explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1737: Datacenter Scale

2016-09-25T16:19:26Z

IGnatius T Foobar:

{{comic
| number = 1737
| date = September 23, 2016
| title = Datacenter Scale
| image = datacenter_scale.png
| titletext = Asimov's Cosmic AC was created by linking all datacenters through hyperspace, which explains a lot. It didn't reverse entropy--it just discarded the universe when it reached end-of-life and ordered a new one.
}}
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|The paragraph explaining the final panel needs a grammar check.}}

This comic expands, to the limit, the strategy that it's a net cost savings to allow cheap hardware to fail and simply replace it than to have robust but much more expensive systems to start with. The technique was made famous by [https://books.google.com/books?id=zdlZ2rrcZWEC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19#v=onepage&q&f=false Google circa 1999,] when its successful cost-effective server designs were actually using sub-consumer, nearly junk, hardware.

{{w|RAID}} ("redundant array of independent disks") is a technology that splits data across several hard-drives as if they were one. RAID comes in several levels (varieties) which have different applications, but one of the big applications of RAID is creating mirrored hard disks that back each other up. If one disk drive in such a RAID fails, no data is lost.

However, RAID is complicated to configure, so you don't want to be constantly setting it up. An alternative technique for data centers is therefore to simply send the data to several servers at once. This makes maintenance easier, but without RAID, one hard disk crash basically breaks the server. However, this is what the woman with a bun's (possibly an adult [[Science Girl]]) data center is doing since their scale is so large that fixing individual servers does not make sense, and instead of fixing the drive they throw away the machine.

From here, the comic starts to exaggerate. Nowadays, servers can be made extremely small ("{{w|Blade server}}s") and dozens of servers can be attached to one {{w|19-inch rack}} in a data center. Rather than going to the effort of unplugging and unscrewing one blade from the rack, when a blade fails at [[Cueball]]'s data center they just throw away the rack, and [[Ponytail]] agrees and kinda mocks the woman with a bun for replacing one server.

[[Hairy]]'s goes one step further - they have so many servers that they would constantly have to be throwing away and replacing racks, so instead they just build a new room when one rack fails. This would be currently possible with small modular data centers that are built in shipping containers for easy transport and can be linked together to expand capacity. Here the cargo-container "room" with the failure would be quickly swapped with a fresh one. Cueball adds "like Google!" - [[Randall]] previously mentioned {{w|Google|Google's}} approach to hard drive failures in the [[what if?]] ''{{what if|63|Google's Datacenters on Punch Cards}}''. Back in [http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/de//archive/disk_failures.pdf 2007] they had one failure every few minutes - that might have increased hugely since then.

Finally [[Megan]] appears and her company of course breaks the scale of silliness in exaggeration. She says that they don't have any fire extinguishers (neither {{w|Fire sprinkler system|regular sprinklers}} nor the systems that deploy gases like FM-200 which alter the room air's ability to sustain a fire. Rather, they just rope the center off, thus letting the data center burn down. Then they simply move a town over and build a new one. This may indicate they are so big that the entire town will burn down if their center catches fire, for else they did not have to skip town. Alternatively, they just leave the center burning and this may cause problems in that town, so they simply flee the premises.

Most big internet companies do have multiple redundant data centers around the world, in order to increase speeds for users in different countries, but Megan's idea would be very expensive, increase in {{w|Latency (engineering)|latency}} and possibly also kill people, either in their company or other people in the town and since they do not try to turn out the fire, at least cause severe destruction of properties, not only their own.

Still Hairy thinks that it makes sense, whereas Cueball wonders what difference the roping off does. This could again be a reference to the fact that they just let the buildings burn without bothering about the local consequences, and the next step is just one more step towards the extreme of the title text.

