer bit that differentiates between two situations by indicating a zero or a one.
Location: Boston
All four colleges in this series are in Massachusetts and, being similar, in pairs, rival each other to some extent (Harvard-MIT, and Smith-Wellesley). The comic contains a reference to the MIT Blackjack Team , which entered popular culture via the film 21 , and a possible reference to Orwell's book '1984' and/or popular homage to it via Star Trek : "There are four lights." [4]
Bonus: The thought-gears in panel 3 are spinning against each other.
Location: Harvard

Location: MIT

"Course 15s" at MIT are the business major students, often mocked for taking a less-rigorous program. The different interpretation for why the MIT students could not count cards compared to Harvard may be a reference to the theme of umwelt.
Location: Smith

Location: Wellesley

Both Wellesley and Smith are all-women colleges in Massachusetts.

Randall got his undergrad in Physics at the Christopher Newport University , and was scheduled to return shortly to give a talk. The "Trible" figure on the right is Paul Trible, the then-president of CNU. This comic depicts a classic trap, where an upside-down box is propped up with a stick. When the stick is removed, by pulling a string, the box falls and traps whatever is underneath it. Aside from the joke of the obvious trap, there's also the fact that the president would not be responsible for revoking unearned diplomas.
Location: Christopher Newport University

Cueball has shaved his head in support of people going through chemotherapy but, as he is always depicted as a stick figure with no hair, no one can tell.
Randall's now-wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and apparently DFCI is where they've been spending much of their time.
Location: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

The previous strip appears twice when using Tor .
Browser: Any using Tor, xkcd API (JSON, RSS, Atom), w3m, and reports of seeing it on a Kindle Fire HD; also happens if visiting with a browser that does not support JavaScript (such as Firefox with NoScript)

