Editing 2949: Network Configuration
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | {{incomplete|Created by a | + | {{incomplete|Created by a NETCAT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} |
− | In this comic, [[Cueball]] takes an uncommon networking bug | + | In this comic, [[Cueball]] takes an uncommon networking bug (needing to establish a fresh connection for each packet sent) to the extreme. Instead of merely redoing the appropriate handshakes for data transfer, he is reconstructing the entire history of human civilization each time. |
− | + | As this originally took multiple millennia, doing it for every {{w|network packet}} would make communication ''extremely'' slow; in modern networking, we send and receive thousands of packets every second. | |
− | In the | + | In the final frame, Cueball looks shaggy and dirty, with a grub hoe behind him, as though he had been performing these tasks in real life just to get his network working again. He says the network packet was stuck in the {{w|Neolithic}} era, the final period of the Stone Age that marked the transition from hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement. Apparently Cueball had to go through the effort of inventing farming, one of the developments of the {{w|Neolithic Revolution}}, to keep communicating with Ponytail. |
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Randall Munroe is familiar with the popular creative nonfiction topic of what it takes to rebuild civilization, the subject of a book he blurbed on its cover, [https://www.howtoinventeverything.com/ How to Invent Everything], by Ryan North, fellow cartoonist. | Randall Munroe is familiar with the popular creative nonfiction topic of what it takes to rebuild civilization, the subject of a book he blurbed on its cover, [https://www.howtoinventeverything.com/ How to Invent Everything], by Ryan North, fellow cartoonist. | ||
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− | + | The title text discusses netcat, a simple utility to make a tcp connection which comes in annoyingly incompatible [https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/netcat-traditional/nc.1.en.html nc.traditional] and [https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/netcat-openbsd/nc.1.en.html nc.openbsd] varieties. This is likely a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide series which states that 85% of civilizations developed a drink that sounds like "Jynnan Tonnyx" ({{w|Gin and tonic}}) before inventing interstellar flight. The drinks are only related by their name and have nothing else in common. | |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
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:Ponytail (typing): ...Hello? | :Ponytail (typing): ...Hello? | ||
− | :[Beat panel | + | :[Beat panel] |
− | :[Cueball, with dirt on his head and around him, is at an old computer setup with | + | :[Cueball, with dirt on his head and around him, is at an old computer setup with an agricultural tool resting on his now non-office chair] |
:Cueball (typing): Sorry, got stuck in the Neolithic that time. | :Cueball (typing): Sorry, got stuck in the Neolithic that time. | ||
:Cueball (typing): Inventing farming takes '''''forever'''''. | :Cueball (typing): Inventing farming takes '''''forever'''''. |