This comic references how, as data requirements expand, the cost of time eventually outweighs the cost of hardware at ever increasing scales (drive, rack, room, building). While this comic takes this to the extreme, with whole buildings being destroyed for simple flaws, the concept is not as far fetched as it seems if "thrown out" is taken to include being sold to equipment refurbishers. It could indeed be cost effective for a large data services provider to resell racks or even whole data center modules at some significant fraction of their "as new" price as opposed expending the time and effort to attempt a repair. The equipment refurbisher would then rely on a {{w|competitive advantage|cost advantage}} like cheaper labor to repair the flaw and sell it back to Google or another company with less demanding requirements. Equipment rental firms already operate on this model and with the added incentive customers preferring to rent newer models, this means that the equipment is often ''preemptively'' replaced before failures even occur.

The title text refers to {{w|Isaac Asimov}}'s science-fiction short story "{{w|The Last Question}}", where humanity asks, at different stages of its spatial and technological development, the same question to increasingly advanced computers: "How can the net amount of {{w|entropy}} of the universe be massively decreased?". At each point, the computer's answer is that it does not yet have enough data for a meaningful answer. Ultimately, the computers are all linked through hyperspace, outside the physical boundaries of the universe, and make up a single computing entity named AC which keeps pondering the question even as the {{w|heat death of the universe}} occurs and time and space cease to exist. When AC finally discovers the answer, since there is nobody left to report it to, it decides to demonstrate it and says "{{w|Let there be light|LET THERE BE LIGHT!}}", which are the first words said by God during the Creation, according to the {{w|Book of Genesis}}. Here, the title text implies that, as the universe died, AC no longer had a use for it as a physical support and, taking the comic's logic to the next extreme, chose to discard it and get a brand-new one instead of bothering to "fix" it by reversing its entropy.

This comic's concept of taking a real world phenomena and exaggerating it to levels currently considered implausible for comic effect closely mimics an earlier comic which describes progressively more "hardcore" programmers in [[378: Real Programmers]].

==Transcript==
:[Zoom in on a woman with a bun holding her hand palm up in front of her taking to people off-panel right.]
:Woman with a bun: RAID controllers don't make sense at our scale; everything is redundant at higher levels. When a drive fails, we just throw away the whole machine.

:[In this frame-less panel it is revealed that the woman with a bun talked to Cueball and Ponytail who is looking her way.]
:Cueball: Machine? We throw away whole racks at a time.
:Ponytail: Yeah, who replaces ''one server''?

:[Hairy has appeared from the left and holds one hand palm up towards the other three where also the woman with a bun has turned towards him.]
:Hairy: We just replace whole rooms at once. At our scale, messing with racks isn't economical.
:Woman with a bun: Wow.
:Cueball: Like Google!

:[Megan walks in from the left, and everyone including Hairy now looks towards her. Cueball has taken a hand up to his chin. The replies to Megan are written with clearly smaller font.]
:Megan: We don't have sprinklers or inert gas systems. When a datacenter catches fire, we just rope it off and rebuild one town over.
:Hairy: Makes sense.
:Cueball: I wonder if the rope is really necessary.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

Talk:1737: Datacenter Scale

2016-09-25T16:17:47Z

IGnatius T Foobar: /* Gas-based data center fire extinguishers are not lethal */

While the comic is obviously exaggerating, there are situations where this could make a certain amount of sense. IF you can design a server so that most or all of the components reach end-of-life at about the same time, then if a hard drive fails on one server, every other component of that server is likely to fail soon as well.

If you install entire server racks or server rooms at the same time, where every machine contains components with the same basic life cycle...

then in theory, once the first component fails, you can ignore it until mass component failures causes the entire rack/room to fall below a certain readiness level.