The comic doesn't appear in iPad browsers. The top buttons and the bottom buttons are side by side, and you can only see the title in the top.
On April 28 and 29, 2019, a visit from San Francisco on macOS 10.14.4 using Chrome 74, Safari 12.1, or Firefox 66.0.3, all with JavaScript enabled, produced no comic, just two adjacent rows of navigation buttons.
On April 29, 2019, a visit from Utah using a T-mobile Samsung device running Android pie, yielded the same results
Since this comic's release, all devices viewing it have returned two rows of navigation buttons if near IP address 69.114.249.104.
It also doesn't work in Pennsylvania on the Chrome operating system.
There is a discussion about this in the Talk page.
[Note to courageous readers- The transcript has been reordered in the order in which the comics appear in the picture and appropriate names have been given.]
The Void [An epic void with a bright light shining right on you.]
Aurora [Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.] Cueball: Apparently there's a solar flare that's causing some Great Aurorae. CBC says they may even be visible here! Wanna drive out to see? Megan: Hockey's on. Cueball: Ok. Later.
[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]
Megan: See anything? Cueball: No, just clouds. Megan: Not surprised.
Aurora-US [Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.] Cueball: Apparently there's a solar storm causing northern lights over Canada. CNN say they might even be visible {Options: "As Far South As Us", "Here in Boston", "Maine", "Ohio", "Oregon", "New York"}! Wanna drive out to see? Megan: It's cold out. Cueball: Ok. Later.
[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]
Megan: See anything? Cueball: No, just clouds. Megan: Not surprised.
Snake [Two people standing next to each other. Megan is holding the head end of a snake. Depending on the width of your browser, the snake is: three frames, the third of which  has a little bit of a bump; the first frame has a human-size bump, the second has a third person looking at the snake, and the third has the snake going though two Portals; a squirrel and the human-size bump in the first frame, a ring next to the third person in the second frame, and Beret Guy riding the snake in front of the portal; or The squirrel, a fourth person within the snake being coiled, and the human bump in the first frame, the ring, a fifth person in love, and the third person in the second frame, Beret Guy and the portal in the third frame, and the same two people in the fourth frame.]
Megan: I found a snake, but then I forgot to stop.
Black hat [Two people sitting at a desk. One is Black Hat. The other is an analyst. Black Hat has a number of terminals attached to his head.] Analyst: You come across a tortoise in the desert. You flip it over. It struggles to right itself. You watch. You're not helping. Why is that?
Black Hat: It knows what it did.
[View of the entire scene, with said turtle off in the distance on its back and trying to right itself.]
Too quiet [A group of four scale down a wall into a field in the middle of the night. They walk off single-file.] Person 1: It's quiet.
Person 3: Yeah - *Too* quiet.
[A Velociraptor is off in the distance, following the group.] Person 4: Yeah - too *too* quiet.
Person 2: Yeah - 2quiet2furious. Person 1: Fuck off, Steve.
Pond [A landscape showing a pond, some reeds, and a set of mountains off in the distance.]
Galaxies [A trio of galaxies.] Galaxy 1: He's not looking! Galaxy 3: Let's get him! [Lines draw in illustrating the eye-line of one of a pair of people.] Cueball: So he said he didn't get the text, but c'mon, he *never* misses texts. Right? ..hello? Megan: I'm just staring at your head freaked out by the fact that there are millions of galaxies *directly behind it*.
xkcd Gold [Cueball holding bat.]
Cueball: Sorry, but this comic
[Cueball starts to wind up.]
Cueball: requires
[Cueball prepares to strike with bat.]
Cueball: XKCD
[Cueball swings at a beehive.] GOLD
[Penis Bees fly out of the beehive.]
Yo mamma [Cueball yells at a friend.] Cueball: Oh yeah? Well you mama's so cynical , her only dog ballast is a leash ! (This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid dogs can hover, so it requires them to wear weights at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop buying dog weights.)
Reddit Five seconds ago: [You sitting in front of a desk, reading a reddit thread.] You: Oh, hey, reddit has a link to some XKCD april fools comic.
Now: [An image of the xkcd comic page.] Five seconds from now:
You: ..hey
30 seconds from now: [DANCE PARTY!]
Buns and Hot dogs Cueball: What I wanna know is why do hot dogs come in packages of six while buns come in these huge sacks of ash and blood from which "Ave Maria" is faintly audible? [Chanting sacks of gore in the background.]
Twitter [A Twitter account page with the following: Many tweets, fewer following, even fewer followers, A bunch of assholes in the suggested follow box, trending topics partitioned into: Word Games, Misogyny, and Bieber, stuff your eyes automatically ignore, A really pleasant blue. and the timeline: Something about a podcast, Someone confused because the description doesn't match the link, The link you clicked on to get to this comic, Rob Delaney, Passive Aggression, and horse ebooks.]
Wikipedia [There's no comic here because instead of drawing one, I spent the last hour reading every news story cited in the Wikipedia article on The Mile High Club.]
Google Chrome [A Chrome plugin error page.] Chrome: This plugin requires Sergey Brin's permission to run. Please wait while he is woken.
Chrome/Firefox [Two people; Cueball is sitting at a desk in front of a laptop.] Cueball: Man, chrome's hardware acceleration really sucks. Ponytail: Oh - Theres' a great add-on that fixes it. Cueball: Oh? What's it called? Ponytail: "Firefox".
Google Chrome-2 [A Chrome plugin error page with the characteristic jigsaw piece.] Chrome: Chrome is looking for this piece. Have you seen it? Chrome thinks it links up with a corner.
Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing [Firefox error page.] Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing. You know how I'm not supposed to peek at your browsing in private mode? Firefox.. is sorry. Firefox will not blame you if you [Button with text.] Click here to report this incident.
Internet Explorer [IE error page.] IE: Error: Internet Explorer has given up.
Maxthon Cueball: Maxthon? Hey, 2005 called. Didn't say anything. All I could hear was sobbing. This is getting harder. Anyway, yeah, Maxthon's still cool! Didn't know it was still around!
Netscape Navigator [Two different versions exist: one with Cueball talking and one with Megan with tentacle arms talking.] Person: Netscape Navigator? Hey, the nineties called - drunk as usual. I hung up without saying anything. This is getting harder. Anyway - it's cool that you'e got netscape running.
Rockmelt [Cueball running to laptop.] I ran to Rockmelt to hide my face
[Cueball sitting at laptop.] But Rockmelt cried out -
[Laptop shouting.] NO HIDING PLACE
[zoom out.] NO HIDING PLACE DOWN HERE
Google Chrome-3 [A chrome plugin error page.] Chrome: There does not exist --nor could there ever exist-- a plugin capable of displaying this content.
Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google - Chrome [Chrome error page.] Chrome: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization.
Microsoft/Amazon - Firefox [Firefox error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization.
Microsoft/The Times [Error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/The Times is a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization.
