2012-10-26
Explanation
This comic features a nerdy pickup line delivered with computer science terminology. A man wearing glasses asks a woman (who is wearing a "Star Treks 1, 2 & 4" shirt, marking her as a fellow geek), "How would you like me to remove 700 petabytes of your data tonight?" The caption below reads: "Computer scientists have the best pickup lines."
The joke works as a double entendre rooted in computing terminology. On the surface, "removing 700 petabytes of data" sounds like a technical operation involving an enormous amount of data (a petabyte is about one million gigabytes). But the innuendo is sexual -- "data" is being used as a euphemism, and "removing" it implies an intimate encounter. The sheer scale of 700 petabytes makes the line both absurdly ambitious and humorously overconfident. The man's nervous "PFFT!" expression suggests he is not nearly as smooth as the line attempts to be, adding to the comedy of a socially awkward person trying to flirt using the only language they know well.
The votey panel shows the woman responding enthusiastically: "Oh god oh god this is gonna be high bandwidth!" -- continuing the computer terminology innuendo by using "high bandwidth" (a term for fast data transfer rates) as a euphemism for an exciting sexual encounter. The fact that both characters speak in tech jargon even in intimate moments reinforces the "geeks in love" humor of the strip.