At that point, there's no reason to pay a technician to spend several days removing and replacing half the individual components throughout that rack/room, when the other half are just going to fail in the next few months anyway. In theory, it might be economically more efficient just to scrap everything at once, bring in brand-new server replacements, and re-sync the needed data from a networked backup.

in real life, it's very hard to build a server that will reliably degrade on schedule.... but with the right tradeoffs, and enough long-term performance data, it might eventually become possible to do so.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.101|162.158.74.101]] 04:48, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
: Or give the equipment to someone with a different time/ROI equation. I've seen a lot of time/expense burned on a transient failure that turned out to be a cheap data cable. A kid/disadvantaged would have time to tinker this out with a potentially significant payoff. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]]) 17:27, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

The title text is referring to [http://multivax.com/last_question.html The Last Question by Isaac Asimov].
[[User:EpicWolverine|EpicWolverine]] ([[User talk:EpicWolverine|talk]]) 04:56, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I cannot help but read this in a fake Yorkshire accent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.113|141.101.98.113]] 09:55, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I wonder how closely the AC and Douglas Adams' Deep Thought are related? {{unsigned ip|188.114.102.167}}
:Not that close as Deep Thought was build inside this universe and also finished it's job and was recommissioned. They build a new computer (Earth) instead to calculate what the ultimate question was, now they knew the answer was 42. But maybe Adams was aware of AC and based the idea of solving a question with computers on that...? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:56, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I think the character in Panel 1 is [[Science Girl]] and not [[Hairbun]].
[[User:PoconoChuck|PoconoChuck]] ([[User talk:PoconoChuck|talk]]) 12:20, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
:Agree it fits with her style and she has appeared as an adult before. She also seems smaller than the other people so it could indicate she is still young. I created the Science Girl and the Hairbun categories, so I should know ;-) When a character fail I just throw it out and create a new one... :p --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

::It's clearly not [[Science Girl]], because, as the linked page says "She became the first child to have its own character category. She is distinguished by being clearly a girl (compared to adults around her or her behavior)". You may create a page called "Datacenter Woman". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.139|108.162.221.139]] 14:35, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

:::I dunno - she's drawn exactly like [[Science Girl]] - right down to the frizzy hair below the bun that's never been seen on [[Hairbun]] (who doesn't have black hair either). There are plenty of other instances of "child" characters being seen as young adults - and of people acting out of character when "bit parts" are needed in cartoons. The resemblance is too close to be a coincidence. [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 20:41, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

== No need to invoke blade servers ==

There's no need to refer to blade servers in the explanation. You can fit many "normal" servers into a 19 inch rack. It could just say:

: From here, the comic starts to exaggerate. Many servers can be mounted in one 19-inch rack in a data center. Rather than going to the effort of unplugging and unscrewing one server from the rack, when a disk fails at Cueball's data center they just throw away the rack, and Ponytail agrees and kinda mock the woman with a bun for replacing a single server.

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.83.66|162.158.83.66]] 14:51, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

== RAID is not complicated ==

Simple RAID 1 is not complicated to configure, unless you have some exotic HW RAID controllers. RAID 5 would be more complicated AND requires to be HW, but RAID 1 will usually be simple as HW OR possible to do SW completely automatically. What is costly is to replace discs as they fail, because it must be done by human ; in bigger systems, it makes more sense to start with RAID 1, then when one disc fail simply ignore it - not repair nor throw it off, just let it operate without the RAID. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 15:41, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
:: Actually, depending on OS and software other RAID levels can be done in software, too. I've done RAID levels 5 and 6 fully in software using mdraid on Linux. Neither of them are really that much more complicated than RAID-1. ZFS can do even more complicated "RAID" types fully in software, too. [[User:Iguanabob|Iguanabob]] ([[User talk:Iguanabob|talk]]) 16:55, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

== Gas-based data center fire extinguishers are not lethal ==

There's an explanation in this article which claims that gas-based data center fire suppression systems are lethal to anyone in the room when they are deployed. This is a myth, based on some very ancient systems which used halon. For decades now, agents like FM-200 have been used, which alter the air's ability to sustain a fire without removing oxygen from the room. See this video [ https://youtu.be/-ub8gwgcOns ] for an example. The camera crew is IN THE ROOM when the system is deployed. Trust me on this, I've worked in data centers for 20 years and know this stuff inside and out. [[User:IGnatius T Foobar|IGnatius T Foobar]] ([[User talk:IGnatius T Foobar|talk]]) 16:17, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1737: Datacenter Scale