Corporate - Generic [Error page.] Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, we work as a team; individual employees should never speak for the company without authorization.
Military [Person looking at two browser windows.] Cueball: I know y'all know what you're doing. But if you're on a military machine and you're supposed to be watching for missiles or something, I hope you're keeping an eye on that in the background while you're reading comics. Also: Thanks.
T-Mobile [Error page.] Data Error: T-Mobile was unable to establish a connection
Verizon [Error page] Error: You have exceeded your Verizon monthly bandwidth cap. Mobile web browsing has been disabled.
France [Two people; one of which is browsing using a laptop.] Cueball: Hey, you're French, right? Ever see what happens when you type "French Military Victories" into Google? French person: Does it take you to an article on Napoleon?
French person: ..no? Strange, given how he kicked everyone's asses up and down Europe for over a decade.
[Beat frame.]
Cueball: Touche. French person: You know, that'd sound smarter if you didn't pronounce it like it rhymes with "douche".
Germany [Cueball dropping food from an unorthodox high perch.] June 1948: In response to the Soviet blockade of East Germany, the western allies construct the Berlin Chairlift. Cueball on chairlift: Food!
Israel [Person on phone.] Person (Translation from Hebrew): Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.
Carnot Cycle [Ponytail on a motorcycle with a heat-entropy graph on the side.] Ponytail: Check out my new Carnot Cycle! Cueball: Neat - how fast does it go? Ponytail: Depends how cold it is outside.
Great Britain [Illustration of the Atlantic ocean.] American person: Sorry I don't have a comic poking fun at the UK here. I only had time to get to the most important US states. British person: Hey - At least we have free health care and real ale.
Earthquake-Blizzard [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it..
[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.
Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Boston", "Chicago", "Dallas", "Georgia", "Halifax", "Illinois", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Missouri", "the Northeast", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", 'Pennsylvania", "Philadelphia", "Texas", "Toronto", "Tennessee", "New York", "Wisconsin"}! That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ...
Six Months Later.. [Both people are trudging through a massive blizzard.] Danish: In pictures, snow always looked so nice and sof - AAAA! MY NECK! How do people live here?! Cueball: Come on - it's only three more miles.
Earthquake-Tornado [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it..
[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.
Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Dallas", "Illinois", "The Midwest", "Missouri", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", "Tennessee", "Texas"}! Cueball: That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ...
Six Months Later.. [Both people are in a shelter in a prairie with a rapidly-approaching tornado.] Danish: AAAA CLOSE THE SHELTER DOOR! Cueball: Say the magic words... Danish: THIS PLACE IS THE WORST! Cueball: Thank you.
Earthquake-Hurricane [Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.] Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg. Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh! Cueball: What! Danish: You'll get it..
[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.] Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.
Cueball: But this is {Options: "D.C", "Florida", "Houston", "Miami", "New Jersey", "North Carolina", "South Carolina", "Virgina"}! That was huge! Cueball: That was huge! Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California. Cueball: Oh really ...
Six Months Later..
[Both are in the middle of a hurricane. Danish is grabbing onto a signpost to avoid being swept away.] Danish: AAAAA WHAT THE SHIIIIT! Cueball: Calm down - this is barely a category 2.
Lake Diver Killer [TV Field Reporter in front of a cordoned-off lake.] Reporter: Police divers searching the bay say they have recovered the body of another victim of the "Lake Diver Killer." Reporter: During the search, three more divers were reported missing.
Washington [The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.] In this Marble Prison As in the nightmares of the nation they tried to devour The nanobots that constituted Abraham Lincoln Are entombed forever.
Alaska [A person with a gun chasing a helicopter on the back of a wolf in a snowy Alaskan field.] Some people hunt wolves from helicopters. I hunt helicopters from a wolf.
Life in lab [Newspaper headline.] Scientists/UMass Amherst students/RIT students create life in lab [Caption under picture of scientists.] "The trick was fuckin'"
American Revolution Robot Paul Revere: Remember: Zero if by land, One if by sea.
MIT [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich!
[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]
[The gears turn..]
Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: I see their admission standards have been slipping. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.
MIT Course 15c [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich!
[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]
[The gears turn..]
Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: I *knew* we shouldn't have picked course 15s. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.
Smith/Wellesley [Two people in front of a group of students.] Cueball: I've hired a team of Smith/Wellesley students to count cards for us. Hairy: We'll be rich!
[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]
[The gears turn..]
Student: Five. There are five cards. Cueball: We should've gone with Wellesley/Smith. Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.
CNU [Person unsuspectingly strolls under a giant box trap controlled by a Trible.] I worry that CNU only invited me back as a ruse because they realized I never turned in my final paper and want my diploma back. But if it turns out it's for real, I'll see you Wednesday at the Ferguson!
Dana Farber [Cueball, pointing towards head.] Cueball: Check it out - In support of people going through chemo, I shaved my head. Lots of love to everyone reading this at Dana Farber. Cancer sucks. If you are new to DFCI, there's a great little garden on the third floor of the yawkey if you need somewhere quiet to just sit for a little bit and breathe.
Reviews Shopping before online reviews: [Cueball and Megan stand in a store. Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. There is another lamp on the table behind them.] Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: And affordable. Cueball: Let's get it. Megan Ok!
Shopping now: [Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. Megan looks at her phone.] Cueball: This lamp is pretty. Megan: It's got 1 1/2 stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand.
[Cueball and Megan are now both looking at their phones.] Cueball: This one has good reviews. Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf. Cueball: Eek. What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus.
[Cueball is still looking at his phone, Megan has hers at her side.] Cueball: Ok, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift. Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark.
[[Two people...]]  ((..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all this)) [[Two people standing next to each other.  One is holding the head end of a snake...