2016-09-25T16:17:27Z

IGnatius T Foobar:

Talk:1379: 4.5 Degrees

2014-06-09T16:00:29Z

IGnatius T Foobar:

Scary thoughts there... [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 05:11, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

I imagine the Earth's axial tilt wouldn't change even if the temperature changed by +2 IAU. So, would palm trees survive the extreme day/night lengths at the poles? [[Special:Contributions/103.22.201.239|103.22.201.239]] 05:31, 9 June 2014 (UTC) P.S. Also, wouldn't the North Pole be underwater, so incapable of supporting palm trees?
Also, regarding the IAU, is it a reference to the {{w|International Astronomical Union|IAU}} that named an {{w|4942 Munroe|asteroid}} after Randall?

"While it says it's "probably no big deal," this is probably a joke, because even half of an Ice Age would be a lot of ice." The article has it wrong. It's a 2 degree increase, not decrease. Ice would melt. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.134|108.162.238.134]] 07:33, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
:-- Fixed

To prevent global warming, act yesterday! ... or, well, since we already failed to do it, maybe ... just maybe ... we should invest some resources to ADAPTING to the change. Because the USSR communist party wanted to command “wind and rain” and how it worked?
... of course, we SHOULD be trying to lower the CO2 emissions ... not like Germany, which [http://www.realclearenergy.org/charticles/2014/01/16/germanys_plans_for_new_coal_plants_107463.html replaced it's nuclear power plants with coal ones] ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:03, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
:While it is true that we have build more coal plants, the majority part that replace the nuclear power is from renewable energy, see [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strommix#mediaviewer/Datei:Energiemix_Deutschland.svg diagram] on wikipedia. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.75.89|141.101.75.89]] 15:51, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, ''this'' seems like a topic that could generate heated comments. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.208.9|108.162.208.9]] 10:09, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Would anyone care to comment on the +200 meter sea rise? I googled "how much would sea level rise" a bit, and I seem to bump into 60 to 70 meters repeatedly for all glaciers melting. I found nothing direct from IPCC. I wonder if Randall really has another view on this.
:I hope the explanation isn't that he made a meter/feet mistake. [[Special:Contributions/103.22.201.239|103.22.201.239]] 13:04, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
::I would assert that he rounded for a clean read for a relative scale. Also, the '+' denotes the likelihood of a larger actual amount.
:::60 meters is indeed the amount the sea would rise if all the glacial ice melted. However, that figure presumably does not take into account have much the sea would rise by expansion due to the increased heat. That is, after all, the main reason for rising sea levels today. So I would guess that the +200 figure is the 60 meters of added water from glacial ice ''plus'' the amount it would rise due to warming and expanding. [[User:Calebxy|Calebxy]] ([[User talk:Calebxy|talk]])
::::While that's possible, and desalination of water can also cause it to expand (sea water is more dense than fresh), we shouldn't try to justify the numbers if they are incorrect. If we can find some reliable data to suggest the rise would be 200 ft instead of 200m, we should include that. Or at least include a range of estimates from reliable sources. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.134|108.162.238.134]] 15:42, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
:::::Having just re-read the explanation after posting my comment, I can see that the article attempts to do just that. But the link provided says 110 to 770 mm. Isn't the millimeters? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.134|108.162.238.134]] 15:44, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

So sad that Randall is pushing the carbon tax agenda long after the AGW myth has been debunked. [[User:IGnatius T Foobar|IGnatius T Foobar]] ([[User talk:IGnatius T Foobar|talk]]) 16:00, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

1379: 4.5 Degrees

2014-06-09T15:59:33Z

IGnatius T Foobar:

{{comic
| number = 1379
| date = June 9, 2014
| title = 4.5 Degrees
| image = 4_5_degrees.png
| titletext = The good news is that according to the latest IPCC report, if we enact aggressive emissions limits now, we could hold the warming to 2°C. That's only HALF an ice age unit, which is probably no big deal.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a way to visualize the change in climate manufactured by the {{w|Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change}} (IPCC) over the next century. The prediction, 4-5 degrees, doesn't seem like a very large change, but [[Randall]] points out that 4.5 °C is the difference between the {{w|Last glacial period|last ice age}} and today, which is quite a substantial difference. So, to give context to the number, he measures the temperature in "Ice Age Units," or IAU. 1 IAU is defined as the change in average global temperature by 4.5 degrees Celsius (8°F). The last ice age was 1 IAU colder than the average "modern" {{w|global temperature}}, and Randall's neighborhood was buried under an ice sheet. The predicted change by the year 2100 is +1 IAU, and while we don't know what its effects will be exactly (represented by a large question mark in he comic) it will probably be huge. For reference he notes that a change of +2 IAU created the {{w|Cretaceous Thermal Maximum|"Hothouse Earth"}} of the early {{w|Cretaceous period}}. In short, while 4.5 °C seems like a small change in temperature, it seems quite a lot bigger if you phrase it as "halfway to having {{w|Arecaceae|palm trees}} at the poles." There were {{w|Polar forests of the Cretaceous|polar forests}} during the Cretaceous that grew in latitudes up to 85° in both Northern and Southern hemispheres. Of course there could not be trees in the ocean directly over the North Pole, but at the closest land masses ({{w|Greenland}} for instance) there could be trees.

On the colder side, -4 IAU is associated with {{w|Snowball Earth}}, a near-total freezing of the entire surface. How much of the planet was actually frozen in the {{w|Cryogenian}} period is disputed, although it is usually accepted as consisting of the greatest ice ages known to have occurred on Earth.

The oldest known animal fossils ({{w|Sponges#Fossil_record|sponges}}) are from the Snowball Earth, while {{w|Flowering_plant#Evolution|flowering plants}} became the dominant plant species during the Cretaceous period.

The 200 m {{w|Current sea level rise|sea level rise}} given in the last panel for a "Cretaceous Hothouse" (i.e. if all ice on earth melted, including the Antarctic ice cap) could not be explained by this melt-off alone. If all the ice melted the water level would only increase by about 60-80 m, according to {{w|Antarctica}}, [http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/ IPCC Third Assessment Report] (section 11.2.3 on Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets) and [http://water.usgs.gov/edu/sealevel.html Sea Level and Climate: USGS Water-Science School]. However, the remaining 120-140 m could easily come from the {{w|Current_sea_level_rise#IPCC_Third_Assessment|expansion of the sea}} due to the increasing temperature. The main reason for rising sea level at the moment is actually caused by this expansion of the sea due to increasing temperature. If the temperature increased with about 9 degree (+2 IAU) then maybe this would result in a total of 200 m water level increase when put together with the 60-80 m from the melted ice (the range of the prediction in the expansion link above is 110-770m!)

The title text notes that even with instant and aggressive emissions reduction, the temperature will still rise by roughly half an IAU (2ºC). While it says it's ''probably no big deal'', this is a joke, because even the equivalent of half an Ice Age Unit off warming would cause a huge climate change.

==Transcript==
:Without prompt, aggressive limits on CO2 emissions, the Earth will likely warm by an average of 4°-5°C by the century’s end.
:'''How big a change is that?'''
:[A ruler chart is drawn inside a frame]
:In the coldest part of the last ice age, Earth’s average temperature was 4.5°C below the 20th century norm.
:Let’s call a 4.5°C difference one '''”ice age unit.“'''
:[A ruler with five main divisions - each again with 3 smaller quarter division markers. Above it the five main divisions are marked as follows with 0 in the middle:]
:-2 IAU -1 IAU 0 +1 IAU +2 IAU
:[Next to the 0 marking a black arrow points toward 0.2 on the scale and above it is written:]
:Where we are today
:[The rest of the text is below the ruler]
:[To the far left below -2 IAU a curved arrow points to the left. Below it is written:]
:Snowball earth (-4 IAU)
:[Below -1 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:]
:20,000 years ago
:[Below this an image of a glacier. At the top of the image is written:]
:My neighborhood:
:[At the bottom of the image is an arrow pointing to the glacier:]
:Half a mile of ice
:[Below 0 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:]
:Average during modern times
:[Below this an image of Cueball standing on a green field with a city skyline in the background. At the top of the image is written:]
:My neighborhood:
:Cueball: Hi!
:[Below +1 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:]
:Where we’ll be in 86 years
:[Below this a white image. At the top of the image is written:]
:My neighborhood:
:[Below this is a very large:]
:'''?'''
:[Below +2 IAU a black arrow point toward this division. Below the arrow is written:]
:Cretaceous hothouse
:+200m sea level rise
:No glaciers
:Palm trees at the poles

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

Talk:1360: Old Files

2014-04-26T03:19:35Z

IGnatius T Foobar:

I notice backup and recovery files. I once had a folder on my father's computer that housed everything I did. When the drive crashed, I managed to recover it and store it to a CD-ROM (this was before thumb drives). I copied everything onto my first computer within my main folder (I don't use My Documents), and I continue to move my main folder into a new main folder each time I migrate between computers. I have so many nested memories. I, too, have incomplete fan-fiction and instant message logs. Oh, and a dream.txt. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 04:47, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't have as much of a problem with the "old files room", because I keep nearly all of my files on my laptop, but my hard drive is almost full. Another hard drive replace the CD drive, but this computer won't last much longer (bye cd drive workaround). I'll have to build an "old files room" sooner or later. [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 05:07, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Back in the... early '90s, I think it was... I recall there being someone like a buddhist monk (or someone ''claiming'' to be someone like a buddhist monk, and the religion could have been something else) who set up an internet site (not necessarily a website) as a temple for "all lost data". The files you had accidentally deleted, the floppies that got damaged or otherwise corrupted, forgotten formats on old drives that you'd lost the wherewithall to access them. Between this and the "hoarder" behaviour exhibitted in the above XKCD folder we encompass ''all'' long-term computer users. At the same time. I know I regret the dead USB sticks (with irreplacable content) and yet I stare in hopelessness at the folders "GStick" and "FStick" within My Documents, that really need looking at again. (No, they don't contain the lost material. Datestamped at 2009.) But they're two of fifty-three separate subfolders (and a helluva lot of loose files) in that level. "WebRedo"? I remember that. That site hasn't even been ''active'' for about a decade. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.224|141.101.89.224]] 06:50, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

;Explanation
I think the point of the comic doesn't come across in the explanation. It's not just that he's sifting through files, but that he's finding files nested deeply in his folder structure that just came to pass because he always copied contents of an old computer to some folder on the next computer and then ignored its contents.

I.e. in his "Documents" folder, there is the "Old Desktop" folder from a previous computer, which contains the "Recovered from drive crash" folder from another previous system, which has another "Mu Documents" folder within, ... etc. The nesting aspect should somehow be integrated into the explanation.
--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.57|108.162.229.57]] 09:59, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

The shape of the panel is vaguely reminiscent of a hard drive, this may be intentional, being emphasized by the increasing size of the individual layers. In which case there might be some metaphor construed by the placement of the two characters based on their location in the structure of the hard-drive perhaps involving the catalog index. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.35}}

It should be pointed out that the AYB folder is directly referencing https://xkcd.com/286/ {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.211}}

I have done this before on my hard drive(s) and I always find my old qbasic programs. Anyone knows of an emulator for qbasic so I could see my old programs running again? [[User:Bigfatbernie|Bigfatbernie]] ([[User talk:Bigfatbernie|talk]]) 13:56, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

:DOSBox will run QBasic programs if you grab the QBasic 1.1 interpreter from either an old copy of Windows 98 that still has it in its dos utilities folder, or just download it from here: http://www.qbasic.net/en/qbasic-downloads/compiler/qbasic-interpreter.htm [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.42|108.162.219.42]] 17:01, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Anybody know what Citadel is? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.42|108.162.219.42]] 16:58, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Citadel is historically a BBS package. Today it is an open source groupware system, but some people are still using it as a BBS. Google "Uncensored! BBS" to find a well known one. [[User:IGnatius T Foobar|IGnatius T Foobar]] ([[User talk:IGnatius T Foobar|talk]]) 03:19, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

;Can we get some instructions on how to edit the page?

It makes no sense to me whatsoever, and it's unlike every other page on the wiki. I can find the list we use in the transcript, but I can't figure out how to add the explainations [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.204|199.27.130.204]] 18:19, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

:I did remove that templates from this page, the explain is still very bad — but now you should be able to post your adds. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:23, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
: I am the person who added the templates. I figured that on a xkcd wiki of all wikis one should feel free to use some more advanced Mediawiki features, to keep from redundancy (here, repetition of data between the explanation and the transcript)... Oh well. Apparently the definition of "to make sense" is "to make sense to others". Also, semicolons are used for definition lists, not for headers. {{unsigned ip|141.101.89.217}}
:: By the way, the current transcript is wrong. The items listed under "No header" headers belong to the "named" headers on the parallel side. There is no dichotomy like that. If you insist on reflecting the visual layout of the comic in the transcript, I suggest something like this (uncapitalised, unsorted, and unformatted, because it is just a quick illustration):

<table class='wikitable'>
<tr>
<td>
 
<th>
documents <hr>
Megan: "You OK down there?"
<td>
 

<tr>
<td>
* misc.txt
<th>
old desktop
<td>
* video projects

<tr>
<td>
* facebook pics
<th>
recovered from drive flash
<td>
* pics from other camera
* temp
* misc pdfs
* mp3

<tr>
<td>
* temp
<th>
my documents
<td>
* work misc
* audiobooks

<tr>
<td>
* downloads
* ayb
* ev override
* angband
* kazaa shared
* gigs
<th>
high school zip disk
<td>
* fight club.wmv
* aim direct connect files
* elasto mania
* 4chan
* icq logs

<tr>
<td>
* lovenote.txt
* gorilla.bas
* aol
** citadel
* nyet
* jokes.txt
<th>
aaafiles
<td>
* korn midi
* photos3
** prom
* dream.txt
* james.txt
* qbasic

<tr>
<td>
 
<th>
txt <hr>
Cueball: "Oh my God. I wrote poetry."
<td>
 
</table>
:{{unsigned ip|141.101.89.217}}
:Done '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:07, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
:: Thank you! In fact, I just noticed that rows didn't reflect one filesystem level! They should be moved one level up. I will fix that (and capitalise and sort the labels.) {{unsigned ip|‎141.101.89.212}}
::: Done. {{unsigned ip|‎141.101.89.212, too--I really don't like this insistence on signing}}
::::The unsigned template contains instructions on how to properly sign your posts. If you are against signing for privacy reasons, at least use five tildes (<nowiki>~~~~~</nowiki>) to mark off each of your messages as distinct comments. Your IP is logged anyways by Mediawiki, but casual observers will not see your IP. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:41, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
::::Uh, little question. I just read the source, and the html for your table contains no closing tags. Do you have something against them or something? Also, I removed the bullet points when I added the table to the transcript because strictly speaking, the comic doesn't actually contain any bullet points, so we're adding punctuation that isn't present in the comic. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:54, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

;Unsigned IP's producing a great chaos here. No READER does UNDERSTAND. Please keep it simple as possible, NO new template for a single comic. I will bring back some edits I've done, respecting edits have done later. But right now I can't see there is any proper attempt to do an explain other could understand.
:Please focus FIRSTS on the readers here, then focus on possible editors (don't understand), and then tell a new IP how to behave here. It's not my invention, but please try to keep this page at a basis on some standards. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:22, 25 April 2014 (UTC)